Poblano and Corn Soup with Huitlacoche, Roasted Corn, and Applewood Smoked Bacon

This one was a rustic interpretation of a refined version I had at Tamayo (considered a Modern Mexican Restaurant), post on that great meal to follow. To me poblano / pasilla chiles are kind of a Mexican equivalent to one of the components of mirepoix, like celery, as in it's sort of just a foundational flavor - hard on it's own to be interesting but integral in providing nuance. A good chicken stock needs some celery, so it follows I thought a good Latin American corn soup needed some poblano.

The distinguished flavor pair, the inspiration to which I attribute to Tamayo, was corn and huitlacoche. I'm only guessing, but I think the corn + huitlacoche flavor pair is sort of as predictable as when you grow tomato and basil together in your garden, they both seem to thrive. Huitlacoche is a fungus, considered by some to be the Mexican equivalent of a black truffle, which in the U.S. is largely considered a pest since it infects corn. The color, in canned form, is black as night during a new moon, inky, turbid. The flavor is sweet, earthy with mineral notes, and in this application a little smoky.

On my annual culinary adventure (G3), I sought to find huitlacoche and was not easily dissuaded by its scarcity. After visiting or calling about a dozen Latin American and Mexican Grocers (from chains to mom and pop shops), I discovered it surprisingly next to the Chinese Food section at Avanza on South Federal Blvd. in Denver. Similar to Italian cuisine, I suspect that the ingredient is only traditionally prominent in a few regions of Mexico.

From gastronomic guesswork

So the soup used a base of 2 quarts of chicken broth and about 6 stalks celery, which simmered for about 20 minutes. Six poblanos were broiled for ~15 minutes, rotating twice. After destemming and deseeding, these were blitzed with the broth and a pound of frozen organic corn. After warming through and adjusting salt to taste, this was infused with a half cup of heavy cream and some hungarian wax chile flake for a small touch of heat. Separately, the huitlacoche (one 5 oz can) was spread half an inch thick onto a sheet pan and roasted for 15 minutes at 350F. This was then pureed with a 1/4 cup of cream and seasoned with black pepper and kosher salt. The soup was then plated with the huitlacoche, some fresh open-fire roasted corn, and diced crispy applewood smoked bacon.

I've become an instant fan of this blight on the corn farmer, if you find it at a farmers market or if you're a grower and have / know where to get fresh huitlacoche, please drop me a line.

The A-List Awards (Denver)

The A-List Awards are now open, here are some of my votes ...

Oskar Blues - Best Brewpub
Total Beverage - Best Wine Shop
Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Cafe - Best Beer Selection
Marczyk Fine Foods - Best Gourmet Grocery
Tamale Kitchen - Best Burrito
Brook's Steak House & Cellar - Best Steakhouse
Aurelio's Pizza - Best Pizza
Mizuna - Best Romantic Restaurant
Deli Tech - Best Sandwich
Luca d'Italia - Best Italian
Bara Sushi & Grill - Best Sushi
Duo - Best New American
New York Deli News - Best Comfort Food
My Brother's Bar - Best Burger
Toast - Best Breakfast
Pierre Michel French Bakery Cafe - Best Bakery
Fromage to Yours - Best Cheese Shop
Bones - Best Asian Fusion (write-in ballot)
Lucy - Best Healthy Lunch (write-in ballot)
Twelve - Best New Restaurant in Denver (not a category, but should be)

You can vote here.

Foie Gras with Demi Glace Poached Potato and Pink Lady Madeira Compote

Sourcing Foie Gras is at once elusive, potentially controversial, and never cheap.

It's elusive due to the very limited number of producers in the US, or for that matter North America. The United States and Canada collectively account for only 2.3% of world production, while France is the dominant producer at 78.5%.

