More Denver Food. Plus: Snotty College Students Ruin My Coffee

One of the new places I was excited to try was this place. Denver has a lot of unexpectedly good fast ethnic food places- notably Tokyo Joe's- but Indian fast food fell flat. Bombay Bowl offers a variety of bowl options for proteins, sauces, toppings, and sides. There is something to be said for a fast-casual place that will dump tons of steamed veggies on your food, but it's Indian food like Fazoli's is Italian food- not as appalling as Taco Bell's interpretation of Mexican food, but bad. I ordered a tofu bowl with veggies and korma sauce, with a side of naan and a mango lassi. The korma was very thin and depressing. I'd also ordered some vindaloo sauce on the side after the person working couldn't adequately describe to me how hot it was. It wasn't. At all. The crispy bread resembled Native American fry bread more than naan, but tasted good, and the lassi was nice. Unfortunately, India imports some very tasty vaccuum-packed dinners that taste far better and are far cheaper, so I won't be back.

I also had lots of coffee. I love Pablo's. We were regulars, and haven't been able to find any coffee consistently on par with Pablo's here in Houston, so many visits were necessary. They have good pastries and bagels, too. Everyone who works there and hangs out there is strange, but in the normal coffee shop sort of way. It is the natural habitat for such regulars as the barista with a huge breastplate tattoo; the ponytailed guy who moodily doodles in his journal with Prismacolors; the middle-aged man with not-quite-ironic black nerd glasses and a pseudo-intellectual entourage; the college professors and their very hip three-year-old kid...I love it. I walked into Stella's- which serves coffee made with Pablo's beans- on a whim, however, and it was downright scary. The place is huge, for an independent coffee shop, and no one, in any of the six or seven rooms was talking. We walked outside, and there was another group talking very quietly, so we chose to sit out on the patio. We proceeded to have a very enjoyable, but loud, three-hour conversation, while everyone openly stared at our table. We got some seriously dirty looks on our way out, even though we were sitting outside. My friend thought they might be DU students in the middle of finals preparation, but that's no excuse. If talking bothers you, maybe you should be studying at the library. Stella's demographic was decidedly less hipster than Pablo's, but I'll take my coffee shop weirdos over Stella's stuck-up DU students any day.

Denver Food

I went to Denver last week. Among the highlights were:

-A huge Greek omelet from Pete's Gyros Place on Colfax. Pretty tasty Greek diner food- a huge omelet filled with feta, tomato, and gyros, with a side of hash browns, pita, and tzatziki for dipping. The coffee was a little off, but I'd missed the huge platters, career waitresses, and typically charming Colfax atmosphere. I also like the Greek bakery two doors down, Omonia.

-Graham cracker ice cream from Lik's. I had a bizarre craving for their "Tabasco" flavor, but they didn't have any. They did have a "Caramel Cayenne" flavor that tasted similar, so maybe it's replaced Tabasco. In any case, the graham cracker ice cream was compelling- finely ground graham crackers and hard toffee chunks. The combination was unique, but the flavors played off each other really well. Lik's seems to specialize in creating subtle flavors that one wouldn't think work well together (ie, Tabasco, peanuts, and caramel), but do. Another favorite is their Guinness ice cream, which combines Guinness, caramel, and chocolate. The flavors are subtle, but perfect.

-South Central II. I eat at a lot of restaurants with strange, nondescript names. Maybe it's because they're the best. SCII is a hole-in-the-wall Greek place across from Swedish Hospital in Englewood, with haphazard decor that hasn't been updated in decades. I am in love with the atmosphere, their food, and the fact that the waitress still recognizes me after a year away- she even still remembers we always get iced tea, and that my mother wants pink sugar with hers. Most of their daily specials are wonderful- the roast lemon chicken with potatoes and the lamb and noodles come to mind. They come with a tangy Greek salad and addictive homemade bread for about $8. We went on Monday, when the special is a weird-sounding pasta salad. As much as I adore them, it sounded boring, so I went with the vegetarian moussaka instead, which was delicious but incredibly rich. It had caramelized layers of eggplant on top of scalloped potatoes, covered with Bearnaise sauce and a noodly sort of layer on top. The homemade bread and salad were awesome, as usual.

-Mole de Pollo from the original La Fogata (don't be put off by their slightly cheesy website). The plate consisted of shredded chicken doused with homemade Mole sauce, tortillas, beans, and rice. It was good, but not as amazing as usual. Perhaps they stopped making their own sauce, or maybe they had a bad day.

-Sesame chicken at Palace Chinese Restaurant. This is the sort of restaurant I loved as a kid and now sort of hate. Super-formal dining room and service, really predictable Americanized (ie, inoffensive) menu. I'd had a craving for jellyfish salad, but my family took me here instead of the sort of Chinese restaurant that would actually have jellyfish on the menu. On the good side, their menu claims to have the "Best Sesame Chicken in Denver" and they actually do. Ultra-crispy, with a light and crunchy coating of batter, and a sticky coating of sugary sesame sauce.

