Local Restaurants in Media Spotlight

5280 Magazine makes a list; the Wall Street Journal pays a visit

It's not yet "best of" issue time, but Denver and Boulder restaurants were spotlighted and praised in print, both local and (inter)national.

5280's Best New Restaurants List

The December 2009 issue of 5280 Magazine features words and photos in a cover story by Amanda Faison called "Denver's Best New Restaurants." Her top ten:

• Colt & Gray, Denver 

• Olivéa, Denver

• Salt, Boulder
• Hutch & Spoon, Denver
• Vert Kitchen, Denver
• The Squeaky Bean, Denver
• Arugula Bar e Ristorante, Boulder
• Venue Bistro, Denver
• TAG Restaurant, Denver
• Bones, Denver

Of these, I've only been to three: Arugula, Colt & Gray and Salt. I guess I've got to get out more!

Wall Street Journal Columnist Visits Boulder

A lifetime ago in New York, my path occasionally crossed that of Raymond Sokolov, who was then the New York Times food editor. The Saucier's Apprentice, his exhaustive cookbook about French sauces, is still my go-to source for detailed information and occasional recipes for this culinary category. Ray Sokolov now covers restaurants for the Wall Street Journal, I have lived in Boulder for more than 21 years, and he was here recently, sampling some of the best restaurants in town. Had I but known, we could have traded catch-up gossip over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

He documented his restaurant experiences in a piece called "Rocky Mountain Haute Cuisine" that ran last week in the Journal. In his introduction, he  wrote, "This used to be the hippiest, dippiest town around. The home of a Buddhist university, a public university and Red Zinger tea, over a mile high in the Rockies and also just plain high, Boulder embraced New Age culture like few other places. But a new aroma now fills the downtown Pearl Street pedestrian mall, and it comes from truffles and saffron, not cannabis. A gourmet revolution has edged out the cultural revolution."

I guess he must have missed the dozen or more medical marijuana dispenseries that have sprung up recently around town, but he didn't miss visiting a number of Boulder's best restaurants. He wrote about the iconic Flagstaff House which is as venerable as Salt is new, and also about Black Cat, Frasca Food and Wine and The Kitchen, bastions of excellent contemporary American and international food plus environmental consciousness in the heart of Boulder. He lauded them all.

Basho to Open at 1330 Boylston in Boston's Fenway Neighborhood

It appears that a new Japanese restaurant will be opening next spring in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston. According to a press release on the Fenway Triangle site, Basho will open at 1330 Boylston, a mixed-use building that includes luxury apartments as well as retail space on the ground floor. The press release mentions that the person behind this modern Japanese dining spot is also the owner of Douzo, an upscale Japanese restaurant and lounge on Dartmouth Street in the Back Bay.

Basho will most likely feature a sushi bar, a grill bar, and a raw bar, as well as a lounge, based on information given in the press release. The space in which Basho will reside looks to be fairly large (a little under 5,500 square feet).

1330 Boylston is also home to a location of the Upper Crust Pizzeria, and may also include a gastropub called The Citizen at some point in the future.

The address for this upcoming Japanese restaurant in the Fenway neighborhood will be: Basho, 1330 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 02215.

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Two More Possible Boston Restaurant Openings: Whiskey Priest, The Citizen

A couple more restaurants may be coming to Boston, though it appears that both places are in the very early stages of planning, with little or no information on either one at this point.

The first restaurant (and bar), tentatively called The Whiskey Priest, looks like it may open at some point at 150 Northern Avenue in the Seaport District of Boston. This happens to be the current address of the Seaport Bar and Grille, but it is not known whether The Whiskey Priest will eventually take over a section of this dining spot or whether it may actually replace it.

The second restaurant may go by the name The Citizen: An American Gastropub, with its tentative location at 1330 Boylston Street in the heart of the Fenway neighborhood of Boston (just south of Fenway Park). 1330 Boylston is a mixed-use complex with luxury apartments as well as retail space on the ground floor (a location of the Upper Crust Pizzeria is in the building).

As we receive more information on The Whiskey Priest and The Citizen, we will post updates here, so keep checking back over the coming weeks.

Thanks to the EveryBlock Boston website for bringing both of these places to our attention.

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The Powow River Grille in Amesbury Is Closing

A riverside restaurant north of Boston that features an eclectic mix of ethnic dishes and comfort food will soon be closing. According to the Daily News of Newburyport, the Powow River Grille in Amesbury will close its doors at the end of 2009 after being in business for about five years. The owners of the restaurant (who also own the Plum Island Grille on nearby Plum Island) are apparently closing the Powow River Grille because one of the owners is looking at some type of new business venture.

