Christmas Dinner at Wahso

Christmas in a ski town is particularly fun. The snow is Christmas-card snow, cartoon snow, piled up on rooftops and perched on pine boughs and glowing from the lights strung underneath. The town is generally very busy, and the evenings are full of exciting meals and entertainment. My Christmas tradition means going out to dinner. This year, we went to Wahso on Main Street.

Wahso, like many Main Street restaurants, is more on the fine dining side of the spectrum, though the dress code is “mountain casual.” Jeans and a mock turtleneck zip-top sweater are the norm but a suit jacket or heels aren’t at all inappropriate.

This time of year, all the lights at individual shops are lit, plus the town strings multi-colored lights from building to building the whole length of Main.
For starters, we had the steamed pork belly buns and potstickers. The buns were chewy and soft, the pork belly irresistibly crispy, and the homemade pickle, well, can you ever go wrong with a pickle? The pot stickers were also fantastic, nicely shaped, perfectly cooked, and an interesting fusion-y sauce of soy and balsamic vinegar.

For entrees, my husband opted for the New York with ginger fried rice.

I opted for the seared duck breast and duck confit. We both cleared our plates. Even my pomegranate teriyaki sauce, which is saying something because I’m usually not a fan of pomegranate seeds.

For dessert, we had the coconut creme brulet, which was brulete-d and served in an actual half coconut shell. The tower you see is a beautiful macaroon and chocolate-dipped pokey sticks. We also sipped a whiskey and a sherry, because we are old-timey like that.

One bottle of wine and two spirits in us, we bid goodbye to our excellent server and walked out onto the cold, crisp air of Main Street in December. People were still out and active, the neighborhood still alive and vibrant.

And of course, the Main Street trolley was running (have I mentioned how fabulous our free city bus system is lately? It’s fabulous. Also free.) so we hopped on and rode it for a few blocks to get us closer to our home in the historic district of Old Town.