Ocean

On Saturday night, Kate and I went out to eat at Ocean in Cherry Creek. It was a birthday present from Kate. She said I could pick out any restaurant from the Denver/Boulder DiningOut magazine to go to for my birthday. While Ocean hasn’t been featured in the magazine, the owners have been, so it counted.

Our arrival was a blur. I noticed that valet parking was only five bucks so I pulled right up to the curb. The valet hopped out of the car in front of us and opened Kate’s door. I turned the car off and then realized that I was probably just supposed to keep it running. By the time I was out of the car the valet was there to hand me my ticket. That was easy, the first time I had valet parked, and a little awkward because we went from car to restaurant to being seated in thirty seconds. I guess I go through this mental preparation thing when I am walking up to a restaurant. I want to prepare myself for the ritual of dining out, the atmosphere, and the menu. I didn’t have any time for that, making for one abrupt entrance.

Kate and I were seated at a table for two but she sat almost out of arm’s reach. After the drink and wine menus were placed on the table I couldn’t see her. She leaned to the side and waved, saying, “Hey down there.”

I took the obnoxiously big drink menus down and set them in my lap, but first I took a quick look through them. Okay, I don’t know if I have ever been to a restaurant this nice and expensive before, maybe once when I was pretty young, but I can’t remember. Anyway, it took me no more than a few seconds to eliminate the wine as an option. Glasses started at $8, that was fine with me, but I felt more like a cocktail or martini. I didn’t take the time to find the cheapest bottle of wine on the list, but I did find the most expensive: $900 for a 2001 from California. Those are six expensive years right there. I had our waiter take those menus away from us. They were huge, awkward, and despite being at a big table for two, there was still no room for them.

The time for drink orders had come and Kate went with her usual choice, a cosmopolitan.

“And what kind of vodka would you like with that?” The waiter asked.

Kate put a thinking face on, but I was quick to suggest Grey Goose. Kate didn’t respond.

“Do you guys have Smirnoff?” Kate said.

“Uh, no,” the waiter said. “We don’t serve that here.”

“Absolut then.”

The waiter walked away and Kate admitted to showing her unrefined taste in vodka. I don’t know my vodka either, but I did know Grey Goose is very popular and so that is why I suggested it.

Not only do I not know vodka, I don’t know drinks. They didn’t even have a martini list with all the names. I don’t know the names of drinks. I could think of a cosmopolitan and a bloody mary. I ordered the bloody mary. My grandpa used to make those for me. Ocean’s bloody mary was good, but Grandpa Bryce’s bloody mary is superior in my memory. I concede though, the nostalgia factor might be tainting my judgment.

We had two appetizers. The first was coconut shrimp in a black bean mango salsa. We only got four shrimp, but they were loads better than the coconut shrimp I have had at other restaurants…only Applebee’s I think. For the first taste of Ocean, I thought these were a bit of a let down. They weren’t outstanding. I expected Ocean to take a boring meat, shrimp, and make it unforgettable. They didn’t, but Kate and I still gobbled them up in three minutes.

The second appetizer was mini lobster chipotle tacos. Mini means we could take each taco out in two bites. The tacos, which Kate found to be a little disappointing I think, were served on a layer of guacamole. Kate didn’t think the chipotle was strong enough, but I was glad it was a subtle taste because I didn’t want it to overtake the delicious lobster.

Now as far as fancy restaurant etiquette goes, we probably don’t have any. We did a lot of leaning, stretching, and tilting in our chairs to see what other people were ordering. We couldn’t necessarily tell from getting a glimpse of the dish, but the presentation of some dishes was enough to convince me that what was on that plate couldn’t taste bad. We tried to hold on to our silverware before we were notified that we would get a new set with each course. I cleaned the plates of all sauce and crumbs and wondered if a place like this had to-go boxes.

Kate ordered Diver Sea scallops with wasabi mashed potatoes. Wasabi is pretty sick. I can’t get with it at sushi places, but the flavor was faint enough to make the mashed potatoes an enticing side to the five big scallops that surrounded it. She surrendered quite a few bites of scallops to me. I was, and still am, thankful.

I ordered the Colorado red trout with garlic spinach and a shrimp scampi sauce. I don’t know what Colorado red trout is or if it is a real trout name, but it, unlike the coconut shrimp, was unforgettable. Lots of people cook fresh trout, but it takes some sort of magician to make it taste the way it did at Ocean.

Kate and I are gluttons. Plus, we had been eyeing, for a while, this macaroni and cheese being placed on tables near us. We had to order some with our main dishes. After we polished off the seafood we ate out of the same bowl of macaroni. I don’t know how you make macaroni and cheese so creamy and good, but they did it. Kate thinks there was some sort of wine in there. That sounds like a good idea. A little wine in anything makes it better.

When Kate was on her third scallop she said she was getting full. That was 30 minutes before we got the dessert menu. I was never going to pass up a dessert and Kate agreed to split one with me after no effort on my part to get her to cave in. We picked a caramelized banana cream pie. The bananas had been covered with sugar and finely torched to create a sweet crispiness. The dessert was a work of art. Kate suggested we take a picture of it with her cell phone. It didn’t work. The flash wasn’t bright enough, but it was a fine moment in our lack of restaurant etiquette, taking pictures of dessert before we dug in.

Over two hours after we sat down we paid the bill and went to the bathroom, not because we had to go, but just to check out the design in them. Once I got in there I had to pee anyway. Luckily, there was a flat screen at eye level (for most people) right above the urinal. There was some footage of a guy puking over the side of a boat while I was peeing. Throwing up didn’t seem like a good thing to show in the bathroom of a restaurant, or in any bathroom for that matter. On the way out I did wonder how many trees fell to make the amazingly thick paper towels I dried my hands with…probably way too many. The polar ice caps are going to melt because of these thick paper towels, I thought. Bummer.

When we got out to the valet booth, my car was parked across the street. Valet parking was five bucks. I gave the guy eight. It was probably his smallest tip of the night, and even though I can’t give anymore than that, I wished, for a moment that I could have handed him a twenty or something bigger. I hope he was happy. We were.