mmm-yoso!!!

Road Trip - Jean Pierre Bakery & Wine Bar (Durango), Kakawa Chocolate House, and the "Miraculous Staircase" of the Lorreto Chapel (Santa Fe)

We headed out from Mesa Verde fairly early in the morning. It would be almost a five hour drive to our next destination, Santa Fe. The Missus enjoyed the drive on the 160 East thru the greenery. There was hardly any traffic on this, a mellow Sunday morning. I had heard some nice things about the town of Durango and I'd read about a nice bakery-breakfast spot in there, so we decided to stop. 

We found street parking and walked over to Jean Pierre Bakery, which was doing some good business on this day.

The front area holds a bakery, while there's a restaurant area to the side. And on this morning, a piano player was in attendance.

After a quick discussion we decided to relax and dine in as most of the folks were taking pastries to go and the dining area was empty.

The service was friendly and we got our caffeine fix and shared a nice, refreshing Melon Bowl.

 It was a pleasant stop and we'd eat here again if in the area. And we saw Jean Pierre walk to the dining area and engage in a lively conversation with another gentleman......in full on French. The Missus and I loved it!

I'll be sure to try the croissants next time!

Jean Pierre Bakery & Wine Bar
601 Main Ave.
Durango, CO 81301

After breakfast, the Missus and I decided to take a little stroll around town.

There's a definite outdoorsy - "old west" vibe to the town.

Durango is also known as the starting point for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. And folks were picking up their package lunches at the depot and boarding the train as we walked pass.

You know me and trains, right? This might be something we'll want to do in the near future.

We headed across the tracks and spent a bit of time exploring the D&S Rail Road Museum.

I'm sure we'll be back this way one day.

From Durango, we headed down the 550, passing thru towns with names like Aztec and Cuba, until we got to Albuquerque, where we swung up Highway 25 into Santa Fe. We were a bit early for check-in, so we made a stop at a place on our "list"; Kakawa Chocolate House.

    Man, this place was quite busy. The lines did move quickly though. The Missus bought some chocolates and a couple of bags of "elixirs" and we headed on out.

The folks did a really nice job of packing things and even marked the box so the Missus would know what She's trying.

Kakawa Chocolate House
1300 Rufina Circle A4
Santa Fe, NM 87507

And while the chocolates were pretty good; we had them after checking in at our hotel. It was the elixirs that we really enjoyed after returning home.

While we had arrived too early to check-in at the Inn of the Governors, the nice staff told us that we could park and explore. One of the reasons I had chosen the hotel was the location and free parking. 

There was one place I wanted to see right away, the Loretto Chapel. The Missus didn't understand why I was so interested in visiting this church until She saw it.

Apparently, She had seen an an Episode of Unsolved Mysteries about the chapel.

   Well, to be more specific; it's about the staircase in the chapel. The construction of the Lorreto Chapel was completed in 1878. Unfortunately, due to some weird "oversight", there was no way to reach the choir loft which was 22 feet above. After many consultations the Sisters of Loretto were told that the only way to access the choir loft would be by ladder as a staircase would interfere with the design of the chapel. At wits end, the Sisters started praying to the Patron Saint of Carpenters, Saint Joseph. On the ninth, and last day of prayer a stranger appeared on a donkey with a toolbox! He started work on the staircase and months later it was finished. The man then promptly disappeared without requesting to be paid, never to be seen again.

The Sisters tried to find the mystery man, even placing an add in the newspaper to no avail. And that is just one of the mysteries of the staircase. To quote Atlas Obscura:

"When the Sisters and others examined the stairs, they were shocked to see it was apparently holding itself up with no supports and was made of a non-native wood which they didn’t know how or where the stranger had acquired. To top it off, the staircase, which was made with no nails, had exactly 33 stairs. (In the bible, 33 was the age at which Jesus was crucified.)"

