Rocky Mountain Oyster

Thai Monkey Club

2012-03-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we found ourselves on a journey to Thai Monkey Club, which supposedly offered Thai food so good that it warranted a long drive from the suburbs to Denver.

We headed toward the south Broadway / Wash Park / Baker district that we only seem to venture into for food; Sweet Action Ice Cream and Beatrice & Woodsley are just a couple blocks away.

Thai Monkey Club doesn't look like much from the outside. It's situated on a eclectic part of south Broadway known for good restaurants, antique shops, and kitschy furniture. Oh, and there's plenty of places like the adult video store that's right across the street from Thai Monkey Club.

So why were we at Thai Monkey Club anyway? Well, because we love Thai food but we haven't tried nearly enough Thai places around town. One of our friends, let's call him "Chang," found the restaurant a couple weeks ago and has raved about it, so we figured it was worth a stop.

Chang met up with us for our earlybird dinner at 3 pm on a Sunday. Despite the unassuming exterior, Thai Monkey Club's interior was filled with brightly painted walls, Thai art, and a giant monkey mural. The restaurant was small, with tables to seat only maybe 25 people. It was completely empty when we showed up, and a few other couples arrived while we ate.

Our waiter was a bit slow to take our orders, but our food arrived incredibly quickly once he had done so.

We started off with the Fresh Spring Rolls ($4.95), which Chang had warned us were the one item he'd tried at Thai Monkey Club that he didn't like.

Spring Rolls

The spring rolls were very average. They were packed with vegetables, which is normally a good thing, but there was just too much lettuce. The rolls also contained quite a bit of mint, which I enjoyed, but other people may dislike the intense mint flavor. People like Chang.

But the spring rolls were soon redeemed by the deliciousness of our entrees.

My husband selected the Drunken Noodles with chicken ($7.95 + $2 for chicken). Thai Monkey Club offers its patrons a selection of spiciness levels between 1 and 6, with a 3 supposedly being "fairly hot." Mr. Oyster is a big tough guy and he opted for a "4."

Drunken Noodles

The drunken noodles were excellent. The dish was very heavy on the vegetables, containing large chunks of red pepper, baby corn, tomatoes, Chinese broccoli, and carrots. The chicken and egg were less prominent but very tasty and well cooked. The sauce itself was very spicy (as requested) and flavorful.

And I ordered my Thai go-to dish, the Panang Curry ($8.95 + $2 for chicken):

Panang Curry

I had to keep up with my husband, so I ordered it at a level "4" as well.

The curry base was outstanding. Yes, it was spicy. It had the perfect mix of coconut, spices, and chili heat. Like the Drunken Noodles, the curry was heavy on vegetables, particularly bell pepper and broccoli. The chicken was cut in small pieces and had absorbed much of the curry flavor. The dish was served with a large heap of rice that I used to cut out some of the heat.

I definitely preferred this Panang curry over Tuk Tuk's - and that's saying a lot, because I still love the Panang at Tuk Tuk. Thai Monkey Club's curry tasted less sweet and less coconut-heavy than at Tuk Tuk. Keep in mind, however, that entrees at Thai Monkey Club cost about $3 more than comparable dishes at Tuk Tuk.

After sweating our way through the curry and drunken noodles, we were very satisfied with our meal at Thai Monkey Club. If it were closer to our house, we'd probably be ordering take-out from them at least once a week. I'm not sure how it compares to any of the surrounding Thai restaurants, but we'll certainly try to make another visit when we're in the area.

Everyday Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Excellent Drunken Noodles and Panang Curry.
Cons: Service a little slow, prices a little high

Website:
http://thaimonkeydenver.com/

The Kitchen

2012-03-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Kitchen is a much-buzzed Boulder farm-to-table restaurant that elbowed its way to the #14 spot on 5280's 25 Best Restaurants list in October 2011.

Mr. Oyster and I visited The Kitchen a couple years ago in our pre-blog days and we felt a bit lukewarm about the place, but we decided to give it another try last weekend.

The Kitchen lies immediately west of the Pearl Street Mall, just next door to Salt. Adjacent to The Kitchen are its sister restaurants, The Kitchen [Upstairs], and The Kitchen [Next Door].

The Kitchen seems to epitomize Boulder with its ubiquitous use of the word "community," its commitment to renewable energy, and its nonprofit dedicated to gardens in schools.

We stopped by for brunch on a Saturday at 12:30 pm.. The Kitchen doesn't take reservations for brunch, and securing a table was no easy feat. We were told that the wait would be about 20 minutes, and after that 20 minutes passed we were offered a patio seat. Considering how blustery it was that day, I'm surprised the staff would seat people outside. We opted to wait another ten or so minutes for an indoor spot. Once that was "ready", we went inside and then had to wait a few more minutes before the table was fully prepped.

And we were finally ready to begin our meal. Our waiter brought a carafe of water, and I ordered a latte ($3.95).

Latte

My latte was perfect. The swirled foam layer was frothy, thick, and creamy. The sugar chunks on the side made for a beautiful presentation.

My husband decided on the Long Family Farm Ham with poached eggs, Hollandaise, and an English muffin ($14), which The Kitchen curiously spells out on their menu rather than call it "Eggs Benedict." The dish arrived with a side of breakfast potatoes.

Eggs Benedict

The presentation was lovely and the portion was fairly large. The bread was topped with multiple layers of thinly-sliced ham, poached eggs, and a generous helping of creamy hollandaise sauce.

The benedict was good but not particularly special. The hollandaise and ham both tasted a bit bland.

The breakfast potatoes were really the star of this dish. They were perfectly seasoned, and cooked to a crispy exterior and soft interior.

My brunch dish was the Spicy Long Farm Pork Green Chili ($14), which came with two eggs and cornbread.

Spicy Long Farm Pork Green Chili

The Kitchen advertises this dish as "spicy" by the first word in the dish's title, but it really had no heat at all to it. I was disappointed by the lack of spiciness, although the chili was otherwise well-seasoned and filled with large chunks of pork. The cornbread cube was dry and bland; I had to mix it with the chili to make it enjoyable to eat.

I hadn't requested any specifics as far as how the eggs were cooked, but they were served in the exact form I prefer them: over-medium, with just a hint of runny yolk.

Service was a little slow but otherwise good. The waitstaff did a great job of refreshing our water carafe and my husband's iced tea.

The Kitchen offers a great restaurant concept in terms of their commitment to farm-to-table dining and community support. However, their prices feel a bit steep and their brunch offerings just don't quite come together for me.

Casual Dining

(6 of 10)

Pros: High quality ingredients, great lattes
Cons: Food sometimes lacking in flavor and cohesion, long wait for table at brunch

Website:
http://thekitchencommunity.com/the-kitchen-boulder/

5280 Best New Restaurants of 2011

2012-02-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

5280 Magazine's March 2012 issue lists the eight best new restaurants in Denver.

Their top selections include three spots that have been reviewed in the Rocky Mountain Oyster: Pizzeria Locale, Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar, and Linger.

5280's complete list of the Best New Restaurants of 2011:

Pinche Taqueria
Tag Raw Bar
Charcoal
Pizzeria Locale
Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar
Trillium
CafeBar
Linger

Looks like I've got five more restaurants to add to my queue!

Check out the article and let's look forward to more great new restaurants in 2012.

Braised Lamb Shank @ Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar

Hapa Sushi Grill & Sake Bar - Landmark

2012-02-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

I remember very distinctly the first time I had sushi with Mr. Oyster. We were in college in Boulder and had just started dating, and I wanted him to try more adventurous foods than the pizza and pasta he had eaten all his life. I brought him to Hapa Sushi on Pearl Street for his first sushi experience, and he instantly reeled a bit at the sight and smell of the uncooked seafood. After a meal full of various shapes and textures of raw fish, he reluctantly confessed: "well, I guess sushi is ok."

That was many, many years ago now, and since that time Mr. Oyster and I have graduated college, moved to the south suburbs, gotten married, worked too much, and started a food blog. Oh, and Hapa has built a couple more restaurants across the metro area, including one near us at Landmark in Greenwood Village that we visited last weekend.

Hapa is not an ideal spot if you're looking for a truly authentic sushi experience. Its menu is filled with "Americanized" sushi rolls containing sugary sauces, fried things and cream cheese everywhere. You also may not want to bring kids to Hapa, or your grandma, or your boss, as the sushi menu is filled with suggestive names. It's more of a trendy, lively place to grab drinks and dinner with friends. You can see why it would thrive in a college town like Boulder, but it also fills a niche in Landmark by catering to the crowds visiting Comedy Works and nearby bars.

Hapa was nearly full when we arrived for our 6 pm reservations on a Friday night, and was completely packed by the time we left. We sat at the sushi bar and watched the chefs in action while we enjoyed our meal.

We started with a sunomono salad ($6), which was comprised of cucumbers with a vinegar dressing, topped with shrimp and octopus.

Sunomono Salad

The salad looked beautiful but was disappointing in terms of taste. The shrimp and octopus pieces both tasted a bit dry. All that was left below the seafood were a million slices of cucumber, making for a tedious eating experience to finish up the salad. I was glad to be splitting the salad with my husband, or I would've given up on the task of eating so much cucumber.

Hapa offers an extensive beer, sake, and cocktail list. Mr. Oyster was very excited to hear that Great Divide Brewing Company makes a rice beer - simply called Hapa Beer ($4) - specifically for Hapa locations across Denver.

Hapa Beer by Great Divide

The beer was excellent, but it tasted very very similar to Great Divide's Samurai Rice Ale, which is available in limited distribution across Colorado.

We then moved on to a half order of the salmon sashimi ($8.5).

Salmon Sashimi

The simple salmon preparation was perfect. The thickly-sliced pieces were succulent, buttery and rich. I could've eaten about ten of them.

We then enjoyed two sushi rolls, the Dragon Roll ($13) and the Pittsburgh Roll ($7.5).

Dragon Roll (front), Pittsburgh Roll (back)

The Dragon Roll contained crab, shrimp tempura, and cucumber, all wrapped in avocado and eel, and drizzled with a very sweet soy sauce. It was, as expected, decadent, fatty, and rich. I enjoyed it but I was glad we had only ordered one roll that was so heavy tasting.

The Pittsburgh Roll was much simpler than the Dragon, containing only cream cheese, raw salmon, and cucumber. The combination of the fatty salmon, rich cream cheese, and light, crunchy cucumber made for a lovely sushi roll.

Still a bit hungry, we decided to try one last roll, the Mork and Mindy ($8).

Mork and Mindy Roll

This roll contained large chunks of white tuna and salmon, along with chives and mandarin oranges. It was a very fresh, light-tasting and citrusy combination, and a perfect finish to our meal.

I loved the sushi rolls and the sashimi we had at Hapa; I wouldn't get the Sunomono Salad again. Presentation of all the dishes was beautiful.

Don't expect a remotely authentic sushi experience at Hapa at Landmark, but it does have a lively atmosphere, a great drink list, and plenty of decent sushi options.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Great sushi rolls, reasonably priced
Cons: Crowded, skip the sunomono salad

Website:
http://hapasushi.com

I'm still alive. Just busy.

2012-02-21T18:49:00.002-07:00

I know things have been a bit dull around the Oyster lately, and I just wanted to let all two of my followers know that more posts will be up soon. Life has just gotten a bit hectic.

But I've still found time to eat plenty of food and drink plenty of beer, and I'll be back to writing all about it soon.

Oh, and happy Mardi Gras everyone!

The Wanderer by City Beer and The Bruery
City Beer - San Francisco, CA

Go Vote! 5280 Top of the Town and Westword's 2012 Best of Denver Readers' Poll

2012-02-13T19:06:00.002-07:00

Westword and 5280 both have reader polls open for the best of Denver 2012:

Westword 2012 Best of Denver Readers' Poll

5280 Top of the Town Ballot

Westword's closes March 22, and 5280's closes March 18.

The polls pertain to all things local, but since I only leave the house to work, eat, and drink beer, I could only comment on the food and drink scene in Denver.

Oh, and feel free to vote for the Rocky Mountain Oyster as "Best Blogger"!

Below are my picks; I only voted when I felt strongly about a certain restaurant or food.

From Westword's Poll:

91. Best brunch
Duo

99. Best expense-account dinner
Opus

100. Best first-date restaurant
Root Down

101. Best restaurant for a last meal
ChoLon

108. Best bakery
Pierre Michel French Bakery

116. Best brewpub
Southern Sun

117. Best tap house
Avery Brewing Company

119. Best bottle beer list
Hops & Pie

120. Best draft beer list
Hops & Pie

123. Best house margarita
Lola

133. Best hot dog
Biker Jim's

137. Best mac and cheese
Hops & Pie OR Biker Jim's

138. Best pizza
Mellow Mushroom OR Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria

142. Best free chips and salsa
La Loma

164. Best French restaurant
Pierre Michel Organic French Bakery OR Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar

165. Best American restaurant
Root Down

From 5280's Poll:

Bakery:
Pierre Michel Organic French Bakery

Breakfast:
Snooze

Brunch:
Duo

Burger:
Larkburger

Dessert:
ChoLon

Donuts:
Salt

Gluten-Free Menu:
Root Down

Hot Dog / Sausage:
Biker Jim's

Ice Cream / Gelato:
Sweet Action

Kid-Friendly Restaurant:
Parry's Pizzeria OR Mellow Mushroom (SouthGlenn)

Meatball:
Wooden Table

Patio Dining:
Lola

Pizza:
Mellow Mushroom OR Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria

Half Order of Curious Jorge French Toast at Snooze

Avery Brewing Company

2012-02-05T10:27:00.005-07:00

Our quest to drink beer from every corner of the Front Range (so far we've still got a long way to go...) has brought many requisite visits to Avery Brewing Company in Boulder.

Avery is located in kind of a random industrial area in East Boulder, near Cherryvale and Arapahoe. Their directions clearly state to "turn at the car wash" off Arapahoe. From there, you drive back several hundred yards before trying to find a parking spot among the constant crowds at Avery.

The gem hiding behind the car wash

We've been to the tap room three times now, and it's always been fairly busy. Service can be slow, but the waitstaff is extremely knowledgeable about Avery's beer selection.

Mr. Oyster has loved Avery's beer for years, especially their White Rascal and Samael brews. I have an admittedly unrefined palate when it comes to fancy craft beers, but I do enjoy sours and Cascade-hopped IPAs. In particular, I fell in love with Avery's Eremita II beer, which I tried this past December at their tap room.

The colorful Eremita II description, straight from Avery's website:

Eremita II is strong blonde sour ale that has been residing in seven French oak barrels for two years. After a primary fermentation with a Belgian abbey yeast, we pitched it with our house Brettanomyces strain, house pediococcus, and lactobacillus. The resulting beer was a balancing act of rustic farmhouse flavors, mild oak tannins, moderate lactic activity, and an aroma of tropical fruit. After adding a healthy dose of apricots and peaches, we have Eremita II, an incredibly smooth 10.1% aby American Sour Ale. Available only at the Avery Tap Room for a limited time.

Eremita II was one of their revolving "tap-room-only" beers, so unfortunately it existed for only a few weeks before being consumed by the beer-loving Front Range public. It was a short-lived concoction of fruity, sour ale bliss. I wish I'd taken a picture of it, and I wish it still existed, as it was one of my all-time favorites.

Oh, by the way, Eremita is apparently the latin word for hermit, in reference to the fact that Eremita is a tap-room-only beer.

I arrived a few weeks later for their Eremita III, hoping that it met or surpassed my fondness for its predecessor.

Eremita III

It did not. Compared to Eremita III, it simply tasted flat and uninspired, and too similar to so many other sours on the market now.

Both iterations of Eremita had an alcohol content of around 10%, and were sold only in 4-oz taster glasses at $5 each.

Avery offers special tappings every Friday afternoon, which apparently are a really big deal. The week of our last visit, their just-tapped brew was the Chocolate Mint Stout:

Chocolate Mint Stout

Unfortunately, this beer was an indication that Girl Scout Cookies and fermentation shouldn't be combined. We just didn't care for the mint flavor with the stout.

And I always get my standby, the White Rascal, which is a crowd-pleasing Belgian-style wheat.

Avery does offer food from Savory Cuisines across the parking lot, but having never tried any food there I can't comment on it.

Adjacent to the tap room is their giant barrel-aging cellar, where you can take a sneak peak at which brews are aging for future release.

Avery offers bottles, cans, and kegs of a limited selection of beers, but otherwise you'll be hard-pressed to get any alcohol out of the tap room. Avery does not fill growlers due to a series of concerns regarding the flavor and quality of their beer once it exits the tap room, including vessel cleanliness and maintaining adequate carbonation. Call it beer snobbery or call it good business sense (or both), but don't expect to walk away from Avery with a glass jug filled with beer. We tried. Bummer.

Website:
http://www.averybrewing.com/

Parry's Pizzeria & Bar

2012-01-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

My husband loves pizza, he loves beer, and he loves locally-owned restaurants that are conveniently close to our house (not always an easy thing to find in Highlands Ranch). To his absolute joy, he recently noticed "Coming Soon" signs at a shopping area near our house for Parry's Pizzeria & Bar, which advertised over 50 draft handles.

Since then, Mr.Oyster has been ridiculously excited for the restaurant to open. He has repeatedly craned his neck while driving past to see how close Parry's might be to serving thirsty, hungry patrons. He has speculated as to what beers they might offer, and how good their pizza might be.

So we were very excited to attend Parry's "Friends and Family" grand opening this past Thursday at their Highlands Ranch location.

Parry's already has two other south-suburban locations, one in Parker and one in Castle Rock. I haven't been to either of those spots, but apparently they are smaller and are less beer-centric than the new Highlands Ranch location.

We arrived to a packed and lively Parry's Pizzeria & Bar. The restaurant has a definite sports bar feel to it. There's a large, separated bar room directly in front of the main entrance, where the famous 50 taps are showcased. The main dining area is also spacious, with seating in brick booths and flat-screen TVs everywhere.

Their extensive beer list included many local Colorado favorites, and other well known-beers from across the country. I ordered a White Rascal from Avery Brewing Company, and my husband enjoyed a Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat followed by a Rotator IPA.

We talked to their manager briefly about Parry's beer selection, and they certainly offer (or plan to offer) a wide variety of well-known local and national beers. There aren't many places in the south suburbs with such a sophisticated beer menu, so they will stand out from other restaurants with their beers alone.

As for our food choices, we started off with an order of their Buffalo Wings:

Buffalo Wings

Yes, that's steam coming off the top. The wings required a little bit of a wait, but they arrived at our table piping hot and fresh out of the fryer. The wings were very large, and were coated in a thick, spicy wing sauce which I thought had the perfect amount of heat for a "hot" wing.