It's controversial due to the practice of gavage, wherein Ducks or Geese are force fed for a period before slaughter. There have been various ordinance and statutes proposed to ban the practice, which dates back over 4000 years. In some cases I personally think the practice is mechanized and cruel, in others it would be much harder to argue the point ... a great analysis of the debate on Foie Gras is on StarChefs. With the U.S. having only two producers, both of whom have encouraged political opponents to visit the farms to demystify what actually takes place, I'm at least content enough there are much more deserving food producers for consumers to scrutinize and regulate - if you disagree, I encourage you to see Food Inc, visit a Community Supported Agriculture provider like Windsor Dairy (e.g. a farm), or read one of Michael Pollan's investigative reporting books.

In this writer's opinion, the simplistic view that all foie gras production results in animal cruelty, I believe is born of pure ignorance of where food comes from, which is possibly linked to the great lengths the food industrial complex goes to insulate consumers from it. If you've ever worked on a farm before many effectively became satellites of agribusiness conglomerates, you probably have a very different perspective. As Francine Bradley, from UC Davis, as I believe so succinctly summarizes the impedance between perception and reality on this topic, "You have people making decisions about food production based on a concept of animals which comes out of Disney." (as quoted on Starchefs)

At $70+ a pound, Foie Gras is in no way cheap, but if you have someone like Marczyk's around the corner, you can get out of there with just four ounces, please a few dinner guests, and altogether avoid the potential for buyer's remorse.

Pictured below is a recent foray into Foie, a successful flavor pairing, but short of memorable for most. I think you either individually like Demi Glace, Foie Gras, and Macerated Fruit or more likely you don't like one or more of those things (my wife would choose "none of the above" on this question) ... so there will be precious few who would enjoy this dish, but I liked this gastronomically unfledged play on earthy, savory, & sweet.

From gastronomic guesswork

The foie gras was quickly seared in a hot copper and stainless-lined saute pan for 1-1 1/2 minute a side. The pink lady apples where diced to a brunoise size, then poached for 20 minutes in a mixture of 1 part madeira to 4 parts simple syrup. The potato was sliced transparently thin and poached in demi glace for 10 minutes.

Brown Butter Shoestring Potatoes with Piquillo Peppers

This is fiendish steakhouse fare with contrasting textures and savory versus sweet flavors.

From gastronomic guesswork

The potatoes were shaved as thin but wide shoestrings to take the longer cooking time - think hashbrowns on the edge of burnt. Cooked at first gently in butter, about at a simmer, then crisped on just below medium heat, the goal is to dehydrate and completely caramelize the potatoes, while browning the butter adds a note of nuttiness. The near austere quality of the very brown shoestrings contrasts nicely with the sweet smokiness of the roasted piquillos.

Butterflied Hanger Steak Wrapped in Bacon with Jalepeno and Urfa Chile Flake

Here is a great Southwestern version of a bacon wrapped filet. Using the inexpensive hangar steak, butterfly 3 or 4 times by carefully cutting to bring each flap of meat into a round like the shape of a filet mignon - although butterflying can mean cutting a thick piece of meat to make it cook more thoroughly, herein I mean using the cuts to take a thin long piece of meat act like a single steak. Lay out a couple strips of bacon for each filet, dust with urfa chile flake, and place thin slices of jalepeno on top. Slowly wrap the steak with the bacon, grill at 500F.

From gastronomic guesswork

The raisin / caramel sweetness of the urfa chile along with the earthy heat of the jalepeno made this one sing - jalepeno + beef is good, but jalepeno + urfa + beef is better. With a little practice butterflying, it would be pretty easy to fool your guest that you were eating filets!

BLTMBA == BLT++

Bacon is one of those things that makes both the utilitarian grubber and the gourmand drool. The BLT is certainly something classic to the American sandwich repertoire, so I know to tread lightly on the tradition ... Here's my wife's version, which after having it once I've never returned to the three letter version in our kitchen.