"The twenty-foot-tall, tightly wound stairs make two full 360-degree revolutions, and indeed have no central support."

The outer railing was added 10 years after the staircase was built. 

We love stories like this! And whatever the case may be, it was fun visiting the Lorreto Chapel.

Thanks for stopping by!

Road Trip - Cliff Palace, Petroglyph Point and Spruce Canyon Trail, and Dinner at Far View Lounge (Mesa Verde)

While I had enjoyed our hikes on the previous day, I was really looking forward to our one full day in Mesa Verde. I remember seeing a photo in an old Encyclopedia Britannica when I was little of these amazing looking cliff dwellings. This was of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in the United States. From that day on, I'd always dreamed of visiting and on this morning we had a  reservation with the first tour of Cliff Palace.

I got up early and then headed on down the road a bit to Far View Terrace. At the time of our visit, this was the only place open in the morning and for lunch. It's a total Food Court-ish set-up. Anyway, I got some (really bad) coffee and (even worse) pastries for breakfast. We should have stuck with the buts and beef jerky we packed!

After returning to our room we headed on out. The lack of Wifi was driving the Missus nuts, so I thought it would probably be best to hit the road. We got to the parking lot on Mesa Top Ruins Road; there was still quite a few open parking spaces. This is one of benefits of staying in the park, you can get to things fairly early.

We wandered around a bit, then headed on over to the meeting area for our tour and waited for our assigned ranger.

We then headed down to the staging area, where I got all excited when I saw the view.....

 There it was, Cliff Palace, I was actually here! Our Ranger was just like all the rest, so knowledgeable, first going over the safety protocols, we'd be using ladders to ascend....five in total. There were a couple of folks that struggled a bit, but for us it was pretty easy.

It is said that Cliff Palace was the "social center" of the collective Mesa Verde communities and was occupied, based on tree ring dating from 1190 - 1260CE. We were told that there are 150 rooms in the dwelling and 23 Kivas in total.

The amount of kivas support the theory that Cliff Palace was the social center for the area.

We were told that the structures were made of sandstone, mortar, and wooden beams.

If you look up, you can see where you started from....

We loved visiting here. It was something I had on my "bucket list" since "small kid time".

Once we were done, we headed back up Mesa Top Ruins Road, then took a right and parked near Soda Canyon Overlook Trail. The trail was quite easy with some nice viewpoints.

And an especially great view of Balcony House.

Once back at the car, the Missus was itching to do some "real hiking", so we headed on over to where Spruce Tree Terrace is located and parked. Here we broke out the nuts and beef jerky we packed and had lunch.

We then ambled over to the Spruce Treehouse Trail where there are two other trails; the Petroglyph Point and the Spruce Canyon trails.

  Petroglyph Point was the more interesting of the two and also the more strenuous. There were several tight squeezes, a couple of drops and some variations in terrain as well. The Missus was loving it.

There are some nice views along the way.

    And truth be told, I was actually enjoying this trail. All the changes in terrain and views kept me visually stimulated.

As for the petroglyphs? Well, don't blink or else you'll miss it. It's along one small fenced off area.

From here it was a hike uphill where we ended up back near the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum.

We took a short breather, then headed back down and took the Spruce Canyon Trail. 

 I thought this trail was easier than Petroglyph Point, but also less interesting. It was quite peaceful as we did not see another soul during our hike.

Again we ventured into a canyon, then did the hike uphill and ended up in a back parking lot? We eventually found our way back to the Spruce Tree Terrace and our vehicle.

At this point, I figured that the Missus's hiking requests for the day had been paid in full. It was time to head on back to the Far View Lodge to relax for a bit. 

When the subject of dinner came up; well, I didn't make reservations for the Metate Room on this evening. Instead, I noticed that the bar on the second floor of the Lodge served the salads we had enjoyed the night before along with simpler items. This sounded like a better alternative to us, so we headed on over. The place was much more casual and the service was much better.