We also ordered their "Summer of 2010" pizza, which contained pepperoni, Fontanini Italian sausage, jalapenos, and pepperocinis.

Summer of 2010 Pizza

I loved this pizza. It was cooked perfectly, and generously covered with cheese and toppings. The pepperocinis and jalapenos tasted freshly chopped, and added a pleasant heat to the pizza. The Italian sausage was extremely thinly sliced and well seasoned.

For dessert, our meal ended with a cannoli:

Cannoli

This was the only thing from Parry's I wasn't crazy about. I didn't get much of a ricotta taste from the filling, and it hadn't been piped into the center of the cannoli very well, leaving much of the cannoli shell vacant.

Parry's is likely to be a crowd-pleaser in Highlands Ranch, by keeping patrons entertained with sports, pizza, and beer, while also being a completely acceptable place to bring kids.

The staff was extremely gracious and seemed very enthusiastic about the new restaurant. Parry's apparently has large expansion plans in the works, and I'm sure they'll be extremely successful.

Casual Dining

Website:
http://www.parryspizza.com/

Cucina Colore

2012-01-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, we met up with Sizzling Cupcake and her friend for dinner at Cucina Colore in Cherry Creek. Neither of us knew much about Cucina Colore, but we had picked it from the list of Denver's savored.com restaurants.

Cucina Colore has an outstanding location at 3rd and Steele Street in the heart of Cherry Creek North. If you've never soaked in the atmosphere of Cherry Creek North before, let me just sum it all up by pointing out that there is a giant Lululemon store right across the street from Cucina Colore.

Our reservations were for a 7 pm dinner on a Thursday night. Inside, the restaurant was packed with attractive, well-dressed Cherry Creek types. It had a very lively atmosphere and certainly seemed to be a popular local spot.

Cucina Colore apparently offers "the contemporary expression of Italian cuisine." I'm not sure what that means, but the menu features an array of pizzas and homemade pasta dishes.

For an appetizer, we ordered the Baked Fonduta, which was a cheese dip including blue crab, spinach, and artichoke hearts, with mozzarella and fontina cheese. After assuring us that our appetizer would be "right out", we waited a significant fraction of an eternity for the fonduta to arrive.

Baked Fonduta

After our ridiculously long wait for the fonduta, we were faced with a bowl of baked cheese surrounded by a haphazard assortment of crackers. The fonduta was ok; I mostly just tasted lots of cheese and crab.

We ordered one of their wood-fired pizzas with Italian sausage, red onion, and red peppers.

Red onion, pepper, and sausage pizza

It's hard to go wrong with red onion, red pepper, and sausage as toppings. I particularly loved the spicy Italian sausage. The crust, however, was a disappointment. It was burnt at the edges but too soft in the middle. We actually ordered two of these pizzas at the table, and they were both unevenly cooked.

As his entree, my husband ordered the Lobster and Shrimp Ravioli:

Lobster and Shrimp Ravioli

Like the pizza and the cheese dip before it, the ravioli was a letdown. The seafood filling was heavily pureed and lacked a noticeable lobster flavor. The pasta was covered with a cream sauce that was thin and weakly seasoned.

For dessert, we ordered tiramisu and cheesecake:

Tiramisu

Cheesecake

The presentation of the tiramisu was a little sloppy, and the portion a bit too big. I didn't detect much of a coffee or liquor taste, but it was basically a decent dessert.

The cheesecake, however, was extremely bland. It wasn't nearly sweet enough, and it lacked any noticeable lemon or vanilla flavor.

Even with our 30% savored.com discount, Cucina Colore felt too expensive. The tab was about $95 after our discount, including about $20 of drinks.

Cucina Colore looks and feels like a hip neighborhood spot, but tastes like a mediocre Italian chain. It also reminded me of every forgettable business lunch or dinner I've ever had. The restaurant has a great atmosphere, but service was slow and food was expensive and totally underwhelming.

Casual Dining

(3 of 10)

Pros: Great location in Cherry Creek North, lively atmosphere
Cons: Mediocre food, slow service

Website:
http://www.cucinacolore.com/

5280 Restaurant Week

2012-01-18T17:56:00.007-07:00

Denver Restaurant Week is coming up soon. From February 25 - March 9, you can enjoy a multi-course meal at many of Denver's restaurants for only $52.80 per couple.

Menus (and restaurants) are currently available on Facebook until January 20, after which the public can view them. You can find them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/visitdenver, and at their main webpage at http://www.denver.org/denverrestaurant/.

There are nearly 300 restaurants participating in the 2012 Denver Restaurant Week, and I've sampled a small fraction of the menu items of maybe 40 of those restaurants.

Many of Denver's top restaurants participate in Denver Restaurant Week, including 9 of 5280 Magazine's 25 Best Restaurants of 2011: Mizuna (#3), ChoLon (#5), Luca D'Italia (#6), Olivea (#15), Duo (#17), Rioja (#19), Edge (#23), Il Posto (#24), and Vesta Dipping Grill (#25) are all participating restaurants. Those restaurants, and many others, will fill up fast.

Of all the restaurants I've eaten at, ChoLon is one I'd really like to return to for Denver Restaurant Week.

You can read full reviews for the following restaurants participating in 2012 Denver Restaurant Week that I've reviewed for dinner:

ChoLon Bistro

Row 14

Root Down

Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar

Euclid Hall

Vesta Dipping Grill

Restaurant Kevin Taylor

Lola

Mizuna

Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria

Strings

Beatrice & Woodsley

Wooden Table

Please remember to tip generously during restaurant week!

Lamb Poutine @ Euclid Hall

Fruition

2012-01-15T07:42:00.004-07:00

Slowly but surely we've eaten our way through many of 5280's 25 Best Restaurants of 2011. Fruition has been at the top of our list for a while, mostly because it's been near the top of the 25 Best list for a while (#2 in 2011). We finally had a chance to visit in early January with another couple.

Fruition is located at 6th and Downing, between Cheesman Park and the Denver Country Club. Our reservations were for a Wednesday night at 7:30 pm. Before even entering the restaurant, we were already irked by the upscale establishment's lack of a valet on the very cold January night. After walking in, the hostess was unavailable, and we had to wait a few minutes before being seated.

Fruition is a small, intimate space, with dark lighting and tables stuffed in very close to one another. The restaurant was full to capacity except for our reserved table when we arrived.

It was hot inside the restaurant. Really hot. Bikram yoga hot (ok, not that bad). So after griping about how cold I was during my short walk from our parking spot to Fruition, I was abruptly faced with overheating during my meal.

We started off with drinks and complimentary bread and butter. Perusing the menu, Fruition seemed to offer many of the same foods as other well-known restaurants in Denver, including things like pork belly, duck confit, and fancy-sounding pasta topped with a runny-yolk egg.

Our waiter was very knowledgeable but disappeared for a couple very long stretches during the meal.

Between the four of us, we selected the following appetizers: Pasta Carbonara ($12), Confit Duck Leg Cassoulet ($12), and Nantucket Bay Scallops ($15).

Pasta Carbonara

The dish included house-cured pork belly, home made cavatelli noodles, and a "six minute" egg. I loved every bite. The egg had a fully cooked white and a runny yolk that melded well with the perfectly cooked pasta. The pork belly - aka bacon - was fatty, salty, and rich; coupled with the egg, it tasted like breakfast. But with pasta.

Confit Duck Leg Cassoulet

This traditional French stew included house-made duck sausage and white beans. Perfectly seasoned and filled with large chunks of savory duck sausage, it was an excellent comfort-food dish. On the side was a duck crackling salad that was less memorable.

Nantucket Bay Scallops

Yes, those are scallops, and not some kind of newfangled breakfast potatoes. The scallops were chopped into small pieces, seared, and served with veal sweetbreads, Meyer lemon gnocchi, Palisade pears and a heavy cauliflower soubise sauce. The natural flavor and texture of the scallops was completely drowned out in the searing and by the addition of so many other foods. The dish reminded me of the messy, greasy, too-much-stuff-on-the-plate gnocchi appetizer at Root Down.

We enjoyed the cassoulet and pasta carbonara appetizers, but we weren't crazy about the scallops.

As main courses, I settled on the Crock Pot Veal Cheeks ($28), and my husband ordered the Tender Belly Farms Grilled Pork Chop ($27).

Crock Pot Veal Cheeks

The slow-cooked veal cheeks were incredibly tender, and fell apart easily at the press of a fork. They were complimented by a wonderfully creamy sweet carrot crema. Atop the veal cheeks was a roasted chestnut and foraged mushroom salad with Pommery mustard vinaigrette. My only complaint about the dish was I felt the salad dressing was too liberally applied. Coupled with the fattiness of the crema and veal cheeks, it made for a very heavy taste to each bite. On the salad was a gnarled potato galette that I suppose was more for garnish than flavor.

Tender Belly Farms Grilled Pork Chop

The pork was served with a spaghetti squash rosti, and a caramelized brussel sprout and apple salad. The pork chop was very tender, but it was very weakly seasoned. The accompanying vegetables were tasty and well-prepared but not memorable. My veal cheeks were definitely better.

We finished off with one of their long-lived desserts, the Lemon Meringue Pie ($8):

Lemon Meringue Pie

The "pie" was a cylinder with a graham cracker crust, blueberry compote, and a torched whipped topping. It had a sharp lemony tartness, which I enjoyed, but I appreciated the small portion as the strong flavor made it hard to eat more than a few bites.

Everything felt like a bit of a letdown after our extremely high expectations for the restaurant. We generally liked the food, but it wasn't good enough for the price we paid. The service and atmosphere were sub-par for a fine dining experience. Fruition seems to have a loyal neighborhood following, but with our long trek to dine there, it just didn't seem worth it.

Fine Dining

(6 of 10)

Pros: Mostly very good food, high-quality ingredients
Cons: Way too hot during our visit, service sometimes inattentive

Website:
http://fruitionrestaurant.com/

Left Hand Brewing Company

2012-01-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

Left Hand Brewing Company brews up some fantastic local Colorado beer, and that should be evident by the fact that we drove all the way up from the south Denver suburbs to Longmont to check out their tasting room.

Most breweries and their respective tasting rooms are in giant, ugly industrial buildings. So I was thrown off to find Left Hand's tasting room was in this quaint, house-like abode:

Left Hand Tasting Room

We arrived just after the tasting room opened at 12 noon on a Friday. With wood paneling, a large bar area, and plenty of tables, it felt a lot like a neighborhood bar. Except for the gift shop, of course.

It was a low-key, quiet afternoon at the tasting room. The staff filled us in on the details of the day's tap beers while we nibbled on pretzels at the bar.

We ordered their sampler of eight beers:

Left to Right: Polestar Pilsner / Nitro Sawtooth Ale / Stranger Pale Ale / 400 Pound Monkey

Left to Right: Biere de Garde / Black Jack Cask Ale / Fade to Black / Nitro Milk Stout

Left Hand's Nitro Milk Stout is undoubtedly their most famous and well received beer, and it's one of my husband's favorites. The Sawtooth on nitro was unique to their tasting room, and Mr. Oyster loved the smooth nitrogen effervescence in Sawtooth just as much as with the Milk Stout.

Nitro Sawtooth Amber

Left Hand's tasting room had a really laid-back, friendly vibe. We got to sample all their standard beers, plus a few gems unique to the tasting room. Coupled with Oskar Blues right down the road, it made our long trip to Longmont worthwhile.

Website:

http://www.lefthandbrewing.com/blog/contact/#tasting-room

Savored.com

2012-01-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

I don't normally post opinions or reviews about anything you can't ingest on this website, but I had to carve out a special spot to mention my love of Savored.com.

Savored.com is a website that provides a 30% discount off the total tab (including alcohol!) at participating restaurants in exchange for paying $10 for a confirmed reservation at that particular restaurant.

So far, we have used Savored.com reservations once each at Colt & Gray, ChoLon, and Sushi Sasa. Each time we've visited, we've reminded the waitstaff before ordering about the savored.com deal, and they've never had any issues processing it.

Registering at savored.com is free and very easy.

Because of the $10 charge per reservation, you're making a little bit of an investment in your dinner. The more people and the more food and drinks you order, the more the initial $10 pays off. However, be aware that Savored.com maximizes party size at four people. They do offer to refund your money if your meal savings are less than the reservation fee. You also have until two hours before reservation time to cancel or make changes.

I have had one small snag with savored.com. A few months ago, we made Savored.com dinner reservations for four at ChoLon that savored.com overbooked and was subsequently forced to cancel. They refunded our $10 reservation fee, and awarded us $30 to use toward future reservations. Normally this would only buy us three reservations, but because of a $5 post-Thanksgiving sale, were were able to stretch that $30.

The biggest downside to Savored is probably the limited number of participating restaurants. There are only 20 restaurants in Denver to choose from, although among that number are some of the best restaurants in town.

I would strongly recommend a savored.com membership for anyone who eats out frequently.

Please note that I have no affiliation whatsoever with Savored.com, and I am writing this review purely out of my own positive experiences with Savored.

Mussels at Colt & Gray

Soup Dumplings at ChoLon

Sushi Rolls at Sushi Sasa

Website:

http://savored.com

Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids

2012-01-05T19:48:00.001-07:00

Right off the diagonal highway as you approach Longmont from Boulder lies this mecca for good beer and barbecue:

Oskar Blues Liquids & Solids

Despite the use of Oskar Blues's name, Liquids & Solids is definitely not a brewery. As the name implies, it's a restaurant with an outstanding beer selection. Patrons can choose from over 40 craft beers on tap, including the full line of Oskar Blues, a dozen or so other great Colorado brews, and well-known craft beers from across the country. The "solids" component is a menu consisting of Southern-inspired barbecue, pizza, and burgers.

Liquids & Solids lies just down the road from Oskar Blues's Longmont brewery and Tasty Weasel Tap Room.

The restaurant is giant, particularly for a smaller town like Longmont. I was impressed by its size and by how packed it was on a Friday at lunch time. We actually had to wait about ten minutes for a table for four.

The spacious interior was adorned with kitschy posters and Oskar Blues paraphernalia. Hanging from the ceiling of the bar area were an an impressive variety of beer taps.

Bar at Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids

We had their Fried Pickles ($4) as an appetizer:

Fried Pickles

These were very strongly seasoned, with a sharp peppery flavor. Serving the pickles as spears made them the perfect size for an appetizer.

We also ordered the 1/2 rack of pork spare ribs ($12). All the barbecue dishes at Liquids & Solids come with two sides, and we chose the mac 'n' cheese and corn and crab fritters.

Pork Spare Ribs with Mac 'n' Cheese and Corn and Crab Fritters

The spare ribs were decent. They had a nice smoky flavor and were coated in a thick layer of tangy barbecue sauce. The mac 'n' cheese and fritters were both very average tasting.

The main draw of Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids is really the beer and not the food. The fried pickles were great to snack on with beer, but I didn't love the pork or sides. If you come from a part of the country more renown for good barbecue than central Colorado, you probably won't be very impressed with the food.

Everyday Dining

6/10

Pros: Beer.
Cons: Food is just ok. Isolated location.

Website:
http://www.oskarblues.com/restaurant/liquids-solids

Pierre Michel French Bakery Revisited

2012-01-02T15:03:00.001-07:00

Rewind a couple months back, to our first visit to Pierre Michel Organic French Bakery. After reading a million rave reviews about the Highlands Ranch bakery, we were disappointed by soggy French toast and a disturbingly gargantuan baguette omelette. Not too impressed, we rated the restaurant a 6/10, and had no overwhelming urge to return.

Except their pastries did look very tasty. And Yelp was filled with such glowing Pierre Michel reviews. And it was sooo conveniently close to our house.

We went back last week looking for a break from our usual breakfast spot, and still curious about the delicious-looking pastries.

Our meal started off with a raspberry-peach pastry:

Raspberry Peach Pastry

By the time we had finished off this innocent-looking treat, our perception of breakfast had changed forever. The organic fruit sat on a bed of sweet, rich pastry cream, surrounded by flaky, light, and buttery dough. The overall flavor of the pastry was light and mildly sweet, allowing the natural flavors of the fresh berries and peaches to shine through. I'm not sure if we can ever eat pastries from anywhere else again.

After that, we tried a few of their savory dishes.

The Croque Monsieur ($7.5):

Croque Monsieur

This classic French sandwich is basically a ham and cheese with brioche toast. While the filling was very average, the brioche was perfectly light and airy.

Omelette "Hivernale" with Tomatoes, Potatoes, Pesto ($10.2):

Omelette "Hivernale"

This omelette gets no points for presentation. In fact it was more of a scramble than an omelette, and it was swimming in some sort of oily liquid. That being said, it tasted ok, although was a bit salty. Like my baguette omelette at our last visit, the portion was just too large.

Oh, and all that food was served with French bread, butter, and homemade berry jam:

French bread, butter, jam

My new-found love of Pierre Michel prompted me to show up on Christmas Eve morning to pick up pastries for Christmas lunch. Unfortunately, everyone else in Highlands Ranch had the same idea. I showed up at 8:25, just 25 minutes after their delayed opening at 8 am, and I grabbed the last four available pastries.

Clockwise from top left: Blueberry Cream / Pear, Banana, Chocolate / Blueberry / Pear, Chocolate

They were a hit. Like our previous pastry experience, these all contained a perfectly flaky pastry dough, rich cream or chocolate, and fresh fruit.

Oh, don't worry, we've been there plenty more times and sampled a good chunk of the menu.

Vegetable Omelette in Puff Pastry ($7):

Vegetable Omelette in Puff Pastry

The omelette (again, more like a scramble than omelette) that was hidden inside the pastry included asparagus and tomato. It was very tasty, and certainly a more reasonable portion than the plain omelette or omelette baguette. But the buttery, flaky puff pastry was really the best part.

The wrapped croissant ($6):

Wrapped Croissant

This croissant was filled with ham, cheese, and plenty of Dijon mustard. This seems to be a popular item, as they were sold out of it the first few times we went to Pierre Michel. Like everything else cooked in the restaurant's oven, the croissant was flaky, buttery, and perfect.

And of course, we've had more pastries:

Pear and Cream Pastry

Since discovering their pastries, I need to revise the previous 6/10 rating I gave Pierre Michel. The French bakery is an outstanding place for breads, pastries, and croissants; execution of standard savory foods is more average.

Everyday Dining

(9 of 10)

Pros: Outstanding baked goods, especially pastries. Reasonably priced for organic.
Cons: Non-baked food are average overall. Bakery runs out of items quickly. Small space.

