Boulder: The Buff | Mountain Sun | Med

On our first morning in Colorado the girls and I took our time waking up and getting ready. We had big brunch plans at The Buff Restaurant.
Have you ever heard of a breakfast joint offering 99 cent bloody marys and mimosas? Well, now you have!
P.S. Everywhere you turn the view of the mountains surrounding you is nothing short of spectacular. This is Colorado livin' my friends.

The restaurants slogan is "Eat in the Buff"

They had a pitcher of water and 6 empty mason jars waiting for us when we sat down. This is a key detail I can always appreciate.

We were all intrigued by the the Pecan Caramel Quesadilla made with brown sugar streusel, and cream cheese in a flour tortilla, so we decided to split it.The quesadilla was the perfect few bites of crunchy, nutty, sugary and cinnamony goodness before the real deal. I feel like ordering appetizers are unheard of at breakfast (?) but I love that we did!
Off the Griddle Collection menu I ordered the Two Step. Why hello, two slices of french toast, two eggs, potatoes, and two links of sausage. The waitress let me substitute in the banana bread style for the regular french toast. Best decision I've made yet.


This is, quite possibly, one of the best breakfasts I have ever savored  stuffed my face with. The eggs were cooked perfectly to my liking - a tad bit runny. The french toast was thick and moist, bursting with banana, cinnamon and toasted nut flavors. I managed to consume all of my eggs, the majority of crispy potatoes, 1 out of 2 sausage links, and about 1 whole slice of the homemade banana bread french toast. We finished a second round of drinks - they actually have a limit of three, but two at this hour was just plenty.
I wasn't the only one packing up a to-go carton after this insane meal. Food as good as this can not go to waste.

The Buff is not in the center of all the action, it is actually in the opposite direction of downtown from Laura's apartment, so we dropped the car (and the leftovers) off and continued our day on foot. Bliss was the first store we wandered into. I wanted to buy every other journal, soap dish and pair of earrings I saw, but I stuck to browsing and snapping a few pictures instead.

After a few more stops at some really neat clothing stores and boutiques we came upon Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery.
Let the day drinking continue! The staff at Mountain Sun were extremely friendly and since it was the majority of our parties first time here we were offered a brewery taster with six ales to sample before deciding on our own. 

I drank a Retro Ale, delish!


As I rounded the hallway to the bathroom....the super friendly brewmaster saw me taking pictures from behind the glass walls and invited me behind the scenes. We chatted it up about Boulder and my blog. His name is Nate.

We finished our beers and continued to the heart of downtown, the Pearl Street Mall.

Evergreen trees line the center paths and today the bright sun streamed through the branches.
There are bright flowers and exotic plants in bloom.You'll find plenty of park benches, newspaper stands, local flyer boards, mountains in the distance and even some live entertainment.

There's me taking it all in.

Loving life!

P.S. Colorado has 8.16% sales tax - it is quite a shock the first time you purchase something! Probably my most favorite store that we went into was Peppercorn. This store is two floors, though I only circled the first. To begin, the cookbook section is massive.

Actually, every section in this store is massive in quantity. Dirty hot sauce collection anyone?

When we finally pulled ourselves out of there....a few more stores later....

The consensus echoed - it was definitely time for more drinks. Happy Hour at The Mediterranean Restaurant awaited us. Probably one of the coolest things about Boulder is the drink specials (varying from bar to bar) from 3:00 to 5:30pm. I remember being so jealous learning about this citywide deal when Laura first moved here. Happy Hour in Boston is non-existent (why oh why...) so this was really a treat!Entering through a funky teal green door into a bright space with large green potted plants to one side and a chic bar sprawling in front of you, there are multiple dining rooms that stretch from the windows on Walnut Street to the far corners of the building. I also noticed an outside seating section with a large tile mosaic spanning the wall enclosing the patio.
I enjoyed the view from our round table which looked up at the elevated open kitchen.The drinks are pretty cheap to begin with and Happy Hour at The Med is $1 off the listed price.

I enjoyed a refreshing White Wine Sangria. We ordered a few tapas to hold us over until dinner. First, a slice each of the Margherita Pizza.

A few bites of Artichauts which are fried artichoke hearts with aioli and some Bistecca - grilled hanger steak with blue cheese were scrumptious.
My personal favorite of the bunch were the Datiles - bacon wrapped dates in garlic sauce.
You really can't go wrong with wedges of Mozzarella - fried topped in marinara sauce and basil.
Everything was delicious. To bad this wasn't our dinner because I really wanted to taste more of their tapas! What a perfect spot. I definitely recommend The Med if you are visiting Boulder. Actually, I highly recommend all the spots I ate and drank at today. We settled the ridiculously inexpensive tab (happy hour = love) and headed back to home base to get ready for another evening on the town!