Denveater

The Long & Winding Review That Leads from Interstate Kitchen & Bar

What, if anything, is the difference between concept & vision?

Does it matter, so long as it’s realized?

And if it isn’t realized—does the answer then matter?

To tailor the conundrum to fit oh-so-prog-retro Interstate Kitchen & Bar, modeled on the roadside diners of the postwar & Space Age eras: when a menu is primarily the reflection of a tongue-in-cheek image, with what sort of intergrity can it be executed?

These aren’t rhetorical questions; having sampled a fair portion of the modest-sized repertoire in two visits, I remain unsure as to the motives/expectations/hopes behind the venture. No doubt the owners have been quoted about their intentions somewhere (here, in fact), but I want to be able to discern the truth from a meal (or two, even). And I haven’t been able to yet—not least because my lunch & dinner experiences were night & day.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t had loads of fun trying to figure out where the downhome cookin’ with an apostrophe-n stops & the disingenuous urban myth thereof starts.

Consider the spoonbread.

The above was served at dinner, when the place was sparkling with party people. With that bruléed crust beneath a pool of butter, it looked completely different than the version I’d had at lunch the day before when the dining room was virtually empty—pale & sporting an unmelted dollop of butter on top. The mouthfeel & flavor were more developed as well, custardy & even a little spicy (a touch of cayenne?) rather than just kinda amorphously gummy & underseasoned.

Likewise, ponder the fried shrimp ravioli—or “raviolis,” as the menu puts it, exemplifying my uncertainty about the place. Is that just ignorance of the Italian plural or a deliberate nod to the byroads & backways of Americanization?

In any case, though both boasted a nice sopaipilla-like puff, the dinnertime version contained noticeably more shrimp filling & a much richer, butter-mounted marinara. Butter is no behind-the-scenes ingredient at Interstate but an in-your-face player, so much so that it also raises questions about the message any given meal is meant to convey. Does butter, in its prominence, serve as yet another prop on this set designed to whisk us to a Route 66 hashhouse? If so, should it? Are there restaurants in which the food can & should be made to be in service of the mood, the substance in service of the style, rather than the other way around? Does the fact that such questions came up for me at every turn return us to the issue of marketable concept versus organic vision?

Moving on. It wasn’t appropriate for me to snap shots at the lunch I attended, so you’ll have to take my word for it that

—the fried chicken livers, appealingly presented in a paper cone, were too heavily breaded. Is the goal to make them palatable to hipsters who want to say they eat offal? Is that a worthwhile goal? Why not just admit this might not be the time or place for trend-dangling, & fry up the usual suspects instead? As for garnish, the ketchup-thick housemade hot sauce was good, but the pickle was so skimpy as to be pointless: just two disks, see-through-thin. 
—the tomato soup was flat-out odd, the namesake ingredient blunted rather than enhanced by either wine or wine vinegar; the grilled cheese was plain & boring. I’d be curious to know what type of cheese it was, & whether we were dealing with some attempt to keep it real by making it fake: that is, to hearken back to the days of better living through chemistry by using nonartisanal, processed cheddar or even American—not Velveeta, to be sure, but not much more flavroful than that. If not, perhaps they need to rethink it a bit, maybe use a cheese blend.
—the mild pastrami on rye was a go, given a neat twist with coleslaw qua filling. But it came with a side of awkwardness: potato chips whose salt-&-vinegar topping appeared in the form of an almost sweet pink powder, for no good reason we could discern. Labs exist to ensure failed experiments don’t escape from them.
—the nonstandard (and thus rightly quotation-marked) “Cobb” was the real deal inspiration-wise: tossed rather than composed, it was a jumble of clumps of crispy, fatty bacon; chunks of roasted chicken thigh; globs of excellent, pungent blue cheese (why here & not on the sandwich?); & IIRC Boston lettuce smeared in a fine hot bacon dressing.