Website:
http://www.pierremichel.org/

Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar, Take 2

2012-01-01T11:09:00.001-07:00

We went back to Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar last weekend after a LivingSocial deal of $50-for-$25 was finally activated.

There seemed to be a theme to our meal of eating everything out of its original shell.

Not pictures were a zillion oysters that tasted just as fresh as the ones we had at our previous visit.

1/2 lb Crab Legs ($21)

1/2 lb Crab Legs

The crab legs were served in a traditional manner on an ice bath, with butter on the side. They were very fresh but basically tasted as expected.

Escargots ($9)

Escargot

I loved the presentation in the shells. The escargot were easy to remove, so they may have been replaced into their original packaging just before being served. The snails were meaty, buttery, and garlicky. They were served with a sauce of butter, parsley, salsify (a root vegetable), and parsnip.

Moules Marnieres avec des Frites ($16)

Mussels

The mussels were served with a fragrant white wine sauce with parsley, tarragon, chives, sofrito and olive oil. They were large, fresh and mostly very tasty, except for the one I bit into that was extremely gritty.

We wanted to try dessert this time around since we had to cut our meal at bit short at our last visit.

Le Grand's "house specialty" dessert is a Foie Gras Creme Brulee. It sounded intriguing, but we were skeptical that we could like any creme brulee more than what we had at Opus, so we opted for something different.

At our waitress's recommendation, or maybe subconsciously to stick with theme of eating everything in shelled form, we ordered the Profiteroles ($9).

Profiteroles

Le Grand went for a definite holiday feel with this dessert, with bay leaf ice cream, egg nog anglaise, and clementine chutney. Bay leaf was an ambitious flavor for ice cream, but it worked, and it blended well with the other flavors in the dessert. However, the whole dish was dragged down by the tough, chewy, and flavorless profiterole pastry. They would have been better off to just serve a bowl of ice cream.

Le Grand serves some very lovely French food, but I still feel service is slow and the price tag is a bit steep.

Website:

http://www.legranddenver.com/

The Best Things I Ate in 2011

2011-12-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

I ate a lot of great food this year, and a few of those foods were particularly memorable. In no particular order, here are my favorites from 2011:

Devils on Horseback @ Root Down

The Bronx Pizza @ Marco's Coal Fired Pizza

Guacamole @ Lola

Moules au Saffran @ Le Central

Roast Colorado Lamb Rack @ Restaurant Kevin Taylor

Cider Glazed Pork Benedict @ Duo

Any hot dog from Biker Jim's, AND the Fried Mac 'n' Cheese at Biker Jim's

The Larkburger

Vegetable Risotto (Served with Butter Poached Salmon) @ Opus

Glazed & Cinnamon Doughnuts @ Salt

Red Velvet Cupcake @ Euclid Hall

Salmon on Potato Chip @ Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar, 5280 Dines

Boneless Berkshire Pork Chop @ Vesta Dipping Grill

Panang Curry Chicken @ Tuk Tuk Thai Grill

Pork Tenderloin @ ChoLon

S'mores Tart @ ChoLon

IPA Mac 'n' Cheese @ Hops & Pie

Crispy Risotto Arancini @ Linger

Thank you for following the Rocky Mountain Oyster in 2011. Happy New Year Everyone!

Linger

2011-12-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally made it to Linger. About six weeks ago, we had made two different dinner reservations at the restaurant: one for Saturday, November 27, and one for Saturday, December 17. Yes, getting into Linger on a weekend currently requires booking about four weeks out. That means the restaurant and I at least have one thing in common: we both have very busy schedules.

We ended up cancelling our first reservations at the last minute due to the irresistible appeal of craft beer at Hops & Pie. We stuck to our December reservations though, and met up with another couple for dinner last weekend to figure out why everyone's so excited about Linger.

Linger occupies the space of the former Olinger Mortuary, and plays on that history throughout the dining experience. In fact, the restaurant's name derives from Olinger with a simple subtraction of the "O". As a genius advertising maneuver, the "O" on the giant sign atop the restaurant that bears the former mortuary's name has been unplugged, leaving the brightly lit letters "linger" looming over downtown Denver.

Besides its influence on the restaurant's name, the "dead people" theme pervades Linger, from the decor to the menu to the beer options.

As the sister restaurant to Root Down a few blocks away, I had high expectations. Root Down is one of my absolute favorite dinner spots in Denver. Both restaurants advertise a commitment to environmental responsibility and good food, but Linger certainly seems to be the trendier, hottest-place-in-town restaurant of the two.

Linger specializes in a dizzying array of international street food, divided into world regions on the menu. They claim to be a "tapas-style" restaurant and they mean it. The menu offers only small plates, with each dish costing roughly $6 to $16.

The restaurant makes a point to cater certain dishes to food allergies, vegetarians, and vegans, although no one in our group had any dietary aversions.

The waitstaff recommends two small plates per person, a suggestion I completely disagree with. We ordered six plates between the four of us, and that was maybe one plate too many. Keep in mind that much of Linger's food is fried or at least very greasy, so it's hard to eat large portions.

Our meal started with complimentary togarashi-flavored popcorn. While I like the idea of popcorn as a light meal starter, I thought Linger's popcorn tasted stale and flavorless.

Our six small plates consisted of one "Asia" dish: Pad Thai with Wagyu Beef; three "Americas" dishes: Scallop Ceviche, Strongbow Cider Mussels, and Maple Leaf Duck Wings; and two "Europe" dishes: Devils on Horseback and Crispy Risotto Arancini. Though we hadn't necessarily intended them to be so, our selections were some of the most pedestrian offerings on the menu.

The dishes were served in two rounds of three plates each.

First up were the Devils on Horseback ($10):

Devils on Horseback

Linger's Devils on Horseback were comprised of goat cheese stuffed Medjool dates wrapped in bacon. These packed quite a sweet-and-savory punch, with an intense sugary taste from the dates.

While I enjoyed the little devils, Root Down offers a different interpretation of the dish - made with sweet-and-spicy peppadew peppers - that I prefer over Linger's.

Next was the Scallop Ceviche ($11), served with avocado and chips:

Scallop Ceviche

The scallops were fresh, light and citrusy, and were balanced with the creamy avocado and salty corn chips. The dish was apparently prepared with habanero peppers, but I tasted no spiciness whatsoever. This was good ceviche, but many other restaurants in town offer something comparable. For $11, I prefer the scallop ceviche at Vesta Dipping Grill or LoLa (just a block away).

Finishing up that round of small plates were the Strongbow Cider Mussels ($13):

Strongbow Cider Mussels

Besides the obvious Strongbow Cider component, the sauce included garlic, thyme, celery, and grain mustard. The shellfish were accompanied by grilled spicy cheddar bread. The mussels were tasty, but like the ceviche above, they were not terribly memorable.

It was time for our second round of tapas, starting with the Pad Thai with Wagyu Beef ($10 + $5 for Wagyu beef).

Pad Thai with Wagyu Beef

The pad thai tasted a little oily for my taste but was authentically prepared. It wasn't very spicy on its own and needed more heat from the chili sauce served on the side. The Wagyu beef was perfectly cooked, but it had simply been thrown on the side of the dish, with no attempt made at meshing flavors.

We also couldn't resist trying the Maple Leaf Duck Wings ($11):

Maple Leaf Duck Wings

I've had a million chicken wings in my life, but never duck wings. I was concerned that they might be too tough and chewy, but the meat was actually impressively tender. The wings were drenched in a sweet and tangy blood orange hot sauce, which made them extremely messy. I realize wings are supposed to be messy, but Linger felt a little too upscale for me to drench my face in wing sauce.

And finally, Linger's menu held one of the high points of my many 2011 dining experiences, the Crispy Risotto Arancini ($11 for three, we added a fourth for an additional $3):

Crispy Risotto Arancini

Arancini are apparently a traditional Sicilian food, comprising of fried rice balls filled with meat sauce. I'm afraid the above "as-served" photo makes them look more like the world's most confused donut holes and does not do justice to the their delicious innards. Let's take a closer look at a severed arancini:

Crispy Risotto Arancini

There it is: a creamy risotto exterior with a crisp, fried shell, filled with a delicious bolognese sauce. The meaty bolognese sauce was particularly rich and well-seasoned. Every bite of the arancini was outstanding, and they were one the few things I ate at Linger that didn't bring to mind a similar-but-better dish somewhere else in town.

Timing of our various small plates was a bit too fast; we were rushed into relocating food to different dishes and juggling too many items on the table. Also, our individual plates quickly became covered in sauces and straggling bits from various dishes. With the extreme array of foods served at Linger, these turned into a flavor hodgepodge that blended unfavorably with whatever subsequent item we tried to throw on the plate.

We finished off the meal with the dessert trio ($10), which included mini versions of the Peanut Butter & Jelly Cup, the Ovaltine & Oreos, and the Mississippi Mud Pie.

Dessert Trio. Left to Right: Peanut Butter & Jelly Cup, Ovaltine & Oreos, and Mississippi Mud Pie

Linger offers a couple more exotic dessert options, but they stuck to close to home with their dessert trio selections (so much for international street food!). The Peanut Butter & Jelly Cup tasted overwhelmingly of peanut butter. Similarly, the Mississippi mud pie was basically a very one-dimensional chocolate cake. The Ovaltine & Oreos dessert was a little more exciting, comprising of a very strongly Ovaltine-flavored Bavarian cream atop an "Oreo" made of chocolate cookies and mascarpone.

I'm disappointed and puzzled that Linger veered sharply away from their international street food theme and instead offers these very tame, all-American desserts. The world flavors that influenced their small plates menu could have easily produced a half dozen interesting and delicious sweet treats, but instead Linger serves boring mud pies.

Other than being underwhelmed by their desserts, Linger basically delivered on an ambitiously diverse menu. All the small plates were tried were well-executed, though only the arancini stands out as a superlative dish. I commend Linger for their commitment to environmentally responsible, quality food, but some of that backbone of substance gets diluted with distractions of the restaurant's trendy feel and the pervasive dead body motif.

Linger felt reasonably priced considering the quality and quantity of food served. As I mentioned earlier, one to one-and-a-half small plates per person is probably the ideal ratio. Visiting Linger with a large group will give you the best opportunity to sample multiple dishes.

As a side note, 5280 Magazine recently published an excellent Linger review in their December 2011 issue. The article discusses Linger's background in depth and reviews many of their small plates. It's well worth reading for more information about the restaurant, and I found myself in complete agreement with the author regarding Linger's food and service.

There are still a dozen or so dishes on the menu that I'm curious to try, and I need to check out the amazing patio views that everyone raves about. Linger is certainly worth another visit, but it may be another couple of months before our busy schedules can align.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Good food and service, reasonably priced
Cons: Dessert was boring, hard to get reservations

Website:
http://lingerdenver.com/

Park Burger

2011-12-19T19:55:00.001-07:00

About a month ago, Westword published a list of "Denver's Ten Best Burgers." Of the top ten, I had only tried one: the insanely good burger at Larkburger, ranked at #7.

So I was curious to discover just how good any of the burgers ahead of Larkburger on the list might taste. That led me to Park Burger, which took the #2 spot. We were able to get a few other friends to join us for the hamburger frenzy.

Park Burger is located at Pearl and Jewell in the Denver University neighborhood, just down the road from the rapidly-proliferating restaurant empire of the Den Family Restaurants (think Sushi Den, Izakaya Den, Ototo, and whatever else opens between now and when I post this article to blogger).

Park Burger was packed with a mixture of families, college students, and boring workerbees like my husband and me.

Their location reminded me a lot of Hops & Pie in the Highlands: small, way too narrow, brightly lit, and packed to overflowing.

Despite the crowds of hungry people waiting for a table, we were able to snag a spot for six with only a 15-or-so minute wait. Unfortunately, where we were seated was very close to the door, and even closer to where waiting patrons were milling about and trying to stay warm. We spent much of our dinner being cold and elbowing people out of our way.

Keeping things simple, we ordered a regular Park Burger ($6.25 + $1 for cheese), which comes with a 1/3 lb patty, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and "Burgersauce." We added on cheddar cheese for an additional $1.

Park Burger with Cheddar

So what does this locally-reknown Park Burger taste like? Basically, it tastes like "ehhh, I've had much better."

We had ordered the burger "medium," but it was more like medium-well. While a little overcooked for my preference, the patty otherwise seemed to be made of fresh, high-quality meat. One thing I didn't care for was that the meat had been flattened a la Smashburger. What is the deal with the popularity of flat burgers? Their flavor tends to be equally flat; I prefer a thicker patty over the bland pancake shape.

And Park Burger cheats a little bit when it comes to making a tasty burger: the buns were clearly coated with plenty of butter and greasy burger sauce. Tasty, but fattening.

The buns were light and fluffy, which was mostly a good thing, except they got soggy quickly with the above-mentioned grease absorption. The veggie toppings were fresh and crisp, and helped just slightly to balance out the fattiness of the burger.

All that left me scratching my head over Park Burger's supposed #2 spot on "Denver's Best Burgers" list. Granted, their high ranking seems to be based on their plethora of delicious-sounding burger toppings. Although not terribly unique for Denver, Park Burger's toppings include options like Brie cheese, guacamole, fried eggs, and even sauerkraut. I love a fried egg on my hamburger as much as the next overzealous food blogger, but I expect the burger to hold its own without distraction from its tastier toppings.

I definitely prefer the delicious simplicity of Larkburger.

We also ordered a basket of Sweet Potato Fries ($4) to share. And by share, I mean my husband and my friends nibbled on a few and I inhaled most of them.

Sweet Potato Fries

The sweet potato fries were tasty, although I have to say I'm very, very easy to please when it comes to sweet potato fries. They were fried up very nicely and had the perfect dusting of salt. However, I'm not convinced that they were homemade.

Service was friendly and very speedy, although the waitstaff was clearly needing to keep up table turnover to make room for more patrons. There was a mix-up with our waiter or the bar staff about our beers, leaving our table with duplicate beers (that's not really a problem for us). We were only charged for one beer each, which was appreciated.

I was underwhelmed with Park Burger, but to be fair I did try only a limited sliver of the menu. Nonetheless, my search for an amazing Denver hamburger continues.

Everyday Dining

(6 of 10)

Pros: Fast, great service, cheap
Cons: Watch out for tables near door, average hamburgers

Website:
http://parkburger.com/

Larkspur

2011-12-17T08:17:00.001-07:00

It's a little-known fact: the tasty yet humble hamburgers at Larkburger's many front range locations actually have their roots at the high-end Larkspur restaurant in Vail, CO. Cashing in on the popularity of their Larkburger served at the bar, the management of the mountain restaurant decided to spin off the burger concept with a proliferation of fast-casual restaurants across the state.

And thus it was that our love of the Larkburger brought us to Larkspur during a recent winter fun weekend in Vail.

It was a big step up for us to go from stuffing our faces with the $5 amazingness of Little Larks and Truffle Parmesan Fries on the front range to the fine dining, ski-slope atmosphere of Larkspur, but we were prepared for the challenge.

Larkspur is situated at the extreme east end of the base of Vail mountain, making it close enough to the slope to ski up to for lunch. Except that during our early-season visit, the lifts near the restaurant weren't open, and Larkspur was only offering dinner service.

We had dinner reservations for 7:15 on a Friday in early December. Getting into Larkspur after exiting the cab required trekking through the deserted Golden Peak Lodge, with the restaurant tucked into the back corner.

Larkspur is spacious, beautifully adorned, and upscale. The bar area where the Larkburger was born lies at the very front as you walk in, and behind it in the main dining area is ample seating, including plenty of space for large parties. The restaurant was mostly full when we arrived and filled to near capacity by the end of our meal.

For those of you who have never been to Vail, it's a beautiful ski town bustling with an international assortment of some of the most beautiful and ritzy people you've ever seen. The top echelon of those beautiful people appeared to be dining at Larkspur during our visit.

We were greeted by our waitress and began the meal with drinks and complimentary multigrain bread and butter.

I should point out that Larkspur offers an impressively long wine list. I would elaborate on this point more except I'm completely ignorant about wine.

As an appetizer, we ordered Larkspur's take on a Shrimp Po'boy ($9.5), which was sort of a deconstructed po'boy served with cornbread slices and a mustard sauce.

Shrimp Po'boy

This dish is an unusual choice for a fine dining establishment in Vail, although we certainly enjoyed it. I couldn't find any mention of it in Yelp reviews, so I assume it's new to the menu.

The fried shrimp tasted just like the ones that my mom, a Louisiana native, uses in po'boys. The use of cornbread and mustard sauce is certainly not traditional, but it was very tasty and a pleasant sweet-and-savory compliment to the shrimp.

As my main dish, I ordered the Snake River Sturgeon ($28):

Snake River Sturgeon

The sturgeon was presented with a crispy crust and served on a bed of red beans. The fish was delicate, light, and perfectly seared. The red beans were extremely tasty; they were very well seasoned, and like the fish, expertly cooked.

My husband ordered the Veal Scaloppini ($32):

Veal Scaloppini

Veal scaloppini is a traditional veal dish prepared with floured, flattened veal cutlets. Larkspur's version was accompanied by creamed spinach, twice baked potatoes, and "lemon buerre fondue." It was an excellent, comfort-food type dish.

The twice-baked potatoes were particularly memorable; they were crisp on the outside and incredibly soft and creamy on the inside. They were served as slices rather than potato halves, with no additional toppings, which was unexpected. As far as the lemon beurre sauce, there's no reason to call it "fondue," it was just a cream sauce. The tartness of the sauce nicely balanced the rich flavor of the veal.

We finished the meal with the Brooklyn Blackout Cake ($11.5):

Brooklyn Blackout Cake

The cake was a simple, almost brownie-like chocolate rectangle. It was topped with what Larkspur referred to as "Fudgesicle Sorbet" and "Fox's U-Bet Froth." I have no clue what the froth flavor was supposed to be referring to, and the sorbet had a deep chocolaty but still light flavor.

Service was very good. Our waitress was helpful and friendly but seemed relatively new.

Larkspur was expensive, but so is everything else in Vail. For comparable food in Denver I would expect to pay about 10-20% less. That being said, I generally felt the food and drinks were appropriately priced for the quality and location. One exception was the dessert, which, for $11.5 seemed a little steep for such a simple preparation.

The food and ambiance were lovely at Larkspur, although for fine dining in Colorado I prefer Opus in Littleton. Larkspur is definitely worth a visit for a nice dinner in Vail.