And the salads came out quickly and were even better than the day before! 

I really liked the combination of the Ancient Grain mix with the milky-salty Parmesan and Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette ($10.75).

Though they were still out of pistachios for the Strawberry & Pistachio ($14) salad.

While they didn't have any entrees on the menu, there was a collection of sandwiches and burgers available. The Missus and I decided to split the Short Rib Grilled Cheese ($13.50).

 While the SYSCO crinkle cut fries weren't fried very well and quite soggy, the sandwich was not bad. The bread could have been toasted a bit more, but I liked the fact that they used Parmesan Texas Toast, which had a nice salty-buttery-milkiness. The short ribs were tender and beefy, loved the caramelized onions, and the cheese, which was a Boursin was herbaceous and nice and gooey. This was nice to share.

We found that prices in Mesa Verde where a lot cheaper than in other National Parks.

All in all, we enjoyed eating here than in the more fancy Metate Room. 

Far View Lounge (In the Far View Lodge)
Mile Marker 15
Mesa Verde National Park, CO 81330

We had enjoyed visiting Mesa Verde, but I could tell that the Missus was ready to move on. It was time to head on out!

Stay Tuned!

Road Trip - Step House, Far View, and Dinner at the Metate Room (Mesa Verde)

After hiking both the Point Lookout and Knife Edge Trails, we decided to head on down to the Wetherill Mesa area which is only open between certain months of the year. Along the way we stopped at the Park Point Overlook. There's a short paved trail to the highest point in Mesa Verde and the view is wonderful here.

This is where we saw the most people on this day.

The Park Point Fire Lookout stands at the highest point.

And it's still in use today. In fact, there's this interesting photo in the window of the lookout.

   And then we took the long and winding drive down to Wetherill Mesa and easily found parking in the lot.

We decided to do the self-guided tour of the Step House. You basically go down a couple of switchbacks and then take a ladder down to the amazing dwellings! There is a Ranger on duty to answer questions and the area is only open when manned by a Ranger.

This dwelling was populated twice, the first set of inhabitants are called the Modified Basketmakers who settled here around 600 CE. The second set was during the Pueblo III period.

This was an amazing site!

You can tell the difference in the structures of the Basketmakers......

Versus the masonry structures of the Pueblo people.

  You can pretty much linger as long as you want. 

We decided to not do the Long House Tour since we'd be doing Cliff Palace the next day. 

We had lunch in the parking lot. The Missus ate an entire mini-watermelon and we had a couple of terrible tamales from the motel.

We headed then back and then down toward Chapin Mesa. We decided to make a stop at the Far View Sites. This is a rather unique site as it sits at the top of a mesa rather than in an alcove.

Apparently, there were close to 50 villages in this half mile area between 900 and 1300AD.

While the sites, like the Far View House above, which is thought to be the center of the community or the Pipe Shrine House below are quite stunning. I'm guessing folks are expecting those dramatic alcove settlements, which is why we saw no one here, in spite of the easy access.

We then headed further down to Chapin Mesa and made a stop at Spruce Tree Terrace. While both the Chapin Archaeological Museum and Spruce Tree House are were closed the view was.....well, let me say it again, amazing!

We'd stop by again to do a couple of hikes here the following day.

By now, it was getting close to check-in time at our accommodations. We were staying in Mesa Verde at the Far View Lodge, pretty much the only non-camping hotel within Mesa Verde. Of course, after staying at a bunch of these places we knew what to expect; no fridge, definitely no microwave, they wanted to make their money off of you. And while we'd had our own experiences with what we call "National Park cuisine", there were limited options in Mesa Verde. Yet, I'd heard that the offerings at what was described as "Mesa Verde's fine dining restaurant" were pretty good. So I made reservations for this evening.

It's located in the same structure as the hotel check-in and gift shop.