Though the meal as a whole was obviously a mixed bag, I was intrigued enough by it to want to stick my hand back in & see what came up the next night. In addition to the aforementioned, the deviled eggs

were, except for the drop of sturgeon roe on top, carefully classic. Given the glut of sloppy token attempts out there, kudos to Interstate for treating the recipe with respect.

Of the entrees, our pal Keith’s burger was the simple favorite: 

  

dripping patty with a slightly pink center, nice fresh bun. (It came with some rough, unbalanced horseradish & Dijon sauces—they needed either smoothing out or forgetting about in favor of plain horseradish & mustard.)

My buffalo meatloaf with grits was also mostly terrific—seemingly low on starchy filler & hence especially robust, as were the just-right grits—except for the sticky gravy, which recalled the tomato soup in its sweet-&-sour weirdness.

The Director complained his fried chicken was on the dry side; I didn't notice, finding it instead a bit greasy under another gravy that lacked finesse—but contradictorily that the side of green beans with crispy pork belly was too lipoid to quit. 

The onion bread pudding on Karla’s vegetarian plate, meanwhile, was definitely too dry—a shame, because it looks like it could be a winner, eh? (I didn’t try the lookalike scalloped potatoes on the left or the celery-root puree peeking beneath the leaves.)

 

Finally, having named Interstate’s Candy Apple the Dish of the Week the other day, I must confess I actually preferred the charming, well-built chocolate icebox cake, 

made with brownies rather than the typical wafers as well as chocolate pudding & real whipped cream.

Don't doubt we downed a number of rounds over the course of our meal, & the number wasn’t 1, 2, or 3. 

  
Here's "Denver's premier alcoholic," in her own words, with a Standard Etiquette—whiskey, grapefruit & honey—& a mint julep.

Why the mint julep is served in a coffee mug is unclear. Is it supposed to be the roadside equivalent of the traditional pewter cup? By contrast, the logoed cozy, modeled by yet another Starz Denver Film Festival babe who happened to be whooping it up at a nearby table, makes total adorable sense.

All told, for the nonce, “Interstate” seems the perfect word for the place, as it back-and-forths between its world of commercially Platonic ideals & the real, messy world of the restaurant business. Whether it can ultimately manage to transport us between them more smoothly remains to be seen. But I'm more than willing to give it a few more whirls.

Dish of the Week: Interstate's Candy Apple

My assumption in launching this series a month-plus ago was that the Dish of the Week would simply be the best thing I'd eaten for 7 days bar none, hands down, no ifs &s or buts, etc. etc. 

As usual, my assumption is already proving wrong. 

Case in point: Interstate Kitchen & Bar's Candy Apple with Pistachios, which is earning the title less for its execution than its memorable potential. 

Upon ordering it the 1st time (I tried it twice in 2 days; complete review of Interstate to come), my companions & I naturally expected we'd be making a 3-way mess of 1 of these. 

So it was a surprise, refreshing as such, to be presented instead with an elegant deconstruction thereof.

Actually, not quite: the photo is of the subsequent order. The 1st order consisted of only 1 poached apple half, while the dollop of caramel was much more prominent (here it's hidden beneath the whipped cream). 

We had a field day piling a bite of this & a smear of that on our forks, ripping apart the dried apple slice by hand, until 1 of my companions tried the apple by itself & wondered if it wasn't a little old. I followed suit, but later wasn't sure if it really did taste a bit mealy or if the power of persuasion was to blame. 

In any case, the pictured apple passed the taste test, not that you can tell by looking. What you also can't tell by looking is that it has a veneer of burnt sugar; & you certainly can't see that the aforementioned caramel boasts an intriguing consistency, somewhere between taffy and pudding. You have to sort of actively mix the roasted pistachios into the caramel or whipped cream before you can grasp their role in the whole, but they do have a key contrastive one.

Ultimately the dessert strikes me as representative of the place as a whole: its prog-retro image is already so polished that it's hard to see beyond it to a viable identity. More on this anon. 

