Parry's Pizzeria & Bar, Revisited

We were flattered to be invited to the soft opening of Parry's Pizzeria & Bar in January, and thrilled to discover that a great pizza-and-craft-beer joint was opening so close to our house.

Since then, we've made a couple more visits to Parry's for dinner, and also had some unsuccessful tries when we've turned around and headed elsewhere due to a very long wait.

Parry's has quickly become an extraordinarily popular Highlands Ranch restaurant and bar. That's no surprise, as Highlands Ranch is always hurting for non-chain, unique restaurants. Parry's particularly stands out for its selection of over 50 beers on tap, including many well-regarded local and national craft beers.

Parry's location at a giant Highlands Ranch strip mall is normally packed with a waiting area full of families and couples. If you can get past the crowds, however, an impressive beer menu and pizza selection await.

We've eaten in both the main dining area and near the bar. Unfortunately, their bar area is entirely too small. Only a handful of chairs are available, surrounded by a few nearby tables where you'll have to elbow away the remaining crowds of bar-area patrons who have nowhere to sit or stand.

But where else in the south suburbs can you get Russian River's Damnation and Dogfish Head Midas Touch (oh and an Odell IPA for Mrs. Oyster) on tap?

At a visit in February, we tried their Little Italys ($6) appetizer, which comprised of "round mounds of beef packed in bread crumbs, then delicately fried" (in other words, fried meatballs).

Little Italys

They were a little rubbery and lacking in flavor. As an appetizer choice, we much preferred the hot wings from our first visit.

Also at our initial dinner at Parry's, we ordered - and loved - their Summer of 2010 pizza. At a later visit, we tried the Five Boroughs ($20 for 18"), which was topped with pepperoni, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, green peppers, black olives and red onions.

Five Boroughs Pizza

The Five Boroughs was very average, it lacked punch and tasted like a pizza from anywhere. Since then, we've stuck to the Summer of 2010 and haven't left disappointed.

Parry's couldn't have chosen a better location for their pizzeria and bar. The restaurant feels a little like Mellow Mushroom, although Parry's has inferior pizza but a better beer selection and better wings. It's certainly worth a visit for anyone in the south suburbs who loves pizza and beer.


Casual Dining

(7 of 10)

Pros: Outstanding beer list, good pizza
Cons: Very long waits, some food is just average

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

Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids & Solids

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

The Best Things I Ate in 2011

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

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

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/

Euclid Hall

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/