After looking over the menu, we decided to stick with appetizers and salads. And after doing so much hiking, a nice salad sounded good! When we arrived the place was half full and yet the staff seemed to be in the weeds for our entire meal....which took over 2 1/2 hours!

We started off with the "Korean BBQ Chicken Wings". This was the first item out, it took an hour to get to our table.

A basic Cho-jang style sauce, overly sweet, the coating mushy, and worst of all, I think this was refry job since the flesh of the wings, while fully cooked, was cold!

The flavors on the Roasted Mushroom Flatbread wasn't too bad. 

Decent earthy flavors, the arugula a nice foil for the mushrooms and boursin. But that crust was so doughy, like it hadn't been baked long enough.

And while we waited another 45 minutes for our salads, they would be the best items we had.

The Strawberry - Pistachio Salad was quite refreshing.

Though it had no pistachios wince they had run out, so they subbed sunflower seeds, which did just fine. The balsamic dressing added a sweet-acidity, and the greens were very fresh.

I really enjoyed the Ancient Grain Salad.

All the textures and nutty-earthiness of the Ancient Grain mix, cucumbers, sweet carrots, pickled red onions, and salty-savory parmesan cheese did well with the sun dried tomato dressing.

Service was really s-l-o-w, but when it comes down to it; this might be the best "National Park meal" we've had. And the view wasn't too shabby.

Metate Room
Mile Marker 15, 6262 Far View Mesa Verde National Park
Colorado 81330

And here's the sunset from our balcony.....

Which made it all worth while.

Road Trip - Four Corners Monument, Lunch from Zuma Natural Foods (Mancos), and we Arrive at Mesa Verde

**** Not much food in this one. But, if you get enjoyment out of wonderful views, you might like to read on.

Before I get on with this post, I need to thank "FOY" Dereck who provided me with tons of information on Cortez, Mancos, Mesa Verde, and Durango! What would we do without all of our helpful "Friends of Yoso" out there! Thanks Dereck!

We headed out from Flagstaff fairly early. It seemed like the drive to our first stop would be around 4 hours, but it ended up closed to 5 1/2 because of road work. I had always wanted to check out the Four Corners Monument the only place where four states meet in the whole US. We finally made it and paid the entrance fee; $8 per person and parked. We walked to the monument and stood in line to get to the spot where the four states meet.

And then got our 10 minutes at the four corners spot.

Not much else to do here, so we headed out. 

We made reservations at a very comfortable motel/Inn that Dereck recommended named Retro Inn which even let us check in early. We then took a walk around downtown Cortez and went thru possibilities for lunch and dinner. Well, the Missus wasn't too keen on any of them. In the end we drove to nearby Mancos to check out Zuma Natural Foods a health food store.

And got a couple of sandwiches which they kindly toasted on the panini press for us.

And then headed upstairs to the outdoor dining area.

Both sandwiches were nicely toasted and the Hiker's Delight with the marinated mushrooms and roasted red pepper was a definite hit.

The gooey melted provolone and garlic aioli just added to the flavors.

The other sandwich was good; toasted to perfection, but it was weird having whole cashews in the sandwich.

The Missus enjoyed the sandwiches so much that we decided to just buy some salads and a mini watermelon and have that for dinner.

We always enjoy finding little markets during our road trips and thought that this was a nice little gem.

Zuma Natural Foods
299 North Main St.
Mancos, CO 81328

We headed back to the motel and relaxed a bit, then took another walk thru Cortez. Our dinner was those salads from Zuma. Love these type of set-ups; the car is parked right in front the door and there's a small table set-up where we could eat and share a couple of glasses of wine.

The next morning I grabbed a yogurt and some coffee from the free breakfast and we headed off. We had decided to stay the evening in Cortez so we could get an early start for our visit to Mesa Verde National Park. We entered and got to the Visitors Center just after they opened. 

We took a walk along the short trail that goes around the Visitors Center. Man, talk about a view!