The Powow River Grille has been serving a variety of unique dishes to diners over the past few years, including pan-roasted pineapple duck, lobster lasagna, Thai seafood stew, pan-seared ahi tuna over organic greens. The restaurant also offers such comfort food dishes as burgers and fried haddock.

The address for this soon-to-close restaurant north of Boston is: The Powow River Grille, 33 Main Street, Amesbury, MA, 01913. The phone number is (978) 388-2300.

For more on the pending closing of the Powow River Grille, please go to the Daily News of Newburyport link below:

Powow River Grille to close at year's end

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First Bite Boulder: Trattoria on Pearl

Last night of First Bite -- and we wished the promotion went on and on

First Bite Boulder 2009 ended a week ago yesterday, but I have a back-up of many intended posts, so I'm finally getting around to writing about it. We patronized FBB restaurants three nights out of seven, and I had commitments in Denver on two of the others. Our third was Trattoria on Pearl, and I want to do it justice, because it is a reliably good restaurant with a warm ambiance and an even warmer welcome from owners Guillermo and Sara Casarrubias.

Three of us settled in at my favorite table, one of the fourtops next to the window looking out at Pearl Street. Coincidentally, the next table over was occupied by John Garlich and Ulla Merz, the husband-and-wife team who own Bookcliff Vineyards and their party. Of course, I had to table-hop, especially after I tried their fantastic Muscat with dessert. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Trattoria on Pearl lines up slices of tasty, toothsome, rustic bread on long plate with a small bowl of herbed olive oil (below). It's easy to demolish every crumb while perusing even the limited FBB menu and trying to decide whether or not to order the paired wine flight with the FBB menu (two of the three of us did).

First Course

Caprese salad (below) alternated slices of organic tomatoes of various colors with generous slices (almost slabs) of house-made mozzarella topped with a Balsamic glaze and a line of basil pesto down the middle. The suggested paired wine was Bookcliff's Riesling, made in Boulder from the winery's own Western Slope vineyard. (I don't know the vintage of this or other wines offered in the flight.)

A smooth and flavorful lobster bisque, described on the menu as "Guillermo's own recipe," was served in the restaurant's distinctive soup plates. The paired wine was listed as French Press Sauvignon Blanc.

Guillermo is also developing a special for a lamb broth. He had some in the kitchen and honored us by bringing out one plate and three spoons for us to sample. Lamb is a spring animal (and it is spring in the Southern Hemisphere, where much lamb does come from), but this deeply flavored broth was winter-hearty and also simple and elegant in its presentation.

Second Course

Chicken breast came atop a rich white wine sauce melding the flavors of rosemary, lemon and capers. Roasted potatoes, braised cherry tomatoes and  bright green broccolini completed this entrée.

The Trattoria on Pearl offered a choice of five entrées for the second course, but as soon as I saw that lasagna was on the menu, I knew that would be my husband's choice. And so it was. The beef and the house-made noodles were layered with both béchamel and marinara sauces, mozzarella, Parmesan cheese and basil. La Ripa Chianti from Tuscany was paired with the lasagna, which BTW was so ample that my husband brought nearly half of it home.

Tilapia Aqua Pazza, an substanial order of Chilean tilapia, also came with broccolini, plus basil mashed potatoes and an herbed cream sauce. La Ripa Chianti was also the paired wine.

Third Course

A chocolate panna cotta island rose above a port-apricot glaze. On top was a crown of whipped cream and a fresh strawberry, with cocao powder sprinkled on the periphery of the plate. Ferreria 10-year Tawny Port was the official paired wine, but Guillermo suggested Bookcliff's Orange Muscat, which was the official paired wine for the tiramisu. Grat suggestion!

Crisp-crusted white chocolate crème brûlée was made with Godiva white chocolate.

Thanksgiving 2009: Menu & Memories

Traditional feast with this year's variations

Some people prepare the same soup, the same turkey stuffing, the same gravy, the same veggies, the same cranberry sauce and the same desserts every year. The only constants on my Thanksgiving repertoire are our friend Laura's divine sweet potatoes, a huge amount of traditionally prepared mashed potatoes and the cranberry sauce from the back of the Ocean Spray package. However, I also make another cranberry something, and all the other recipes change from November to November. Our friend Vivian, who takes on the responsibility for desserts, similarly brings different ones every year. When I was searching for recipes this year, I knew I had to make something from Gourmet magazine as a tribute to its nearly 70 years of leading Americans through the world and the world's kitchens.