From gastronomic guesswork

Bacon Lettuce Tomato Mozzarella Basil Avocado == BLTMBA or BLT++

Bruschetta not "Brushetta"

The Americanization of a lot of Italian dishes annoys me, as often the culinary tradition of a dish is altogether lost. I'm not bashing interpretation to explore and expand new flavor profiles, but rather the tendency for some large chains to slap Italian words or Italian-sounding words onto dumbed down food that's but a bastardized cousin (carbonara is an EGG Sauce, not a cream sauce, and there's no bechamel in it - maybe that's good too, but it's not carbonara). I guess the crime I see in all this is how myopic our palates become when inundated by such food, when bothering to be somewhat faithful to the dish might cause a customer to be challenged, to be exhilarated, to learn something about a food and it's origin, maybe even to form a fond memory of eating something new in your restaurant.

On countless occasions, I've had a television commercial, restaurant server, or friend pronounce the word bruschetta as broo-shet-ta. In the Italian language, CH is pronounced like a K, not like SH. I know I'm flipping a bit on this one, but to me BRUSHETTA is a symbol of our laziness about cooking and eating. It is one of the simplest things to prepare, most evocative of the simplicity inherent in the rustic cookery of Central Italy, and most expressive of how fresh ingredients can nourish and satisfy - and apparently we're too lazy to pronounce it correctly. The etymology of a word's meaning can take bizarre twists, take the phrase "more granular", let us hope there is still time to right the ship with Bruschetta before we start even spelling it wrong on very good cooking sites.

Here's one of my favorite versions ...

From gastronomic guesswork

Just tomatoes, basil, capers, Ligurian Olives, garlic, olive oil, sea salt.

Twelve Restaurant in Denver

A good friend of mine recently insisted we go out for a really good meal on his dime. I happily obliged but tried to find something that wouldn´t break the bank. Consulting Urbanspoon´s slot machine, I discovered Twelve, the Westword reader's choice for Best New Restaurant in Denver. I did a little research and found that the chef was of very high pedigree, and the restaurant offered a customizable prix fixe menu for $35 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

When we arrived, we just sat at the bar and notices how unpretentious the mood was, an inviting casual atmosphere. We discovered that if you sit at the bar you get 1/2 off wine by the glass. After glancing over the menu, which changes every month (thus the name Twelve), this was feeling almost too good to be true. For a starter, I selected the veal sweetbreads, veal jus, puff pastry, with baby frisee, and Pete ordered the diver scallop, corn, onion, peas, with verde farms microgreens. Just before the starter arrived, we were treated to some house made breads with butter and fleur de sel. There was mini brioche and a cardamom spiced bread. These were magnificent, the brioche was unbelievable in it´s delicacy and precise execution. The starters arrived and we were both blown away by the flavors and nuanced balance of each dish. For the main I enjoyed colorado striped bass, corona beans, with piqiullo peppers and my friend had the duck confit, apple wood smoked bacon, arugula-black mission fig salad. The bass was perfectly cooked, crisp skin, refined. The duck was strikingly similar to a dish I had success with so I advised Pete to get it - he was very happy with it. To round out the evening, we had a little chartreuse and I finished with the cheese plate, my friend with the chocolate pot de crème, mexican chocolate ice cream, and bittersweet chocolate cake. Among the cheeses was one of my favorites - epoisses. Pete and I decided this was probably the best meal we´d had in Denver this year, and we had a great time just food geeking.

The food was absolutely amazing, outstanding execution, technique, and culinary craft from Chef Jeff Osaka and his team - this is the stuff of Michelin Stars, to me the best new restaurant in Denver. After one visit, I´m pretty confident in saying Jeff Osaka is among the best chefs in Colorado, and Twelve needs to be on your fine dining shortlist for the food alone, but the service was also excellent. One thing I noticed while people watching was that the Chef jumped right into front of the house chores when they got busy, you can just tell this team has a very high level of commitment to please their diners. Finally, you are missing out if you don´t take advantage of the summer special prix fixe menu while it lasts, the value is really too good to be true and I'll be back presently.

kindageeky´s # of visits: 1

Southwest Onion Soup - A Classic Reimagined

And look, no net ... So this can best be described as a reinterpretation of French Onion Soup, kicked up a notch. This is a fairly time intensive preparation for something that is conceptually so simple - take your basic french onion flavor, over caramelize it, add in some wicked hot jalepeno garlic broth, and finish with beer battered jalapeno strips and avocado balls to tame the heat.

