Dear Tony...

The Travel Channel
Attn: Anthony Bourdain

Dear Mr. Bourdain-

Your most recent episode of No Reservations (episode is exactly what I hope it is) atrociously entitled “Heartland” sought to encapsulate, in a one hour segment, the flavor of the land often derogatorily labeled as “flyover country” by so many coast-dwelling snobs. As one of those coast dwelling snobs however, I can tell you that few of even the most ardent “No-Way-I’m-Switching-Planes-in-St. Louis” urbanite would dare stopover in God’s Country on an overnight business trip, perfunctorily jot down a few ideas of their impressions of a city from the window of the Holiday Inn and claim on television that they have a sense of the place.

You’re normally so much better than that.

Perhaps it was because you derided a place so dear to my soul. Even if only four years of the past ten years of my life were spent in the Rocky Mountain State, I can tell you that world travelers who meander for even a few months can never get the crisp air, blue sky and granite water out of their veins. And the food rocks.

You went to Denver and ate exotic hot dogs and claimed you had a sense of the place. And by the way, only the Texas skiers and other snow-burnt tourists who are afraid to wander off the 16th Street Mall eat at the Cheesecake Factory.

Were you too anxious to wander down one of the wildest avenues in North America – Colfax – and savor the best Ethiopian food outside Washington DC? You should have gotten around to trying the Mexican and El Salvadoran joints on Santa Fe. Did you not hear that on the many rooftop patios in Boulder they serve some of the freshest oysters around - flown in daily from the Pacific Northwest - and that there below the Flatirons one can find fine organic restaurants which dot the city like lead-hatted crazies at a tea party? Perhaps if you scratched the surface, you’d have discovered a phenomenal Nepalese restaurant high up in nearby Nederland or the best margaritas north of Santa Fe downtown at the Rio Grande. You are a man of the written word, but did you know that Jack Kerouac loved Denver – in fact Neal Cassidy’s brother opened a bar “My Brother’s Bar” that still exists today - serving the finest Buffalo burger made to order? If you're always hungry for more, like you claim, you could pop in to one of the two best sushi joints outside of Japan I’ve been to since I left - it is located just south of Washington Square Park (Sushi Den).

One of the things that sets you apart from your rotund Travel Channel counterpart is that you do more than just sit around and stuff an over-bloated snack hole with polite groans and corny, patronizing quiffs. But while in Denver, didn’t you at least have time to take a bike ride along the Platte River? A long weekend would be all you needed to go climbing in El Dorado, see a concert at Red Rocks, or relax in a hot springs in Glenwood Springs.

And don’t you like beer? You do indeed! You missed out on the Brewing State’s 92 breweries – the state ranking number one in gross delicious beer production.

Tony - the annual Great American Beer Festival is taking place in September 16-18: http://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/

I believe you’ve been told before – you don’t have a very hard job.

Return to the Rockies!

Regards,

Jason