Best Wholesome Whole-Milk Tour 2002 | Karl's Farm Dairy | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Wholesome Whole-Milk Tour

Karl's Farm Dairy

It's surrounded by sprawling suburbs, but Karl's Farm Dairy, a family-owned operation, hangs on to its cow-powered past. The dairy's new retail outlet, just down the road on 120th, serves up the best milk in Colorado, fresh-squeezed stuff made by the herd of Guernseys that roam the pasture out back. And tours of the dairy are an udderly amazing experience that puts you face-to-face with the four-legged artisans. Take the kids for a quick lesson in where that non-fat, pasteurized stuff got its start.

Best Three-Drink Maximum

Coors Brewery Tour

Those in need of a free buzz need look no further than Golden's Coors Brewery. The standard tour of the facility lasts only 45 minutes, and midway through, drinking-age guests are given a Dixie-cup-sized gulp of brew, under the apparent assumption that they might not be able to complete the journey without one. Even better, the circuit winds up at a bar where each person is allowed three full-sized drafts of his choice, gratis. Teetotalers get three sodas -- or can order beers and just pass them to their suds-loving buddies (another good reason to bring along a designated driver). Make ours a triple.

Best Liquor Is Quicker but Candy Is Dandy Tour

Hammond's Candies

Kristin Pazulski
When you're suddenly overcome by a craving for sweets -- you know, that sudden unstoppable need for sugar -- Hammond's Candies satisfies. Before you sink your sweet tooth into a gooey strawberry caramel or break off a piece of the company's famous ribbon candy, though, you might want to take a free tour of the factory. After all, the buildup is half the fun. During the thirty-minute tour, you'll see how the edible ribbons are hand-pulled and crimped to produce the wavy candy for which Hammond's is so well known. You'll drool at the vat of butter into which nuts and sugar are stirred for toffee production. And you'll feel like a kid awaiting Christmas as you watch the candy makers form long ropes of confection into lollipops and candy canes. Although you'll get samples along the way, you can't fully indulge until after the tour, which ends with a trip to the gift shop, where your patience will be amply rewarded.

Best Cheese Plate

Vesta Dipping Grill

How much do we love this cheese plate? Let us count the wheys: At Vesta Dipping Grill, a hip, stylish restaurant in LoDo, Matt Selby, the kitchen's big cheese, is so serious about promoting the virtues of this dairy product that his well-selected, beautifully presented cheese plate is offered as both an appetizer and a dessert. The selection changes weekly, as Selby chooses the best of the best from internationally procured curds and pairs them with such cheese-friendly tidbits as dried figs, sliced pears, candied walnuts, arugula and, of course, crackers. True connoisseurs will milk this course for all it's worth.

Best Wine and Cheese Restaurant

The Village Cork

The Village Cork is just adorable, a wee bit of a place with a bar and five tables tucked into it. Once an ice-cream shop and then a deli, now it's the most charming of hangouts, a place for folks to stop by for a glass of wine -- choose from two dozen or so reds and whites, all available by the bottle or the glass at reasonable prices -- and a cheese plate. The Cork gets its cheese from the esteemed Truffle cheese shop; the selection changes regularly, but you can always count on three or four cow's-milk offerings, a couple of goat's-milk cheeses, and several made from sheep's milk. They come on a pretty china platter alongside cute little cheese knives, some fresh fruit and nuts. The Cork offers other grazing items, too, including duck-liver-and-truffle pâté, soup, salad and desserts. Sometimes it takes a Village Cork to raise the level of neighborhood visiting; here you can count on finding conversation as convivial as the gustatorial fare.

Best Cheese Shop

The Truffle

Molly Martin
Forty seconds into this engaging little shop, owners Kate and Dave Kaufmann will have you tasting a few cheeses you've never heard of before. Two minutes later, you'll have tasted ten. The generous taste tests are only part of what makes the Truffle the best cheese shop in town, though. Unlike the pre-wrapped wedges you find at grocery stores, the cheese here is cut to order from the Kaufmanns' extensive selection, which includes everything from local goat cheese to rare raw-milk wheels from remote farms in France. The Truffle also offers a dizzying array of packaged gourmet foods -- thyme-scented honey, porcini cream, duck prosciutto, dried chanterelles, orange-flower water, blackberry syrup -- along with fresh caviar, foie gras and the namesake truffles, of course. But the Kauffmans' true passion is cheese, and they know more about it than anyone we've come across. That knowledge elevates their store to a cut above the rest.

Best Outdoor-Picnic Combo

St. Kilian's Cheese Shop

With these two stores nestled against each other in the Highland neighborhood, you've got the makings of a perfect picnic. First, stop by St. Kilian's, where Hugh O'Neill and Ionah de Freitas (former owners of Hugh's American Bistro) stock cheeses from all over the globe, including ones made right in our own Colorado back yard. They also have fresh-baked bread, smoked salmon, imported chocolate and dozens of other ready-to-eat items that help make for an instant picnic. Then take your goodies next door, where Mondo Vino owner Duey Kratzer can take one look at your provisions and pronounce the ideal wine to go with them. Stick everything in a big basket and you're off.

Best Outdoor Patio -- Urban

Tamayo

Matt Ritscher
Tamayo won the location lottery when it took over the space that had been occupied by Cadillac Ranch and turned the second-floor terrace into a Mexican retreat. Every night that the weather cooperates, you can watch the sun set over the mountains and smell the fresh air, blessedly free of car exhaust, even though the traffic whizzing below on 14th Street and Speer Boulevard is enough to make you feel like you're part of a thriving, if not world-class, city. And when the weather is bad, your consolation prize is Tamayo's groovy interior, complete with a stunning mosaic mural behind the bar.

Best Outdoor Patio -- Suburban

Yia Yia's Eurocafe

Over the past five years, Yia Yia's Eurocafe has become a Denver Tech Center mainstay, in part because of its efficient, gracious service and well-executed Mediterranean food (including fabulous crab risotto cakes), and in part because it has one of the best outdoor patios in town. Overlooking a man-made pond, complete with fountain, and facing southwest to catch the last rays of the day, Yia Yia's spacious patio is surrounded by shrubbery. Sit at one of the sturdy tables -- yellow umbrellas fend off the heat of the afternoon sun -- and you'll forget that you're in the middle of an enormous business park in the middle of the suburbs.

Best Vegetarian Restaurant

Sunflower

As the area's best option for meat-free dining, Sunflower continues to blossom. Even though this tidy, sun-filled spot offers free-range chicken, seafood and hormone-free game meats, the bulk of its menu is vegetarian. The dishes are made from ingredients that contain no preser-vatives, chemical additives or artificial elements -- and they're even prepared in aluminum-free cookware, using non-irradiated herbs and spices. So what's left? Pure flavor. While veg-heads can go for the tofu nori roll, the pesto-stuffed portobello, the pineapple sweet-and-sour tofu and the tempeh scalopini, even the most ardent carnivore should be satisfied by the chicken stuffed with corn and sage. At lunch, the salad bar is one of the tops in town.

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