We were 13 at the table this year, and if I were superstitious, I would write that the number was the reason I couldn't light off the dishwasher between the soup course and the main course. Between the main course and dessert, with one load ready to go and the kitchen counters stacked high with dirty dishes, my handy-dandy husband managed to reconnect whatever wire underneath had worked its way loose. While he diagnosed the problem and immediately fixed it, the rest of us had a bit of time to let our food settle before digging into the dessert course. After cheeses and crackers, nuts and a fresh fruit platter in the living room, we sat down at the table. I asked guests to bring their wine glasses with them, so don't think we've gone dry because you don't see the appropriate stemware on the set but unoccupied table.

The prime wine, selected by my son Andrew who is really into wines, were Jekel Vineyards Riesling, Monterrey, 2007, and Spann Vineyards Mo Zin, Sonoma, 2006 (a Zinfandel, Mourvedre, Petite Sirah and Syrah blend). Other wines wee brought, opened, drunk as well. We were not deprived, even before dessert, when we enjoyed a Barros 20-year-old Tawny Port brought by our friends, Mike and Ally.

 Below was our dinner, including links to recipes. I didn't change any of them very much this year, so I am not posting my amended recipes.

Thanksgiving 2009 - First Course

Sherried Butternut Squash Bisque, originally from Bon Appetit, March 1996. My changes were modest. I used half-and-half rather than skim milk and topped it with chopped chives rather than yogurt and thyme.

Thanksgiving 2009 - Main Course

Cornbread Stuffing with Fresh and Dried Fruit, originally from Bon Appetit, November 2006. I doubled the recipe and used home-made turkey stock, frozen in 2008 and ready to moisten the 2009 stuffing.

That was enough to stuff inside the 17-pound bird and also for two extra loaf pans. The natural, hormone-free, antibiotic-free turkey came from Wisdom Natural Poultry Farm. Sally made the gravy from pan drippings, home-made stock using the neck, gizzard and liver and a Penzey's soup base.

Cranberries two ways, Roasted Cranberry Sauce from Saveur (left) and Ocean Spray's simple fresh sauce (right).

I made but neglected to photograph Green Beans wth Ginger Butter as a tribute to the recently deceased Gourmet. This fine recipe came from the November 2006 issue. I didn't shoot the mashed potatoes either, but below is Laura's brilliant orange mashed sweet potato casserole, rich as Croesus.

Thanksgiving 2009 Desserts

Vivian again brought three, each better than the other, no matter in which order they were eaten. And do I need to point out how gorgeous they are? Top to bottom, pumpkin pie, pecan pie and apple/cranberry tart -- withor without vanilla ice cream.

Thanksgiving 2009 Postlude

Turkey stock being started.

China, silver flatware, napkin rings and serving pieces ready to be put away until the next occasion. The wine glasses and water goblets were already on their shelf.

Beacon Grille to Open in Woburn This Winter

A new casual high-end restaurant and bar will soon be opening in Woburn. According to the restaurant's website and Facebook page, the Beacon Grille is looking to open at the TradeCenter complex just north of Route 128 possibly as early as January of 2010. The restaurant will have a capacity of about 250, and will feature American bistro-style fare for both lunch and dinner (dinner only on Saturdays, and apparently closed on Sundays). A 60-seat bar and lounge will also be within the dining spot.

The lunch and dinner menus at the Beacon Grille will include such dishes as fish chowder, roast beef au jus, a grilled chicken panini, a 20-ounce rib eye, roasted bourbon-glazed pork chops, chicken pot pie, grilled salmon, and boiled Maine lobster. The dinner menu will also feature small plates and pizzatas. Entree prices range upward to the mid-30s, with most items being in the teens and twenties.

The address for this restaurant coming to the northern suburbs of Boston will be: Beacon Grille, 400 TradeCenter 128 (Suite 1900), 100 Sylvan Road, Woburn, MA, 01801. The website is at: http://www.thebeacongrille.com/

Thanks to a poster on the Chowhound site for bringing this restaurant to our attention.

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Upper Crust Pizzeria Coming to Wellesley

A local chain of pizza places continues its expansion through the Boston area with news of a shop coming to Wellesley. According to Wellesley MA's Swellesley Report (and confirmed on the restaurant's Twitter page), The Upper Crust Pizzeria will be opening on Central Street (Route 135) near the western edge of the town center in 2010. Currently, there are a number of other Upper Crust locations all over the Boston area, including Brookline, Cambridge, Hingham, Lexington, Newburyport, Plymouth, Salem, Waltham, and Watertown, and West Roxbury.

