Had some special guests in town for work who we entertained this week. They had a long trip from Vancouver and had been such great hosts to us on our trip, I wanted to make sure they were well taken care of in Denver. We ended up at Brooks who was able to accomodate a last minute reservation for 8, luckily it was a Monday night. It had been a few years since I'd eaten there, but I consider it one of the best steakhouses I've ever eaten at. The ambiance is a little old boys club, but the food and service is usually excellent. In our party, we started with appetizers such as seared ahi, escargot, crab cakes, and coconut shrimp. The standouts were the escargot and ahi, both very fresh and well seasoned. For entree, several of us enjoyed the beef filet "Oscar Style", which was a generous 14oz tenderloin portion topped with fresh king crab leg and hollandaise. This is the dish I think of when I think Brooks, certainly a signature dish they've built their great reputation upon. Others enjoyed the Ahi steak, surf and turf with lobster, and lamb chops. The lobster was great, but the lamb was astoundingly good. We were like little kids, grown men trading portions of food with one another. Everything was sooo good we didn't care about formality. Our meals were complemented with Turley Old Vine Zinfandel (a classic Zin producer with a reputation for a breadth of incarnations of zin) which was subtle for a zin and blanced, somewhat reminiscent of a fruit-forward pinot noir; really elegant. Next we enjoyed the La Mission from
Lalande de Pomerol region of Bordeaux. This is one of my favorite basic Bordeux regions, a right bank wine that has Merlot as the identifying grape. What makes this region great to me is the very unique
terroir. It's definitely got some barnyard going on, musty straw, just an earthiness I'd more closely associate with vintages from Provence, or Mourvedre varietals.
This was a feast that I think helped welcome our guests, Brooks only further solidified its place on my short list of great restaurants in Denver. Certainly I'd place it in the top tier of steakhouses I've eaten at anywhere, at least a tier above the more meat and potatoes driven Del Frisco's, and several rungs above Morton's (which won't be seeing any more of my business).
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