Food in Aspen

All the most famous food TV and journalism writers and sellers of chi-chi products are in Aspen right now for the Aspen Food and Wine Classic, which starts today or tomorrow. Huge white tents full of chairs, demo booths, or tables have been under construction all week in every open, level space in town. At the foot of the Gondola, in the main parks, in front of the Art Museum, and in little spaces all over busy worker-bees are setting up things for the arrival of all the stars of the foodie world.

The nice quiet atmosphere that we enjoyed for our first two weeks here is shattered. There's no place to park. Even the bike racks are pretty full!

My Bike Friday had to be on the wrong side of the bike rack.
Though most of the bikes probably don't belong to Foodies.

We're leaving tomorrow, luckily, so we don't have to deal with the Food and Wine Classic very much. Both the admission price (e.g. hundreds of dollars just to taste a few desserts, plus registration fees) and the philosophy (sell sell sell) of the event fail to attract me; despite being very interested in food and wine, I would not want to go -- I felt the same way 2 years ago when we were here during the same event.

  

Tents Everywhere!

As for ourselves, we have been eating rather simple food while here, going on picnics and to the weekly Tuesday BBQ at the Physics Center, and joined the other workshop participants for a meal out once. Also, we enjoyed several restaurants in Aspen, though we have not eaten out a great deal. I've posted on one or two meals out, and here are a few photos to wrap up what we ate:

Food at the Little Nell Restaurant "Element 47"
L to R, top to bottom --Fois gras with lots of decorations;
mixed vegetable salad; salmon; ravioli with various mushrooms;
cheesecake with lots of decorations.
All the food was over-presented though not bad. Service was very disappointing.

Breakfast at a cafe near our apartment yesterday:
crowding was a result of people getting ready to set up the Food & Wine Classic!

    

Red Onion Restaurant for Lunch

Maria at Red Onion

Sandwiches at the restaurant at the top of the gondola:
Tuna melt and turkey with bacon, aioli, cheese, and more

Whole fish at the Wild Fig restaurant.
A truly delicious dish
Background: my veal dish!

Pacifica Restaurant Lunch:
Very expensive tuna salad

Our shared sashimi at Asie: followed by a seafood dish and moo-shu duck:
a very nice meal at a quite good Asian fusion restaurant.

Three workshop participants at Asie for group dinner

Annette's Bakery: a good French-style macaron
She said it took her months to figure out how to make the recipe work at high altitude.

I took lots of photos in Aspen restaurants last time we were here, too. See this Flickr set.