The address for this upcoming pizza place west of Boston will be: The Upper Crust Pizzeria, 99 Central Street, Wellesley, MA, 02482. The Web site for the chain is at: http://www.theuppercrustpizzeria.com/

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Happy Thanksgiving

SAME Cafe Contending for Hometown Award

Cast a vote for Denver eatery serving fresh, wholesome, house-made food to all

Thanks to Westword's Patricia Calhoun for reporting that Brad and Libby Birky, whose three-year-old SAME Café (So All May Eat), a pay-what-you-want or what-you-can restaurant at 2023 East Colfax Avenue, are finalists for NBC Nightly News' hometown heroes contest. The network news featured the cafe in its "Making a Difference" segment last March. Cast an online vote for the Birkeys by clicking here. The winner is awarded $10,000, money the Birkeys can put to good use for the SAME Cafe. I'm campaigning for the Birkys and their wonderful, idealistic restaurant.

Latest Review: Picco Restaurant, Boston

The latest review on the Boston's Hidden Restaurants Web site is Picco, a restaurant in the South End of Boston that features pizza and homemade ice cream. Located on Tremont Street in the heart of the South End neighborhood, Picco is a fairly small dining spot with a funky retro look that includes a soda fountain and a decent-sized outdoor dining area in the warmer months. While the restaurant is known mostly for its pizza and ice cream, it also offers soups, salads, sandwiches, calzones, and pasta dishes as well. To read more about Picco Restaurant in the South End of Boston, please click on the link above.

A Few Thankskgiving-Related Questions

The Boston's Hidden Restaurants website has a questions and answers section that deals with all kinds of topics concerning the Boston and New England restaurant scene. With Thanksgiving only one day away, we thought it might be fun to post a few questions from the site that are related to Turkey Day. Below are the questions; feel free to respond to any of them that you would like!

Good Turkey Dinner at a Boston-Area Restaurant?

Restaurant With the Best Cornbread in New England?

What Are Some Good Beaujolais Wines?

Best Turkey Dinner in New England?

Restaurants in New England with Good Popovers?

Great Stews, Fall Comfort Foods?

What Is Your Favorite Port Wine?

Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone!

Beaujolais & Beyond: Débutante Party for a Favorite French Wine

Chefs competition, wine tasting, silent auction and glorious food

The November release of nouveau Beaujolais is a reason, or an excuse, that the French-American Chamber of Commerce uses to organize Beaujolais & Beyond, a transcontinental celebration of this annually anticipated new wine. Each FACC affiliate selects its own precise date, venue and event details. Denver's FACC's Beaujolais & Beyond fête was Thursday, November 19, and for the second time in consecutive weeks, I was thrilled to be a judge for the chefs competition. My co-panelists were Stacey Brugeman of Denver Magazine; Vanessa Martinez, online editor for 5280 Magazine and Lori Midson of Westword. 

The event took place at Mile High Station, which had hosted the Denver International Wine Festival the week before. I half-expected the place to festooned in the French tricoleur, but elegant white was selected instead. Space in the center of the soaring hall was reserved for the entertainment, especially the stunning aerial dance act. But the real attraction was the food and the wine -- or the wine and the food.

Once again, participating chefs prepared fantastic dishes, crafted to pair with the evening's Gerorges Duboeuf nouveau. They could enter one, two or all three categories. Below are the winning dishes:

 Judges' Choice Winners

Best Appetizer - Beaujolais Braised Petite Redbird Coq au Vin by Michael Long, Opus Restaurant, Littleton. Beautifully sauced drummettes served with pearl onion and a shave of black truffle. The dish was similar to one that Long prepared the previous week the Denver International Wine Festival, where it was also much praised. Long likes to serve three drummettes on a three-compartment plate, but only two are visible here, shown as he presented it to us judges. Not a flattering photo of the chef, but the judging moved along  fast and so did he.

I couldn't get a good photo angle of Chef's hands, shaving the black truffle on each drummette -- but I did get a good taste!

Best Entrée - Duck Cordon Bleu by Cade Nagy, Catering by Design, Denver - Mushroom-spätzle casserole, grilled arugula, dried cherry salad and house-cured prosciutto chips made a multi-textured, multi-color dish with complementary flavora. The chip actually was standing up straight out of the casserole, a distinctive presentation that doesn't really show in this image.

Best Dessert - Cranberry Tart with Brie Fonduta by Brendon Doyle, Jonesy's EatBar. "Tart" is an Americanized name for a French clafoutie in which the fruit combines into the batter. The fruit of choice was, cranberries which make me think of autumn, and this tart was topped by a creamy melted Brie encircled by Pinot Noir reduction and additional Brie. Doyle said that he likes these grandmotherly plates. To my eye,  the busy pattern detracted from the presentation, but nothing could detract from the taste.