Rise & Shine Biscuit Kitchen and Cafe on its bright & sunny way!

Otherwise titled: Blogger & Bicyclist Becomes Boffo Barista & Biscuit Baker! 

Not so fast, though. Even when it dawned on the author of So This Is Your Life (& fellow Platt Park resident) Seth Rubin that the title of his blog applied to him too, he wasn't entirely sure about ditching his gig as a construction project manager to become the proprietor of Rise & Shine Biscuit Kitchen and Cafe, opening in early January to serve breakfast, lunch, & coffee at 330 Holly St., in a cute little space he's sharing with Basil Doc's (he'll close when the take-out outlet opens, at 4:30pm).

"I was gonna have [Basil Doc's owner] Mike Miller talk me out of the restaurant business, knowing how hard it is," Rubin tells me when I swing by for a look-see. Instead his cycling buddy said, "We've got space at 3rd and Holly. It's between two really great neighborhoods"—namely Crestmoor and Hilltop—"without their own coffeehouse." (Starbucks had been in negotiations a few years back to move into the little mall that contains Locando del Borgo, but the deal fell through.) "So it ends up being about as low-risk as you could ever imagine for the restaurant business, with a clientele of multimillionaires I can educate on the finer points of coffee."

Not a multimillionaire himself, Rubin has relied on his training in urban & environmental planning to redo the storefront's interior. "I've gotten things up and running for less than a new espresso machine costs," he laughs (he got his own machine from a former coffeehouse owner in Louisville ). "They should rename Craig's List. I own it now." 

But if coffee—sourced from Pablo's, which "I've been drinking forever at Stella's"—proves the base of his business, at the pinnacle sits a biscuit.

"You can't get a biscuit in this town," the North Carolina transplant notes. "The only biscuit people have been able to come up with is Lucile's, which is cakey and sheet-cut. My own inspiration is a place called Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen in Chapel Hill. People would line up before football games to get 'em, wrapped in deli paper" (which is how Rubin plans to serve them as well).

Though he admits a short stint at Café Europa constitutes the extent of his pro career, he's been cooking seriously since he was a kid. "Going way back in my biscuit history, it was my sister who made terrific biscuits," he says, with one caveat—they contained eggs. "A biscuit should be flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and buttermilk. That's it. Look on the back of the old Clabber Girl boxes or in The Joy of Cooking. That's basically the recipe you'll find. It's not a big secret."

To prove it, Rubin starts baking some right then & there.

Though you can order them plain, of course, he'll offer a hell of an array: not only a variety of egg sandwiches but also roast beef with cheddar & horseradish, turkey with havarti & honey-mustard, a BLT, a vegetarian option, a biscuit dog, & one super-special sandwich about which mum's the word for the nonce. There'll even be cinnamon rolls made from biscuit dough. Cookies will come courtesy of the owner of North Star, Tattered Cover's onetime purveyor, who's now restarting operations.

Still, that plain biscuit is pretty damn special all by its lonesome—being moist &, as an acquaintance recently described Ritz crackers, "effing buttery."

"At my other job," Rubin recalls, "I was looking at a clock at 9:15 and saying, 'Crap, I have to be here until 4:45.' Here, there's always just one more thing I want to do before I leave. Then I get home, and I can't sleep, so I'll read the health code."

More power, & baking powder, to him, eh? More when Rise & Shine opens its doors. 

UPDATE: Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection exclusive to New England—& DENVER!

I post about 1 in every 12 press releases I'm sent, namely because "press release" & "news" are rarely the same thing. I don't know that this one (edited with an eye toward drivel by me, b/c  I'm bitchy like that) constitutes breaking news either, even to beer buffs (which, admittedly, I'm not); I just get a kick out of the fact that the brewer of my old hometown understands the all-fired importance of my new hometown w/r/t all matters brew-based. 

 

As an early holiday gift, Samuel Adams is excited to let Denver in on a long-awaited secret [if it's a secret, how can anyone be awaiting it? ed.]: The Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection, exclusive to Denver and New England. 

