Nine 75 North: Not your Mama's Meatloaf

I am a fine dining aficionado so this blog will contain restaurant reviews. I tend to rate restaurants based on their service, ambience, appetizer, entree, wine, dessert, and coffee. It is rare that a restaurant does well in all these categories and their score can be dependent upon selections. Nine 75 North is only one of two places in the last two years that managed to score a 100 in all these areas. The other was the Charles Court in the Broadmoore hotel in Colorado Springs but that is another review.

Nine 75 North is located in Westminster of all places. Westminster is not known for its dining options, so the discovery of this restaurant was a delightful surprise. It is a new building with a tan rock interior covered in oil paintings of rock stars. The booths are black and contain a unique lumbar support pillow that all restaurants should adopt immediately. The human body is not formed into a right angle even if our chiropractors and pilates instructions tell us it is possible. The other cool feature of the ambience was the curved glasses on the tables and the strawberry cucumber water in them. It is nice to see a restaurant that did not buy their glassware from an antiques road show reject auction. The bar is in the middle of the restaurant and there are windows running 280 degrees around the outside. Some contain distant views of the mountains, flatirons and accompanying sunset.

I ordered the chipotle lobster tacos for an appetizer. These were dollhouse miniature perfect tacos three to a plate with about two bites per taco. They sat on dollops of guacamole and were refreshingly fun to munch. Next came the meatloaf. Being more of a food snob, I can truthfully say I have ignored all mention of meatloaf on every menu I have ever seen but this time it caught my eye. It was billed as containing both ground sirloin and pork with crispy onions. I decided to step out of character and take a chance. I was not disappointed. The meat was not a pre-fab slab but had a random shape that was far more appealing. The mashed potatoes had a nice bite to them and the onions were not greasy. I rounded out the evening with the Nine 75 twinkie cake which despite its name was a moist pound cake layered with butter frosting and rolled then covered in a Grand Marnier whipped cream sitting on some drizzled carmel sauce. The coffee was illy coffee and it was great. I am not a coffee drinker so coffee that does not taste like coffee is right up my alley.

I am looking forward to going back to Nine 75 North to try the osso buco, baja tacos, or miso marinated black cod. Rather than list everything on their menu, visit their Web site. Check back because unlike mega chains, Nine 75 changes their menu periodically.