Ace Eat Serve My Kids

Not too long ago I bitched and moaned about a sorry list of kid-friendly eat spots in Denver put together by someone that I can only hope wasn't really trying all that hard. I also promised I wouldn't turn this blog into a kid-centric restaurant blog-- and I won't--- but when you go out to eat with a pair of toddlers on a regular basis, places that treat your kids well and keep them happy go quickly to the top of your list. And sometimes it happens when you are least expecting it.

Such was the case with Denver's relatively new Ace Eat Serve, which has become instantly popular due to its affiliation with neighboring hipster institution Stueben's--and its ping pong tables don't hurt either. Sure ping pong sounds kid friendly I suppose, but when I think new hip restaurant in uptown, I don't immediately round up the wife and squirmy two-year olds and pile in the Wagon Queen Family Truckster.

But Ace is fully prepared to take good care of your kids. Ours were greeted with the typical coloring placemats and crayons, but also diverse menu options, of which we chose the steamed bun plate.

It came out on a brilliant red tray, the cool kind with all the dividers and shit. Besides the steamed bun, there was a pile of bright green edemame and a fruit salad of strawberries and mango. And for utensils? Tong-like kiddie chopsticks.

Ace got everything right for my kids and the adult plates that got passed were also mostly very good, but among some flashes of brilliance was some mediocrity. On the good side were the crispy beef and fried Brussels sprouts. The thin strips of honey-ginger sweet beef were wholly satisfying and crispy indeed; while the (also crispy) Brussels sprouts and chiles were simply perfect.

The soup dumplings were also good. Simple foods like this often are, and Ace did well to leave it alone.

On the not-so-good side was a fish dish that my wife ordered. So forgettable, in fact, that I don't remember anything else about it.

Also worth mentioning was the admirable though not very spicy house made kim chi. And the airy steamed buns filled with braised short ribs.

While my kids did enjoy eating with tongs (they really do, and would attempt to eat every meal with big BBQ tongs if allowed), they love little bits of ice even more. For dessert Ace offers flavored, shaved ice--for free. My boys slurped and savored in silence for the last 10 to 15 minutes of the meal. That is nothing short of miraculous.

I loved Ace. Maybe not for every single plate I ate, but for how much my kids ate, and how well we were all treated. So parents, add this one to your list, and for you fun loving single kid-less types, don't worry, we all eat dinner at like 5:30, so we will be out of your hair long before anything really fun could happen anyway.

Trains Trains Trains! Breakfast Inn and Dinner Too

Having kids changes life quite a bit, and it is easy to find solace in the mass produced and repetitious. It's hard not to shop at the big baby chains and it's almost impossible to find toys not branded by some famous cartoon character or other, but it is not all that hard to keep eating well and expose kids to a wide variety of foods. That is why I was so disappointed to read a list of Ten Great Denver Restaurants for Kids posted by our own Denver.org website that, while it has one or two good picks, embarrassingly directs would-be visitors away from our dynamic and diverse local food scene to several national chains and one truly awful place no being capable of exercising free will should be dragged to more than once.

Not to worry, I am not going to turn this blog into into a toddler-focused eating guide, nor even bother to create a list of my own, but so numerous are Denver's family-friendly eateries that I only have to mention one of the last places we ate as a family: the Breakfast Inn and Dinner Too.

The Breakfast Inn is everything you would expect out of a tried and true, classic diner. It serves all three squares any time of the day. It has a crew of über-profressional no-nonsense servers and its menu is everything you would expect (and maybe a little bit more) from a classic Colorado Diner. I say "Colorado" because as you may not realize if you are from Colorado, not every diner across the US has green chile on its menu, or for that matter a wide array of Mexican dishes.

Breakfast Inn, of course, does have green chile and serves it three ways: vegetarian, mild and spicy. I got the spicy, smothered over a breakfast burrito of eggs and potatoes with a side of bright, fresh, cilantro-heavy (in a good way) red salsa. The burrito was a mess of eggs and potatoes--hard to go wrong. The green chile was the star and it was pretty damn good: Colorado gravy-style and respectably spicy.

My wife had cheese blintzes which she absolutely loved. They were more like cheese-filled donuts, but I loved seeing this Eastern European-inspired dish on the same menu as my green chile. The next logical step of course would be to offer them smothered in green chile--I can't imagine too many restaurants are doing that these days.

Oh, and as far as the whole kid-thing goes, it was great. Because there was a train. There is nothing more exciting right now in my sons' lives than trains. At the Breakfast Inn, there is a model train looping the entire East dining room. Each time it came around (after they had stopped craning their necks to see it all the way around) was a squeal of delight and sometimes even applause. My wife and I were actually able to chew our food, breathe between bites and even carry on a little conversation.

I loved the Breakfast Inn. Partly because I don't get to enough diners these days and so it was almost a novel experience. Partly because the name is in the category of simple, descriptive no-nonsense names. (I can almost imagine the day they decided to add dinner to the menu and weighed the new name options with the cost of a new sign.) But in the end I loved it because my kids loved it and I still got to eat good food. I don't know if I would recommend it to a visiting out-of-towner, but I certainly wouldn't send them to the Cheesplace Chain. They don't have a model train and more importantly I bet they don't serve green chile. So, Denver.org, it would be nice to dig a little deeper next time you make a list like that.

In my opinion there are very few Denver restaurants that are not friendly to kids, though some certainly have more to offer. Just off the top of my head, we have had great experiences over the years at Hi-Rise, Ernie's Pizza, Empanada Express Grill, Frijoles Colorado, Buenos Aires Pizzeria, Vine St. Pub, Highland Tap, Second Home, and almost without exception, each and every family-run Mexican joint, because in Mexican culture, kids are king.

Having kids sure changes life a lot, but one thing that doesn't need to change is eating good food.