Hernando's and Oreo Cake

Hernando’s website

Winter Park, CO

(970) 726-5409

My birthday dinner was equally delicious and anticipated as the lunch.  After Megan, Julien and I arrived in Fraser, my parents took us to Hernando’s in Winter Park.  The restaurant exterior is white with black stained wooden beams.  It looks like a mountain ski chalet.  When you walk in, the first thing you notice is that the walls are covered in dollar bills.  Apparently this tradition started with a bet between owners that if they hung a decorated dollar bill over the bar, then it would become a trend.  The trend eventually caught on (with a little bribing from the desperate better) and now there is over $20,000 in decorated bills.

There was quite a wait in the waiting area so we started with drinks at the bar.  I ordered some Stranahan’s Colorado whiskey and 7up so that Megan could try it.  She ordered a fuzzy navel while Julien gave Blue Moon a try.  By the time we got all of our drinks, we were seated on the patio.  It was a beautiful evening to eat in the open mountain air.

Hernando’s is known for its pizza.  The traditional type of pizza is the common Colorado style of a thickly rolled crust.  The large crust is perfect to eat with a little honey.  We ordered two traditional pizzas.  The Hernando’s Traditional Pizza style is made with zesty pizza sauce on homemade dough with mozzarella cheese.

The first pizza, we ended up splitting in half and getting two types.  The first type is the Hawaiian which has ham, almonds and pineapple.  This is my favorite Hawaiian style pizza that I’ve ever tried.  The almonds get toasty in the oven and become an essential ingredient to this pizza.  The second half was the Column I.  It is so called because it is all of the ingredients in the first column on the menu (which just so happen to be all meat).  These are pepperoni, sausage, meatballs, salami, ham and bacon.

The second pizza we got was the Vegetarian pizza.  It has black olives, mushrooms, onions and green peppers.  I liked these other pizzas but the Hawaiian will always be my favorite.

After dinner, we headed back to the condo for dessert.  My mom had invented a dessert that was inspired by our guests.  It was a frozen Oreo ice cream cake that she had dubbed Olympic Oreo Dessert in honor of the Olympics.  It took her several days to make since she had to freeze each layer before adding another.  The bottom layer was a crushed Oreo crust.  Then she had layers of Oreo ice cream and chocolate fudge.  It was topped with more Oreo cookie crumbles.  This dessert was quite decadent.  It was so rich that I could only handle a small square of it.  I love ice cream cakes so it was a perfect birthday surprise.