May 2010

Baur's
Maybe it was the too long interval between dinners out and extra loot was burning a hole, or maybe we just got swept up in the fever that is Doors Open Denver, but we went all out this month, to Baur's. The place had been a Denver staple at one time, a restaurant and confectioner shop that gave away free ice cream to neighborhood kids twice a year during the Depression. There's a whole long story here, which is colorful and steeped in history, even modern history, but I'll let you read about that on their website. Long story short, the once grand, mistakenly moved, disbanded, and deservedly restored Baur's is back in business on 14th in the theater district.

For perhaps the first time in 3rd Thursday history, we went to a place that could barely squeeze us in. I called the day before our date to make a reservation (which is rarely necessary, we're often the only party in the places we pick) and I couldn't get my first choice of 7pm! Had to wait until 7:30 to account for the theater crowd. This has NEVER happened before. But that's what I get for choosing a restaurant above my humble station in life.

And this place was definitely above my station and I knew it. I walked into the lobby, freshly damp from the rain, in my Casual Corner sweater and Gap chinos, well below the standard set by the stained hardwood, crisp linens and deep wine list. But, in true Front Range fashion, there were several people wearing jeans.

We were treated to little porcelain dishes of olives and spiced nuts while we waited for the waiter. The bread basket was interesting too. I do not recommend the olive studded slices.
First thing I notice about the menu, which immediately won my heart, was that the list of entrees was barely longer than the list of desserts. Well, they were once a candy shop...

First a tapas plate with excellent hummas and the Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio as appetizers to share. One of our party satisfied the craving she'd been having for weeks with a bowl of cheesy, brothy onion soup.

I then started my solo venture with a caprese salad. The mozzarella was creamily perfect even if the tomatoes were not romas and a little jagged at that.

For my entree, I chose the Dover Sole (not the bottom of an Englishman's shoe, a fish, flat like a flounder but more decisive). It's a white fish, but more solid (is that the right word?) than other white fishes, breaded and buttery and scattered over with sliced almonds. I'm afraid I was too occupied with flakes of Dover's best to get a good read on what others thought of their dishes. There was a paella dish to my left with a showy lobster tail crowning the rice.

Then a Straw and haystack across the table next to gorgeous pile of chops then a lovely looking steak atop slabs (slabs!) of herb butter and finally... BUFFALO! Not the stampede, the dinner.

Settling on a dessert was the toughest part of the meal, I have to say. While I'm a sucker for a good creme brulee and chocolate cake is ever a temptation, not to mention a good cannoli, the special of the day called to me. Would you like to repeat that, whispering in your ear? Maybe I could softly stroke your back while I do?

My neighbor choose the signature apple pie with cinnemon ice cream. I stole a bite and almost regretted my own choice. Down the way, two friends shared the Baur's Famous Mija pie, which didn't so much look like a pie as a tiny tart overflowing with gooey delicious sweetness.
I was stuffed, can I tell you? I could have easily done with out the salad (and been $9 less poor).
The wait staff was attentive. At one point, the busser asked to remove my plate in a very professional manner, but it scared the bejeezus out of me when he did it sneakily from behind. Our patient waiter could hide his chagrin at our teetotally ways, but wasn't as successful at hiding his tattoo peaking out from under his cuff. The best part was when he asked if we were there as part of the convention for heart surgeons. He thought (even an outside chance) that we were surgeons! Maybe I fit in better than I had thought.