More highlights next week, including the weird fast-casual Indian food that made me sick, creepy coffee shops, Denver's ugliest house, Polish food, gooey buns, Cajun food, and the tragic Ethiopian food failure.

Salad isn't always awful

For dinner, I had a summery salad with pizza. They were both from Whole Foods' prepared section. Maybe Whole Foods should hire me to blog for them, it seems like I don't eat anywhere else...

The pizza was ok. It was a personal pizza with goat cheese, mozzarella, and sun-dried tomatoes. I am quite possibly the least observant person alive, so I was halfway through my pizza when I fully realized why it tasted 'different' from normal- I usually get it with fresh tomatoes, not sun-dried. Not a fan of sun-dried tomatoes- too sweet, and they're usually dry and gummy. These were no exception, but I could deal with them.

The salad, however, was fabulous. I wanted a veggie to go with my pizza, and the asparagus-mozzarella-fennel salad looked interesting. I was put off at first by the fact that they used all the stalky chunks of asparagus they probably had leftover from making their roasted asparagus spears. I should probably be happy to see them using their produce efficiently, but god knows what their profit margins are on the $11.99 roasted asparagus already- why must they compound it by putting the leftover stalks into my ($9.99/lb) salad? In any case, the stalks were not woody, as I'd feared, and the salad was perfectly balanced- bright and acidic, with lemon and shallot. It was a little heavy on the onion, and they could've perhaps blanched the fennel to make it less mouth-numbing, but the overall effect was happy and sunny.

Polenta and Honey

For breakfast, I had hot polenta cereal at Empire Cafe.

I've always seen it on their menu and wondered what it was like. I've only had polenta a few times- covered in butter and salt, it's lovely, but otherwise not a favorite. Plus, virtually anything covered in butter is good. But polenta-as-breakfast, covered in honey and almonds, sounded very interesting.

It was a little goopy and gloppy, in the same way that grits are sometimes gloppy. Almost like they've mixed in a little egg. The polenta was pretty dull, but the honey creme drizzled on top was fabulous. The almonds should have been toasted, and there should have been more of both. It was served dry, so I trotted over to their self-service coffee area and sloshed maybe a quarter cup of whole milk over the top. Much better.

In other news, the wine I had with dinner (baked salmon with horseradish butter)smells like peanut butter. As soon as I opened it, I was seriously confused. Upon reflection, the peanut butter scent is mixed with strong, wet mineral and pine notes. It's the Petit Caprice 2007 vin d'pays. Very tannic Grenache/Syrah blend. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it. I always find it intriguing when wines (usually French wines) have an unusual scent or flavor. It didn't go with my salmon very well, but it's fun to puzzle through a wine every now and then that's not "drinkable" in the ordinary sense.

Fusarium Venenatum

Tonight for dinner, I ate something I am ashamed to love. The food that grosses me out the most for being disturbingly fake and over-processed is not factory farmed chicken, or Little Debbie snack cakes, or McDonald's. It is Quorn. But God, is it good.

Quorn is frozen mycoprotein- basically, fungus grown in a lab and mixed with egg whites and natural caramel color. I'm disgusted by the concept, and if you have ANY mushroom allergies whatsoever you should not go near it. But it is, hands down, the best meat substitute I have ever tried. And I've tried them all. Tonight, I took their ground beef substitute, thawed it in the microwave, mixed it with some leftover pasta sauce and Kraft sprinkle cheese, heated, and poof- a meatloafish dinner. Quorn by itself is a little dry, but mixed into sauces is completely indistinguishable from beef. What I ate tonight would have been amazing over spaghetti or gnocchi.

I think I would be less freaked out by mycoprotein if it weren't quite so good for you. But no, it is incredibly low-calorie, and very high in fiber and protein. It's like a disturbingly engineered superfood from space. It also comes in different textures- I keep their fake grilled chicken patties in the freezer, too. They are a little dry (again, sauce is your friend), but the inner texture is exactly like chicken. I don't know how they do it. But I'm a little scared.

Hamburger Fail

No, I actually didn't have a hamburger for lunch.

I've been wanting to try this place for months. Jon had gone a few months back with friends, and raved about how yummy it was. Good god, they make their own hamburger buns, it has to be good. I told him he was sort of lame for not inviting me, but as long as he brought me next time, whatever. It's in an inconvenient location unless we're already downtown, so it's not the sort of place I'd think to go on my own.

