The Kitchen

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/

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/

Boulder Ice Cream: Caramel Pecan and Coconut Crunch

While I've reviewed many different treat shops to date - Gelazzi Gelato, CJ's Custard, and Sweet Action Ice Cream - it's about time I gave my two cents on some sold-in-stores stuff.

I spent over two decades living in Boulder and I never tried Boulder Ice Cream until last week. It went on sale at my local Whole Foods for $2.5/pint, and I figured it was time to put it to the taste test.

Boulder Ice Cream flavors are either All Natural or Organic, and they have about an equal number of varieties in either category. All ice creams are batch churned and use local dairies for milk and cream.

The two flavors I purchased were All-Natural Caramel Pecan, and Organic Coconut Crunch.

The Caramel Pecan was excellent. The ice cream had a smooth, velvety texture and rich flavor that reminded me of Ben & Jerry's.

I love lots of "mix-ins" in my ice cream, so I was happy to see large pecan pieces everywhere. The caramel in this ice cream came in the form of the caramel-flavored ice cream base and caramelized pecans.

Nutritionals and ingredients:

I checked this against some Ben & Jerry's we had in the house and noticed that Boulder Ice Cream contains more fat but less sugar than Ben & Jerry's (this applies to both flavors).

Next up for a taste test was Coconut Crunch.

The coconut ice cream base tasted and smelled strongly of coconut, but that was only the result of added coconut flavor. There's no actual coconut in this ice cream. While I was excited to find a coconut-flavored ice cream, I was disappointed there were no coconut pieces in it.

The "crunch" in the name comes from toffee pieces in the coconut ice cream base. I was hoping for substantial, rich chunks of toffee, but instead found only tiny pieces that didn't contribute a strong toffee taste.

Finally, the texture of the Coconut Crunch wasn't as creamy and smooth as the Caramel Pecan. It was harder to spoon out and had a bit of an icy taste. I'm not sure if this was a result of all-organic ingredients in the Coconut Crunch or if it was due to a different issue. Still, this was a good ice cream flavor, but it didn't impress me like the Caramel Pecan did.

Coconut Crunch Nutritionals:

I definitely preferred the Caramel Pecan, but my husband loved the Coconut Crunch. 

I was very pleasantly surprised with the texture and quality of ingredients in the Caramel Pecan. It rivals some of my favorite national premium ice cream brands, but its base price is more expensive. I'll be happy to buy it again when it goes on sale to promote a local company. 

Website:

http://www.boulderhomemadeicecream.com

Le Central and the Roasted Pig

My husband has been food-fantasizing about a delicious roasted pig for as long as I've known him. And if that pig happened to be served in his honor, even better.

There was therefore no uncertainty over what would be the main course at his graduate school graduation party last month.

My wonderful mother hosted the party, and she was not about to dig up her backyard for a roasting pit. Instead, she google searched "roast suckling pig" and came up with three different places. The first two never called her back, and the third was Le Central. Yes, Le Central apparently roasts suckling pigs on top of serving amazing French food seven days a week. They were happy to make us a roasted pig, and my mom has loved Le Central forever. The choice was easy.

The party meal was a local, organic-fed, free range, 40-pound suckling pig. For a price of $400, this little piggy was not cheap, but it was well worth it from the first bite.

Transporting the pig from Le Central to my mom's place was a little tricky. I had concerns about lingering pig odors if we put it in the back seat, but the staff at Le Central advised against storage in the trunk to minimize movement during the car ride. So the piglet rode in the back seat, but still managed to leave some drippings behind on the seats.

The presentation of our piglet was beautiful. The pig sat on an oval mirror, surrounded by herbs and garlic cloves and oranges. We took an awful lot of photos before digging in.

And the taste? It certainly satisfied my husband's seven-or-so-year-longing for roast pig.  The meat was juicy and tender and wonderful. All the guests loved it.

Thank you for yet more delicious food, Le Central.

Website:
http://www.lecentral.com/

Justin's Nut Butter Peanut Butter Cups

I've been perplexed about these latest offerings from Justin's Nut Butter since seeing them pop up in Whole Foods a couple months ago:

Justin's Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Two-cup packs of peanut butter cups. They come in dark chocolate, too.

Why, Justin's?

This is the first time Justin's has branched our from their nut butter base. And up until now, everything Justin's has put on the market has been completely unique. Not only have they created flavors like chocolate peanut butter and maple almond butter, but their one-ounce individual packets have revolutionized nut butter packaging.

Shameless self-promo: you can read my gushing Maple Almond Butter review from a weeks back here.

So why is their next step as a company to duplicate a chocolate treat that has existed for decades? Even worse, there's already an organic peanut butter cup on the market, which is also sold in the conventional two-cup pack, and also comes in both dark and milk chocolate. Is the demographic of organic peanut butter cup seekers really that large?

Well, Justin's, if that's what you want for your brand...I will have to taste test these new peanut butter cups.

And the verdict, you ask? Hey, that's not really a fair question, because you can't really go wrong with a chocolate covered blob of peanut butter.