Passionate about pushing the boundaries of brewing, the Samuel Adams brewers are constantly experimenting with new techniques and pioneering innovative recipes to change the American beer drinker’s experience. The Barrel Room Collection, a result of years of experimentation by the brewers at the Samuel Adams Boston Brewery, is no exception. The Collection marries the time-honored art of barrel aging with modern craft brewing ingenuity, further demonstrating Boston Beer Co.’s commitment to uniting tradition with innovation. The trio of brews havehas been aged in Eastern European oak barrels, originally used to age brandy in Italy, imparting a subtle sweet, toasty note to each beer. The barrels also allow a small amount of oxygen to slowly seep in to the brew, smoothing out the flavors in the beer. 

Each style in the Collection is bottled in a 750ml bottle and finished with a champagne cork. For an optimum drinking experience, the brewers at Samuel Adams recommend serving each brew in a traditional Tulip-style beer glass to best capture the beer[insert apostrophe: ed]s aromas. This special collection makes a thoughtful gift and a great addition to the holiday table. About the brews: 

Samuel Adams New World Tripel: Pale gold in color, this ale is big, flavorful and complex. A special Belgian yeast strain adds tropical fruit and spice notes to the crisp dry ale, while Saaz hops add a subtle herbal note. Goes great with classic white sauces for baked fish or chicken, grilled fish with a tropical salsa, or roasted root vegetables. 

Samuel Adams American Kriek: The intense black cherry character in this beer comes from Balaton cherries, which were discovered in Hungary and are now grown in Michigan. These special cherries are prized for their depth of flavor. The tartness from the cherries is balanced by a rich, malty character with toasted oak notes added from the barrel aging. It’s a natural complement to chocolate desserts, fruity semi-soft cheeses, grilled pork tenderloin with spicy/fruity reduction sauce, or sweet and spicy Asian stir-fries and curries. 

Samuel Adams Stony Brook Red: This unique brew defies traditional beer style definition. The rich, malty brew combines notes of tart fruit from the yeast with a toasty oak character from the barrel aging. The long dry finish is almost wine-like. This is a beer that is satisfying on its own and also pairs well with braised or roasted meats, beef stews and strong salty cheeses. 

The Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection beers are available at select retail locations in Denver, Colorado, for a suggested retail price of $9.99 per 750ml bottle. [Will add actual names of locations ASAP—ed.]

***AS PROMISED!***
Mondo Vino - 3601 W 32nd Ave, Denver
Argonaut Liquor - 700 E Colfax Ave, Denver
Morgans Liquor - 1200 E Evans Ave, Denver
Colorado Liquor - 865 S Colorado Blvd, Denver
Bubbles Liquor - 675 Genoa Way, Castle Rock
Tipsys Liquor World - 5869 S Alkire St, Littleton
Davidson's Liquor - 5555 Boatworks Ave, Highlands Ranch
Chambers Wines - 15260 E Iliff Ave, Aurora
Lukas Liquors Superstore - 8457 S Yosemite, Littleton
Highlands Wine Seller - 6668 Timberline Rd, Highlands Ranch
Superior Liquor Market - 100 Superior Plaza Way, Superior
Westminster Total Beverage - 9359 Sheridan Blvd, Westminster
Daveco Liquor - 16434 N Washington St, Thornton

Tubers & Boob Tubes Galore at Oak Tavern

I don't care how glaring the flatscreens, how blaring the dance tracks, how backwards the baseball caps, how bleached the blonde, how Two-Buck the Chuck—if a place serves stuffed spuds & treats my mom nice, I'm in. Which brings me to, of all unlikely places, Oak Tavern—where the GM turned down the loudspeakers for a 67-year-old lady without blinking & our PYT of a server was as exceedingly polite and full of thoughtful suggestions as her hot pants were extremely hot.  

I'm not saying I'm recommending the place, I'm just saying.

