Tag

Last night Finn and I had a great dinner in Denver at Tag. It's a restaurant in Larimer square that opened in 2009; this was my first time to try it. Chef Troy Guard's menu is a fusion of his Hawaiian roots, pan-Asian inspiration, and local ingredients. It works.

Earlier in the day yesterday I had completed a random survey about the 100 things you must eat before you die. One of the items I hadn't had on the list was kangaroo. I had never even considered having kangaroo before, but it was on the menu at Tag so of course we had to try it. We had it for our first course, served on a bed of parsnip puree with a few roasted brussel sprouts (a few meaning very few - approximately one and a half) sprinkled with Japanese crisps. It was a unique combination of flavors - the little crisps had sort of a nutty quality and to me, parsnips always have an overpowering flavor. To be honest, it was a little weird and I would definitely not order it again but it was fun to try.

The salads we had for the second course were great (sorry no photos).  Mine was arugula with pumpkin infused olive oil, prosciutto, pomegranate seeds, and dusted with Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.  Finn's was a mixed green salad with pecans, goat cheese, pear, and  a vinaigrette dressing.  They were both simple salads that would be easy to make at home.  I'll let you know when I try them.

For the main course I had the Miso Cod.  This was a perfectly flaky fish on a bed of artichoke edamame salsa (although I think they may have ran out of artichokes, as I didn't find one in my salsa), topped with local pea sprout salad and a yuzu kabayaki sauce.  This was my favorite thing I had.

Finn was adventurous and tried the Ostrich, which was served medium-rare on a bed of roasted root vegetables.  It was our first time to try Ostrich, which I actually found to be quite tasty (however, I still preferred my cod!).  It's a very lean meat, kind of like buffalo.

Dessert was a sticky toffee cake (!) with raspberry sauce, hot toffee sauce, and burnt sugar ice cream.  Incredible.