January 2010

Felix's
I know, I know. I totally skipped this month. It didn't deserve skipping and I am ashamed.
Quick highlights:
Felix's is located in the newly hip Highlands area north and west of downtown. It looks like the kind of place I would love to go to every week if I were a better sort of person, the kind that drank piquant wines, and carried clutch purses stuffed with cloth hankies. But I'm not, so I settled into the bench seat, slightly away from the ceiling to floor windows that faced the picturesque street.
The menu, not long (which i guess is a good thing, meaning the chefs had a good things to get really right instead of staking blind stabs at many things), reads like a best-of-Julia-Childs greats. I think all but one of us went for the pre-fixed menu. The choices were few but just too good looking, we had to limit ourselves that much more.
I went for the Beef Stew (notice I am not attempting the French title), which came with a wild pile of greens with a perfect round crouton and smear of goat cheese. The vinaigrette was lemony and fresh. The beef stew arrived in a half-globe bowl of white porcelain, filled artfully with tender tender beef, baby potatoes, interloping mushrooms, and little carrots which had been pared down to dagger points all in a reduced red wine sauce. Again I wished I were that better person and could have appreciated the taste of wine, but I still loved it. I repeated the words "Beof Burgenion" (is that even close? No? Well, what are you gonna do?) over and over to drive in the fact of what I was eating. I felt like I stepped off the screen during a showing of Julie and Julia.
Also represented on the table was Coq Au Van (better? no? sorry) and a lovely simple steak for my lovely steak loving friend.
The service wasn't great. It seemed the waiter liked the two other occupied tables more than us, since they got constant wine refills and we had to go to the bar to beg for a water pitcher. But maybe that's the French way? They do let you linger as long as you want over a dinner.
One thing that was particularly winning of them was dessert. With our preset meals, five of us got a profiterole, a puffed pastry filled with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. Our poor entree only friend didn't have one coming to her with her meal. This fact broke our sweet waiter's heart and he included her in the merriment that only a carb-fest inspires.
Soom day, when I have the clutch purse and cloth hankies enough, I'll venture up to the Highlands again and maybe give those wine soaked veggies another chance.

November 2009

Mama Louise's
In order to celebrate the triumphant return of our from Julie from the distant and dangerous shores of Kuwait (does it even have any shores? I don't know), I mustered up my gumption and got us to Mama Louises. OK, all I really did was send out a text message and then a FB event, Megan did the actual picking of a place, and calling for a reservation, ie. all the hard work.
It was far afeild from my own house, in a strip mall of all places, but the restaurant was warm and inviting once inside.
Julie was excited to get her first taste of non-Middle-Eastern pizza, so she went with a white pizza with olives and other veggies. I had a hard time deciding between the pastas, so went with the Half-n-Half of home-made spaghetti and ravioli.
(Holy Crap, I almost broke the library's computer. Everything is fine now. Pheww!)
The Half-n-Half came with a choice of "meatball or sausage?" I went for the sausage. I was too engrossed with Julie's stories of peril to ask if the sausage was made onsite as well as the pasta, so that I can't tell you. Or tell for that matter what anyone else ordered or if they liked it.
The spaghetti was pretty good, thick, but not gummy. The ravioli probably came from a supplier because it was fairly indistinct. The sausage was good, spicy. The whole affair was served up in the funny, homey fashion you'll get at these family owned restaurants. The soup that came with the meal was fine, the salad though was hilarious. They just ripped up a couple leaves of Romain lettuce and laid them on a plate, with a slice of cucumber and one of pepperoni sitting to the side. In fact, my sausage, which I had assumed (wrongly) would fill the ravioli was plopped atop the spaghetti, but covered by the sauce. Well, maybe more charming than funny, but I enjoyed it.
For dessert, we all partook of the seasonal Pumpkin cheesecake. I think cheesecake does make everything better, don't you?
If in the area, I'd go back. We never wanted for filled water glasses, and except for the illegibility of the waiter's handwriting, the service was pretty good. The prices were mainline and it is a family owned business, so... yeah.
(P.S. I'm not spell checking this, so any mistakes, blame my public education.)