Fine Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Excellent food and ambiance
Cons: Expensive, may be hard to get to without skis

Website:
http://www.larkspurvail.com/

La Loma

2011-12-12T19:30:00.002-07:00

In the mood for a quick Mexican food lunch last weekend, we strolled into La Loma on our way back from the north suburbs. La Loma is basically a Denver staple. They must be doing something right, as they've thrived in their spacious location on 26th Avenue for over thirty years.

Anyone seeing La Loma's location for the first time ma be surprised by the residential-looking abode in an otherwise commercial area just north of Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Operating out of a former Denver home built in 1887, La Loma looks and feels more like grandma's house than a giant Mexican restaurant.

La Loma

We've been to La Loma a few times before, always either for dinner or just before heading over to a Broncos game.

On this particular visit, we arrived at a not-ideal-for-Mexican-food hour of 11 am on a Sunday, just after the restaurant had opened for the day. The dining area was pretty empty due to the early hour and a simultaneous Broncos away game.

The interior is filled with homey decorations, including plenty of Christmas decor during the December day of our meal. We were seated next to their tortilla maker, which pops out fresh tortillas on a heated conveyor belt to the joy of nearby diners.

Our server quickly brought us complimentary chips and salsa:

Chips and Salsa

My husband proclaims this to be his favorite chips and salsa in Denver. The homemade salsa is fresh, spicy, and rich in tomato flavor. I prefer a thicker, chunkier salsa, but the flavor of this salsa was excellent.

For my main dish, I ordered the Chile Rellenos ($9.95):

Chile Rellenos with Green Chile

This dish was described on the menu as "Green chile strips with melted aged cheddar and jack cheeses in a crispy shell, served with green or red chile, refried beans and rice."

Relleno is Spanish for "stuffed," but there was clearly nothing stuffed about the chiles used in this dish. Instead, inside the crispy, fried wrapper was a giant log of sizzling, oozing cheese and a small sliver of green chile.

This might make an ideal bar food, but it was too greasy and cheesy of a dish to be a good main meal. To call it "Chile Rellenos" on the menu is a bit misleading, although the menu's description exactly depicted how it was served.

Alongside the chiles were large helpings of rice and refried beans. I have yet in my lifetime to enjoy the sad pile of boring, bland Spanish rice served with so many Mexican-American dishes, so I was similarly unimpressed with the rice at La Loma. The beans, however, were well seasoned and not too mashed up, which I liked.

The chiles were served with a large helping of green chile. La Loma makes a big deal of its green chile, and apparently 5280 Magazine awarded La Loma Denver's "Best Green Chile" title. It's packed with small pieces of pork and has a bit of a thick, floury texture. I found it very tasty, although I wish it had a little more heat.

My husband ordered the Tacos Dorados with ground beef ($9.75):

Tacos Dorados with Ground Beef

The tacos were stuffed with ground beef and topped with cheddar and jack cheeses, lettuce, and tomatoes. Like my chile rellenos, they were served with refried beans and rice.

They were simple and quite tasty, although not particularly special. The ground beef was very well seasoned, but the tacos would've needed more depth of flavor to really stand out.

Service was friendly and extraordinarily prompt.

La Loma offers some decent but not amazing Mexican food for a reasonable price, and it makes a great spot for a reliably quick lunch.

Everyday Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Cheap, fast service, great green chile
Cons: Some dishes to greasy and/or one-dimensional

Website:
http://www.restauranteur.com/laloma/

Hops & Pie

2011-11-27T18:25:00.002-07:00

Let me break down the sequence of events that led us to Hops & Pie last night:

3:13 pm: My husband receives a photo of last night's Hops & Pie "Beers on Tap" list from one of his friends. The beer menu includes his beloved - and extremely hard to find - "Supplication" by Russian River.

3:14 pm: Unable to turn down the immediate potential for Supplication on tap, we cancel our reservations at Linger that we'd made a month earlier.

3:33 pm: My husband calls one of his beer aficionado buddies and informs him that he and his wife must join us on the journey for some craft beer on tap.

4:30 pm: We leave our place down south to head 35 minutes away for Supplication on tap. Sorry, Linger. Your international street food menu will have to wait.

5:06 pm: Hello, Hops & Pie.

And that is how we ended up at Hops & Pie, and not at Linger, on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving.

So Hops & Pie offers just about the best craft beer selection in Denver. And they sell pizza. It's really the simplest, most genius, and most inevitably successful business model imaginable for a front range establishment.

Located at 38th and Tennyson in the historic Berkeley neighborhood, Hops & Pie lies off the beaten path of Denver's main restaurant and bar scenes. Alongside Hops & Pie on Tennyson street are an eclectic mix of restaurants, coffee shops, a yoga studio, and an antique store that my mother would be happy to spend all day in.

Hops & Pie's location is small, really too small to accommodate the beer-loving Denver public. It comprises one long, narrow room, with the bar area taking up half the space.

Despite our early arrival just after 5 pm, the restaurant's tiny space and the fact that three groups of people had monopolized all available tables meant we were in for a bit of a wait. Half an hour later, after squeezing the four of us around a small table sandwiched between the bar and another table, we were all seated.

The beer menu at Hops & Pie is really unmatched by any other bar in Denver. They have managed to offer - either on tap or in bottle form - some of the absolute highest regarded and hardest to find craft beers in the country.

Unfortunately, this being complete beer-snob territory, the menu was extremely sparse on the light, "girly" pilsners and wheat beers that I prefer.

My husband enjoyed a 375 mL bottle of Pliny the Elder, an IPA from Russian River ($11), followed by a 375 mL bottle of Consecration, also by Russian River, a barrel-aged ale ($19). I drank water and longed silently for a Michelob Ultra.

Pliny the Elder IPA by Russian River

Consecration Barrel-Aged Ale by Russian River

For dinner, we started with their IPA Mac & Cheese ($7.5), made with cheddar, smoked ham, peas, herbed bread crumbs, and of course, IPA.

IPA Mac n Cheese

Think of an outstanding home style mac and cheese, made even better with the use of beer. The rich, cheesy sauce had subtle, pleasantly bitter IPA undertones. The addition of sweet green peas and large, smoky ham pieces further improved the flavor. The four of us ate every last bite.

The mac n cheese was followed up with one of their 16" Artisan pizzas, topped with prosciutto, mozzarella, sauteed spinach, banana peppers, cherry tomatoes, and roasted garlic ($17).

Artisan Pizza slice

After our excitement at Hops & Pie's beer selection and delicious mac n cheese, this pizza was a letdown. Basically, it was bad. The crust was bland, and there was no sauce. While I enjoyed most of the toppings, the banana peppers were straight from a jar, and their briny flavor overwhelmed everything else on the pizza.

Good pizza should be pretty easy to crank out, right? Especially by owners who are smart enough to tap into Denver's palate for craft beers, and who have enough kitchen skills to put together the incredible IPA Mac n Cheese we had just consumed. So I was perplexed that the pizza would be so completely disappointing.

I did notice, however, that surrounding diners had stuck to the "create your own" pizza selections made with hand-tossed crusts and served with their house-made tomato sauce and cheese blends. They looked much tastier than our pizzas, but of course I have no way to verify how they tasted.

Anyway, we couldn't walk away from Hops & Pie without trying some of their cereal-based marshmallow treats. We ordered their Super Treat, containing Cocoa Puffs and Peanut Butter Captain Crunch ($3), and a Crispy Treat ($2), made of traditional rice crisp cereal.

Super Treat

Crispy Treat

Not to brag, but I'm pretty much a cereal-and-marshmallow-treat connoisseur, and I must say that all such treats should be evaluated based on the following criteria: 1) Ratio of marshmallow cream to cereal, 2) Ductility, 3) Butteriness

Both treats were a resounding success in all three categories, although I must say the butteriness of these treats was extreme, and some people may find them too rich.

The service at Hops & Pie was very good. Our waitress removed one of our beers from the tab when we notified her that it tasted basically awful (likely on the brewer's end and not Hops & Pie's).

By the time we got ready to leave, which was only about 7:30 pm, the small restaurant was packed with patrons mulling around the bar area as table and bar seating had long ago filled up.

If Hops & Pie can upgrade its pizza offerings, it will rule Denver. Otherwise, its still worth the long drive if you love craft beer, mac n cheese, and cereal treats.

Casual Dining

(5 of 10)

Pros: Unmatched craft beer selection, excellent IPA Mac n Cheese and Cereal Treats, good service
Cons: Not crazy about pizza, crowded

Le Grand Bistro and Oyster Bar

2011-11-24T08:36:00.006-07:00

Le Grand just opened in June of this year, and soared to the top of my wish list ever since I tasted their pickled oyster and salmon-on-a-potato-chip small bites at 5280 Dines a couple months ago.

Le Grand claims it offers "everyday French comfort food," but it also prides itself on serving a variety of fresh, raw oysters.

Styled like a Parisian brasserie, Le Grand is a large, roomy restaurant, with numerous tables and booths, and a banquet room in back. The interior is a bit darkly lit, with tile floors and deep-red walls decorated by whimsical farm animal drawings.

We arrived with another couple on a Saturday night, with reservations for 6:30 pm. Their dinner menu was extensive. Diners can choose between six different oyster varieties, numerous other seafood bar options, small plates, large plates, charcuterie, and cheeses. Oh, and desserts.

We started with two each of the Kumamotos ($3.5 each) and Malpeque ($2.5 each) oysters.

Oysters: Kumamotos and Malpeque

They were served on the half shell with lemon, horseradish, mignonette sauce, and cocktail sauce. If I were along the coast somewhere, I'd have guessed the oysters were plucked from the ocean earlier that day. But clearly I was actually in Denver, and I just have to marvel at how fresh the oysters tasted that far inland.

We also split three different charcuterie: Head Cheese ($4), Rabbit Rillette ($4), and Foie Gras Mousse ($9).

Head Cheese

Cooked from pork cheeks, the head cheese was packed with a multitude of ingredients and flavors. It was flavored with garlic, shallots, and many other herbs and spices, including what tasted like allspice. I am by no means a head cheese expert, but I felt it was just too many flavors in each bite.

Rabbit Rillete

The rabbit rillette was made of rabbit confit and duck fat, and flavored with chives and sea salt. It had a texture like a thick gravy, with tiny pieces of the rabbit confit throughout. Spreading it on the toasted bread made for a rich, satisfying bite of saturated fat.

Foie Gras Mousse

The Foie Gras mousse was made with Hudson Valley foie gras, Sauturnes (yeah I had to look that up, it's a sweet French wine), and heavy cream. Like the rillete, it was extremely rich, with a smooth, velvety texture. More saturated fat heaven.

We split the Jarret D’agneau Braisé ($25), which basically translated to braised lamb shank.

Braised Lamb Shank

The lamb was served alongside parsnip puree, baby carrots, and pearl onions. The meat was cooked perfectly to very tender, and easily fell off the bone with some help from a fork. The lamb was complimented with the flavors of the starchy parsnips and sweet carrots and onions.

Unlike Le Central and Pierre Michel, which both serve giant, American-sized portions, I was pleased that Le Grand stuck to more traditional French serving sizes. The small quantities were perfect for the rich, flavorful food offered.

While the food was very good, service was generally slow and disorganized (I seem to be echoing a million Yelp reviewers on this point). Our waitress was often hard to track down, and we had multiple servers bringing bread, plates, drinks, and food to the table.

We had sat down at 6:30, with plans to head to Comedy Works a couple blocks away for an 8:30 show. Our entrees didn't arrive until about 7:50, and that was after notifying our waitress that we had a dinner deadline. Fortunately the waitstaff kicked into high gear when we told them about the show, and we made it to Comedy Works without issue.

Regretfully, having to rush out for our show meant we couldn't try the intriguing-looking Foie Gras Creme Brulee dessert.

Le Grand was a great spot for authentic French food, but they need to work on the clunky service.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Excellent food, loved the ambiance and decor. Oysters were extremely fresh.
Cons: Slow, disorganized service

Website:
http://www.legranddenver.com/

ChoLon

2011-11-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

Well, that didn't take long: after opening only a year ago, ChoLon impressively debuted on 5280 Magazine's Top 25 Restaurants List at number 5 this year. Operated by chef Lon Symensma, the Asian fusion restaurant has received praise from both critics and just about everyone we've known who's eaten there.

Oh, and ChoLon is a participating restaurant on Savored.com, meaning my husband and our friends we dined with enjoyed 30% off our tab.

Our reservations were at 6:30 last Thursday evening, during an eerily quiet downtown evening due to a Broncos game on the other side of I-25. ChoLon lies at 15th and Blake Street, between H Burger and the Rio Grande. Like many downtown restaurants, diners can look out the restaurant through floor-to-ceiling windows, although the surrounding street view isn't particularly interesting. I was surprised that the restaurant was only about two-thirds full that night, but maybe everyone was too caught up in Tebowmania to be eating out that evening.

ChoLon feels modern and trendy, with high ceilings, simple decorations, and dark lighting.

We started with drinks and this very impressive complimentary starter, a rice "cake" with black sesame seeds and salsa.

Rice crisp with black sesame seeds

The rice crisp was beautiful but really had no flavor.

Most of the small bites consisted of upgraded twists on traditional Asian street food and dim sum. We ordered the following:

Pork Belly Pot Stickers with Ginger Mustard ($8)

Pork Belly Pot Stickers

Curried Duck Spring Rolls with Cilantro Yogurt ($9)

Curried Duck Spring Rolls

Rib Eye Satay with Hong Kong Steak Sauce ($11)

Rib Eye Satay

Soup Dumplings ($8)

Soup Dumplings

While the meat-heavy dumplings, spring rolls, and satay were all excellent, the standout among the small bites was definitely the soup dumplings.

Inside each dumpling was actually a small helping of French Onion soup. The dumplings had to be handled delicately; I learned that the hard way when I ignored our waitress's request to use our hands and squashed mine with chopsticks. They were incredibly unique and had a delicious pop of savory, salty soup in each bite.

We split the Pork Tenderloin large plate ($25), which came with butternut squash puree, Chinese bacon sauce, and Chinese broccoli.

Pork Tenderloin

The pork was absolutely perfect; it was incredibly tender and balanced with the flavor of the sweet-and-savory Chinese bacon sauce. The butternut squash puree was sweet, creamy, and rich. Overall an outstanding dish.

We also ordered, from their "Wok" selections, the Stir Fried Brussel Sprouts ($9).

Stir Fried Brussel Sprouts

Unfortunately our picture turned out blurry and it certainly doesn't do justice to how good the brussel sprouts were. They were chopped into small pieces, cooked to the point of slightly caramelized, and served in a rich sauce with pork and mint.

And finally, for dessert we enjoyed the "S'mores" Tart ($8).

"S'mores" Tart

The tart comprised of a flat, chocolaty cylinder with a runny vanilla-marshmallow goo inside. It was topped with toasted bananas, and sat alongside cinnamon-spiced chocolate ice cream on a bed of crushed graham cracker. I'm not sure that there was much Asian influence in this dessert, but it was perfect anyway. Mr. Oyster and I agreed this has been our favorite dessert in Denver so far.

I'm sure you can tell by the pictures, but presentation is taken very seriously at ChoLon. All the dishes were served beautifully, particularly the pork tenderloin and dessert.

Service at ChoLon was outstanding, with excellent timing between the various courses.

ChoLon was the best dinner we've had in Denver yet. The food, service, and presentation is on par with any of Denver's fine dining establishments, but with lower prices and a more casual atmosphere. Add on a 30% savored.com discount, and it feels like a tremendous bargain. It was nearly perfect, and easily earned our first 10-star review.

Casual Dining

(10 of 10)

Pros: Food nearly perfect. Outstanding presentation. Very good service.
Cons: A little bit loud and dark inside (I'm being picky)

Website:
http://www.cholon.com/denver/

The Wooden Table

2011-11-13T18:51:00.001-07:00

Our insatiable desire for delicious food brought us to the Wooden Table in Greenwood Village for a recent dinner. The Wooden Table is an Italian restaurant that opened just this past September, and it lies sandwiched between a couple of other shops in a pretty average shopping area at University and Orchard. We showed up to a mostly-full restaurant for reservations at 6:30 pm on a Friday night.

Despite the low-profile location, The Wooden Table boasts a co-owner who is the former Executive Chef of Osteria Marco downtown.

Wooden Table may seem isolated in the suburbs, but it's probably appealing to the nearby residents of Cherry Hills and Greenwood Village, as there don't seem to be many comparable restaurants nearby. It filled to capacity shortly after our arrival and there was a lively atmosphere.

I rarely get worked up about restaurant decor or ambiance, but the Wooden Table seemed a bit weak on interior design. The restaurant occupies a large, sparsely-adorned single room, with white walls dotted with random black-and-white photos of trees. It felt a little empty. Also, the restaurant windows face directly out to glowing TJ Maxx and Sally Beauty Supply signs across the parking lot, so it's not a place to go for a nice view.

We started with a couple drinks and a disappointingly boring baguette with olive oil:

Bread and Olive Oil

(Yep, after that photo we decided we needed a flash. We're amateurs.)

As an appetizer, we ordered the Frutti di Mare Crudo ($13):

Frutti di Mare Crudo

Crudo is a raw, ceviche-like seafood preparation that is typically marinated in a combination of olive oil, salt, and an acid component (normally lemon or lime juice). In this case, the crudo included baby octopus, shrimp, and scallops, arranged on a layer of tonnato and chili oil. It was similar to the Insalada Frutti di Mare we enjoyed at 5280 Dines a month ago. It was light, citrusy, and loaded with tasty, fresh seafood.

We also split a half portion of the Ravioli ($10):

Ravioli (half portion)

The ravioli was stuffed with ricotta, and topped with shaved Parmesan and red sauce. The pasta was perfectly cooked, with a rich and creamy ricotta filling. The red sauce tasted a bit sweet for my preference, but was well seasoned and flavorful.

Now, let's back up a second here. Why exactly did I track down this random shopping center Italian restaurant for a slightly fancy dinner?

I had been drawn in by the allure of this:

Westword's 100 Favorite Dishes: Pork Tenderloin with Bread Pudding and Green Split Peas from the Wooden Table.

From the Westword write-up, the pork dish looked ridiculously tasty, and Apple Ham Hock Bread Pudding sounded like something I shouldn't pass up in this lifetime.

Well, my husband is really the pork lover in the relationship, so I convinced him he needed to order it.

And here it is:

Berkshire Pork Tenderloin

That's Berkshire pork tenderloin atop apple ham hock bread pudding, with green split peas and braised red cabbage ($23).

It didn't exactly look like the photo Westword posted, and it certainly didn't live up to our elevated expectations. In fact, the pork was pretty dry and weak on seasoning. I enjoyed the bread pudding, the split peas, and the cabbage, but nothing tasted particularly special, and it wasn't nearly good enough to make up for the disappointing pork.