Justin's Peanut Butter Cups Exposed

As a chocolate addict, I was impressed with Justin's first foray into the world of solid chocolate; the milk chocolate exterior had a perfectly silky and creamy texture. The peanut butter filling was a little flat, but maybe I'm just used to the cloying sweetness of a Reese's.

These new peanut butter cups taste OK, but I doubt I'll ever buy them again. I'd rather have a treat with some imagination put into it. If you're looking for peanut butter and chocolate, Q.bel's Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Wafer Rolls or Pretzo Change-O All Natural Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars are better options for tastebud excitement.

Website:
http://www.justinsnutbutter.com/

Justin's Nut Butter

I can't let this website exist any longer without a mention of Justin's Nut Butter. I eat the stuff at least several times a week, it's delicious, it's from Colorado, and it's a pretty big deal.

Justin's debuted at the peak of the "100-Calorie" portion craze with their wonderful mini-packets of nut butters. Except that Justin's isn't just for calorie-counters. The true genius in squeezing nut butters into pre-portioned packets is that it not only appeals to the diet-concious, but also a completely separate demographic of outdoorsy healthy types that just want nutritious nut butter on the go.

I'm part of their customer base that appreciates the packaging preventing me from eating myself into nut butter oblivion. My favorite is this little guy:

Justin's 90 calorie Maple Almond Butter. I eat it on apples and bananas, in yogurt and cereal bowls, and on Banana Walnut Hemp Manna Bread.  The 90-calorie portion is perfect for a small snack. However, the 0.5 oz, 90-calorie packets can be much harder to track down than the regular old jars and 1-oz packets. The only place I've found them is at Whole Foods, and at $0.69 per packet, they get expensive quickly. 

Justin's claims to be based in Boulder, but I can't find them. And I guess they're not visitor-friendly, either. Their products are apparently produced nearby in Louisville, and there's no tours or visits available at their facility. Disappointing, but I won't let it stop me from eating nut butter packets left and right.

Website:
http://www.justinsnutbutter.com/

Larabars

I remember sometime around 2004 when a friend announced to me that she'd just stumbled upon a great new line of (energy? nutrition? not-granola? not-protein?) bars, made here in Colorado and with only a few ingredients - all raw - in each bar. I was skeptical.  Where was the high fructose corn syrup sweetened "granola" filling, and the chocolately coating made of fractionated palm kernel oil?  

At that time, I was not interested.  However, as I've moved toward eating minimally processed foods, Lara and I have formed a special bond.  I eat these tasty, portable, mostly-date-plus-nuts-and-other-fruit bars about two or three times a week.

Late last year, Larabar debuted new flavors containing chocolate chips in their standard fruit-and-nut backbone. I was a little horrified; the inclusion of added sugar in their bars seemed like a reckless departure from their all-raw, all-vegan roots.  But who am I kidding? I love chocolate chunks in anything I eat.  In fact, I love them so much, that my reviews below have the chocolate chip flavors in a completely separate category. I can't compare apples to chocolate chip cookie dough!

Below, a ranking of all 16 current flavors of "non-chocolate-chippy" Larabars in the order I love them, with my two cents thrown on for many of them:

Note - List was edited April 3, 2011 to include Blueberry Muffin flavor

#1: Blueberry Muffin - See my review of this flavor.
#2: Peanut Butter Cookie - Seriously does (ok, in a peanuts-in-a-date-matrix sort of way) taste like a peanut butter cookie.  And I love peanut butter.
#3: Cashew Cookie - Has anyone ever heard of a cashew cookie? I haven't.  But these are delicious.
#4: Banana Bread - I could eat banana bread by the loaf.  Or by the sack full.  Or by the wheelbarrow full.  But in the absense of a wheelbarrow full of actual banana bread, these are a great substitute.
#5:  Chocolate Coconut Chew
#6: Lemon Bar
#7: Peanut Butter & Jelly - As you can tell from above, I love peanut butter. But I'm actually not a huge cherry fan (cherry is the "jelly" in these bars).
#8: Key Lime Pie - My husband is a huge (real) key lime pie fan, and he loves these
#9 Carrot Cake - I had really, really high hopes for these bars.  But they've let me down a bit. Too much "tropical fruit tart" taste and not enough carrot cake-y ness.
#10: Pecan Pie
#11 : Tropical Fruit Tart
#12: Coconut Cream Pie
#13: Apple Pie
#14: Ginger Snap - WOA this is some strong ginger snap flavor.  Not bad but very intense.  I can only get excited about these once in a while
#15 Cinnamon Roll
#16: Cherry Pie - Really just personal preference that this one is dead last, but I'm not a huge cherry fan. (In Cherry Pie's defense, my husband loves them and was outraged over my negative review).

And the chocolate chip flavors:
#1: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough - WHO KNEW DATES + CASHEWS + SALT = COOKIE DOUGH? Genius. Tastes shockingly similar to the real deal.
#2: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip - Reese's Peanut Butter Cup fused with dates and mutated into Lara form. What's not to like?
#3: Chocolate Chip Brownie - Very strong cocoa taste in the matrix. Wasn't too crazy about these at first but they've grown on me.

Website:
http://www.larabar.com/