Journal of My Denver Travel - Wednesday

We were supposed to eat with our region representative for dinner tonight. Destination was Old Chicago. I passed by the restaurant yesterday and it didn’t look very interesting - the typical upscale sports bar with a common area at the roof. I imagined the restaurant packed with people, drinking, smoking, and watching ESPN. After eating dinner solo the previous nights, I had come to enjoy the solitude and quietness of eating alone. I would take loud slurps of my martini, lick the plate to complete the meal, and savor the last bits of the buffalo chicken on my fingers. No table manners but pure joy of eating. I wanted to experience that again, tonight. However, bind by the responsibility to “network” with other professionals, I reluctantly walked in Old Chicago.

Just as I had imagined, lots of beer and people hangin’ on the roof. And bingo, ESPN was on! The restaurant was crowded and I hate crowded places. I found a couple conference people and we sat by a table under the warm sun. We had just about 7 minutes to take advantage of Happy Hour. Looking through menu, I did not find anything that stirred my appetite. However, I was hungry so I ordered an appetizer, Tangy Buffalo Chicken Wings. Afterall, you can’t go wrong with $4 buffalo wings. They turned out dead on average, very tangy and spicy as well.

About half an hour later, I found myself joining 10 other conference people for dinner. I was so cold from sitting on the roof that I was literally experiencing a brain freeze. I decided to share an order with my other Hawaii counterpart since I couldn’t possibly finish a 10-inch deep dish pizza by myself. We ordered the Thai Pie and hooray for no peanuts! Another person ordered a calzone, something I wanted to try too. Take a look at the photo below. Doesn’t it look like a stuffed chicken rather than a calzone? The bread was so shiny, like oil on chicken skin. It was baked to the color of a roasted rotisserie chicken too. Bizzar!

Finally, the Thai Pie came and it smelled sweet and delicious. The crust was two inches high, topped with mozzarella and cheddar cheese, Thai sweet chili sauce, mushrooms, red bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, green onions, and large pieces of chicken. The pizza had a burst of flavors, from sweet to salty and toasty to cheesy. There was also a hint of spiciness from the chili sauce. Since I don’t mingle too well with cheese and chili, I had to retire early.


Wednesday ended with quite a scare that a winter storm will hit the State of Colorado Thursday night through Saturday morning. I am hoping that I won’t get snowed in and have to stay here another day.