I'm saying, damn, I love me some stuffed taters, & by extension whoever's willing to serve me one like it's 1989, just before the fad faded pretty much everywhere but Wendy's. Sure, I can pop a potato into mine own oven, but what are the chances I'm going to grill a little steak with onions, peppers & mushrooms, then whip up a Madeira-fortified gravy swirled into sour cream to top it off with, as per the Cattleman (as I believe the current menu calls it, though this older version calls it the Ranch Hand & doesn't mention cheddar, which I'm sure it also had)? I'll tell ya: somewhere between nil & zip.

The Rockefeller's a build-your-own dealio, offering roughly 30 toppings; who's gonna stock up on everything from olives, artichoke hearts & arugula to fresh herbs, the makings for pesto & 5 types of cheese just lest the yen for a home-baked tuber strike, like Mom's happy hour special with swiss, broccoli, avocado, mushrooms & sour cream?

And the Director's breakfast potato with 2 eggs over easy, bacon, roasted peppers, cheddar & Tabasco was the stuff of redeye, redneck inspiration. (Actually, speaking of redeye, some gravy over thick-sliced country ham would be the (gut)bomb too.) 

There are spuds topped with gumbo & layered with salmon, drizzled with truffle oil & spilling with chili—& that's not all; the kitchen also makes its own chips, both plain & barbecue-flavored.

 
        

Uneven seasoning meant some were way too salty, but it's hard to find full-throated fault with hot, fresh, greasy, crunchy potato chips, especially when they're loaded as with the happy hour half-portion below 

& accompanied by sides of

sour cream & decent chili.   

It's just such unexpected little touches that I most appreciate at any level of dining, from pub grub to haute cuisine. Who'd have imagined the hash-slingers at a sports bar would stuff crimini with the meat of 3 other types of mushrooms, 3 cheeses & 3 herbs, broil them just so, & ring them round with apparently homemade pesto? (It just goes to show the importance of balanced presentation, since the seemingly subtle distinctions between these & the ones I had at The Lobby a while back indeed made all the difference: smaller plate, browner caps, less sauce).

 

The same pesto, twinned with a rich, tangy sundried tomato pesto, gave the otherwise plain beef & veggie skewers a reason to live as well.

Not to belabor the point. Oak Tavern is ultimately just a meat market for alpha jocks & the bimbos who bang them. Still, the element of surprise is always worth noting, & the fact that someone back there on the line obviously puts an ounce of pride & effort into his work is definitely a nice surprise in the midst of the cheesehall.

Dish of the Week: Brats & Wurst at the Bombay Club, Salina, KS

If, after all the bubbly, & all the eggnog, all the turkey, & the green beans, & the pumpkin pie à la mode, the leftovers, the bickering, & the leftovers, & the Tums, you can't fathom why an 8-buck dinner of brats & kraut with peppers & a baked potato (plus salad)

 at a roadside joint in Salina that seems to be advertising really bad tandoori

 would be the biggest & loudest of bombs, you don't know Denveater. 

Dish of the Week: The Corner Office's Szechuan Fries

***OK, technically the Dish of Last Week. A day late & a dollar short as always; following the wrap of the 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival last night, in which you may know I am heavily involved, several marbles short as well. So bear with me as I regain my equilibrium, such as it ever is, for the next couple of weeks.*** 

Having never gone gaga over the grub, I'm increasingly drawn to The Corner Office like a drone to a cubicle for various, only semivalid reasons I'll go into in a later review. But if there's 1 dish to justify any jones for the joint, it's this one.

Cut to ribbons on a mandoline, the Szechuan fries are what the kids these days call a hot mess. Aside from constituting a sweet excuse to flout etiquette—you just sort of yank at the pile with your hands & take what comes loose—they're also a thrilling grab bag of texture: some pieces are soft as spaghetti strands, others fried to a complete crisp. They come with a hot mustard aioli (I suppose that's the Szechuan part) which, while echoing Encore's hot mustard drizzle, bests it for, well, being aioli, hence creamy with mayo. 