From gastronomic guesswork

The approach to the essential onion part of the dish was largely based on a great recipe for their own interpretation of the classic in the Mizuna cookbook. Thinly slice 2 large yellow onions, 2 red onions, saute until starting to brown in a little olive oil, add a couple dashes of baking soda, reduce heat and stir periodically for 2 hours until you have a deep brown color. Add water to the pan to continually deglaze. Incorporate a tablespoon or so of Oloroso Sherry, and 2 tablespoons butter. Reserve and keep warm.

For the jalepeno broth, roughly chop 6-8 jalepenos, toss in a pressure cooker with about 2 inches of water and pressure cook for 30 minutes. Relieve the pressure and remove the lid. Add 3 minced garlic cloves and reduce by half.

For the fried jalepeno strips, cut strips 1/8" wide after deseeding and removing the white veins. Prepare a batter with 1 part flour and 1 part corona beer (or something similarly light). Fry in grapeseed oil and toss with salt after draining.

Plate the onions using a small round mold in the center of the bowl, press down and remove the mold. Surround with 1/2 teaspoon avocado balls, top with the jalepeno strips and then gently pour in the jalepeno broth.

The jalepeno broth was brutal on its own, really bit you in the back of the mouth. In concert with the caramelized onions, crisp jalepeno strips, and velvety avocado, this was a very good pairing of flavors and textures. I had planned on cooking something after this, but instead just had two bowls of it.

Pierre Michel in Denver (Highlands Ranch)

If you've been looking for authentic French Croissants and pastry delights, your long wait is over. Pierre Michel is a total gift to the South Suburban restaurant scene. Nothing too fancy, just laboriously exacting craftsmanship in pastries, sandwiches, and quiche that will make you a regular after one visit. The croissants are perfect, better than anything I had in Paris. The quiches routinely disappear early. The Croque Monsieur is hearty and generously portioned. The staff are a husband / wife team originally from outside Lyon, France. They apparently worked for 6 months on perfecting the recipes for the high altitude before opening. All the food is spot on, not-so-simple pleasures that evoke the deep culinary traditions of France. Some evenings they offer savory crepes among other traditional French country preparations. You will surely delight everyone in the office with a bag of the croissants. The service is always extremely inviting, courteous, and friendly. Highly recommended.

kindageeky´s # of visits: 6

Lime in Denver (Greenwood Village)

Tuesday's is $1 taco night, which actually made me think my overall opinion of Lime needed to be revisited. Lime in Lodo and Cherry Creek are good places for nightlife and an expensive cocktail, but the food has always been a mixed bag to me. The tortilla chips and salsa are very good. Most of the entrees are generally of average tex-mex quality. On a Tuesday visit to the Landmark location of Lime in Greenwood Village, we had a pretty big crew from work. The tacos appealed to me, and we started with some queso, scorpions, and quesadillas. The starters were good, the tacos mixed. I sampled the carnitas, ahi tuna, and ground beef tacos (tuna was not on the $1 menu). The carnitas were good, ground beef ordinary, and tuna did not smell fresh - to the point that I feared repercussions the next day, but I was fine. I'd avoid the tuna next time, the food is decent but probably not worth a trip - go here for the nightlife and be happy with the chips / starters for snacks.

kindageeky´s # of visits: one (Greenwood), 5+ (Lodo / Cherry Creek)

Pizza Republica

After working too late one night, I sought solace with a Neopolitan style pizza at Pizza Republica. I sat at the bar, looked over the menu, ordered the basic Neopolitan and then did a little people watching. The diners were the same crowd that frequents Jing, which made be instantly worry about the food. When the pizza arrived it looked really good. The watercress was very fresh, and the San Marzano tomato sauce smelled good. The garlic chips were tasty, but the crust and the sauce were pretty bland. Pizza Republica seemed to me to be trying to evoke an authenticity that you were being transported to Napoli, but while the crust was crisped nicely from the wood fired oven, the dough seemed to lack any character from proofing. Similarly, the San Marzano sauce was in need of reduction and maybe a little coaxing of herbs and onion. At $14 bucks, I felt like there was far too much attention paid to the style of the restaurant and not enough on the food. The service at the bar verged on abandonment, and there was a pretty obvious mistake on the wine menu, notably the mention of a Barbera d’Alba with Nebbiolo as the identifying grape. Hopefully the miscues are just growing pains for this young restaurant, but either the crust and sauce will have to improve or the prices will have to drop for me to recommend this place.