For anyone seeking a pork dish (or, more specifically, a Berkshire pork dish), my husband's Boneless Berkshire Pork Chop at Vesta Dipping Grill last month was much, much better.

Moving on, I ordered the Meatballs ($20) for my entree:

Meatballs

That may look like regular old spaghetti and meatballs, but it was so much more than that. Somehow, The Wooden Table has managed to concoct an incredibly perfect and wonderfully seasoned meatball using veal, pork, and beef. That spaghetti-looking pasta was actually bucatini, or in layman's terms, "spaghetti with a hole down the center." Like the ravioli, the pasta was cooked just right. This was the best thing I ate at Wooden Table, and certainly more deserving of any type of "Best Dish" nod than the pork.

I'm not sure if they do this on a regular basis, but the restaurant served complimentary dessert liqueurs to all its (over-21) diners that evening. I don't care for liqueurs in any form, but my husband was happy to polish off our Amaretto and Limoncello glasses.

We finished off the meal with the Pumpkin Cheesecake ($8):

Pumpkin Cheesecake

The cheesecake was topped with a praline and pumpkin seed brittle topping, and served with whipped cream on the side. It was a lovely fall dessert, but of course we may have been easily pleased, both of us being cheesecake and pumpkin lovers. It disappeared quickly.

Two months after its opening, The Wooden Table has a basis for a great restaurant. The food is mostly very good, and the location has easy appeal for the area's residents. I felt some of the dishes needed more polish, and there's room for improvement in the ambiance.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Food was mostly good. Pasta was excellent.
Cons: Disappointed with pork dish, boring location

Website:
http://www.thewoodentablerestaurant.com/

Pierre Michel French Bakery

2011-11-08T19:08:00.003-07:00

Hidden just under my nose after all these years in the suburbs is Pierre Michel, an organic French bakery located in Highlands Ranch.

Pierre Michel lies in a very small space at the end of a Highlands Ranch strip mall, and stands out from its neighbors by not being a chain restaurant. This same shopping area houses an IHOP, Panera and Starbucks for those looking for breakfast fare.

Despite the generic surroundings, the interior of Pierre Michel was quaint and very cozy, with brightly colored tablecloths and fresh flowers at each table.

Diners order at a counter when they walk in, before taking a seat at one of only a few tables and waiting for their order to be served. Pierre Michel seats only about 20 people, and was nearly at capacity during the Saturday of our visit. It seems to be a welcome respite for those looking for a break from the standard suburban chain options in the area.

Pierre Michel offered a wide variety of delicious-looking French pastries on display, but we passed them up in favor of a more substantial meal.

I started off with a very tasty Cafe au Lait:

Cafe au Lait

My husband ordered the French toast:

French Toast

This simple presentation of French toast included homemade blackberry jam on the side. The jam was very pleasant; it was fresh and had just the right about of sweetness. Unfortunately, the French toast tasted bland and a bit soggy, and was just disappointing overall.

The French toast order included a side of eggs:

Scrambled Eggs

These were sort of half-scrambled and had a slightly runny yolk component. They were simple and very fresh, with a touch of salt and pepper on top for flavor.

I ordered the intriguing-sounding Omelette Sandwich, which included French baguette bread with a ham and cheese omelette cooked inside.

Ham and Cheese Omelette Sandwich - As Served

No, I didn't eat a giant loaf of bread for breakfast; let's take a look at the innards:

Ham and Cheese Omelette Sandwich

Whoever decided to stuff an omelette inside of French bread is a genius. It was good. The freshly-made bread, in particular, was excellent. It was coated with butter on the inside, and had a soft center and crunchy exterior. The eggs had a similar texture to my husband's scrambled eggs, with ham and cheese generously mixed in.

The downside of the omelette: Like Le Central near Capitol Hill, Pierre Michel aims to serve authentic French food, but its portions seem much more authentically American. I'm pretty sure this baguette-omelette hybrid would've fed a French family of four. For an entire day. Even with some help from my husband, I was able to finish off only half of it.

Service was friendly and attentive but slow. It was also fairly hot inside the restaurant.

We paid $21 for our meal, which is a decent price considering how much food we received and the fact that the restaurant is 100% organic.

This family-run operation completely shuts down on Sundays, so Saturday is the only day to visit on weekends.

We're interested in another visit to try some of the French pastries. While I loved my omelette sandwich, the portion was far too big for a French restaurant, and the French toast was forgettable.

Everyday Dining

(6 of 10)

Pros: Loved omelette sandwich, authentic French food in Highlands Ranch, good prices for being organic
Cons: Some portions too big, slow service, disappointing French toast

Website:
http://www.pierremichel.org

Tuk Tuk Thai Grill - DTC

2011-11-01T18:16:00.002-06:00

Needing a quick lunch last weekend on a drive home that took us past the Denver Tech Center, we decided to stop in to Tuk Tuk for some always-good Thai food.

Tuk Tuk lies near a very uninteresting shopping center (it's anchored by a giant Microcenter), in a standalone building immediately next to Quincy. The shopping center is just north of I-225, so while Tuk Tuk calls the location a "DTC" restaurant, I would actually consider it to be just north of the Tech Center.

I've been to the location a couple times before during the work week for lunch, and it's consistently been packed with office types looking for a quick, cheap lunch. I imagine with a more visible location it would be even more busy. The building doesn't look like much from the outside, but inside it's very welcoming, with bright lighting and colorful decor. Like Pho Saigon, office workers grabbing a weekday lunch should get there before 11:30 am to avoid a wait.

On the Sunday when my husband and I visited, however, it was nearly empty at lunchtime. During my work week visits, they took customers' orders at a counter up front, and brought food out to the respective tables. But for our quiet Sunday lunch, we were seated at a table and waited on during the meal.

Service has always been fast; this visit was no exception.

We started off with the Summer Rolls appetizer ($4.5):

Summer Rolls

These rice paper wrappers were stuffed with shrimp, chicken, lettuce and carrots, and served with peanut sauce on the side. They were just ok. Some of the lettuce had browned at the edges, and the chicken tasted tough. One bright spot was the peanut sauce; it was spicy and well flavored but not too sweet.

I ordered the Ginger Beef ($8) with brown rice instead of white rice:

Ginger Beef with Brown Rice

This was a solid plate of Thai food, although nothing amazing. The vegetables were fresh and crisp, the sauce was fragrant and had a slight heat, and the beef was well cooked.

And then there was the Panang Curry Chicken ($7.75) that my husband will not stop talking about:

Panang Curry Chicken

The curry had a coconut milk base, and was ordered spiced "hot". It included a variety of fresh, crispy vegetables.

My husband sipped at the curry a bit, tried a few pieces of chicken and vegetables, scooped the sauce over rice and gobbled that up, and then began babbling uncontrollably: This is sooo good. [Pause] Wow. You have to try this. It is just soo good. So good. This is just so good.

And it was.

The spice combination of the curry was perfect and the "hot" spiciness was just the right amount of heat for both of us. The chicken and all the vegetables tasted fresh and well cooked.

I neglected much of my Ginger Beef in favor of helping him out with his amazing curry (I'm nice like that).

Ok, now here's my disclaimer about my Thai food ignorance: there's a lot of things I don't know about food, and there's certainly a lot of things I don't know about Thai food. I can't speak to whether this stuff was authentic, I can only say that it tasted fantastic.

The only bad thing about the curry? If you've noticed from my last few reviews, Mr. Oyster seems to be on a streak of ordering a better meal than me. Yes, the guy who used to think Totino's Pizza was the best thing ever, who became nauseous over the very idea of eating sushi, who didn't know what an artichoke was...this guy now seems to nail down the best dishes at a restaurant with some sort of natural finesse. It is not cool, and it's got to stop.

Very good fast Thai food. Get the curry.

Everyday Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Fast service, outstanding curry
Cons: Summer rolls were very average, slightly pricey

Website:
http://www.tuktukrocks.com

Nescafe Dolce Gusto Event @ Root Down

2011-10-29T08:23:00.130-06:00

There's a huge part of my life that I can't believe I've actually never mentioned on the Rocky Mountain Oyster.

I am a major, major coffee addict.

From the time I wake up until the time my body has absorbed a significant quantity of caffeine, everything around me is an irritating, blurry, unbearably complicated and exhausting trainwreck. Coffee is the backbone of my existence, and I'm very happy with that.

So I couldn't pass up a recent invitation to combine coffee with incredible food from Root Down, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Denver. See my review of Root Down (9 of 10 stars) from April.

The event was a "Foodie Feed Up" organized to promote Nescafe's Dolce Gusto line of single-serve coffee makers.

Prior to this event, the only other blogger I'd met was Ms. Sizzling Cupcake, so it was great to meet a bunch of fellow bloggers and not feel like a self-conscious dorkface when I took pictures of all the food.

We started out with wine and five of Root Down's standard appetizers.

Seared Colombian Arepas:

Seared Colombian Arepas

These arepas, made from corn flour, were filled with mozzarella and topped with poblano-pistachio pesto, something they call achiote crema, and pico de gallo. In other words, its a corn-based grilled cheese. They were good but nothing special.

Sweet Potato "Falafel":

Sweet Potato "Falafel"

I guess they put "falafel" in quotes because it's a falafel in looks alone. The sweet potato base is mixed with a variety of spices and vegetables, fried to perfection, and topped with lemon-tahini Yogurt, Israeli salad, sesame seeds and chile oil. I've had these at Root Down before and they're very tasty.

Lamb Sliders:

Lamb Sliders

The mini burgers were topped with aged cheddar, harissa aioli, and arugula. They were outstanding, with a much simpler and more delectable flavor profile than the Buffalo Sliders that I've had before at Root Down. The lamb was incredibly rich and well seasoned. The giant helping of organic sweet potato fries and mint-garlic yogurt dipping sauce disappeared fast.

Organic Butternut-Ricotta Gnocchi:

Organic Butternut-Ricotta Gnocchi

Besides the gnocchi, this plate contained mushrooms, spinach, black currants, shallots, chile flake, brown butter, sage pesto and pecorino. While the gnocchi itself had a lovely creamy-sweet flavor and perfect texture, I really didn't care for the appetizer as a whole. Everything was a bit greasy and there were too many flavors and textures on the plate.

Devils on Horseback:

Devils on Horseback

The name "Devils on Horseback" isn't very descriptive; the small bites are comprised of date and goat cheese stuffed peppadews, wrapped in serrano ham, and served with smoked paprika-sherry gastrique. Peppadews, by the way, are a variety of small, sweet-and-spicy peppers native to South Africa.

I wrote about my love of the Devils on Horseback on my previous Root Down review, and they were just as insanely good at my second taste. Hands down my favorite appetizer at Root Down, and certainly one of the best in Denver overall.

While we were enjoying the appetizers, Root Down's Kitchen Manager, Daniel Asher, spoke to our group about Root Down's philosophy and practices in sourcing the restaurant's ingredients. He encouraged us to understand where our food comes from, and to make informed choices about sustainable and local produce and meats.

It was then time for dessert:

Almond Fluffernutter. Flourless Chocolate Cake, Cashew Caramel Creme Almond Corn Flake,
Bruleed Fluff, and Candied Citrus

Banana "Creme Brulee" Pie. Peanut butter-chocolate crispy crust
and sweet whipped sour cream

Croissant Bread Pudding. Whiskey Butter Sauce
& Sour Cream Ice Cream

Apple & Butternut Squash Cheesecake. Ginger Anglaise,
Black Tea Reduction, and Walnut Ice Cream

I only tried a very small bite of each; the decadent banana "creme brulee" pie was my favorite.

We then had a coffee demonstration for the Dolce Gusto:

Dolce Gusto Coffee Presentation

Nescafe's Dolce Gusto machines are a line of single-serve coffee makers that appear to have more versatility and a much wider range of beverage options than many other single-serve coffee makers. I had no idea, but most coffee-house espresso machines operate at around 150 to 215 psi; the Dolce Gusto operates at 215 psi (for reference, that's about seven times the pressure in a car tire). The machine makes both hot and cold beverages, including espressos, cappuccinos, chai lattes and iced teas.

I tried the Cappuccino Skinny, which had a smooth and mild flavor, a nice froth, and came in at only 50 calories per serving. My husband tried the Mocha, which he enjoyed, and the Nestea Peach Iced Tea, which was very sweet (though Nestea is normally very sweet in all forms its sold in). Also keep in mind that the Nestea Peach Iced Tea is sweetened with sugar and aspartame, and contains artificial flavors and vegetable oils. All the coffee-based flavors had a much simpler ingredient base.

Nescafe also sent each of us a Piccolo, which is one of five of the Dolce Gusto machine varieties.

For more information:

Nescafe Dolce Gusto: http://www.dolce-gusto.us

Root Down: http://www.rootdowndenver.com/

Disclaimer: The event described above, including the complimentary coffee maker, was fully paid for by Nescafe to promote their Dolce Gusto coffee makers. All opinions are my own.

Vesta Dipping Grill

2011-10-27T20:07:00.009-06:00

Vesta has been a LoDo staple for an extraordinary 14 years, debuting when LoDo was just beginning to carve itself out of an industrial section of downtown Denver, and withstanding constant growth and turnover in the busy area since then. Vesta has long been considered one of Denver's best restaurants, and 5280 Magazine recently put it at the tail end of their 2011 Top 25 Restaurants list.

We made our way through the bar-hopping Lodo crowd to Vesta's location at 18th and Blake last Saturday night. The interior feels very urban and hip, with brick walls, high ceilings, and dark lighting.

My husband and I met up with a couple of friends (ok yes the same bunch we keep eating out with). We started off with drinks and complimentary bread served with roasted garlic; the garlic was an unexpected and unique touch.

If you're wondering about the restaurant's name, Vesta refers to itself as a "dipping grill" because all entrees come with three of Vesta's signature sauces.

But before jumping into entrees, the four of us started with several appetizers and small bites.

First up was the Vesta Roll ($12):

Vesta Roll

The menu claims the tuna is "sesame seared", but it tasted completely raw to me (which was fine). I enjoyed the large chunks of tuna in each bite and the crunchy exterior.

Their appetizer special of the day, Scallop Ceviche ($10):

Scallop Ceviche

The scallops were served with heirloom cherry tomatoes and saltines for serving. I wasn't totally impressed with the saltines, but apparently it is a traditional ceviche accompaniment. Otherwise, the scallops had a wonderful firm texture and citrus bite.

Next up were the Superior Farms Lamb Ribs ($10):

Superior Farms Lamb Ribs

The ribs were coated in a tangy yogurt sauce and a pistachio-mint rub that I absolutely loved.

We also had the Chinese BBQ Pork Belly (each $2):

Chinese BBQ Pork Belly

The belly pieces were topped with orange slices, yuzu mayonnaise, and sisho. The small portion made for a very tasty small bite, which was balanced out by the tangy citrus flavors.

As an entree, I ordered the Sofrito Braised Short Rib ($26):

Sofrito Braised Short Rib

The Southern-inspired dish included garlic rainbow chard, manchego polenta (in layman's terms, cheesy grits), and a bath of smoked paprika jus. The ribs were perfectly cooked to fork-tender.

The suggested sauces, which I had with the dish (not pictured), were green chili gastrique, bacon aioli, and Steuben's chimichurri. The aioli had all the creamy, smoky goodness you would expected from something called "bacon aioli"; the chimichurri was traditional and my favorite accompaniment to the meat. The gastrique had an unusual sweet-and-spicy flavor profile, but I felt it was just too sweet.

My husband ordered the Boneless Berkshire Pork Chop ($24):

Boneless Berkshire Pork Chop

This Southwest-style plate contained adobada pork chop served with pulled pork chilaquiles and jalapeno cabbage slaw. Every bite was just as good as it looks.

The chilaquiles had a very different flavor and texture profile than my chilaquiles at Salt a few weeks back, but it tasted even better. It included a base of soft corn tortillas instead of crispy corn chips. Like my short ribs, the pulled pork was incredibly tender.

The pork chop was very well cooked, and seasoned to allow the natural pork flavor to come through. The colorful accompanying sauces were the suggested salsa verde, mango poblano salsa, and roasted corn.

To finish off all that protein, we ordered the French Toast ($7) and the Dark Chocolate Boca Negra ($8) for desserts.

French Toast

The French Toast came with cinnamon ice cream, whipped cream, and fresh raspberries. The accompanying sauces were strawberry cointreau, hot fudge, and creme anglaise. It was a disappointing dessert. The French Toast was soggy and bland, made with a plain white bread. The ice cream had an icy texture.

Dark Chocolate Boca Negra

The intimidating-sounding Dark Chocolate Boca Negra - a rich, dense dark chocolate cake - was outstanding. Every bite was decadent hyperglycemic bliss. The cake came with the same dipping sauces as the French Toast, which were all very good but not necessary with the cake.

The only problem with the sauces for all our entrees and desserts? The dishes were already so well seasoned that they didn't need a lot of extra punch; I felt a little overwhelmed with the flavors of so many sauces.

With all the dishes we tried, every bite of meat or seafood at Vesta was high quality, perfectly cooked and expertly seasoned. Keep in mind, however, that between all the food we ordered and the various drinks we washed it down with, our meal at Vesta ended up being fairly expensive.

Vesta seems to suffer from a perception of becoming outmoded among a burgeoning Denver restaurant scene, but their fantastic food should withstand the test of time.

Casual Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Overall great food
Cons: Didn't care for one of the desserts, expensive

Website:
http://www.vestagrill.com

Pho 95

2011-10-16T17:43:00.011-06:00

Needing some pho this past weekend and intrigued by the positive reviews that Pho 95 received on Yelp and Urbanspoon, my husband and I headed over for lunch.

Normally for a Vietnamese food fix, we head to Pho Saigon in Englewood, so everything at Pho 95 was judged relative to its south-suburban counterpart a few miles further east on Arapahoe.

Pho 95 is situated in the 'burbs at Littleton's SouthGlenn development, which is a totally different environment from its Pho 95 predecessor off Federal. Nonetheless the restaurant seems to do extremely well in suburbia.

We arrived on a Sunday around 1 pm to a brightly decorated, mostly-full restaurant, and were immediately seated at a booth near the window.

We began with our usual starter, the Shrimp and Pork Spring Rolls ($3.95):

Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls

The rolls contained high-quality shrimp and pork, but otherwise were stuffed with only rice noodles and lettuce and were a bit bland. The peanut sauce tasted too much like overly sweet peanut butter.

Our main dishes were small bowls of Pho Tai or Beef Pho ($6) for my husband and Pho Bo Vien or Meatball Pho ($6) for myself.

