Parry's Pizzeria & Bar

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/

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/

Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria

To understand how my husband feels about pizza, think about how the Cookie Monster feels about cookies. Yep, it's pretty much the closest comparison I can make.

So it only made sense, when looking for a place near Coors Field to grab a pre-Rockies dinner with friends, to try Marco's Coal Fired Pizzeria.

Knowing that Marco's would likely be packed just before a ball game, we made reservations for four for a very early 5:00 pm dinner.

My husband and I arrived about fifteen minutes early and were told that despite our reservation, we'd have to wait until our entire party arrived to be seated. Ok, no problem, off to grab a drink at the bar. Oops, we couldn't do that, all the bar stools were taken. So we sat down near the bar, at a table which we couldn't decide if it was part of the bar area or not...it wasn't. Fortunately, a couple people soon left the bar and we were able to grab two of the precious few seats available.

After a beer for each of us and the arrival of our dinner companions, we were seated at a real table. We were soon greeted by a very friendly waiter who took good care of us for the rest of the night.

To start, we had to try the Lemoncello Chicken Wings after reading rave reviews on Yelp.



Lemoncello Chicken Wings



They were well cooked and well seasoned but didn't live up to the hype. I couldn't get over the extremely charred look of some of them (part of the "coal-fired" mystique maybe but it still turned me off) and I missed the spiciness of a normal hot wing. I still don't know what "lemoncello" means, but it's not as tasty as Franks Red Hot.

Next up, it was time for the pizza that we all came for. And before even trying a bite, my husband became every excited about a certain pizza at Marco's. He likes to brag about his Italian heritage, and especially about how his family comes from the Abruzzo region of Italy. After a brief perusal of the menu, he excitedly pointed out to me that Marco's offers an "Abruzzo" pizza, which comes with a cheesy concoction of Buffalo Mozzarella, Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Gran Cru and Caciocavallo cheeses. In other words, a fancy quattro formaggio pizza. We ordered it, of course.

We also ordered two "New York Pies": The Bronx, topped with meatballs and ricotta cheese, and the Staten Island, topped with sweet Italian sausage, Vidalia onions, and roasted peppers.

Fortunately for my husband's pride, the Abruzzo was amazing. I don't normally order four cheese pizzas because I find them bland, but the cheeses each had a creamy and sharp flavor.

Abruzzo

Lots of cheese on one pizza is great and all, but now it's time to talk about the real shining star of the evening: the Bronx pizza. I had been skeptical about the ricotta cheese; I thought it might be overwhelming or too lasagna-y or just the wrong match for pizza dough. I was wrong. Whoever dreamed up the toppings on this pizza is a genius. The ricotta was rich and creamy and spread lightly enough on the dough to still make it manageable as finger food. The meatballs were thickly sliced, well-seasoned morsels of meaty perfection. The Bronx pizza at Marco's might be my favorite pizza, ever.

The Bronx

The Staten Island was my least favorite of the three, and the only one our group didn't finish. It was bland compared to the other two pizzas, maybe because the only cheese used was standard mozzarella, and the Vidalia onions were overpowering.

The Staten Island

We were awfully stuffed after three pizzas and an order of wings between the four of us, but apparently not that stuffed, because when Mr. Oyster saw cannolis offered on the dessert menu, he couldn't refuse. Like the pizzas that preceded it, this was as good as I could've imagined. The ricotta filling was perfectly creamy and sweet. Our waiter informed us that the filling is made in-house, but the shell is not as they don't have an oven to bake it properly.

Cannoli

Since leaving Marco's, my husband has declared it as his favorite Neapolitan pizza ever. This is a big deal from a guy who eats so much pizza.  

Marco's has a second location, closer to our lives in the 'burbs, at Vallagio. We're rearranging our calendars to try that location after the culinary joy at the Ballpark Marco's. 

If you like Neapolitan pizza, go to Marco's. Period.

Casual Dining

(9 of 10)



Pros: Pizzas are well executed and follow Neapolitan standards. Unique toppings. Excellent cannoli. 

Cons: Not nearly enough room at the bar. Won't seat incomplete parties even with reservations

Website:

http://www.marcoscoalfiredpizza.com/