Lest any part of that compliment sound in any way backhanded, let the fact that I ordered them twice in less than 24 hours convince you of my sincerity. 

Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium 2009: a report from the twice-over awesome Adrian Miller & The Rabbi

Cool & amazing things are what happen when you're busy making other cool & amazing things happen, to paraphrase Lennon. As wrapped up as I am in the Starz Denver Film Festival, I'm aware the world is going on elsewhere without me—especially in Oxford, Mississippi, where the Southern Foodways Alliance, a renowned organization dedicated to "documenting, studying & celebrating the diverse food cultures of the changing American South," held its annual symposium on Halloween weekend.

Upon discovering that not 1 but 2 fine gentleman-scholars I know & respect were attending this year, I had no choice but to browbeat them into interviews. You may have met Adrian Miller, an expert in both policy analysis for Governor Ritter & in soul food, when I profiled him here; now meet The Rabbi, aka Mark Rabinowitz. I first encountered the cofounder of major film-industry site indieWIRE & author of The Rabbi Report 2 years ago when he came to cover SDFF 30; I've since learned he knows as much about food as he does about movies—including this dessert he sampled at David Chang's [of Momofuku] symposium luncheon (about which more below. The 1st course was apparently a baby lettuce & ham salad with coffee vinaigrette, something I'd slaughter the pig myself for right about now).

  Momofuku Milk Bar's famous crack pie

***

What brought you to the symposium this year?

MR: I was in the midst of a 9-week road trip around the South in pursuit of film festivals, minor league baseball, good food & civil rights monuments. During the Florida Film Festival, my friend Sigrid Tiedtke mentioned that the SFA director [& acclaimed food writer] John T. Edge was a friend of hers. The name rang a bell & I realized it was his book, Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Guide to the South, I'd been using as one of my culinary guidebooks to the region. 

A couple of weeks later, I drove to Oxford to meet John T. (as he's known) as well as John Currence, owner of 4 fabulous Oxford restaurants. John T. and I had breakfast at Currence's legendary Big Bad Breakfast & that was that: I committed to attending on the spot. 

AM: I've attended the SFA Symposium since 2002. As with Rabbi Mark, it started with John T. Edge. I was in the initial phases of researching my soul food history [more on which in the abovelinked blogpost] & I came across the Southern Foodways Alliance. I e-mailed John T.,  & after a brief exchange, he persuaded me to attend the SFA's field trip to Austin, TX. Every year the SFA symposium has a theme & a corresponding field trip to reflect the theme. In 2002, the theme was barbecue.  

I ended up spending 3 days in Austin & environs on a SFA-curated barbecue tour. It was 3 of the happiest days of my life. I figured that a group tour set up would have lots of leftovers, so I brought plastic food storage bags. I talked the hotel into letting me store the barbecue in its restaurant's refrigerator. Everyone on the trip was clowning me, but they were really jealous when I went home with several bags of excellent barbecue. Even the airline folks wanted to "confiscate" the bag when I checked it!  

Since that time, I've been a SFA "lifer." I've gone to every symposium since, & I served on the board. In fact, I was responsible, along with John T., for cooking up the yearly themes & symposium programming. My term ended with this symposium, so it was bittersweet. I did get a ceramic pig as a parting gift for my service. It was awkward when the TSA agent at the Memphis Airport said "Sir, do you have a piggy bank in your carryon?" I'm sensing a theme here with the SFA and airports.

Speaking of themes, this year's was 

Others, for instance those Adrian has helped plan, have been Food & Race, The Gulf South, & Sugar. What did you appreciate most about this year's theme? 

AM: I really enjoyed the Saturday afternoon segment where [journalist, author & jazz pianist] Tom Piazza, [music critic] Nick Marino, and [author & humorist] Roy Blount, Jr. all held forth on food imagery in music. I think Tom Piazza had the best line at the symposium when he referenced the blues lyric "I heard the voice of a pork chop."

