Flagstaff House Restaurant

Upon arrival, we saw a wonderous night view of the entire city of Boulder.  The restaurant was cut into the side of a mountain. We were pretty much near the top.  It was raining when we arrived and low and behold, there was ONLY valet parking much to our surprise and happiness. Included was an escort with an umbrella out of the rain safely into the restaurant.  The hostess greeted us with such warmth we felt like we'd arrived at a familiar place.  She also gave us a great table with a view of the city lights as requested by Jon earlier.  Customer service there was a model for any restaurant wanting guests to come back again and again.  At one point, I watched a large table of about 8 get surrounded by about 5 bus-girls who literally, no kidding, simultaneously pick up two dishes and two bowls and their accompanying silverware and whisk them away without disturbing the banter at the table.  The service was well coordinated, rehearsed and executed as though they were a basketball team taking the ball from the sidelines straight to the other side's basket.

The menu.  First off, our names were on the menu!  Jon had told them we were celebrating an anniversary, so dutifully and well executed was "Happy Anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Paolini" scrawled at the top of each of our menus.  After the shock and awe wore off, we began looking at our selections.  The variety of meat, vegetarian and seafood was perfect.  All of the details of each dish were presented well.  You knew exactly what you were getting into yet had no idea what your tastebuds were in for.  Before we even ordered however, we were brought a fried banana wrapped in bacon and tuna confeit on toasted bread points "compliments of the chef."  Then we ordered our appetizer and entree.  After sitting and chatting about Russian Land Treaties for awhile (don't ask, we didn't get very far) we were brought "compliments of the pastry chef" a small buffalo pot pie.  The meat was crumbled and spicy, the flaky top was a perfect compliment to it.  Soon after followed the First Course.  Jon's was a crispy soft duck egg over a bed of shitake mushrooms and white truffle infused Italian Heirloom Polenta.  I stuck with a familiar item and had the Diver Caught Scallops with hand-made mushroom risotto. Main Course was vegetarian for me (I needed light), "Beggar's Purse" (Shitake and Morel mushrooms and Goat's cheese) and white bean arugula with greens over grilled eggplant while Jon was continuing the adventerous spirit for the both of us having caviar scallops and Red Trout.  I was happy with my lighter fare as "compliments of the pastry chef" we received a pannacotta, tray of candies, sugars and unsweetened cream for coffee or munching "which ever you prefer" and a "Happy Anniversary" assortment of small desserts let alone our "actual" dessert of Raspberry Truffle and Nutmeg Caramel Truffle.  We were happily discussing light topics by this time (like "Which was the smartest: Daffy Duck or Elmer Fudd? and the philosophy of Bugs Bunny) so our evening coasted into a happy and content drive home with few conversation save the tip we left and the unwelcome May snow in Colorado.

Restaurant's site: http://www.flagstaffhouse.com/
Photos from Flaggstaff: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150177634230755.299743.657525754