King of the Hill

Well I’m finally getting around to my trip I took to Chapel Hill, NC in September. I only spent 2 nights there but managed to do a few cool things and eat at some good places. The anchor of downtown Chapel Hill is Franklin Street; it is an awesome college area, with tons of people ranging from UNC students and professors, to local businessmen, all packing the sidewalks throughout the day and night. You of course have your basic staple chains, Chipotle, Starbucks, Caribou, Cold Stone, and all the other hip college spots. However, one of the most famous restaurants is Top of the Hill. It is located on the corner of Columbia and Franklin Streets, which is the main intersection in downtown. It’s called Top of the Hill because it is a 3^rd floor restaurant and micro brewery. They have a rooftop patio that is open all year round that gives you a unique bird’s eye view of downtown Chapel Hill. Not only do they have amazing food, they also have a great selection of in house brews. My suggestions; if you want to eat healthy, they have really good salads; I had one with walnuts, goat cheese and a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. If you go there at night and want something a little heavier, grab a burger, they are fantastic, and whatever you do make sure you get a side of their phenomenal sweet potato fries. If you only have time to grab 1 meal in Chapel Hill, Top of the Hill is definitely where you need to go. If you want to grab a cup of coffee after dinner I would suggest going to the Caribou Coffee on Franklin St, it’s across the street diagonally from Top of the Hill, it’s huge inside with multiple rooms and tons of seating outside as well.

My favorite place to eat had to be a wine bar I went to called 411 West, located on the west end of Franklin St. I had a great pasta dish with pesto, asparagus, and pine nuts, pared with a crisp Pinot Grigio recommended by the bar tender. A great feature about this place is that you can order full and half portions all day, not just for the lunch menu, which allowed me to have the most amazing dessert I have ever had. It is a seasonal plate so you should probably go there really soon to be sure you don’t miss out. It was a pumpkin cheesecake on a walnut crust with homemade whipped cream and a caramel cookie, which is just thin piece of caramelized sugar in the shape of a cookie that they stick right in the top of the cheesecake. It’s seriously to die for, as a matter of fact if anyone goes, please bring me a slice back. Not only was the food good here, but the restaurant is beautiful inside and out and has a great atmosphere along with a tremendously knowledgeable wait staff. It’s also very reasonably priced; a glass of wine, half portion of pasta and dessert was just under $25!

Another good restaurant is Lantern, also located on Franklin St. Lantern is especially cool because all of their produce and poultry is purchased from local North Carolina farms. I had a 2 delicious chicken thighs, cooked perfectly, and asparagus on a bed of rice and vegetables. I would definitely recommend Lantern however, it is a little pricier than 411 West. After dinner I walked across the street to a little dive bar/concert venue called The Cavern Tavern or “The Cave” for short. This place is unique, the inside is decorated like an actual cave, with the walls and ceiling both mimicking actual rock. The place is 100% dive bar and for that reason 100% awesome. Old school cash reps, tabs on post it notes, $1 PBR, even a little Chihuahua named Beast behind the bar guarding the joint. I saw some incredible talent that night for a $5 cover charge, Ernie Halter, Keaton Simons, Curtis Peoples and Andrew Hoover all played unplugged set lists to a good sized crowd given the size of the venue. If you don’t know who those guys are, go buy their albums on iTunes.

One more place to check out is Foster’s Market; I went to the one in Durham right by Duke University. Foster’s is in a word awesome. For those of you who have read my previous blogs, it’s a combination of Fido (Nashville), The Market (Denver) and Magnolias (Lynchburg). This place is has unbelievable food, cold sandwiches, hot sandwiches, cold deli case, salad case, dessert, baking goods and supplies, wine, old fashioned candy, seriously everything. The Durham location was crawling with Duke students, studying and hanging out, and there is plenty of seating inside and outside. You can eat out on the side porch, back patio, or even front yard, where they have 20 or 30 old school wooden beach chairs. I had a Panini that was out of this world but you seriously can’t go wrong, and it’s only a short drive from downtown Chapel Hill.

The two days I spent on Franklin Street were great, and I only scratched the surface, there are so many other places that I wanted to check out that I simply didn’t have time to explore. My suggestion go search for your own hidden gems, and if you can’t find one, or don’t have time for exploration of your own, go to one of the restaurants I tried, they’re all good, and all different.