I had already planned our hikes for this day. Though when I saw the destination for our first hike....well, I wasn't too sure. The Point Lookout Trail ends on the Mesa in the photo below.

We enjoyed our time in the Visitors Center. We've found National Park Rangers to be very friendly and patient. We got some maps and info on Mesa Verde, then headed off.

Our first stop, the Point Lookout Trail. This trail is close to the entrance to the park near Morefield Campground. We easily found parking. In fact, we were the only car in the parking lot! I guess that visiting mid-September might be a good time? 

There were a bunch of switchbacks and about a 400-500 foot elevation gain.

But the view at the end was wonderful!

And the Missus loved the fact that there was no one else on the trail when we visited.

In fact, in the photo below you can see our car parked as we headed down the trail. There was one other car in the lot at this time.

We then headed down a bit and did the Knife Edge Trail. According to what I read, this trail follows a portion of the Knife Edge Road which was used to access the park.

While this was a pretty easy trail...I wouldn't want to drive it!

And again the payoff were some great views.

And we had yet to see another human on these trails!

From here we decided to drive down to Wetherill Mesa and do a bit more exploring and hiking.

Stay tuned!

Café Brazil in Denver

Today Ed (from Yuma) wants to share a meal with mmm-yoso readers that he shared on a recent trip to Denver. Tomorrow if Kirk doesn't post, Cathy will. So stay tuned.

One place that Jane insisted we had to try for dinner was her longtime favorite, Café Brazil:

The several rooms were pleasant and unpretentious with a diverse clientele and pleasant Brazilian music that set the mood:

I'm sure they serve beer and probably wine, but Café Brazil has a "rum room," serves around 75 different varieties of rum, and provides list of yummy sounding rum cocktails on the menu. So I decided on a mojito:

Wow! This mojito was tasty and powerful. The sweet/sour flavors were nicely balanced with the taste of mint predominant.

Jane chose a caipirinha, a Brazilian specialty cocktail (the unofficial cocktail of the 2016 Rio Olympics, they say) made with sugar, lime, and a sizable amount of cachaça (sugarcane liquor):

It was also quite good. I guess I had expected something sweet, but the drink had a nice complexity and depth of flavor. A good start to the meal.

Since it was my first time looking over the menu, we decided to start with an appetizer; we picked fried bananas:

These little banana balls were perfectly fried and had a crunchy crisp exterior wrapped around a warm gooey banana center. Good as they were, we kind of wished we had ordered them as a dessert. They did, however, keep us from being hungry for sure.

Our server placed these salsas in the middle of the table:

On the left is a deeply flavored malaqueta pepper salsa, very tasty without being too fiery. On the right a Brazilian style pico de gallo, with red peppers and pickled onions.

Those condiments complemented our small bowls of flavorful black bean soup:

I liked the soup. While not creamy, the soup had a pleasant smokiness in the background and a bright spiciness upfront.

We also received a bread basket:

The breads were a reflection of the cuisine – these were not European-style baguettes, but breads that seemed at home in tropical and subtropical America – earthy flavored lightly sweet breads with mixed whole grains, nuts, and bits of fruit.

We had had some difficulties choosing our entrées – most of the choices looked good. I was severely tempted by the varieties of feijoada (the national dish of Brazil), but in the end we decided to focus on seafood.

I got the moqueca de peixe, a seafood stew in a coconut milk gravy over rice:
.

The shrimp were large and of excellent quality. Underneath them, on the left side of the picture, is one of the two large sea scallops in the dish. On the right side is one of the two pieces of bacalhau. The scallops were fine and I was impressed by the preparation of the salt cod. The rice underneath brought together the seafood flavors with the slightly sweet touch of creamy ginger garlic coconut milk.

Jane received La Caleña, a different seafood stew on rice:

From where I was sitting, the entrée looked like a small fortress with red pepper walls and battlements composed of carrot sticks and zucchini wedges as if to protect the large shrimp and scallops within.

