This might be my new favorite place in Denver. Ace Eat Serve has been around for a bit but I hadn’t gotten a chance to check it out until this week. I have run into Penny, the Ace Eat Serve food truck, at several foodie events and they continue to serve what often turns out to be my favorite samplings at the event. Great food plus an Asian-style menu plus a large ping-pong hall serving draft craft beer, this place was on my to-visit list for way too long. A recent weekday off and gift card here let me enjoy what was one of my most enjoyable daytime dates in a while.
I started in the attached ping-pong hall, renting one of their many tables, and I grabbed a pitcher of beer. Kudos to the designer that thought to put beer tables between each ping-pong table, though I have to say that unlike bowling, my ping-pong game seriously declined as that beer pitcher emptied. During the day tables rent for around $10 an hour, pricing rises during peak evening hours. I was pleasantly surprised when I went to check out after playing nearly 2 hours that the happy hour special included free ping-pong with my beer or food purchase. The tables are placed so it doesn’t feel too crowded and you don’t have to worry about too much ball-chasing on errant slam shots; there are cans of balls around and every so often staff will go through and pick up and refill the balls.
At the end of our grueling ping-pong match, we transferred over our bar tab and were seated in the main dining hall. It has a nice industrial design and the large, curving front window looks out on to Uptown and the architecturally noted historic cathedral nearby.
Seeing too much good food to choose from, and knowing Ace mostly from foodie events, we created a meal out of various appetizers and small plates. We started with a Maitake Mushroom Bao Bun and a Sambal Shrimp Cake Bao Bun, and added on Sweet Chili Calamari, Vegetable Potstickers, and Tiger Wings. Upon urging I tried a Tiger chicken wing, and it was so good the part of my brain that tries to eat only seafood meat was temporarily overridden and I did serious damage to half of the plate of chicken wings. The least popular dish was the veggie potsticker; they were still good, just not as wonderful to us as everything else.
We were going to order another round of Shrimp Bao Buns to finish, but the server talked us into an order of fresh-made Donuts with chili-lime sauce instead. Wow…these things were good. Ace Eat Serve is a fun place with great food. I’ll be adding it to my list of great places to take friends and Denver visitors to.
Ace Eat Serve – 501 East 17th Avenue, Denver CO 80203