Pho Bo (Beef Pho)

Meatball Pho

The soup was accompanied by a giant plate of veggies:

Pho Vegetables

You really can't tell from the photo above, but the plate came with a mountain of bean sprouts that were a bit brown and not particularly fresh tasting.

Other than the dreary bean sprouts, however, the pho was fantastic. The broth was light and pleasantly salty. The meatballs and beef slices in our respective bowls were comprised of thinly sliced, high quality meats. The soup was packed full of meat and noodles, and we threw in handful after handful of veggies on the side.

Service was ridiculously fast, efficient, and friendly. I'm pretty sure we only had time to blink between placing our orders and seeing the spring rolls delivered to our table.

Overall we loved the pho (minus the bean sprouts), but the spring rolls were disappointing. Worth another visit.

Everyday Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Great pho, cheap, fast service
Cons: Some aspects of food below average

Website:
http://www.pho95noodlehouse.com

5280 Dines

2011-10-15T17:21:00.003-06:00

Denver's 5280 magazine hosted its first-ever 5280 Dines event last Wednesday to celebrate their annual 25 Best Restaurants rankings. On the menu were small plates prepared by chefs of six of the top 25 restaurants: Mizuna, Edge, ChoLon, Table 6, Colt & Gray, and Barolo Grill. The event was hosted at Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar, which opened only a few weeks ago at 15th and Curtis.

Le Grand was shut down for normal dinner service to host the event. The brand-new restaurant wasn't in 5280's Top 25 list, but they offered a few nibbles alongside the restaurants that made the list.

The moderately-sized restaurant was packed with tables for each of the participating restaurants, a few makeshift bar areas, a silent auction display, a DJ, and lively crowd of ridiculously attractive and well dressed attendees.

And I must not forget to mention: open bar!

For its small bite sampling, Mizuna served a light seafood salad:

Mizuna - Insalada Frutti Di Mare

This light salad contained calamari, shrimp, mussels, crab and lobster with celery, fennel and onions tossed in vinaigrette. Mizuna certainly didn't skimp on high-quality seafood. This was one of my favorite plates of the evening, a pleasant surprise after our not-so-great dining experience there several months ago.

Edge offered Blueberry Venison Sausage:

Edge - Blueberry Venison Sausage

The sausage was topped with a fall root vegetable hash, brussel sprout salad, and huckleberry sauce. The sausage was wonderfully rich in flavor and had just a slightly sweet taste.

ChoLon offered a "Banh Mi" bite (not pictured) containing duck terrine, foie gras, chicken liver mousse, pickled vegetables, and tarragon-Chinese mustard aioli. My husband loved it but I thought it had too intense of a meaty flavor.

Table 6 served Pho Duck Dumplings:

Table 6 - Pho Duck Dumplings

This miniature sample of pho contained a giant dumpling filled with duck meat. The dumpling was fantastic, but the soup was otherwise a bit average.

Colt & Gray stuck to its traditional "offal" offerings by serving Grilled Grass-Fed Beef Heart, below, and Crispy Long Farm Pig Trotter (not pictured).

Colt & Gray - Grilled Grass Fed Beef Heart

Accompanying the beef heart were roasted beets, greens, and a lemon horseradish vinaigrette served on grilled bread. The meaty, chewy beef heart and sweet beet cubes complimented each other perfectly.

The trotter, on the other hand, was disappointing. It was served as a miniature fried cylinder filled with something that vaguely resembled meat mixed with gravy. It reminded me of the mystery-meat-filled krokettes I've tried to force myself to like during travels to the Netherlands. I didn't know what pigs feet should taste like before taking a bite, and I still don't know.

Barolo Grill served Vitello Tonnato, a traditional Italian dish of cold, sliced veal. It was topped with tuna aioli, microgreens, and roasted pepper caper tapenade.

Barolo Grill - Vitello Tonnato

And finally, Le Grand may not have been in the Top 25, but they certainly seemed to deserve a place among the restaurants at 5280 Dines.

Le Grand - Seared Salmon, Pickled Oyster

Their two-part dish contained a pickled oyster with star anise, foie gras mousse, and butternut squash, as well as seared salmon with beurre blanc sauce atop a potato chip. Both bites were incredible. The potato chip - salmon combination, in particular, was a very satisfying combination of flaky salmon, salty and crunchy chip, and creamy beurre blanc sauce.

Unfortunately for my sweet tooth, dessert was limited to this little guy from Mizuna:

Mizuna - Fruit Tart

Very tasty but plain.

For its first go, 5280 Dines was extremely well organized and executed. Le Grand seemed to be a perfect venue. The atmosphere was lively and busy but not overwhelmingly crowded. The participating restaurants served some very tasty and high-quality small bites, especially considering the makeshift preparatory area.

My only complaints? Some long waits for drinks, and the protein-heavy dishes could have used some balance with starchy sides and a more adventurous dessert.

Hope to see you all next year!

Website:
http://www.5280.com/

Colt & Gray

2011-10-08T21:04:00.003-06:00

Before ever even visiting the restaurant, the husband and wife owners of Colt & Gray were my heroes. A few years ago, they quit their "day jobs" to pursue their dream of opening a restaurant. Their impressive story, plus a million glowing reviews and being a participating restaurant with savored.com lured us in for a visit last weekend.

Colt & Gray lies immediately between the Platte River and I-25, just between the Highlands and downtown Denver, and among various other restaurants and shops on Platte street. Their corner location allows for quite a bit of outdoor seating and a small vegetable garden.

I was expecting Colt & Gray to be a bit like Euclid Hall, but the similarities end at pub-style food and unusual animal parts on the menu. Colt & Gray is a bit more swanky, offers overall lighter food, and makes a big deal of their cocktail offerings rather than the beer list.

Mr. Oyster recently signed up for savored.com, which includes Colt & Gray as a participating restaurant, so we enjoyed a 30% discount on our meal.

We were fortunate enough again to be joined by the same friends who joined us at Euclid Hall and dealt patiently with our obnoxious food photography.

Anyway, we ordered a ton of food, so I need to get started on that.

Westword awarded Colt & Gray the "Best Bone Marrow" award for 2011 (since so many places in Denver serve bone marrow?!?!). Anyway we were all over that and of course ordered the Roasted Marrow Bones ($16).

Roasted Marrow Bones

The three marrow bones were served with caramelized onions and grilled country bread. Per our waitress's recommendation, we ate each bite of marrow atop the bread with the onions and a pinch of salt. The marrow had a meaty flavor and a gelatinous texture and was basically very tasty. Each bite had a perfect balance of sweet onions, savory marrow, crunchy bread and salt.

Next were the Steamed Mussels ($14):

Steamed Mussels

While this had a wonderfully seasoned sauce, the mussels themselves were disappointing. All of the mussels were very small, and many unfortunately had a very gritty texture. For $14 for a small bowl of mussels I would really expect better quality.

I also had the House Made Spaghetti ($12):

House Made Spaghetti

This was served with a runny egg yolk much like the Open Faced Ravioli at Strings. The dish had way too many capers; their flavor was overwhelming and too salty. Even without the capers I felt this would have been too simple of a dish to be paying $12.

Next was the Braised Pork Shoulder ($21)

Braised Pork Shoulder

Yum. The highlight of the meal was definitely this plate. The pork shoulder complimented by a "summer pistou" (green smear in photo) and herb salad. The dish also contained "corn pudding", which was a lovely cube of what I would call cornbread. The sizable pork shoulder was perfectly cooked and seasoned.

We went a little crazy with dessert and decided to order three selections recommended by our waitress.

First was the Sticky Toffee Pudding ($8):

Sticky Toffee Pudding

How could we not order this stuff after some celebrity-ish woman raved about it as the "Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the Food Network? I don't know who Claire Robinson is, but she was dead on about how good this dessert is. Comprised of sticky sponge cake made with dates, three layers of toffee sauce, and Bourbon ice cream, it was absolute sweet perfection.

Next up was the Potted Cheesecake ($8):

Potted Cheesecake

No no, that's not a Yankee Candle. That's what Colt & Gray considers "cheesecake", but my dining companions and I beg to differ. It was extremely light and airy, almost more like cheesecake-flavored marshmallow fluff. Not that it wasn't delicious, but to call it "cheesecake" was a bit misleading. It was topped with a rich salted caramel sauce that was just too intense; it was both very salty and extremely sweet.

Our final dessert was Olive Oil and Thyme Cake ($8), served with blueberry compote and lemon-buttermilk ice cream.

Olive Oil and Thyme Cake

The cake had a perfect texture and a mild but pleasant flavor; I really didn't get a strong olive oil or thyme flavor. The compote was lightly sweetened and contained fresh, large blueberries that were balanced by the tart citrus flavor of the ice cream. Overall a very good dessert, but not as stellar as the Sticky Toffee Pudding.

I must also mention that we certainly acquainted ourselves with the cocktail menu and bartender's skills during our dinner. Everyone enjoyed their drinks, although I'm not sure any of the cocktails were exceptional. And it's a good thing we had 30% off our meal, as the mixed drinks cost $10 each. Even beers - and this was for only about 10 oz - were $8 each.

Service was excellent through the night; our waitress was extremely knowledgeable, friendly, and attentive.

We had a great time and enjoyed our cocktails and some good food at Colt & Gray, but the restaurant needs some of its dishes to be more polished for the price.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Some great food, very good service
Cons: Expensive, some dishes not worth the price

Website:
http://www.coltandgray.com

5280 Dines

2011-10-07T21:02:00.000-06:00

5280 just published the The 25 Best Restaurants of Denver in their October 2011 issue.

They are hosting 5280 Dines this Wednesday, to celebrate the unveiling with dishes from chefs of 6 of the winning restaurants.

The Top 25 list contains a striking number of newcomers, a trend that I'm sure will only continue as Denver's restaurant scene matures.

Of note on the list: Mizuna (at #3), Duo (#17), and Opus (#21) have reviews here on the Rocky Mountain Oyster. Colt & Gray (#10) review is coming very soon.

I'm amazed at how many restaurants I haven't been to on the list, and disappointed that Root Down didn't get a place among the top restaurants.

See you all at 5280 Dines!

The Buff

2011-09-28T20:30:00.003-06:00

I grew up in Boulder, and yet every time I return I'm amazed at just how many Boulder institutions I've never actually made it to. Like the Sink or the original Old Chicago or until very recently, the Buff.

I was in town to visit a friend from a million years ago who was in town for just a few short days. She suggested the Buff, which, somehow after 18 years in Boulder I had never actually been to (how did Man v. Food get there first??).

The Buff is at 28th and Canyon, oddly situated in the parking lot of a Best Western that is in dire need of an update. Parking was very scarce on the day we arrived and I'm sure it's like that on most weekend mornings.

We showed up sometime around 10:00 am on a Saturday, to what I understand is a typically busy weekend service at the Buff. We were promised a 10-15 minute wait, which surprised me with the number of people mulling around outside. We were seated on time and I suppose the vast number of tables inside helps them keep the line moving.

The Buff is actually kind of an unusual restaurant for Boulder in that they just serve regular ol' good food. There's no guarantees of your eggs being freshly retrieved from a local farmer, no fancy seasonal menus and no promises of everything required to operate the place being eco-friendly. The food is cheap, the portions are huge, and I can't imagine a place more appealing to a poor college student.

My friend started the morning off with an enormous latte ($3.25):

Latte

Followed by an enormous portion of Eggs Benedict ($10):

Eggs Benedict

Is that Eggs Benedict or is that soup? Who knew there was such thing as too much hollandaise sauce? I didn't try any of the benedict but my friend felt the sauce was too greasy and way too generously applied.

I ordered the California Omelet ($10), which came with red potatoes and wheat toast.

California Omelette

My omelet contained avocado, bacon, Swiss cheese, tomatoes, sour cream and green onions. With that combination of ingredients, it's hard to go wrong, and the giant omelet was basically pretty good. The potatoes were fresh and well seasoned. Like the latte and the eggs benedict, the portion size of this plate was way too big.

Service at the Buff was good, but like Snooze was a bit rushed for the sake of managing the wait outside. I loved the lively atmosphere, but the food was below average for Boulder.

Everyday Dining

(6 of 10)

Pros: Cheap, "normal" food in Boulder, lively atmosphere
Cons: Portions too large, Eggs Benedict drowning in hollandaise

Euclid Hall

2011-09-25T17:47:00.004-06:00

For those who can't resist the allure of fried pig ears washed down with freshly brewed ale, there is Euclid Hall. Apparently, I am precisely one of those people.

Euclid Hall has all the elements for success in Denver: a historic downtown location, unusual and cholesterol-laden pub-style food, an extensive beer menu, and a well-known chef/owner.

We arrived with a couple of friends for a very early (4pm-ish) Saturday night dinner. The restaurant was relatively busy for the early hour. We were seated upstairs and quickly got started with a round of drinks. Euclid Hall has an extensive beer menu, including my husband's beloved Lost Abbey, which is a bit of a rare find. He was instantly happy.

We began with a couple of starters: Buffalo Style Pig Ears and Seared Scallops.

First, the Buffalo Style Pig Ears:

Buffalo Style Pig Ears

These weren't what I was expecting. I thought the ears would look, you know, a lot more like ears than generously breaded, sliced-up ear slivers. They were also much softer than I had anticipated and had a very mild flavor. In fact, I mostly just tasted the fried exterior, which was very well seasoned but seemed to overwhelm whatever cartilage flavor may have existed.

Next were the seared scallops:

Seared Scallops with Peaches and Mustard

This was a much more traditional appetizer, and also much lighter than our pig ears. The scallops tasted lovely and were cooked perfectly. They were served with fresh peaches and Euclid Hall's traditional mustard, which I could have lived without in this dish.

Euclid Hall is known for its sausages and mustards, so we knew we had to try at least one. In an attempt to be adventurous (since eating pig ears wasn't enough), we settled on the Boudin Noir, a blood sausage.

Boudin Noir (Blood Sausage)

That ominous-looking sausage was my first blood sausage ever, and it certainly wasn't as scary as the name made it sound. It had a crumbly texture and a sweet flavor that was complimented by the addition of golden raisins to the sausage. Even not being much of a sausage fan, I really enjoyed the taste. It came with the grainy mustard assortment below, each with a unique flavor that nicely complimented the sausage (much better than it had with the scallops).

Mustards

Even after the blood sausage and pig ears, I had another journey into uncharted food territory ahead of me: poutine, the French Canadian grease-bomb staple, is prominent on the Euclid Hall menu. I've never seen this dish at any Colorado establishment, but Euclid Hall bravely serves it up in several varieties.

My husband and I split the lamb poutine, which came with braised and grilled lamb, goat cheese, and espagnole sauce.

Lamb Poutine

The lamb was tasty and well cooked, the goat cheese was as delicious as goat cheese always is, the sauce was too salty for my taste. Overall a decent pile of food, but not as good as its more ambitious counterpart, the cleverly titled Duck Duck Goose poutine:

Duck Duck Goose Poutine

This impressive pile of saturated fat-laden deliciousness included duck gravy, black pepper, cheese curds, a sunny-side up duck egg, and goose foie gras. I loved the combination of ingredients, particularly the more traditional poutine toppings of gravy and cheese curds. I always feel that fois gras should be the center of attention on any dish it's served, so I struggled with the thought of having that tiny piece be a compliment to a giant dish of French fries.

One last note about the food at Euclid Hall: besides the intense cholesterol punch, it is very heavy on the salt. I needed quite a bit of water to counteract all the sodium as I ate.

After all that delicious and heavy food, it was time for dessert.

We settled on splitting a Red Velvet Cupcake and the Sourdough Waffle Ice Cream Sandwich.

First, the Red Velvet Cupcake:

Red Velvet Cupcake

The frosting on this little guy was incredible. It was soft and airy, almost like marshmallow fluff atop the moist, deep-red cupcake.

And the Sourdough Waffle Ice Cream Sandwich, served with salted butterscotch ice cream with a praline topping:

Sourdough Waffle Ice Cream Sandwich

These sourdough waffles are the same carby staples that make up Euclid Hall's intriguing Chicken and Waffles dish. I didn't care for the sour flavor coupled with the sweet ice cream, but the ice cream itself - and its crunchy praline topping - was outstanding.

We had an excellent waitress looking after us all night, and she suggested we attend Euclid Hall's Great American Beer Festival Midnight Breakfast on September 29. The menu offerings looked delicious, but the thought of packing my stomach with so much grease and beer at midnight on a Thursday night and then trying to wake up at the crack of dawn the next morning for work sounded a bit like torture. Oh well.

Even after all the food we ingested, we didn't get a chance to try many many dishes that sounded fantastic, including bruleed bone marrow, a brat burger, or funnel cake fried bananas. Definitely need another visit.

Casual Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Great beer selection, great service, unique dishes

Cons: Very fatty and salty food, restaurant can be loud

Website:

http://euclidhall.com/

SALT

2011-09-15T20:00:00.001-06:00

It seems that all of America is clamoring for people to cut their sodium intake, and Salt in Boulder is serving it up to customers in generously filled little trays.

My husband, my mother and I showed up at Salt looking for brunch at noon on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. The outdoor seating was filled but the inside was maybe only a third occupied. I was surprised at how much busier Salt's next door neighbor, The Kitchen, appeared.

We were soon seated indoors and presented with the salt selection shown above, which consisted of a pink Bolivian salt and a white Sicilian salt.

The brunch menu at Salt offers a variety of sweet and savory dishes, and we couldn't resist the allure of the Glazed & Cinnamon Doughnuts ($6) as an "appetizer".

Glazed and Cinnamon Doughnuts

These were incredible. They were served with a tangy lemon curd and a spiced chocolate sauce that had just a slight hint of heat. The warm doughnuts tasted freshly fried and had a perfectly soft and light texture.

For our main dishes, I ordered the Chilaquiles Negro ($12). Chilaquiles is a traditional Mexican dish, and I believe chilaquiles roughly translates into something like "intentionally soggy egg-covered nachos that are delicious and you eat them for breakfast".

Chilaquiles Negro

This came smothered in refried black beans, salsa verde, onions, roasted chicken, cilantro, two eggs over easy, and crème fraiche. I never really figured out how I was supposed to it eat (is it really messy finger food or really tricky fork food?), although it was served in its authentic form. The combination of ingredients was outstanding, especially the very fresh and perfectly cooked eggs. I ate as much as I could and then let my husband dig in to finish it off.

Speaking of my husband, he ordered the Roasted Long Farm Pork Loin Sandwich ($15).