kindageeky´s # of visits: one

Lucy in Denver (Greenwood Village)

A restaurant adjoined to a comedy club? You'd think this was a bad omen, but really Lucy shines and deserves a notable spot among the most progressive restaurants in South Denver. Open for lunch, I popped in recently for a quick late lunch. For $10 I was treated to Fava Bean Agnolotti in a Garlic and Tomato brodo, and started with a great reinterpretation of French Onion Soup. Service was very friendly and the prices stand out not only as the best in the shopping / eating enclave it's situated in, but also the value was memorable. I'll be back often - definitely a substance over style menu with a progressive attitude on ingredients and flavor pairings.

kindageeky´s # of visits: one

Best Burger in Denver 2009

A nagging question, a good cheeseburger is a guilty pleasure, so if I'm going to indulge, I want it to be worth it. Here's a list based on several informal surveys of burger aficionados whose palates I respect (wow, that's a statistically improbable sentence), along with some artery hardening personal research ... really this is just a bunch of burger geeks opinions, but I've tried to not let my opinion overwhelm this. Below are what I believe to be the TOP 10 Best Burgers in and around Denver, Colorado.

1. My Brother's Bar - best of the best, best of Lodo, a close battle with Cherry Cricket, but both the Johnny Burger and JCB are revered by all who have been lucky enough to consume one


2. Cherry Cricket - best in Cherry Creek, the most popular burger, most well known, but head to head with the Johnny Burger it loses by a nose ... in the end, the My Brother's Bar vs Cherry Cricket thing underscores this is really a two horse race in Denver, everyone knows Cherry Cricket, but everyone I surveyed who's eaten both gives the nod to the Johnny Burger at My Brother's Bar


3. Trinity Grille - Best Burger in Downtown / Uptown Denver, the steak burger with grilled onions is classic


4. City Grille - the beefiest burger of the bunch (lots of sirloin in there)


5. DeliTech - DTC's finest, bacon with cheddar couldn't be better


6. Crownburger - totally a burger joint, doing it right for, well forever


7. Cheeburger Cheeburger - EVERYTHING is fried in peanut oil, best toppings, best in Highlands Ranch


8. Bud's Bar (Sedalia) - Bud's is almost a hyperbole of itself, a biker bar that's on the other side of the tracks no matter which direction you're coming from; replete with attitude, the only thing on the menu is beer and burgers - and "no french fries dammit"


9. The Counter - An upscale chain in a mall's parking lot with hundreds of flavor combinations, like grilled scallions, garlic aioli, and green chiles on an English muffin; best fancy fries hands down (sweet potato with aioli)


10. Campus Lounge (DU) & - dive barely begins to describe the "pus" as it's known, but it's a casual favorite by DU and the burger with fried egg is sinfully good

If you're a burger fan this list will undoubtedly raise your ire, so please post your opinion and top 10 list (top 5, whatever). One honerable mention, best onion rings goes to Finn McCool's.

Bud´s Cafe & Bar in Sedalia

Bud´s has been around for 60+ years, and serves only one thing: burgers. God help you if you ask for french fries, there are t-shirts on the wall that say ¨Bud´s Cafe & Bar - No French Fries Dammit¨. After hearing about Bud´s from multiple friends and seeing both Serious Eats & Westword anoint it as one of the best burgers in America, I set about seeing for myself.

