food
Star Crossed Lovers
When I made the reservation for eight of us at Cafe Star, it sounded like they might have trouble tabling that many people on a Friday, they took the reservation anyway. When I arrived with only two others they seated us immediately not once asking when the rest of the party will arrive. They quickly took our drink orders and we had full glasses of delicious Cheapskate Cabernet and a bottle of bubbling Vino Verde (not Prosecco) waiting for everyone when they showed. When the other six people arrived, they accommodated our extra arrival without rancor and quickly had another place set before she even reached the table. Our waitress, the dear Andrea, whom I had already fell head over heels for, answered all of our questions patiently and knowledgably. And trust me, we bombarded her with questions about everything on the menu! My wine glass was never empty, nobody attempted to take my plate before I was done (a common occurrence with a slow eater like me), we were rarely bothered during our meals, and wholly taken care of. On top of all that, Andrea didn’t include gratuity in the bill, she knew full well that her performance would do the correct math. Amazing! Was there really this kind of service in a Denver restaurant? How completely refreshing. If this meal were based solely on service it would have been incredible.
Instead, Rebecca Weitzman, made Cafe Star top itself with menu that continues to amaze me. The menu changes to evolve with the season’s freshest produce and meats. Our table started off our meal with three flatbread pizzettas appetizers, all of which were unique and flavorful. We worked the kitchen over by each ordering a unique dish (doubling up on only one plate) and every one of them was delicious. Portions seem small at first glance but are rich and intense with unique flavors. Our buffalo steak was returned because it was a little undercooked, but it came out three minutes later seared to perfection and was promptly devoured. I ordered the lamb which was heaven on a plate and a perfectly sized portion for such a rich cut of meat. There was no problem finding dishes for the vegetarians in our party (and not just pasta with vegetables) though the pressed eggplant was probably the only dish not to my liking. In my opinion the best dish on the table was the lobster-and-rock-shrimp pot pie riddled with tarragon, as comforting as comfort food gets, yet as luxurious as anything. My girlfriend ordered the crisp gnocchi with truffle oil and escargot, which I finished without question. Don’t miss the soft-sweet beets with pistachio-crusted goat cheese or the crab-filled potato ravioli with white truffle sauce. The desserts were good too, though no match for the entrees. You won’t be disappointed with the Chocolate and Chili Pot d’Creme.
Cafe Star is hip, without attitude. Somehow, the entire room feels like both a trendy hot spot and low-key neighborhood hangout. It’s colorful and creative. Flavored and textured.
Now if there were only more restaurants in this town on the same level of excellence as Cafe Star. Have any ideas?
Spicy Hot
What makes spicy food spicy? It’s a chemical called Capsaicin, and in food, it’s measured in “Scoville Units”. This website has a number of common peppers, for comparison. They increase in spiciness as you move down the page – then read on to page two to see the hottest peppers and hot sauces in the world!
Shelf Talkers
With help from Spinach (the agency, not the food), pro-marijuana group NORML placed shelf talkers in grocery stores directly adjacent to the very products seemingly associated with feeding yourself weed. Very nice media placement, indeed.
Pimp That Snack
Pimp That Snack takes Snacks to their limit, and shows what they’re capable of with a little ingenuity, a little cash, and a lot of imagination.
Snooze Is Nearly Asleep
There are plenty of places to get a great brunch in Denver, Snooze isn’t one of them. Snooze has some great things going for it. Snooze also has some problems. Unfortunately, in this case, the bad outweigh the good.
My party arrived as a group of six. This may be more than Snooze is accustomed to but is by no means an outrageously sized group, particularly for brunch, which is often a friends and family affair. Sorry Snooze, I’m not letting you use that as an excuse. Despite being both seated and served quickly, our service was poor. Each of us had to ask for at least one of our drinks multiple times. We each had water and at least one more drink like a coffee, mimosa or bloody mary, but this is common for brunch too. A large party ordering multiple drinks is no reason not to bring us our order. We had a conversation that went very similar to this:
Wait staff: Can I get you anything else?
Me: Yeah, you could get me a water and him a coffee (pointing to my dad who ordered the coffee when we sat down).
Friend: I’d like a water too, please.
Waitstaff: Okay a water and a coffee then.
Friend: No, I’d like a water too.
Waitstaff: *stares into space*
Me: That’s two waters and a coffee.
Waitstaff: Okay, two waters and two coffees.
Me & Friend simultaneously: Sure.
The way our waitress was acting she must have been on the opening 1:30 A.M. shift. No excuse when you are competing with the 24 hour diners on Colfax who have waitresses sharper than Manolo four-inch heel. The best part was when she came over asking, “How is everything?” when we were still waiting on two of our orders to come out of the kitchen.
When the meals came out of the kitchen they were less than stellar. First off, choices were minimal. There are 11 breakfast choices and 7 lunch choices. This includes two types of pancakes, one item that is basically a bowl of hash browns, and the regular-old, way-too-big, breakfast burrito that everyone in town makes. All of it is simply mediocre.
Snooze is trying to make a name for itself in the imbibing department. True, they have a breakfast wine list and this is very cool and unique. Also true that my bloody mary was pink for some reason. Too much hoarse-radish I suspect. It still tasted pretty decent though.
To top it all off, Snooze is expensive. We ended up spending $170 (tip not included) for the six of us, only half of us drinking alcohol. That’s nearly $30 a person! For brunch! Yikes!
Now for the good parts of Snooze. The saving grace on the menu is the chocolate & peanut butter pancakes with chocolate chips, and the pineapple upside down pancakes. Without these two items Snooze would be sound asleep. Snooze has an incredible location in the ballpark neighborhood and is the only brunch spot in the neighborhood that I know of. Snooze’s operating schedule is of benefit as well. Opening at 1:30 AM on Saturday and Sunday make it a prime location for an after-party gorge. The best thing Snooze has going for it though, is the atmosphere. The place is so hip it almost hurts. This is thanks to the incredible work by the people over at Xan. Kudos to Xan, you did a wonderful job. Despite the food menu being weak, the drink menu is superb and the pomegranate mimosas are utterly delish.
Hopefully Snooze can fine-tune itself. Its menu needs tweaking and the wait staff need no-doze but the outfit has a lot of potential. Don’t take my word for it, go eat there and tell them what you think.
Disembodied Cuisine
For the Disembodied Cuisine art project, they attempt to grow frog skeletal muscle over biopolymer for potential food consumption. A biopsy is be taken from an animal which will continue to live and be displayed in the gallery along side the growing “steakâ€. This installation will culminate in a “feastâ€. The idea and research into this project began in Harvard in 2000. The first steak they have grown was made out of pre-natal sheep cells (skeletal muscle). We used cells harvested as part of research into tissue engineering techniques in utero. The steak was grown from an animal that was not yet born.