Roasted Long Farm Pork Loin Sandwich

This monster of a sandwich included spinach, fontina mornay, bacon, scallion scrambled eggs, and polenta fries on the side. It amounted to an awful lot of protein in every bite. The sandwich was good but very filling and lacked a punch of flavor. My husband only ate half of it before throwing in the towel (but he was then able to finish off my chilaquiles).

The polenta fries were well cooked and win novelty points, but I realized I wasn't enough of a polenta lover to eat more than just a few.

And for my mother, the House Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon Melt ($15):

House Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon Melt

The salmon came smothered in fontina cheese on a locally made Udi's bagel. I enjoyed the smoked salmon but the salmon coupled with the cheese made for a very salty meal.

Speaking of salty, considering the name of the restaurant and the copious amount of it sitting in front of us during our meal, I expected the food to be very lightly salted, thereby allowing customers to use the fancy foreign sodium chloride to their heart's desire on their meal. This was not the case. The food seemed to have typical restaurant sodium amounts in it, and I felt no need to add any additional salt. I tried a tiny bit of the two varieties just to see what they tasted like; I'm no gourmet but it was just normal salt to me.

The food was very good but generally didn't blow me away (ok, the doughnuts were awesome). Great service and atmosphere. I would definitely visit again, especially to try Salt for dinner.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Great food, local ingredients
Cons: Portions too large

Website:
http://www.saltboulderbistro.com/

Opus

2011-09-09T16:08:00.005-06:00

Opus is proof that fine dining can exist in the suburbs. We've been interested in making the trek to old town Littleton for a night at Opus, so when my husband saw a Groupon deal for half off the chef's tasting menu for two, we knew the time had come.

Our reservations were at 6:15 pm on Friday of Labor Day weekend. Taking advantage of free valet parking, we found ourselves entering Opus through a back entrance and meandering toward the front to locate the hostess.

The interior at Opus is one very large, expansive room, with widely spaced tables and concrete floors. It was about two-thirds occupied on the Friday night of our visit. The restaurant faces Littleton's historic Main Street, which is a lively area full of bars and restaurants.

The Chef's tasting menu included five courses and normally cost $75 per person, but thanks to our Groupon was only $75 for both of us. My husband opted for the wine pairings, which cost an extra $25.

After starting with an amuse bouche and a variety of fresh breads, we received our first course, Asparagus Flan:

Asparagus Flan

The flan dish was served with tempura asparagus and a balsamic drizzle. I loved the crisp tempura asparagus. The flan was ok; I generally don't enjoy flan and I thought the flavor was flat. Overall the portion felt a little large for a first course.

Our second course was Summer Melon Salad:

Summer Melon Salad

This was a lovely, light dish containing three large watermelon spheres accompanied by cantaloupe slivers, very thin slices of Spanish sheep's milk cheese, and shaved fennel. It was a perfect follow up - and a more appropriate portion size - after the more decadent fried asparagus of our last plate.

Our third course was Butter Poached Salmon:

Butter Poached Salmon

The salmon sat on a bed of ratatouille risotto. The salmon was perfectly cooked and had a lovely soft texture. The risotto, however, was the star of the show. It was creamy, pleasantly salty and filled with a colorful array of fresh vegetables.

Next was Sous Vide Redbird Chicken:

Sous Vide Redbird Chicken

I don't believe I've ever had anything cooked "Sous Vide" before, and this was just as tender and juicy as I imagined it would be. Each cylindrical piece of chicken was comprised of a curious blend of white and dark meats surrounded by a skin wrapper. It came with tomatoes and cheese-filled raviolis that were also excellent.

One gripe: I was disappointed that the two proteins on the tasting menu were chicken and salmon. How boring (and cheap?). I would have much preferred more exciting meat and seafood selections.

The dessert planned for the five course menu was a creme brulee, which I was wary of as I usually dislike the eggy taste of many creme brulees. I was able to change my dessert to the Chocolate Duet in its place. My husband, however, stuck with the creme brulee.

First, my Chocolate Duet:

Chocolate Duet

The chocolate duet contained a flourless chocolate cake covered in toffee pieces, with a chocolate cylinder filled with a whipped mousse. The plate was decorated with a syrup swirl. I loved the different textures and levels of chocolate, but it was just a bit too sweet for me, especially with the syrup garnish.

And the creme brulee:

Creme Brulee

The brulee came with a mint oil and berry swirl, fresh strawberries, and a sugared basil leaf. It had a runnier texture than a standard creme brulee (which was fine), and I was very impressed with how well it was cooked in such a boxy shape. And it tasted fantastic. Creamy and rich, with none of the eggy taste that I feared. The berries and basil leaf complimented the vanilla flavor perfectly. My husband declared this to be one of his favorite desserts ever.

And I had to sit there and stare at the dreaded smug look on my husband's face, as he relished the fact that his dessert was better than mine.

Due to my overwhelming ignorance of all things wine-related, I can't comment on the wine pairings other than to say the waiter did an outstanding job of describing each one and my husband enjoyed them.

The service at Opus was outstanding, and the timing and flow of the different courses was perfect. Overall execution of dishes was very good, and I appreciated some of the inventive twists that were thrown in. We preferred the overall experience at Opus over our previous fine dining dinners at Kevin Taylor and Mizuna. We'd return in a heartbeat with another Groupon or other deal; otherwise it's just for special occasions.

Fine Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Excellent, unique food. Outstanding service.
Cons: Expensive (look for online deals), boring proteins in tasting menu

Website:
http://www.opusdine.com/

Row 14

2011-09-05T14:06:00.005-06:00

Row 14 has only been open for a few short months, and has already become a sufficiently big deal that my husband and I dragged ourselves up there on a Tuesday night for a fancy dinner with some wonderful friends.

The restaurant is located in downtown Denver at 14th and Champa just next to the convention center. We valeted our vehicle for $8 and headed inside.

Row 14 describes itself as "sophisticated yet approachable" on their website, which I suppose accurately sums up the swanky interior filled with nicely dressed happy hour business types.

The four of us were seated at a large table next to floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto their patio seating and 14th Street.

After getting situated and ordering a round of drinks, we proceeded to order literally almost half the menu. We were fortunate that our friends included Ms. Sizzling Cupcake; we finally had a dining companion who understood our annoying habit of photographing everything we ate.

We shared five different starters, many of which seemed designed for our four-person party.

First off were the Row 14 Sliders ($10), which came with bacon, garlic aioli, and togarashi parmesan fries.

Row 14 Sliders

Fantastic. I loved the rich bacon slice on my slider, and the fries were wonderfully spiced.

Next were the Ahi & Salmon Rangoons ($6):

Ahi & Salmon Rangoons. After we ate the first 3. The original presentation was
much more beautiful and I'm sorry we destroyed it before snapping a picture.

Well, we really screwed up the food blogging thing right out of the gate by inhaling three of the four rangoons before remembering we needed a picture. But they were perfect. Each one was generously stuffed with a mixture of tuna, salmon, and cream cheese.

Row 14 seems to have an unusual fascination with duck confit, so I decided to try the Duck Confit Pancakes ($8):

Duck Confit Pancakes

Let's get one thing straight: these are not pancakes. They are crackers topped with duck confit and cabbage. Despite the misnomer, I loved every bite. The confit was balanced by the crisp cracker base and fresh cabbage slaw.

Next was Ahi Tartare ($10):

Ahi Tartare

The tuna was fresh, high quality and perfectly seasoned. However, I wish it had been accompanied with a more interesting scooping food; the wonton chips were boring and greasy and bland.

And the Sweet Corn Soup ($7):

Sweet Corn Soup

This was our least favorite of the many starters. The soup had a wonderful sweet corn flavor, but it was way too watery and thin. One redeeming factor was that the soup came with crispy duck cracklings that we all loved.

As if that wasn't enough food, we ordered the following entrees:

Wild Florida Ono ($24):

Wild Florida Ono

This came with, quoting from the menu: black beans, olathe corn, avocado, pickled papaya, espelette chile oil. All of the Row 14 entrees were outstanding, and this was no exception. The Ono was perfectly cooked and complimented by the accompanying flavors.

I didn't try the following entrees, but some very reliable sources told me they were fantastic:

Alamosa Striped Bass

Wagyu Flank Steak Frites

And for dessert:

Tiramisu:

Tiramisu

Strawberry Cream Cheese Gyoza:

Strawberry Cream Cheese Gyoza

I consider myself pretty easy to please when it comes to desserts, but I didn't care for either of these. The Strawberry Cream Cheese Gyoza was definitely the better of the two, containing wonton-type wrappers filled with a rich strawberry cream cheese filling. Everyone at the table enjoyed the dessert, except me, because my wonton was apparently filled with far less filling than everyone else's, and I mostly just tasted the wonton wrapper.

And the tiramisu was just disappointing. It had a bottom layer of cake-like stuff which maybe was supposed to be equivalent to ladyfingers, topped by a thick "cream" layer. The cream was almost like ice cream but with a very icy texture, and had a very strong coffee flavor. The dessert wasn't what I was expecting, and it certainly wasn't a traditional tiramisu.

We loved the atmosphere at Row 14 and the service was very good. The entrees were outstanding, the small plates were decent, and the desserts...have some room for improvement (at least the two we tried). Worth a second visit.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Great decor, seating and atmosphere. Outstanding entree plates.
Cons: Didn't care for either of the desserts we had. Typical downtown parking headaches.

Website:
http://www.row14denver.com/

Larkburger

2011-09-01T19:44:00.001-06:00

There are so many hamburger spots in Denver that Larkburger never really made its way to my radar, despite the nonstop blogging hype and the weed-like proliferation of its restaurants across Colorado. That was, until a location opened up in the Denver Tech Center that was just way too convenient to pass up.

Larkburger labels their burgers as "gourmet" at every opportunity, and that's probably a result of their fine dining roots at Vail's Larkspur restaurant. That's also why you see truffle flavor permeating so much of the menu.

My husband, my mother-in-law and I arrived at Larkburger for lunch on a Saturday. Their Greenwood Village location is right at the heart of the Tech Center, in a fancy-ish strip mall that's packed to the brim all workweek long but is eerily quiet on weekends. As expected, Larkburger only had a few other customers during our Saturday visit.

The menu at Larkburger is very, very simple. You have a choice between various types of burgers (beef, tuna, turkey, mushroom) in a couple of different sizes, but that's where your options taper off. The restaurant encourages a medium cooked burger, Tillamook cheddar is the only cheese option, and your toppings will be lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and sauce. Some people might find that constricting, I thought it was easy and perfect.

My husband selected the Larkburger with cheese ($6.5), I ordered the Little Lark with cheese ($4), and my mother-in-law ordered the Turkey Burger ($6.25). We also got an order of their Truffle and Parmesan Fries ($3).

Just a few minutes later, out came our food:

Left to Right: Larkburger, Little Lark, Turkey Burger
Background: Truffle & Parmesan Fries

One bite into my burger, and I completely understood what all the fuss was about. So good. Maybe it was the quality of the meat, or the fact that it was cooked so perfectly, or the buttery sauce or fresh toppings, but this an insanely good hamburger. I didn't even feel the need to add ketchup.

My husband loved his Larkburger equally. He made fun of the miniature size of my Little Lark, but I thought it was the perfect portion. I didn't try my mother-in-law's turkey burger but she loved it.

The fries were just ok. I prefer thick, steak-type fries, and these were very skinny and lacked the punch I was hoping for.

Overall, an outstanding hamburger for cheap. I'll be back.

Everyday Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Amazing hamburgers, great service, cheap
Cons: Some people may not like lack of menu options, fries were average

Website:
http://www.larkburger.com

Snooze, Visit #2

2011-08-28T18:15:00.000-06:00

Note: This is a follow-up review after our first visit a few weeks ago.

It was inevitable: the allure of all the amazing-sounding dishes we didn't get to try at our last Snooze escapade drew us in for another visit last weekend.

This time, we brought a couple of friends along and tried to show up early-ish to minimize the wait. Fortunately, the four of us only had to wait 20 minutes after our 8:45 Sunday morning arrival for a table (keep in mind this is the suburban location at Southglenn).

The portions at Snooze being too large, and the amazing food options being too numerous, we decided to drive our waitress crazy with a mishmash of everything delicious we saw on the menu. I should point out that our waitress was really nice about our goofy orders and did a great job.

Let's get started.

Half order of Sticky Bun French Toast:

Sticky Bun French Toast (half order)

We all loved this, but it was extremely rich. The single slice of toast was smothered in a generous helping of syrup, nuts and cream cheese icing. Even splitting the half portion among four of us, it was hard to finish the whole plate because it was so sweet.

A full-size order of Peaches 'n Cream French Toast:

Peaches 'n Cream French Toast

This wasn't as delectable as the Sticky Bun variety, but also not as overwhelmingly sweet. I loved the crunchy granola topping and the refreshing taste of the peaches.

We warned our friend that there was no way he could finish an entire portion of the Blueberry Lemon Bar Pancakes, but he ordered them anyway.

Blueberry Lemon Bar Pancakes

He finished them off. Unbelievable. These pancakes have a pleasant tart flavor and are covered in a honey-yogurt sauce made with local Noosa yogurt. My husband preferred these over the Pineapple Upside Down Pancakes from our last visit.

We also ordered two of the Juan's Breakfast Tacos (a normal portion comes with three). The tacos came filled with scrambled eggs, shredded hash browns, jack cheese, ranchero sauce, and we added chorizo to make things more interesting.

Juan's Breakfast Tacos

I loved the ranchero sauce, and I definitely preferred the tacos over the breakfast burrito I had at my last visit. Still, I thought they needed Cholula for an extra kick.

Finally, I couldn't decide between eggs benedicts, so I went with one each of the Caprese and the Upstream Benny. The Caprese had an heirloom tomato atop mozzarella and ciabatta bread, topped with the usual poached egg and hollandaise sauce, with basil pesto and balsamic. The Upstream Benny included smoked salmon on bacon-jalapeno spoonbread.

Left: Caprese Benedict Right: Upstream Benny Back: Hash Browns

The Caprese benedict tasted like a hybrid of bruschetta and eggs benedict. I really enjoyed the fresh flavor of the tomato, but the mozzarella was so gooey that it was a bit hard to eat. I preferred the very unique Upstream Benny (I'm a huge salmon fan), although the spoonbread just tasted like cornbread to me. The hash browns were just average.

Feeling like a seasoned Snooze pro after all that food (ok, I really only have two visits under my belt), I bring you the following recommendations for any visit to Snooze:

Be prepared for a wait at any of their locations
Not the most relaxing experience as things can be rushed for table turnover
Portions, especially for sweet dishes, are way too big. Get a half order, or split with lots of friends, or both
Recommend getting additional meat and/or veggies in savory dishes

Snooze seems poised to take over the planet, with new locations coming soon in Boulder and San Diego, CA, so be prepared for a future full of giant breakfast burritos and red velvet pancakes. I know I'm ready.

The food at Snooze is very unique and mostly awesome. We've always had good or great service, and the waits have never been too awful. I'm therefore handing out an additional star to Snooze @ Southglenn, so they're now an 8-star joint instead of a 7-er from the initial review.

Everyday Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Great food, able to mix and match menu items, really unique breakfast choices
Cons: Long waits, feeling rushed, giant sugary portions

Website:
http://www.snoozeeatery.com

Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs

2011-08-24T17:33:00.003-06:00

Well, I suppose if Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs is a favorite of Anthony Bourdain's and if it's Susan Feniger's "Best Thing I Ever Ate", it's probably good enough for me and my amateur tastebuds. Biker Jim's has quickly become one of the most well known food spots in Denver, meaning it was time for us to get over there and see what the big deal was all about.

We showed up at about 5:30 pm on a Friday night just before a Rockies game. Surprisingly, only a few tables were occupied when we first arrived, but it soon became packed with customers after we entered.

Biker Jim's is more famously known for its hot dog stands, and just opened the brick-and-mortar location this past March in Five Points near Coors Field (across from my beloved Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria). The Biker Jim's restaurant has order-at-the-counter service and indoor and outdoor tables.

My husband ordered the Louisiana Red Hot ($6), with cream cheese and grilled onions on top (additional $1). And a half order of the much-Yelped fried macaroni and cheese on the side ($2).

And what did I order? I'm going to get a lot of crap about this. Well, I already have from my husband. Brace yourself. I ordered a hamburger. It was the Off-The-Street Burger ($8) to be precise.

WHY you ask, did I get a hamburger? Well...

I'm not that big of a hot dog fan
The toppings sounded *%(@*$ fantastic. Fried green tomatoes, fried onions, roasted poblanos, garlic aioli and a gooey-yolk egg? Yes please.

We munched on pickles and banana peppers from the relish bar while waiting for our plates, and we were greeted with the arrival of our food after only a few short minutes.

Left - Louisiana Red Hot dog with cream cheese and grilled onions
Right - Fried Macaroni and Cheese
Sorry my husband took such a bad picture and didn't even bother to unwrap his hot dog.

My husband was upset about my hamburger order, and I am upset with him for taking such a crummy picture of his delicious food. Underneath that tin foil wrapper is a wonderfully spicy Louisiana Red Hot dog, which was perfectly complimented by the cream cheese and sweet grilled onions.

And the shot of the two fried triangles on the right simply does not do justice to the insanely good Fried Macaroni and Cheese insides. It tastes like the richest, gooey-est, most wonderfully cheesy and with perfectly cooked pasta type mac and cheese that you've ever had. And then it's deep fried. Amazing. It lived up to every word of Yelp hype. Loyal readers (all 2 of you), you must try it if you visit.

And my order, the Off-the-Street burger:

Off-the-Street Burger

Let's start with the toppings I was so excited about. The fried onions, egg, and roasted poblano were all excellent, but the real star was the perfectly cooked, tangy fried green tomato. Clearly Biker Jim's really has their act together when it comes to fried goodies.

But sadly, my hamburger was a bit dry and flavorless. It certainly didn't have the punch of a Louisiana Red Hot dog. And the worst part about it was I was blasted with "I-told-you-so"s from my irritatingly smug dining partner. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH IT PAINS ME TO SAY THIS, but he was right. I should've stuck with a hot dog.

Unfortunately, along with the arrival of our food at the table, we were faced with what was no doubt my biggest gripe of the experience: there were flies everywhere. I spent more time trying to swat away the nonstop swarm of winged pests than I did enjoying the food. Biker Jim's has two garage-door panels that they had open at the time - I assume to keep temperatures cool and smoke levels down - but they need to put up screens or do something to keep the flies away. A friend who's been to Biker Jim's on several other occasions confirmed he's seen the same thing, so it wasn't just an isolated problem.

