Root Down, Denver

This restaurant was happening the Friday night that I was there recently. The happy hour goes until 7:00pm, with half priced drinks that you can have in the bar or in the restaurant, which might explain why at 6:00pm the place was completely packed. THe drink selection was interesting, and you could order food at the bar, so if you got waylaid there for any length of time you would be contented, and at half price, the drinks were a good deal.

Now for the food. I really liked all of the dishes we got and my dining companion liked three of the four. Her objection, which was completely legit, is that the dish we were served was not the dish that was described to us. we thought we were getting a salad with some sauteed and fried seafood--what we got was some very well fried seafood, no salad. Tasty, but we would have ordered something else had we known.

 We started with the red curry carrot soup, which was delicious.  I liked that they didn't bat an eye when they said we wanted to share it--they just brought us two spoons.  I like a place that facilitates you sharing dishes, and this is a place where you could get a number of small plates and taste a range of what they have to offer.
The mussels we got, with a red curry coconut sauce, did make us smile. Better than we would have expected and my only disappointment was that there really too much of the rich sauce for two of us to mop us with the grilled bread. We really could have used a third mouth to feed.

The duck hoison slider that the best dish of the night in that it was flavorful, interesting, and something that you would not be all that likely to whip up at home. The meat was shredded and the flavor was well distributed throughout without being messy. In retrospect we should have gotten the larger version of the dish, which would have given us a slider each, but that is not what we ordered, and the good news is that the slider bun was both delicious and easy to cut, and then eat a half of. The pickled vegetables that accompanied the dish were inspirational--they literally made me want to go home and make some myself for future sandwiches.