Did I mention my darling husband went years without eating red meat, refuses to grill (that's my domain), and regularly eats tofu for dinner? I am the rabid carnivore around here. So one can imagine how thrilled I was this afternoon, after my meal of thawed frozen edamame and a smoothie grabbed on the run, to discover where Jon ate lunch. Again.

I think this qualifies as hamburger fail.

As for MY lunch, meh. Frozen edamame is surprisingly resilient, and I melted a huge pat of butter on top. I'd enjoy anything with that much butter on it. The smoothie came from Jamba Juice, and was possibly the worst smoothie I've ever had there. I love Jamba Juice, but this one was located in a Whole Foods and staffed, er, poorly. They did not have a functional cash register, so when I ordered, the woman wrote a UPC on a slip of paper and sent me off to pay in the grocery line. I was too flustered to remember to tell the woman what sort of vitamin boost I wanted, so I don't think I got one. Or perhaps I did get a protein boost, because the resulting smoothie had that nasty, chalky protein flavor I hate. Also undertones of very spoiled bananas. Yuck.

Smorgasboard for Lunch

Today for lunch, I had a little bit of everything- some steak, some quasi-chicken picatta, green beans, scalloped potato casserole, a roll, a brownie, and some iced tea.

All this culinary excitement was caused by a CLE (continuing lawyer education) course at school. Turns out, lawyers demand better food than the pizza-or-Chipolte conundrum faced by student organizations. I was very surprised at the good quality of food, particularly the steak and the potato casserole. The steak was a perfect medium rare and tender, individually hand-sliced by some poor catering guy. The potatoes tasted like some little old Southern lady's home cooking. The potato flavor was prominent and woodsy, with perhaps six pounds of butter and cheese melted in between the layers...I could eat that for weeks. Everything else was just ok; the chicken picatta was pretty sad, although I was impressed they actually put capers in it (and red pepper? weird). The brownies were clearly not from Chick-Fil-A, but tasted like they were. It was a nice meal, and an interesting afternoon diversion, mortgage crisis lecture notwithstanding.

Ravioli at Home

Tonight for dinner, I had some red pepper ravioli in a garlic butter sauce with a glass of rosé.

I didn't really know what I wanted for dinner, so I wandered aimlessly around Central Market looking for ideas. I came across some yummy-looking clams at their seafood counter, and started planning for pappardelle with clam sauce. Their seafood counter was grossly understaffed. I waited several minutes, only to discover that they were not utilizing their take-a-ticket system and it was line-jumping anarchy. I was seriously annoyed, so kept wandering. I found the papardelle, grabbed some wine, and looped back around to seafood, as I hadn't found anything else I really wanted for dinner. The congestion was actually worse. I found it interesting that twenty or so people were clogging the seafood counter, while the meat counter had exactly one customer. Usually it's the opposite. Maybe all the Texans need a warm-weather respite from all the beef. I was irritated that the two unoccupied meat counter guys weren't popping over to help, and finally gave up on clams.

I ended up with some red pepper, mozzarella, and basil ravioli. It was really red pepper ravioli, with only the slightest inkling of mozzarella, and none of basil. Still pretty decent. I got some Alessi marinara sauce to go with it, but decided at the last minute to make a simple garlic butter sauce instead.

The wine was the standout of the meal. Santola is a Portuguese producer, and I'd had their vinho verde and their red before, but never their rosé. It's delicious. I was looking for a French-style rosé (usually pretty dry, floral and herby) rather than a California-style (usually sickly sweet and fruity), and this is passably close. It's sweeter than a French rosé, but it has the most amazing smell- lots of heady grassy and floral honey smells. It doesn't taste nearly as good as it smells, but it smells fabulous.

Cheesy Lunch at Home

Today for lunch, I had a spinach salad and some couscous.

They were both very, very simple. I think salad should be about the greens, not the dressing, so I don't usually use any dressing at all. If I do, it's a splash of olive oil and salt, or Annie's Shitake Vinaigrette. But today, nothing. I added some strawberries and cheese to the spinach to make it a little more substantial.

The cheese was a cave-aged Swiss gruyere I got on sale last week at Whole Foods. I'm still ambivalent about it. I normally buy a different cave-aged gruyere that has a really nice nutty-toasted flavor, with some sweet and floral undertones- I don't recall the brand. Sometimes I buy Le Gruyere, which is even cheaper and almost as good as my regular kind. But this stuff looked very funky and crumbly, and was normally super-expensive, so I was curious. It lacks the nutty flavor I love, and has that slightly musty sweat-sock-ammonia smell common to certain aged and blue cheeses. The first time I tried it, I hated it. It's growing on me, but it's still nothing like what I imagine when I think of "gruyere".

I topped the whole-wheat couscous with some shredded gruyere and sea salt. The starch cuts the pungent cheese to a more manageable level of funkiness. Not a bad lunch.