July 2009

The Oven
Following a suggestion from one of our regulars, I decided to not only try a new restaurant, but explore the neighborhood as well. I set the time a little earlier for those who would like to do the same, though that turned out to be only two of us. I chose The Oven pizzaria not only because it was in a new area (Belmar shopping area) but also because there was scheduled to be a live band playing that night in the quad.
Belmar is almost directly west from my house, so the drive over at 6 p.m. was like being braised alive, minus the cooking broth. When I finally got there, passing the stretches of more affluent areas and other more colorful neighborhoods, I grabbed the first spot I found. i didn't bother looking for covered or free parking. What's a dollar for a space right in front of the restaurant? So what if free parking was only a block away behind the gym or two blocks away behind the sporting goods store? It's that darned automatic meter that ticked me off. Wouldn't take my coins but happily accepted my credit card. ( I think there's a scam working there somehow.)
During a brief stroll around the outdoor mall, we stumbled on an artsy clothing and accessory place. My friend decided she needed a new (and decided to later buy) purse. Then we meandered across a couple other cute places to eat to keep in mind for a later time. Unfortunately, the live band that was scheduled to appear didn't. There was an amp and a chair and a good crowd built up but no one taking advantage of them.
The Oven had outside seating that we took advantage of. I liked the place, it was slightly pretentious but not so hip I felt like a schmuck. We were seated next to two older couples on a double date. A snippet of their ordering process: "Maybe we could get one women's pizza and one man's." I was shameless eavesdropping, got caught and gave the woman a thumb's up for her suggestion.
The menu is heavy on pizza, with some random things available as toppings, but nothing too weird. There was also a healthy sized salad list and an "appeteazer" spread. I would have happily got the "Bowl of crazy good mozzerlla" but thought all that cheese might prove foolish. One of us did get the "oven roasted vegetable salad" which came with a nice sized parmesan cheese wafer which she sweetly shared.
Our orders went, from left to right, "the Basic Margerite", the "Spicy Buffalo style chicken", the "Fresh tomato" and the "Good Earth" (at least I think it was the Good Earth. I was concentrating really hard on my Fresh Tomato, trying to work around green olives.) I enjoyed the fresh mozzorella on my pizza and the giant leaves of basil. But if I went again, i would definately order the Crazy good mozzarella and then maybe a salad. One of our other neighbors got it and it looked amazing, all melty and delicious.
I wanted to see what the place looked like inside, just for a peak. There were long community style tables rather than little single party tables. The kitchen was open for all to watch the adorable little cooks in their matching hats work. The one complaint I would make is that, in the bathroom, there was only a single light and it wasn't near the mirror. I guess that's good, since my face was glowing from all the sweat accumulated from my drive.
So, what else. A good enough experience, and I'd go again if I was in the area or in the mood for watching roving bands of teenagers wasting an evening. (can you count the gerunds?)
http://THEOVENPIZZAEVINO.COM/

Watercourse

We tried several times to get things back on track, but it seemed the weather was always against us. Here in Denver, we've had the second wettest spring in recorded history. But we finally got there for a Saturday brunch.
It was a tough choice as to when to go: on the one hand, several people would be tied up in wedding business, on the other, an old 3T friend was in town and available for just one day. Finally, we realized that marriage doesn't necessarily mean permanent separation, and accomadated our soon-to-be foreign friend after all.
I was freshly showered when two Megan and Julie came to pick me up. So freshly, in fact, my hair wasn't combed. much less dried. Sans makeup, I braved the restaurant. This is kind of a hippie, earthy, alternative kind of place, so I wasn't out of place. The servers were tattooed and the other patrons were pierced, so no eye liner wasn't a problem. We took the corner booth, with a fine view of sunny 17th street and ordered a sweet potato cinnamon roll to share as an appetizer.
It was Delicious, really light, not too sweet, and strangely tasted nothing like sweet potato.

I braved the Vegan possibilities and ordered The Conejos plate with scrambled tofu. It tasted nothing like eggs, of course, but more like the curry it was spiced with. It was served over home fries with a little cheese decorating the top. Not nearly as bad as a dedicated meat-eater might think. My favorite thing was the wheat bread, though. Thick cut and toasted under the broiler then slathered in butter and raspberry jam.

Julie got the Banana bread French toast. Not French bread sprinkled with bananas and nuts. No my friend, banana bread, heavy and homemade, dipped in egg and fried up with a side of fresh fruit. I managed to steal a bite from the ravenous, home sick Julie and have to say it might be worth breaking your diet.
Our friend Alena joined us for the first time. Hurray! She and Megan both got free-range egg scrambles that looked pretty enviable, as well.
A nice place; bright, clean, neighborly, despite the paintings on the wall depicting scenes from Watership Down. If I hadn't been the chubbiest girl in the room, I would have been tempted to move right into the corner booth permanently.

