Yes, I realize Kinga’s is nowhere near downtown Denver, but it fits because I was nowhere near downtown Denver over Fourth of July weekend. In fact, I was near Redstone, which is near Carbondale (pronounced “Car-bon-da-ley”) and Aspen, until late afternoon Monday. And that explains why I have to dig into my store of posts to update a theme from the spring of 2009.

I went to Kinga’s with Denveater and our respective honeys. From the outside, on Colfax, Kinga’s looks nondescript, but inside a series of rooms open up, from the bar with white columns to this formal dining room to a dark fireplace lounge to the back patio.

We began with drinks on the patio: spicy Zoladkowa orange-clover vodka for Denveater, served with OJ, and Zubrowka bison grass vodka for me, which had a more delicate flavor. Todd ordered the Okocim beer, and we shared the zapiekanka, bread topped with provolone and mushrooms and onions and a tangy sauce made from ketchup and possibly Worcestershire sauce.

After the patio grew chilly, we moved a few feet to the lounge and sat at a granite counter, where we tried all four Polish entrees on the menu. The rest of the menu is pretty standard bar fare.

I had a massive breaded pork loin schnitzel, which seemed a little reconstituted but was otherwise inoffensive. The potatoes and the cucumber salad in sour cream impressed me more. Ruth’s Polish meatballs with cheese-mushroom sauce (noticing a theme here?) reminded me of Salisbury steak. Brit had pierogi stuffed with potato, cabbage, and meat.

Todd chose the smoked red Kielbasa, which gave him a stomachache (especially after he ate the leftover one the next day), and sauerkraut. Overall, he prefers the food at Cracovia, another Polish restaurant in Denver that he reviewed here.

At some point, I wondered aloud why a Polish restaurant would be named Kinga’s (I thought the name sounded African), and Todd informed me Kinga was a first name, no doubt belonging to one of the owners. It seemed a very laid-back family-owned place (even our very good waitress was family), a suitable stop  to work off late-night munchies after bar-hopping on Colfax.