Bud's is to be found in tiny little Sedalia just off highway 85, situated between two sets of train tracks. As I pulled up, I noticed one inebriated local stumbling out of the place on a Tuesday at 4:30 pm, and a very intimidating biker giving me the eye. As I stepped out of the car, I said to biker, "I hear they have good burgers here". He replied, "The burgers are great, but the french fries are even better". Knowing I was likely to get physically thrown out if I asked for fries, I just chaulked this up to attitude, and there's no shortage of it at Bud's. I walked in and drew the stare of everyone in the place, so I ducked my head and acted like I knew what I was doing, and took a seat at the bar. The bartenders / waitstaff are pretty surly, protective of the locals and wary of strangers. I sat at the bar and noticed the whole menu was on one little stand-up - one side listed burger, cheeseburger, double burger, double cheeseburger, which also reinforced the notion "there were no damn french fries - you get chips, pickles, and onion at these prices" ($5.50 for a double cheeseburger, $3.50 for the single); the other side listed the beers in three price categories: $3.00, $3.30, $3.60. You can't beat the prices. So I ordered a double cheeseburger and beer. By this point the locals had stopped glaring at me, so I was able to look around a bit at the decor. The whole place is half the size of my family room, the walls are adorned with paintings of cowboys, hunting trophies, Broncos memorabilia, and bizarre figurines of yesteryear. The people watching is precarious but interesting sport here, be careful not to listen too closely, but the characters in this place were eye opening about what life is like in a small town that's remained insulated from all the urban growth around it.

As my burger arrived, I hunkered down to sample this slice of Americana. The first bite I just went plain, then added some pickles and mustard (no ketchup dammit - guess we all got our thing). The patties were hand patted chuck, and the cheese was probably velveeta - my guess as it arrived liquefied, then gradually took on a characteristically shimmering processed cheesefood look to it. This is a no frills cheeseburger, very filling, rich, cooked well. A very good burger, but in this writer's opinion, great if your down by Sedalia, but not worth a long trip unless you're in need of some attitude.

kindageeky´s # of visits: one

New York Deli News in Denver

This is a really old school Deli in Southeast Denver, from the waitresses that call you ¨Hon¨, to the big bowl of pickles that greets you, to the clientèle who appear to have been coming here since before you were born. As a thirty-something family man and quite particular food geek, you might not think this is my scene. Don´t let the old school vibe dissuade you though, portions are enormous, service is really fast, everything is obsessively fresh and satisfying. Eating there once will make you a believer. I´ve been going there for well over a decade, it´s the perfect spot to meet your dad for lunch. My personal favorite is the tuna salad with bacon. If you´re a light eater, eat half your sandwich and you´ll leave with your lunch for tomorrow.

kindageeky´s # of visits: dozens

Arepas with Sottocenere and Sweet Peppers

I recently had the opportunity to eat my first arepa, having seen them in various food media sources in the past. This particular one was delicious but was obviously made with yellow corn meal. Apparently this dish comes from Venezuela, but has made it into other culture in various forms. In research how I'd go about making my own arepa, I found there was some preferred nuance to picking the right dried corn base. First, corn meal is generally shunned, as is corn flour. Next, white corn is definitely preferred to yellow. So this leaves two options: white masa harina or actual arepa flour. The masa harina is maize that has undergone a process of nixtamalization, wherein the corn is "cooked" in lime water (lime in the mineral sense, not the fruit). This is the process in detail...

From Wikipedia

From all the sources consulted, the only legit arepa flour I was able to identify was Harina Pan, a commercial brand of arepa flour. After hitting 3 Latin American grocers and consulting this store finder, I was unable to locate Harina Pan, so I went with the white masa harina. Apparently masarepa is another name for what this cooked form of corn flour is called.