October 2008

Wild Ginger
While I'm not personally crazy about Thai food, I wanted to honor a special request to try a place near the downtown Littleton area. Since I'm not one to hang out that far west, I had to put forth a little effort on my part (ie, an internet search). The place that jumped out this time was Thai, though, and other people love it, so I thought I could be less than selfish this one month.
And I'll tell you this, it was pretty good. We had a biggish group, eleven as it turned out, at a round table right in the middle of the restaurant, and I'm sure the rest of the patrons were wondering why we kept taking pictures. For a change, the restaurant was a popular one; the place was crowded, nicely decorated and well established. And it shared a parking lot with some colorful interesting places I might have to visit another time.
One funny thing, I got there a few minutes early (weird, I know) and so sat in the vestibule until the rest of the party arrived. I had handily brought my knitting, so I was working away at a sock when a party of women left. One of them, spying what I was doing, stopped to say "Oh! I should have brought my problem for you to fix!" I guess I look like a real knitter now.
Everyone else arrived just in time for our table. We had to squeeze one extra setting, but that just made things cozier.
The menu is large and most of it is way foreign to me. After quizzing the waiter for a while, I finally just told him to surprise me. When he asked how spicy I wanted my dish, I said medium. My friend Megan, always looking out for me, called out "That's white girl medium." It's funny, because it's true.
Julie and Desiree got the chicken satay as an appetizer, which Julie actually liked!
Keri got chicken and shrimp dumplings which to me looked like pasta wrapped meatballs, but tasted way different.
My entree turned out to be the green curry, "white girl" medium. And it was good. The slightly spicy, creamy, cocanuty sauce was so good, I didn't want to waste any of it. So while my delicate friends were pushing half their entrees into take out boxes, I was looking for more rice to soak it all up. The one weird thing, though, was the vegetables. Celery I know. But there were big chuncks of white eggplant floating in there too. I ate them because they're supposed to be good for a growing body, but not even the excellent sauce could make up for the gummy texture.
The rest of the table was full of colorful food, none of which I tried. Everyone seemed well satisfied. We were very glad to have a couple newbies to the group, and we're looking forward to next month when an old friend is coming to visit us.
On the whole, a good experience. I'd go back again and try just pointing randomly at the menu to see what came up. And run over to the Mexican market across the way.

September 2008

Beirut Grill
See, in my head, this place would require camo and helmuts. Instead, it's in a strip mall next to a Big Lots, a whole different type of battleground. We were in Englewood, the interesting bit, with it's Catholic bookstore and at least two Army Surplus stores.
I'd made a reservation for 6 people, and darnit if I wasn't dead on. When we walked in, there was one other party there, but the place filled in somewhat over the course of our hour.
Our waitress brought a complimentary relish plate. It was a nice jesture and so I ate a peice of pickled radish (I think) and an olive. Remind me that I hate olives. It was so pretty, with pink radish, slices of cucumber pickles and a rosebud tomato, but we forgot to take a picture.
We decided to share a few appitizers, since we all wanted a taste. We settled on the fallafels (so good)and one each of the cheese pie, the lamb pie and the spinach pie. I was expecting a cube of spinach and egg ala Sbarros, but instead got what looked like three little boats, made of dough and the filling nestled inside. The spinach was tangy with lemon, the cheese was a little bland and my favorite was the lamb. It was ground and spiced and looked more like a spread than anything else. It tasted smoky and rich.

As an entree, I ordered this sausage dish (I can't remember the name), Megan got the meat combo kabob, Julie got the chicken kabob and the other three all got the King combo, wich came with a lot. Each entree was preceeded with a plate of "homos" and fresh made pita. I would totally go back for that alone. After I downed mine, I unashamedly stole Julie's, since she wasn't finishing hers.
My sausage was spiced well, though pretty dry. They looked like three cigarellos laying on a bed of jasmine rice. And a small green salad.
Since I was having too much fun with my absconded pita and hummus, I didn't have time to ask how everyone else's was. But everyone either finished off their plate or asked for boxes to take home, so I'm going to guess they were satisfied.
Our waitress was fairly attentive, the only problem being that she was the only one on the floor that night, and it took a while to get her attention.
I was so enamored of the hummus, I've been craving it ever since. I even went to the grocery store and bought the kind that comes in a little tub. Not nearly as good, though Ritz crackers probably wasn't authentic.