Rocky Mountain Oysters

I spent the last 10 days in Colorado mostly in the Denver area, however the first city were going to talk about it Fort Collins. Colorado State University is located in Fort Collins which sports a very cool downtown/college area (very Charlottesville-esque), tons of great restaurants and coffee shops and my favorite, the New Belgium Brewery. That’s right for all you beer nuts out there I’m talking about the company that brews some of your favorites like Fat Tire and Sunshine Wheat. I of course could not pass up the opportunity to take a tour so I went up with a few friends I met in Denver. The tour is pretty lengthy, it was about an hour and a half long, they take you through the entire process of the Belgian style of brewing beer. For those of you who don’t know, Belgian style has a lot more freedom in the brewing of the beer, they add different spices and flavors that traditional beers do not which allows for a wide array of flavors in the beers. The tour guides at New Belgium are not only knowledgeable but are really fun and amazingly cool. Throughout the tour you taste all kinds of beer, from the staple Fat Tire and Sunshine Wheat, to a wood aged sour beer (for the record I loved it, most did not) as well as a beer made with dandelions, which was my favorite. All in all I tasted 7 different beers on the tour, so my advice, definitely eat before you go!Not only is the beer amazing but the whole company is incredibly environmentally conscious. After 1 year of employment you receive a New Belgian beach cruiser so most of the employees ride their bikes to work. The parking lot is arranged from closest to the building to furthest with your car’s MPG determining how far you park. Bikes and scooters park right on the sidewalk, hybrids a short jaunt to work, you drive an H2 you say? Well bring your walking shoes because you’re in the back lot! The entire plant is wind and solar powered and all of their wort is donated to local farmers to use as feed. It seriously has to be the greenest brewery in America. After filling up on beer I headed to the old downtown area to grab a bite to eat, I decided on Coppersmith’s a cool restaurant/pub with indoor seating as well as a huge patio right out on the downtown square. They have amazing food, a huge local beer selection, to go along with an awesome atmosphere and friendly wait staff (I suggest the Turkey Guacamole Burger, delish!). All in all Fort Collins is a great town, with a great feel and its located only 60 miles north of downtown Denver.

I would kick myself if I spent a week and a half in Colorado and didn’t do any hiking or mountain exploration. Located about 30 minutes west of Denver is one of the most famous natural amphitheaters in the country, I’m of course talking about Red Rocks. Aside from the actual venue, there are all sorts of trails with great views to downtown Denver. I spent a couple hours up there taking it all in. Just a short drive away is Lookout Mountain which has several rock outcroppings giving you some amazing views of Golden, Colorado and the Coors Brewery, Rocky Mountain National Park and its snow capped peaks, and the Denver skyline. I also took a trip up to Breckenridge which may have been the most beautiful drive I have ever done. It was snowing hard the whole way up. We went over one specific pass which crosses over the continental divide. For those of us that are geographically challenged, the continental divide is the 14,000+ foot ridge where the rivers in the United States stop flowing east and start flowing west. We continued on to Breckenridge and grabbed lunch at this great burger place in town called Empire Burger. They are all handmade burgers, ground fresh daily; they also offer buffalo and turkey burger substitutes. I got the Guacamole Bacon Burger (ok so I love guacamole get over it) and, no exaggeration, the best onion rings I have ever had in my life! Seriously they were phenomenal. You also get a choice from 15+ dipping sauces for your onion rings or fries (which are also great). Empire Burger has an awesome location at the end of town, and a really cool atmosphere, I strongly recommend it. After lunch my aunt and I walked around downtown Breckenridge with the snow falling around us, and the Rockies towering over us. It was amazing! We walked all around, explored all the local shops and popped into an amazing little coffee shop/bakery called Clint’s. This place was so good, all organic locally grown coffee and amazing baked goods. Not to mention it was really cool inside, it had a ski lodge feel to it. I got a great cup of coffee and an amazing peanut butter/white chocolate cookie bar with chocolate chips and chopped peanuts on top that was incredible. Let me also add that Breckenridge is just as much a summer city as it is a skiing town. There are tons of restaurants with outdoor eating on the river, so don’t miss out if you happen to be there during the summer months. On the way back we took a little detour at this cool outcropping that overlooks a beautiful lake which provides a lot of the drinking water to Denver. The coolest thing about this place was that if you had sunflower seeds you could put your hand out and the chipmunks would come right up, sit in your hand, and snack. The best thing about going up there was the ride, going up, over and through the Rocky Mountains is something everyone needs to experience.

The majority of my trip was spent in Denver. There are a number of really cool neighborhoods in Denver, one of my favorites being the University of Denver area. I spent an afternoon there reading at Starbucks and people watching (one of my favorite past times). I did grab a bite to eat at a really cool place called Garbanzo. It is basically like a Chipotle but with Mediterranean style food. You start with a pita and go from there, adding lettuce, veggies, hummus, falafel, chicken, goat cheese, yada, yada, yada, you get the picture, it’s really good. They also bake their own homemade potato chips which are pretty good as well. Right around the corner from Garbanzo is Chipotle, but it’s not just any old Chipotle, it’s THE Chipotle, that’s right the very first Chipotle ever opened is there right next to U of D, try to avoid it at lunch time because the line still goes out the door and down the block. For all you Chipotle addicts out there (myself being the self-appointed king) this is a must see.