MR: There's a visceral and emotional connection to both food & music that starts very early in life. But on this one I have to admit to being a bit of a douche—I missed what was apparently the musical highlight of the event, the morning performance/invocation by [soul & gospel legend] Otis Clay & his band. As for other performances, I have to echo Adrian below & say that Ballet Memphis's Chitlin Ballet was exceptional. 

What was one of the most surprising moments of the symposium? 

MR: I'm not sure "surprising" is the right word for it, but [New Orleans Times-Picayune dining critic] Brett Anderson's speech about New Orleans music & food was an unexpectedly moving experience, as Brett had to stop several times to compose himself while discussing Katrina. All the video coverage in the world can't make up for witnessing pure human emotion up close & personally. But what most struck me overall was the summer camp aspect. For those of you who have never been to camp, at the best of them, the last day is heartbreaking. You just don't want to leave. And on Sunday, Oxford's historic Courthouse Square was full of dawdling symposium attendees, dragging their heels.  

AM: For me it was the Chitlin Ballet performed on Sunday morning [pictured above]. Roy Blount, Jr. has collected 1000s of songs that reference Southern food, and he donated them to the University of Mississippi archives. Someone took the time to carefully craft a ballet from all the source material, and it was wonderfully danced by the Ballet Memphis. I was curious about it when I saw it on the program...and I'm still curious.  

What were some of your favorite dishes?

MR: David Chang's Bo Ssäm (slow-roasted pork shoulder) was amazing & perfectly paired with kimchi brussels sprouts & whole peanuts. 

photo: Leslie Kelly

Then there was a book signing sponsored by the National Peanut Board, with food & cocktails prepared by Tennessee's Blackberry Farm with refreshments based on, well, peanuts. Peanuts are legumes; if handled correctly, the bean-pea flavor of the peanut comes out. The farm's pork rillettes with peanuts were amazing, as was a cocktail of strained, boiled peanut milk with Jameson's, amaretto &, believe it or not, roasted marshmallow syrup. [pause for my drool] 

AM: I thought David Chang's meal was amazing too, but my heart & stomach go to the Sunday brunch [menu below] that was prepared by Chef Bryan Caswell of Reef Restaurant in Houston, Texas, & 

John Currence of City Grocery in Oxford. 

We always have a slammin' brunch to round out the weekend, & this one didn't disappoint. I was especially seduced by the gumbo gravy (essentially gumbo). The menu paired it with biscuits, but I decided to ladle it over a soft pillow of true Southern grits--never instant! It was yummy! 

White Lily Biscuit Brunch 

Piping-Hot White Lily Biscuits with Gumbo Gravy

Big Bad Bacon & Breakfast Sausage 

Straight-Outta-the-Gulf Fish with Pecan and Shallot Cracklins, Potlikker, & Collards 

 

Next year, my turn.

A Quickie Taste of the 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival

The F&B vendors of this year's festival have really stepped up the plate, so to speak—feeding the 100s of filmmakers, sponsors, patrons, journalists & staffers who throng the Filmmaker's Lounge, Late Night Lounge & roster of receptions daily. I've especially got to give it up for Phoenician Kabob—purveyors of the planet's most potent garlic dip—but it's all been a treat, from Citygrille's cooked-to-order sliders to the guilty pleasure of Basil Doc's 4-meat Big Wheel pizza to sandwiches piled high with cold cuts from Tony's Market. And need I add Argonaut? 

If you're supporters of the local film community, I humbly urge you to show these businesses—as well as Happy Cakes, Pat's Philly Steaks & Subs, The Walnut Room, Argyll Pub, Trudy Fruity & many other Festival Friends—your appreciation in turn.

But my favorite snack so far, spotted last night during the Fest de Cine Mexicano reception at the Museo de las Americas—which the team behind Mezcal & Tambien catered—was only for the eyes.

How cute is that? Dunno if I buy the description on the placard though.

