Menu Roundup: Miracle Berries, Panuchos and a White Russian Bar

Menu changes around town this month include a few unique offerings, from a Yucatecan specialty called a panucho at Sol Cocina to a miracle berry tasting menu at the Inventing Room to a brunch beverage bar straight out of The Big Lebowski. Keep reading to see what's up at these three Denver restaurants.

The Inventing Room
2020 Lawrence Street
303-885-2802
Culinary conjurer Ian Kleinman has switched up the dessert menu at his dessert bar/science lab for the fall season. Dig into a banana waffle topped with peanut butter ice cream, salted caramel and maple syrup cotton candy — which looks more like a photo from the Hubble Space Telescope than a dessert — or go with the Mexican fried ice cream, which coats a sphere of salted caramel ice cream with crunchy cinnamon tortilla, nitro caramel, dark chocolate and exploding whipped cream.

Kleinman's desserts boggle the mind, but prepare to have your tongue boggled, too, with the only miracle berry tasting menu in town. Miracle berries fool the tastebuds into perceiving sour as sweet, so for $10 you can sample a variety of tangy treats — citrus-fruit wedges, yogurt, sour orange sorbet, for example — before and after downing a spoonful of miracle berry powder. 

The Inventing Room is also celebrating one year in business on Monday, October 31. If you stop in between 2 and 9 p.m. wearing your Halloween costume, you'll get a free sundae.

Sol Cocina
200 Columbine Street
303-953-2208
Sol Cocina just added a happy hour to its Cherry Creek bar and patio, with specials from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Prices range from $2.50 for Sol's street-style sweet corn sliced from the cob and served with cotija cheese, butter, chile powder and chipotle salsa, to $9 for a plate of carne estofado, a dish of chicken or carne asada cooked up with mixed veggies and served with guacamole and pico de gallo on fresh tortillas. For something a little different, try the queso with mushrooms sauteed with epazote or grab a couple of panuchos — fat, deep-fried tortillas stuffed with cheese. Drink specials include margaritas for $5.75 (frozen or on the rocks), $3.50 for bottled beers, and wines by the glass discounted by $3 each. Sol also switches up its seasonal guacamole monthly; for the remainder of October, the blend includes roasted chiles, squash, candied bacon, caramelized onions, serrano chiles, pepitas and pilloncillo sauce.

The Nickel
1100 14th Street
720-889-2128
The Nickel's brunch program recently added a Bottomless Bar Car option from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For $20, you can get bottomless mimosas or access to the charcuterie Bloody Mary bar, which the kitchen stocks with a variety of meats, cheeses and housemade pickles in addition to standard Bloody Mary mixers. But that's not all: The Nickel also offers a build-your-own White Russian station stocked with infused milks (dairy and otherwise), cold-brew coffee and shaved chocolates. The Dude would approve.

And since Halloween is coming soon, the White Russian bar will include milks infused with Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry cereals this Saturday and Sunday (October 29 and 30).