Now on to the part you all have been waiting for (or at least I have been waiting to write about), Downtown Denver. There are two major hubs in Downtown; first you have Lower Downtown or LoDo. LoDo is awesome, a lot of old historic brick buildings that have all been renovated into office space, restaurants, boutiques, salons, coffee shops, loft apartments, and all things cool. I started at Union Staton which is the original train hub in downtown, which is still used today. From there I walked through Commons Park, bustling with walkers, hikers, runners, bikers, and even the occasional pre-school field trip group. Commons Park is bordered by trendy new apartments and the Platte River. At the Northwest end of the park is a really cool REI store that is in an old historic warehouse. If you are a serious outdoor sports person or if you like Northface Jackets, even if you don’t like either and you like coffee you’re in luck, because there is a Starbucks attached to REI, I would definitely recommend visiting. There is a huge rock climbing wall and several floors of gear, plus it’s worth it just to walk through the park and over all the cool foot bridges to get there. From there you can walk back down 15^th Street and stop at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art right by the park. From there walk one block over to the 16^th Street Mall, which is the second major hub of downtown. For 16 blocks 16^th Street is a pedestrian only street, besides the Free Ride mall bus service that stops at every block up and down 16^th Street. The street has flowers and trees all along the inside with lampposts, benches, and even a little chess park. I ate a really good place down there called Mad Greens, they specialize in salads but also have Panini’s and sandwiches. All of the salads and sandwiches are named after authors; I had the Edgar Allen Poe, which consisted of greens, walnuts, blue cheese crumbles, apples, pears, and a port vinaigrette dressing. For dessert I suggest going over to Kuulture for frozen yogurt, it is pretty outstanding (although not as good as Pinkberry, still the heavyweight champion of the world of frozen yogurt.) For dinner you must, I repeat must go to Larimer Square, which is right down the road. There is one block on Larimer with a bunch of great restaurants, one of which is The Market. Walk through the rod iron fence, onto the slate dining patio, up the steps and you find yourself in an amazing little coffee shop with old wooden floors, and a huge coffee bar. Up two more steps and you’re in the deli portion of the market complete with a sandwich area, dessert case, cold case, and salad case. They have wine by the glass or by the bottle to carry, and a great assortment of local bottled beers. You really can’t go wrong here, for you Lynchburg peeps, it’s like a way bigger, even cooler Magnolia. I got the Turkey and Cream Cheese sandwich with cranberries, a side of potato salad, and a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie for dessert. Definitely make sure you eat out front on the patio because the street is laced with lights creating a canopy over the street and sidewalk. It’s pretty darn amazing.

If you think The Market sounds cool, then you must check out The Tattered Cover bookstore. It is one of the coolest bookstores I ever seen. Once again it is in an old restored brick building in LoDo with old wood floors, a coffee shop with baked goods and seating everywhere. There were people all over the place working, reading and studying, it was a really cool vibe. It would be a great place to grab breakfast and check your email or even grab lunch and catch up on some reading. Whatever you do make sure you stop in and check it out, it won’t disappoint. If you head south out of downtown on Santa Fe Blvd. you will pass through the art district. I got to experience First Friday in Denver. There were anywhere from 30-50 galleries, unfortunately I could not make it to every one of them in during the 4 hour event. Most of the galleries had wine and cheese available as you browsed. I spent the night walking around looking at all sorts of art; landscape photography, sculpture, urban photography, portraits, paintings, abstract, even one exhibit entitled bra art, which was exactly what it sounded like, artwork on bras. There are some incredibly talented artists in Denver and this was a very well attended event, the sidewalks were crammed for 6 or 7 blocks with people of all age, race, and creed. It was definitely a rich cultural event that I am lucky to have had the chance to experience. If you happen to be in the area during the first Friday of a month be sure not to miss it!

Denver is a great city with the perfect blend of natural and architectural beauty. I would have to give it two thumbs up for sure. If you have not yet been to Denver I urge you to bump it up to the top of your list. On another note, for those sports fans out there, I got to go to the Broncos v Cowboys game on Sunday and let me tell you, Denver loves its sports teams and the stadium is awesome! You can see downtown and the snow-capped Rockies from your seat. Not many stadiums can boast that kind of view.