People's Choice Winners

Best Appetizer - Duck Raviolis in a Duck Jus Reduction by Jean-Luc Voegele, Westin Tabor Center. Truffles and leeks, julienned and crisp-fried, made this a winner. Interestingly, he was also the People's Choice winner at the Denver International Wine Festival. Bottom line: the "people" really like Voegele's dishes -- an so do I.

Best Entrée -  New York Strip with Huckleberry Demi-Glaze and  Best Dessert - Creme Brulée Cake, David Oliveri, both Farraday's Steak House, Black Hawk. I goofed big time on this, especially since Oliveri won two out of three categories. For the judges, Oliveri plated a small portion of the meat on one end of a large oval platter and the cake on the other. I took pictures of neither, and attendees voted for both. I guess FACC will  just have to ask me back to judge in 2010. I'll do better with photos. I promise. Meanwhile, apologies to the organizers, to Chef  and to the fans who voted for him.

The best I can offer, photographically, is a bit of the People's Choice ballot station. Each chef prepared and plated his dish(es), which were arrayed on a fall-festive table with the ballot box as the centerpiece.

Other Noteworthy Dishes

Creativity reigned in several other dishes, a couple of which are worthy of a photo and an explanation here. Restaurant 1515's Chuck James prepared sous-vide lobster that he smoked at the table. He inverted a martini glass over the lobster and smoked it via a hose stuck under the rim. When the martini glass was lifted, aromatic smoke rose from the plate and the smoley flavor permeated the rich lobster meat. James served it with a corn/truffle waffle, garlic butter "caviar," arugula and lemon dust -- yes, dust, not zest.

Catering by Design's Cade Nagy upscaled and deconstructed the infamous Egg McMuffin: braised pork belly, fried quail egg, Hollandaise and a biscuit. He described it as his homage to fast food. Unlike its inspiration, I called it delicious.

Happy Hour at Brasserie Ten Ten

Downtown Boulder brasserie's happy hour with a touch of class

IOU reports on last Thursday's Beaujolais and Beyond festival (but I'm waiting until I find out who won the chefs competition), First Bite Boulder dinners at Arugula Bar e Ristorante and Trattoria on Pearl, an exclusive preview of some of the dishes that will appear on The Fort's new winter menu. But I'm time-presed right now, so this post is about happy hour at one of my favorite spots: Brasserie Ten Ten. I like their happy hour because the food is reliably good. I like their happy hour because the wine is an excellent value. I like their happy hour because it lasts until 6:30, rather than 6:00 or even 5:00, as some downtown Boulder are now doing. And I like their happy hour because Brasserie Ten Ten does it with class and style: white linen tablecloths, linen napkins, and even the $3.75 happy hour red and white wines are poured from carafes.

Several of my media women friends and I went to Brasserie Ten Ten earlier this week, and here's what we had:

Oysters "R" in season right now at very moderate prices. Little Shemogue oysters (below) from southeastern New Brunswick are just $1 each. Kumomoto oysters, which are larger, are $2 each. As the name suggests, they originated in Japan but are now also cultivated in Oregon, Washington and California. Brasserie Ten Ten serves them on a bed of cracked ice with lemon wedges, cocktail sauce and horseradish.

At $6 during happy hour, the fish and chips are a top value. Two sizable pieces of tilapia are beer-battered and crisp-fried. They are served with the restaurant's excellent frites, a bit of cole slaw, lemon wedges and rémoulade sauce -- a nice French alternative to the usual tartar sauce.

One of our group who is Atkins dieting ordered the "baby burger," which is what they call their slider, sans bun. The burger is topped with peppered goat cheese and a speared pickle. Even without the bun, it amply filled the plate with a lettuce leaf, tomato slice, sliced onion and ramekin of ketchup.

Another ordered the same burger with the bun on the side -- and that's how it arrived.

Thon fond is an interesting sandwich. Tuna salad in olive oil, olive tapanade and a French cheese called Comte come between slices of toasted white sandwich bread. It also would be perfect at lunch.

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Three different crêpes are on the winter menu: Crêpes au Jambon  (ham and Gruyère), Crêpes Végétariennes (spinach and feta) and  Crêpes au Canard  (Duck and goat cheese). Each order consits of two crêpes that are folded and topped with Béarnaise sauce.

Price check: At happy hour, hors d'oeuvres, $1.50-$6; crêpes and sliders, $2-$3. Drinks range from $3.25 for a choice of four beers to $6 for a Ten Ten Margarita or a house martini made with Skyy vodka or Boodles gin.