So I also took a picture from above:

The spicy broth and rice had tomato and seafood flavors. The red peppers and zucchinis were perfectly cooked – tender but firm. And they took on some of the flavors of the sauce. I thought a couple of the carrots were a little underdone though.

We traded plates back and forth and generally agreed it was a good dinner. Café Brazil did well.  I am obviously no expert on Brazilian cuisine, but almost everything tasted great, the ambience and service were fine, and I would love to go back and try more of the menu. I can see why this spot is a local favorite.

 

Boulder, Colorado: Dushanbe Teahouse and The Med

While Ed (from Yuma) posts about eating on vacation today, Cathy and Kirk are busy. The world is like that.

You don't need a weatherman to know that July and August are good times for Yumans to go on vacation, so I flew to the Denver area to see an old friend and cool off for a few days. The focus of the visit was not gastronomy, but Jane wanted me to try some of her longtime favorites. Who was I to complain about that? And she let me bring my camera, hence this post.

Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse

This teahouse is one of the most unusual spots I've ever posted about. A gift from Dushanbe in Tajikistan to sister city Boulder, Colorado, it even has its own Wikipedia page.

The building was originally constructed in Tajikistan (with no power tools), disassembled, and sent to Boulder where it took about 10 years to find a proper location, secure funding, and reassemble it. The distinctive interior – walls, ceilings, columns –  all display wonderfully carved and painted wood surfaces:

Though they serve lunches, dinners, and even high tea (if ordered in advance), we just dropped in for a little pick me up. Jane enjoyed her chilled hibiscus tea:

and I had a pot of superior grade Dragonwell:

Loved the egg timer  tea timer:
We enjoyed the beverages and the ambience.

The Med

Later we headed over to The Med for dinner:

As Jane explained, The Med has become a very popular dining spot in Boulder and has expanded over the years so that it stretches from that corner all the way back to its entrance:

We were no sooner seated at our table when a basket of truly excellent bread arrived. I really enjoyed the sourdough – nice crust, nice crumb, nice flavor – but the olive bread was good as well:

We decided to focus on tapas. The menu offered around a dozen cold choices and 20 warm, generally priced around $5. We tried to order a variety, selecting three of each.

The Escabeche arrived first:

It was an interesting approach. The yellowfin had been combined with a lot of avocado, mild green chilies, and pico de gallo and some citrus and the combination placed atop a small tumulus of cucumber strips. While certainly okay, I thought it lacked pizzazz. I expected a more assertive citrus flavor, and the cucumber strips just didn't seem to work together with the rest of the dish.

The roasted beets arrived next:

This was a very attractive plate – the golden beets contrasted nicely with the pickled onions, chevre, micro greens, and fried capers. Overall, a pleasant beet salad. Beety.

The bruschetta was enjoyable:

The toasty slices of excellent bread were spread with a white bean paste and topped off with an artichoke tapenade. A nice range of flavors and textures. Very Mediterranean.

The pastillas were the first warm tapas served:

The pan fried flaky filo crust was wrapped around a curry flavored interior of chicken, vegetables, pinenuts, and raisins. Then the savory little pastries were dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Cut into, a pastilla looked like this:

Different and distinctive flavor/texture range.

Our favorite item of the evening was the grilled polenta topped with a wild mushroom ragout:

The julienned vegetables – carrots, turnips, and scallions – provided nice contrast to the colors and textures of the polenta and mushroom sauce. Even though the shrooms look more domestic than wild, the ragout had overtones of porcini, and the polenta was crispy creamy.

Our last tapas were gambas, griddled shrimp:

This was a classic version. The shrimp were firm and flavorful. A squeeze of lemon and the parsley/scallion salsa provided accents. This was about the shrimp.

I had a glass or two of a pleasant Rioja rosé and Jane chose a Pinot Noir. The restaurant seemed lively with a lot of younger folks, and our server Henry was helpful and personable. We had a very good time.