Reunion at Public

It was a super weekend as Kate from my time at Teach For America Denver was back in the US for the first time in 2 years!  Her parents threw her a surprise party on Thursday with her friends and family and we capped it off with dinner and a night out on Saturday.  I snagged a 9pm reservation at Public restaurant so we decided to meet at the sister bar next door ahead of dinner just to catch up.  The Daily specializes in drinks where they offer a rotating menu of 6 specialty cocktails that they change as you guessed it- on a daily basis.  You can find updates on their facebook page.  They also offer the standard bar, plus wine and beer.  Both my friends opted for the shaken watermelon chili margarita.  I only took a sip of the bright pink concoction and it was incredibly refreshing and well balanced, not too sweet but with a firm chili kick that tickled my throat.

During dinner, we opted for a bottle of Riesling to go with our four shared appetizers and one entree.  While our waiter's comments were not the most attentive, the service at times slow, I would say eighty percent of the dishes deserved its one michelin star award.  The first appetizer was the whole anchovies with spicy aioli a top a quinoa croquette.    The second was a hearty legume salad with french lentils and green beans, tossed with avocado,toasted pecans and a slightly sweet pomegrante vinaigrette.    Excellent use of textures and flavors.

The second round of dishes came out painfully slow but was quickly forgotten once we started to eat.  The skin on the tasmanian trout was crispy and the pale pink flesh was firmly seasoned and seared to a beautiful medium.  While I normally prefer seared scallops, the sweet chili grilled scallops surprised me and was balanced well with the slightly bitter greens on the plate.

The most disappointing dish was actually the grilled kangaroo which faltered in both the presentation and execution.  It was grilled rare, sliced too think and somehow formed into a ball and set atop of a falafel cake.  Sounds delicious right? The only other time i've had kangaroo was back in Denver at TAG where it was much much better.

Our waiter surprised us with a complimentary tasting of late Riesling to go with the solid sticky toffee pudding dessert.  As an admitted wine novice, this late riesling was super sweet and tasted like liquid raisins.

Overall, I would recommend this place to family, friends and even strangers

It is with great pleasure that I post the non food related human picture on this blog.  My friend Brigitte insisted I use her name in this post so why not go even further and show you a picture of her, she's on the left!