Call me gutter-minded, but I'm thinking "taco purse" is a metaphor for something else altogether. Not to encourage the network censors who have begun to block this blog due to perceived explicit content. Gives a whole new meaning to "food porn," eh?

 

Worthy of the Name: Salt Bistro

A copy of Mark Kurlansky's namesake socioculinary history sits on the hostess stand; a small dish of variegated salts sits on each table. And the emphasis on seasoning is loud & clear in the cooking at Boulder's Salt Bistro, for better or worse—mostly, I suppose, better. 

To disclaim where disclaimers are due: I've only been here once so far; I came with friends during what looked like an unusually busy lunch hour; & so between the fine rep of chef-owner Bradford Heap (also of Colterra in Niwot) & the dreaminess of the menu on paper, I hereby give Salt the full benefit of the doubt. 

Besides, the doubt that does exist is as much due to the front as the back of the house; for being slammed, our server sure didn't seem much bothered, & the 2-course meal took nearly 2 hours. Thus a side of roasted cauliflower with capers & breadcrumbs, for instance, 

was doubly disappointing for being not only overly salty—above & beyond the capers—but also lukewarm & a little limp, suggesting it sat for awhile before delivery. Since of all the dishes we ordered—salads, soup & a burger too—it was presumably the most time intensive, therefore the last thing that should have been sitting around, one has to presume in turn there was some disconnect between our server & the kitchen.

Meanwhile, upon mentioning I found it too salty, Shena claimed her fries were too, & Jane recalled that the same was true of the chicken potpie she'd had on another occasion. Me, I thought the fries were fine, so you can take the hearsay with a grain of you know what—but take it nonetheless; the consensus that someone's got a heavy hand with the shaker's pretty clear.

Ditto with the dressing vessel.

As one who errs on the side of overdressing as well, I sympathize, but toward the bottom it was soggy to a degree I imagine many would have found unacceptable.

That aside, it was a damned yummy salad. With chunks of roasted butternut squash, toasted pumpkin seeds, caramelized onions, crumbled goat cheese, & slivers of some fantastic sauteed mushrooms—I'm not sure what they were, but I'm sure they weren't button, portobello, shiitake, or oyster; hen of the woods, maybe? something exotic & meat-juicy, anyway—atop lively mixed greens, it rocked the salty-earthy-sweet spectrum, not least for that balsamic vinaigrette, which I usually avoid but which was the right choice here.

I didn't sample Jane's soup & salad special du jour, but she expressed unqualified pleasure with both. The former blended apple & fennel slices with baby spinach, frisée & candied walnuts; the latter was Tuscan white bean with ham hock.

   

The Tom's Tavern Grassfed Burger takes its name, of course, from the longtime Pearl Street diner Salt has replaced; the respect Heap means to show the erstwhile institution & its place in Boulder culture is admirable, right down to the fact that the old logo remains on the eastern façade—but as Jane said after Shena ordered the sandwich, "this homage will be 10 times better than Tom's ever dreamed of."

She was at that point more confident than I, who was peeved on Shena's behalf that her request for a medium-rare patty was met with a recommendation that it be medium instead, since "a lot of customers who order it medium-rare end up sending it back because they think it's too pink." To attribute a lack of savvy or foresight to dissatisfied customers rather than just admitting the kitchen prefers to follow FDA standards seemed disingenuous if not a little insulting.

But the burger looked terrific—inside & out. Topped with bacon, Grafton cheddar & pickled onions inside a gorgeous fluffy shiny bun, the Lasater Ranch beef patty, Shena showed us, was indeed sufficiently pink in the middle. And the aforementioned fries with housemade ketchup gave great golden yield.

It took over half an hour for the server to clear our plates, present dessert menus, & bring the apple crostada we chose—but the sweet was worth the sour wait, as I noted in Dish of the Week a few days ago.

On a mixture of hard evidence & faith, then, I'll say likewise that Salt is probably worth its namesake.