Flagstaff House: Its true, the view is what you pay for

My fine dining club was off to Ocean in Cherry Creek when one of our members, who works in Boulder, got sucked into a last minute meeting. We quickly switched our destination to the Flagstaff House. The irony of this choice is that last February we had reservations at the Flagstaff House but they closed on us because of a snow storm and we ended up at L'Atelier instead. Here we were at the Flagstaff house as our alternate choice.

I had always been told that the window seats were the premium seats but our table was just inside and our view as better in my mind because it was more expansive. If you are used to big city dining the view will be nothing special but for Boulderites who are not used to city lights it is unique. I can't tell you much I enjoy dining in a room filled with men in ties. Sometimes I think Coloradans have forgotten that nice piece of formality.

I confess I almost danced on the table when I saw that the wine list was a thick as the Denver white pages. There were 10 pages of Scotch that had me foaming at the mouth. I am lucky if a restaurant has one Scotch from the western Scottish islands. The Flagstaff House had an entire page and even a Scotch flight from Islay which I gleefully ordered. What a treat.

Even before the amuse bush, there were two chef's treats. One as a fried banana wrapped in bacon and the other a cheese tart. Both were unique and tantalizing.

The table ordered the Rabbit loin appetizer. It came wrapped in pancetta with goat cheese and a garlic sauce. Promising but not as robust as I would have hoped. Our other appetizer was a prawn, head-on, with crab and salmon roe. This appetizer was even more disappointing. It had one prawn on it and a mousse like lump of potato. It was bland and hard to share.

For our entrees, the table ordered two of the filets, mine with a fois gra supplement, a New York strip and rack of lamb. My filet was over cooked. It is possible it was swapped with the other filet which was order more cooked than mine, but with the fois gra supplement I did not feel comfortable asking. If that is case and the filets were switched, then it was a novice line chef mistake that you would think a place like the Flagstaff house would be above. I did taste the NY strip and it was far more tender and moist in its port wine sauce. I would recommend that entree. The filet came on a bed of beans and ham that seemed out of place and did not compliment the meat. I did not try the lamb but was told it was quite excellent.

The sommelier was very pleasant and zeroed in with seconds on a bottle of Scherrer Russian River 2004 Pinot Noir $78 ($38-45 retail) that was excellent, smooth, fruity, and managed to compliment all our entrees.

Before I describe the service I need to relate to you my baseline for excellent service. I was dining at Kevin Taylor's one day and was pulling the crust off my bread so that I could eat it later. Completely unbeknownst to me, a server had whisked my bread away and replaced it with de-crusted bread. Now that is a server who pays attention! The service at the Flagstaff house was fine but it did not live up to that level. We did dawdle quite a bit but the staff was very patient and friendly but not distinctive.

Dessert was a rectangular box of chocolate filled with cream and berries. Certainly enough for four and a nice capstone to the evening.

All in all we had a lovely time. Good friends, good wine and decent but not exceptional food made it delightful indeed. I would need to try a few more entrees to really recommend the cuisine.