Working without a recipe of any manner, I played with the flour, incorporating more water than if I were making corn tortillas, and ended up with about a 5 to 4 ratio of flour to water. The texture was tacky like thick oatmeal. Now to make this taste good, I found inspiration in a dish I had at Tamayo restaurant in Denver, the Sopa de Elote - a soup of roasted corn with a huitlacoche dumpling. This was a flavor revelation to me as this was my first exposure to huitlacoche (corn fungus), and the pairing of a mushroom with corn. The earthiness of the huitlacoche and the sweetness of the corn made sweet + earthy just work. For this preparation I settle upon incorporating sottocenere, an Italian cheese flavored with chunks of black truffle. The sweet peppers (red and orange bell peppers) came from the thought of the flavor of succotash. The actual preparation used 1 cup white masa harina, 200 ml of water, small dice of 1 red and 1 orange pepper, 1/4 pound of sottocenere diced, and a couple healthy pinches of maldon sea salt. After combining the ingredients, I greased a small sheetpan with duck fat, and separately greased the inside of 4 english muffin rings. Using a spatula, I filled each ring a little more than half full and pressed the mixture roughly into place.

From gastronomic guesswork

Then over a gas burner on medium heat, I cooked the bottoms of the arepas for about 5 minutes. Then these were placed into the oven at 400F for 15 minutes, until the cheese was bubbling. I finished these under the broiler for 3 minutes to crisp them slightly. The arepas were removed from the oven and cooled for a couple minutes. To plate, I used a paring knife to help free the edges from the muffin rings.

From gastronomic guesswork

The results were delicious, a delicate paring of truffle and corn, sweet and earthy chaulks up another win with this foodie. While this might be missing the particular flavor that the masarepa imparts, these little corn cakes are a cool little vehicle for flavor, and I think make a nice starter or starch as part of a main course. I'll continue the search for masarepa today in the South Federal Blvd corridor, but if you know where to get it, either leave your comment or tweet me @kindageeky.

Next week - The Gauntlet of Gastronomic Guesswork 2009

In my annual tradition, next week will be devoted to gastronomic curiosities - A whole week devoted to research, cooking, experimenting - all things I've never cooked before (as always, but with the signal to noise ratio dialed a little lower). I'll break out all the tools, herbs / spices / chemicals, and new ideas for flavor pairings. Last year yielded an award, a tequilla soup, and an experiment gone far awry. There will be no net beneath the culinary rope I shall walk, so on that note please post your comments on "outside the box" ideas for dishes... a flavor, a texture, a classic re-imagined ... if it's really crazy I'm almost sure to take the challenge, and I guarantee you'll see a savory marshmallow and some air make an appearance. I really look forward to this week, it's a replenishing retreat for my gustatory Id

Farro Restaurant in Denver (Centennial)

Let me first say that I went in really wanting to like this place as a welcome addition to the scant South Suburban Denver Dining Scene. We ordered bolognese pasta and meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes for the little ones, and the adults started with the farro salad and killer olives. The bolognese sauce was pretty good, but was filled with large chunks of cracked black peppercorns that threw the dish off - minus the pepper, a compentant sauce. The pasta served with the bolognese was slightly larger than angel hair and completely out of place with this robust sauce, texturally a little off-putting. The olives were good, probably a little overpriced at $4 for 8 olives though. The farro salad was dissappointing, we were really hoping the team at Farro would have made this ancient grain shine - herein, the portion was paltry and the tomatoes were very under ripe. We continued with the Linguine with clam and white wine sauce and a woodfired pizza with prosciutto, pancetta, sausage, red sauce and cheese. The clam pasta was mediocre, but failed as we found two unopened clam shells in it - evidence the clams were dead and should have been removed before even making the sauce. The pizza that was brought to the table was not what we ordered, instead it was the spicy salami pizza with eggplant and roasted peppers. I raised this issue upon seeing it, but the water corrected me telling me this was the prosciutto, et al pizza. I said Ok. I bit into it and found that the crust was much thicker than one would expect of traditional Italian pizza, underproofed, and not fully baked, akin to eating warm wet flour really. I concentrated on picking off the toppings at this point, and the salami was pretty tasty. The waiter did return to say I was correct about what I ordered and offered to bring me a replacement, but with kids in tow we declined the offer. Again the waiter returned to offer to buy us dessert, but with the food to this point being so off, we respectfully declined. Given the misses with the pasta, seafood, pizza and the signature farro, I'm dissappointed but I just can't recommend Farro.

kindageeky´s # of visits: one