Biker Jim's: Great hot dogs and great fried mac and cheese. Well worth any marital strife your visit may cause. Bring a fly swatter.

Everyday Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Amazing Fried Macaroni and Cheese and hot dogs. Fast service.
Cons: Hamburger was disappointing. Beware the flies when doors are open.

Website:
http://bikerjimsdogs.com/

Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte Larabars

2011-08-22T19:14:00.002-06:00

Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte Larabars what?!!?

I thought I was a Larabar superfan but I was completely blindsided by the presence of this little guy at my local Whole Foods on Monday:

Where did this come from? I couldn't find a single mention of this new flavor on Larabar's website, nor on their Facebook page. All I could come up with were a few random blog hits mentioning the new bar.

Larabar, I thought we had something special. YOU WERE MY FIRST BLOG POST! But apparently you don't care and you go out with new flavors without any regard for my feelings.

Anyway, let's talk about the Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte flavor.

I love chocolate in any form, but I generally eschew cherries outside of their fresh and raw state. Even not being a huge cherry fan, I really enjoyed the new Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte Larabar. The cherry flavor isn't nearly as intense as the Cherry Pie Larabar, and the addition of cashews and almonds into the mix makes it taste like a decadent dessert. Oh, and the chocolate chips were fantastic, of course.

And the nutritionals:

Apparently, along with the arrival of the Chocolate Chip Cherry Torte flavor comes the retirement of the Cinnamon Roll flavor. I can't say I'm too upset about that, as the Cinnamon Roll flavor was one of my very least favorites and was always difficult to find, presumably because no one was too interested in buying it. Larabar keeps coming out with better and better flavors (hello Blueberry Muffin) and it only makes sense that they throw out some of the dead weight along the way.

Website:
http://www.larabar.com

Denver Biscuit Company

2011-08-17T17:03:00.004-06:00

Any of you who have read my Silver Creek Diner review have probably been sitting at the edges of your seats since that post, wondering in frantic anticipation:

What happened to the quest for amazing biscuits and gravy in Denver?!

Relax, my friends. I shall put you at ease with my recap of our recent visit to Denver Biscuit Company.

Our meal at Silver Creek Diner failed to fill the void in my husband's life caused by insufficient hometown biscuits and gravy, but we have continued to keep our eyes peeled for a worthy contender.

Enter the Denver Biscuit Company. Recommended by a friend and seeming to be an obvious candidate for delicious biscuits and gravy, Mr. Oyster and a friend and myself all headed to their Colfax location last weekend for breakfast.

After hearing so much about the nomadic Denver Biscuit Company food truck, I was really expecting more a of a hole-in-the-wall place for their brick-and-mortar venue. Instead, the location - on an eclectic strip of Colfax just south of City Park - was surprisingly swanky and yuppie-fied. The spot is shared by Denver Biscuit Company, Fat Sully's Pizza, and the Atomic Cowboy bar, each with their own hours and contributions to the feel of the restaurant.

Denver Biscuit Company location shared by Atomic Cowboy and Fat Sully's Pizza.
I was wondering why there was a full bar in a breakfast place.

Oh, and I was also wondering why there was a giant cowboys vs. aliens mural-painting.

And our food:

My plate was the "Ellsworth", a biscuit sandwich containing buttermilk fried chicken with honey, stone-ground mustard and homemade pickles. Terrified of the sweetness of the honey, I asked for it on the side.

The Ellsworth, honey on the side

Ohh this was wonderful. The enormous biscuit was light and fluffy and not too buttery or heavy tasting. The fried chicken was perfectly seasoned, with a crunchy crust and very tender meat. I loved the spiciness of the mustard, and I was glad I asked for the honey on the side so I could add only the small amount I wanted.

Our friend ordered the biscuit French toast, which came with pineapple compote as the "compote of the day". She asked for the compote on the side and received a ridiculously large, soup-sized bowl of it with the french toast.

Biscuit French Toast

I tried a bit of her dish and loved the unique flavor and fluffy texture of the biscuit French toast itself. We were all underwhelmed by the pineapple compote; the acidic sweetness of the pineapple seemed to have been completely cooked out, leaving only a sad mush behind.

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for, the verdict on the biscuits and gravy:

Biscuits and Gravy

Yes, it tasted as delicious as it looks. Giant, fluffy, flaky biscuits smothered in a generous helping of sausage-packed gravy. One pleasant surprise with this dish was the sausage was fairly spicy and a added a nice kick to every bite.

A couple of gripes: service was a bit slow, and I didn't order any coffee but they make you fetch your own coffee at their "coffee bar". If I wanted to fetch my own beverages I wouldn't have gone out to eat.

But there were happily filled stomachs for all. If you love biscuits, go to Denver Biscuit Company.

Everyday Dining

(8 of 10)

Pros: Great food.

Cons: You have to fetch your own coffee. Slow service.

Website:
http://www.denbisco.com

Restaurant Kevin Taylor

2011-08-14T13:50:00.002-06:00

One bit of insight into my super-secret personal life that I'm sure you all have been dying to know more about: my husband and I are relatively experienced at dropping substantial amounts of money for delicious French food in Las Vegas.

We've been looking for a place in Denver that would take our money in exchange for an equally delicious meal as what we've had in Vegas. Our first try, at Mizuna, was fairly disappointing. Last weekend, it was on to Restaurant Kevin Taylor, which has received the extraordinary-for-Denver accolades of the AAA Four Diamond Award and Forbes's Four-Star Ranking.

Kevin Taylor is one of very few big-name chefs from Colorado, and he has the entire Kevin Taylor Restaurant Group in Denver under his belt. Clearly he must be a fairly big deal to have his fancy restaurant carry his name.

Kevin Taylor is tucked in the beautiful Hotel Teatro near the Performing Arts Center downtown, making it the first restaurant-in-a-hotel I've really been to in Denver. While squarely downtown, the arts area of Denver feels quiet and off-the-beaten-path compared to a typical downtown dining experience.

We had no problem valeting our vehicle for an $8 price tag (hotel guests valet free) and found the restaurant immediately to our right after walking into Hotel Teatro.

The restaurant itself was a little odd. For as fancy as Restaurant Kevin Taylor is supposed to be, there was no host or hostess present to seat us. We had to wait for a waiter to finish with customers before being seated by him. And you'll need a tour guide to take you to the bathrooms. No joke. You have to exit the restaurant, take the second elevator to your right, head to the basement level, walk all the way down the hallway to your right, and then you are at the ladies room.

But the thing that struck me most was there was no one there. It was 7 pm on a Saturday night in the middle of the summer, and there were only four other couples eating that night. But needless to say we received very good service and plenty of attention from the waitstaff.

Anyway, on to the food.

Restaurant Kevin Taylor had just unveiled a new menu at the evening of our visit, which we were assured by our waiter that the entire staff had sampled and everything was superb.

We started out with a French favorite for my husband and me: foie gras. In this case, it was the Seared French Foie Gras ($16), which came with (direct from menu) Colorado Peach Cobbler, Pistachio Black Pepper Streusel, Armagnac Crema, Peach Gastrique.

Seared French Foie Gras

Almost too beautiful to eat. This was a lovely combination of flavors and textures that blended together perfectly. The armagnac cream (yellowish mound in upper right) was a liquor-laced sweet foam blob, and I've never tasted anything quite like it before. My only complaint about this dish was the foie gras lacked some of the buttery richness I love in foie gras and instead tasted a bit gelatinous.

Along with the foie gras, we also split the Creamy Maine Lobster & Corn Soup ($12).

Creamy Maine Lobster and Corn Soup

The soup was presented first with only the lobster meat and avocado in an empty dish, and the waiter then poured the soup around the delicious claw meat at the center of the bowl. We ate up every last drop of the wonderfully rich soup.

My husband ordered the Roast Colorado Lamb Rack ($38) as his entree. Its accompaniments, from the menu, Porcinis, Sweet Bread Fricasee, Enriched Barley, Mint, Lamb Jus.

Roast Colorado Lamb Rack

This was an excellent plate. The lamb was perfectly seasoned and cooked to medium rare. The porcini mushrooms were chewy and flavorful, and the sweetbreads contributed an additional meaty flavor to the plate.

My entree was the Potato Crusted Halibut ($32), which came with, directly from the menu, Chanterelles, Creamed Spinach, Black Truffle, Port Reduction.

Potato Crusted Halibut

This was not nearly as spectacular as my husband's lamb. I loved the tiny chanterelle mushrooms (well, I love mushrooms in general) and the potato crust on the halibut was wonderfully crunchy and salty. The halibut itself, while well cooked, was a little bland. The giant pile of creamed spinach seemed more like diner food than an accompaniment at a high-end restaurant.

And of course, on to dessert.

Looking for something light, we chose the Raspberry and Basil Napoleon ($10).

Raspberry and Basil Napoleon

This simple dessert had a top layer of red raspberries and vanilla pastry cream, and a bottom layer of golden raspberries with raspberry pastry cream. On the side was lemon sorbet. The raspberries tasted very high quality and fresh, and the dessert overall was pleasantly light and refreshing.

Restaurant Kevin Taylor offered some excellent food but missed the mark in a few areas. It doesn't compare to our beloved Andre's at the Monte Carlo.

Worth a visit if its convenient and you're looking for a fine dining experience in Denver.

Fine Dining

7 of 10

Pros: Quality ingredients. Most dishes were excellent. Very good waitstaff.
Cons: Some dishes lacked polish for the price tag. Where are the other diners?

Website:
http://www.ktrg.net/rkt/

Duo Restaurant

2011-08-10T17:15:00.004-06:00

Every once in a while, on a lazy weekend morning, my husband and I manage to drag ourselves out of bed, hop in the car, and drive far far out of the suburbs to treat ourselves to delicious brunch in the city.

Last weekend was one of those occasions, as we trekked to the Highlands for an encore visit to Duo Restaurant on Sunday morning.

The last time I was at Duo was sometime in the era of a million years ago, with Mr. Oyster and my mother, for what I remembered was a fantastic brunch.

It was just my husband and me this time, looking for a repeat of the great food from our previous visit.

Duo is tucked fairly deep in the Highlands at 32nd and Zuni. We had reservations on a Sunday for the restaurant's open at 10 am. Within a few minutes of being seated, every table was occupied. Note to anyone eating at Duo at a similar time: make reservations.

Duo is yet another farm-to-table type place that reminds me a lot of The Kitchen in Boulder. It's got a cozy, homey feel that includes napkins that look like this:

How quaint.

I ordered the mushroom scramble ($8), which included scrambled eggs with mushrooms and spinach, with a side of crispy potatoes and a slice of homemade bread.

Mushroom Scramble

It was perfect. The scramble was very healthy and fresh tasting, although too large of a portion for me. And I love love love their crispy potatoes; they come well-seasoned with a wonderful crunchy exterior.

And for my husband, the cider glazed pork "benedict" ($10). Direct from menu: poached eggs, grilled sourdough bread, slow roasted cider glazed pork, whole grain mustard cream sauce, crispy potatoes.

Cider Glazed Pork Benedict

This was a completely unique twist on eggs benedict and we loved it. The eggs sat on a bed of roasted pork, which were atop a slice of sourdough bread. The eggs were perfectly poached with runny centers that melded with the cream sauce, sourdough, and pork.

We were well attended to at Duo and left with some wonderful brunch in our stomachs. Just as good as I remembered it.

Casual Dining

8 of 10

Pros: Delicious food, good service, fresh, local ingredients

Cons: Reservations needed

Website:

http://duodenver.com/

Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria, Vallagio

2011-08-03T21:14:00.002-06:00

Note: This is a follow-up review for my first and second visits to Marco's, both at the Ballpark location downtown.

I can't stop eating at Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria.

After two lovely visits to Marco's Ballpark location, we've been long overdue for a trip to their south suburban spot at Vallagio.

Vallagio is some sort of newish integrated living community, with a variety of shops and restaurants placed alongside condos and lofts. Parking is a lot easier at Vallagio compared to their Five Points spot, but it lacks the downtown atmosphere and proximity to, you know, other cool stuff.

Unlike the Ballpark location, we definitely didn't need reservations for the the two of us at 7 pm on a Friday night. The Vallagio spot has a more spacious interior than Ballpark, and it also has a very large patio area. The patio was packed on the warm night we visited, but the indoor seating was only about half occupied.

We sat indoors and quickly got settled in with a couple of beers. Then, it was time to order the dish we'd both jealously eyeballed on our neighbors' tables at our last visit: the Meatball Sliders ($9).

Meatball Sliders

These came on two buttery, garlicky rolls, topped with Caciocavallo and Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses, and with a side of tomato sauce. They were fantastic. I love that I could smother them in red sauce before taking a bite.

To follow up our sliders, we settled on the Del Re pizza ($18). Directly from the menu: Truffle and Porcini Mushroom Pecorino Sardo Spread, Fresh Mozzarella, Topped with Mushrooms, Proscuitto di Parma, Fresh Basil.

Del Re Pizza

The Del Re was tasty but just too rich. The creamy pecorino sardo spread, coupled with the generous layer of mozzarella, was too heavy tasting for my preference. I enjoyed the flavor of the proscuitto itself, but its saltiness and meatly flavor added another level of heaviness to the pizza. Fortunately, the mushrooms were the same wonderful, chewy porcinis as the ones that sat above my beloved Brooklyn Pizza at my last visit.

The two dishes were too much food for us and we weren't able to finish off the last couple Del Re slices.

The service at Marco's in Vallagio was very good, and felt more relaxed and less hurried than the bustling downtown location.

Overall we were just as happy with the Vallagio restaurant as the Five Points one. Go to Marco's at Ballpark if you're looking for a lively atmosphere and plenty of nearby entertainment. Check out Vallagio if you want a quieter evening or something more kid-friendly.

Website:
http://www.marcoscoalfiredpizza.com/

Rice Bistro & Sushi

2011-07-28T20:09:00.004-06:00

Tucked very very deep in the south suburbs lies Rice Bistro & Sushi (or RICE Bistro & Sushi as they have on their website), which my husband, myself and two other friends checked out last weekend.

Rice lies at Holly and Orchard in The Orchards shopping area, in a small building adjacent to a Panera and across the parking lot from a King Soopers. Definitely suburban.

We were there on Saturday night for a very late dinner - I believe we got there a little after 8 pm. The restaurant was maybe half occupied, with a separate bar area that stayed busy through the night.

The menu at Rice lists has just about every imaginable Asian dish, as well as impressive list of cold sakes. But we were just there for the sushi. Oh, and sake too I suppose.

Rice's sushi menu includes all your typical sushi concoctions, as well as an entire page of more ambitious and creative rolls. After asking our waiter for recommendations for a spicy roll, he suggested something off the menu: the explosion roll, containing tuna and cream cheese rolled into a fried egg roll wrapper, and topped with a sweet and spicy sauce.

Explosion Roll

These fried little pieces of heaven were high-calorie and delicious and not quite like anything I've tried before. The sauce was spicy as promised.

We then dug into an assortment of more traditional sushi rolls: a shrimp tempura roll ($6.75), a spider roll ($7.5), an "Alaska" roll (crab, smoked salmon, shrimp, avocado, $10), and a spicy salmon roll ($5.5).

Clockwise from top right: Spider Roll, Spicy Salmon Roll, Alaska Roll, Shrimp Tempura Roll

These were all good rolls, although nothing stood out worth getting excited about.

For our sushi finale, we decided to conclude the meal with something more adventurous: the Mexican Roll ($14), which came with Spicy super white tuna, scallions and jalapeño topped with salmon and guacamole. Our waiter confirmed that the guacamole that comes with the roll was homemade.

Mexican Roll

I was intrigued by the idea of guacamole with sushi. It must be even better than plain avocado with sushi, right? Wrong. It was good but not amazing, and the flavors of the guacamole didn't blend well with the sushi. I probably should have expected that, but I was disappointed nonetheless.

We enjoyed our meal at Rice and our waiter was very helpful and knowledgeable, but nothing from the menu stood out as particularly special. Worth visiting if you're in the area and looking for Asian food.

Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Extremely varied menu, good service
Cons: Food is good but nothing special, strip mall location

Website:
http://www.ricebistrodenver.com/

Snooze

2011-07-16T13:50:00.004-06:00

Snooze is another restaurant that's kind of a big deal, and I've been wanting to go for months now. I mean, this is a place that offers Red Velvet Pancakes, how can you go wrong?

The downside of being kind of a big deal is that everyone else is trying to eat there too. When we stopped by their Centennial location last Sunday morning, a quick look at the crowds standing outside idly made it obvious we were in for a bit of a wait. They also don't take reservations, which was frustrating.

We were told by the staff that our party of 2 would be a 15 to 25-minute wait. That stretched out to about half an hour before we were seated.

Snooze has a pretty jazzy looking interior, with pale green walls, giant orange light fixtures, and huge circular tables. It was, of course, packed to capacity.

Making a decision on our meal selections was tough. There were about five or six dishes we each wanted to try. I'll just refer to you to their full menu. You'll understand our dilemma.

My husband decided on the Pineapple Upside Down Pancakes. From the menu: Caramelized pineapple chunks with housemade vanilla crème anglaise and cinnamon butter.

Pineapple Upside Down Pancakes

These pancakes were every bit as rich and delectable as you'd imagine. Fluffy, white pancakes filled with sweet pineapple pieces and topped with a rich drizzle of rich sweet cream-cheesy "syrup" that was almost like a glaze.

The only problem? It was way too sweet and rich for the portion size. This is a hyperglycemic attack on a plate.

I didn't notice until after we'd dug in was that Snooze offers "a la carte" pancakes. I really wish we'd just ordered a single pancake alongside something with more nutritional value. The two enormous pancakes were just too much.

Anyway, moving on to my selection: the Breakfast Burrito. From the menu: Filled with scrambled eggs, hash browns, house black beans, cheddar & jack cheese, topped with salsa fresca and your choice of green chili or ranchero.

Breakfast Burrito with Green Chili

This monster was delicious, but why such a measly helping of green chili? I was expecting a far more generous smothering. The burrito was a little bland and would have been outstanding with more green chili flavor in each bite.

My portion was also too big, and even with some help from my lovely partner in crime, we had to push ourselves to finish three-quarters of it.

Our service was alright. Obviously it was a very busy place and I felt like we were rushed a little bit for the sake of table turnover.

I'd definitely return to Snooze, assuming I could get there early enough in the morning to avoid a substantial wait. The menu has too many delicious-sounding items that I have yet to devour.

Everyday Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Great tasting food. Unique options. Cheap.
Cons: Long wait to eat, and they don't take reservations. Beware the full pancake portions (I recommend a la carte pancakes).

Website:
http://www.snoozeeatery.com