Review: Euclid Hall, Denver

Luckily I had low culinary expectations for our trip to Yellowstone National Park and the wild west states surrounding it. There were some appalling lows, however. My teeth can still recall chewing doggedly through a chunk of “slow cooked bison” that required more mastication to choke down than a cowboy hat, while across the table my family enjoyed all their main courses between lukewarm and cold. This was in the grand Old Faithful Inn. Even the phrase “log cabin on steroids” cannot do justice to its wooden immensity. Though “wooden immensity” would do for that bison joint.

Of course, I can’t really level this at America. Go anywhere in the world and you’ll find the captive tourist audience being taken for an appetite-crushing ride in all the restaurants and cafes serving them. Here’s an Australian example. It’s cynical and depressing; “Hey, these people can’t go anywhere else if they want food! What’s more, they’re never going to be repeat custom! Let’s serve them crap and charge through the nose!”

Mind you, outside the National Parks we still ended up plodding through a humdrum and predictably protein-rich diet of steak, burger and things-with-cheese-in. Apparently Americans don’t think a sandwich is complete unless there’s some cheese in there. But… in a salmon burger? Salmon with cheese?

I found one sandwich new to me that I loved; the French Dip. This is a sandwich stuffed with thinly sliced roast beef and served with a pot of meaty jus on the side. To dip the sandwich in as you eat it, duh! Menus invariably made me smile with the redundant phrasing “served with au jus” and one waitress endearingly said it was “served with au jus gravy”. Served with with gravy gravy? Pedantic semantics aside, it’s a brilliant idea. If I was doing it myself I would have cooked the beef pink. Oh, and I’d have left out the slice of cheese. Eww.

Yes, small town cooking can be good, but as everything is essentially some combination of bread, beef, bacon, cheese, chicken, fries, tomato and lettuce it can get a bit same-y. So it was a genuine delight on our very final day to be back in Denver and stumble upon Euclid Hall.

Just go to their website and look at the menu, I really don’t have to say any more. If it makes you drool uncontrollably then you and I have similar tastes. The only question you have to ask is, does it taste as good as it reads?

Yes.

One of the simplest joys was a hop-infused pickle. Just an accompaniment really, but the dryly herbal hop flavour coming with a bit of juicy gherkin was excellent. Their bone marrow on toast wasn’t quite up to St John, but the tangy sherry gravy it came with soaked very well into the sourdough toast and tasted divine. Pad Thai pig’s

ear is one of the only times I’ve seen pig’s ear used for anything other than crispy snacking. It worked very well and looked every inch the plate of Bangkok street food. I can’t say I tasted it and thought immediately of Pad Thai, but I can say it was deliciously spiced. I picked out the chicken and waffle as a comparison with our recent Duck and Waffle experience, but it was an entirely refined version of the dish: a breaded chicken mousseline on a potato waffle, with a peppery bechamel that made me think of bread sauce at Christmas, along with a maple syrup gastrique. Delicious. As was the sashimi of kampachi, served on cubes of watermelon and topped with huge mustard seeds glistening with mustard oil as a ‘mustard caviar’. Pow.

So if you’re ever in Denver, consider this a recommendation. And pack a cooler box full of goodies if you’re going to Yellowstone!