The effect is deliberate and manages to feel oddly authentic instead of kitschy. When the Little Pub Co. bought the building as it was slated for demolition, they completely gutted it and started from scratch. But they wanted it to retain an old neighborhood bar vibe. Employees and family members have been carving their names into the walls and booths, and vintage photos of them hang in the spaces between the retro signage.

There’s no table service, so we grabbed a booth and studied the chalkboard menu before heading back to the counter to order. Having heard good things about the barbecue, we both ordered combination plates, one with brisket and hot links, and one with brisket and pulled pork. Three homemade sauces are offered: a Kansas sweet, a tangy mustard vinegar and a smoky chipotle. The bar serves up old school beers in cans and a few newer standards on tap. I got a Shiner Bock in a can just for the novelty.

The place was smattered with an odd mix of clientele: A guy in work clothes played rounds of video golf by himself in between bites of his chicken wings (smoked instead of fried—a specialty of the house); a woman decked out in designer knock offs flirted with the friendly bartender; a skinny white guy dressed exactly like LL Cool J circa 1992 and his friend ordered another round.

As soon as they called our order up, we dug into the enormous portions. Corn on the cob, perfect fried okra and killer baked beans rounded out our platters. But the meat did nothing to compete with the sides: It was barely room temperature and surprisingly fatty. While the mustard vinegar sauce, became more and more appealing the more we ate, the other sauces lacked noteworthy qualities. In fact, I found myself wishing I had just ordered a bunch of side dishes, which is never a good sign at a barbecue joint.

But the crowds dig The Old Man—which is something that needs to be noted. The place is usually filled with happy drinkers and diners. Surely, the patio and volleyball courts will only get more popular as the summer goes on.

That’s just how it goes. Restaurants and bars are more than just eating and drinking establishments. They are cultural institutions where we meet friends and make friends, celebrate and commiserate and, yes, even remember what life was like in 1987.

The Old Man
Two Stars
4381 W. 120th Ave., Broomfield
720.536.4821
Bottom Line: Fun atmosphere, but the food leaves something to be desired.

Centro isn’t a big place, with small tables fitted into a long, narrow dining room and a very cool bar, the back side of which opens onto the patio when the weather is nice. Unfortunately for us, it was stormy out, leaving the bar closed off and the room loud and stuffy.

We were intrigued by the menu, a stimulating play on Latin favorites with unusual ingredients. Our attentive server brought our drinks and appetizers: a salsa sampler that came with a sweet and spicy habanero salsa, a smoky chipotle and a fairly watery chile verde as well as an order of ceviche. The salsas were bright, fresh and flavorful. We had fun trying them in different combinations as our server suggested, but I was a little put off by the price tag (it worked out to about a dollar a tablespoon). The ceviche seemed a much better bargain with large chunks of expertly marinated fish coated in something akin to a cilantro pesto and partnered with green olives. The olives at first gave me pause, but they worked, and I resolved to trust chef Ian Clark.

A good thing, too. My friend snickered that we were lucky we aren’t picky eaters as she pointed out a line on the menu explaining that all the ingredients were essential to each dish and insinuating that special orders would be frowned upon. She ordered the chicken and goat cheese enchiladas and I decided on the duck carnitas tacos.

The enchiladas were a little dry; having spent a few formative food years in New Mexico, I expect my enchiladas to be swimming in sauce barely contained by the confines of the plate. But the spices, chicken and cheese were a great combination, and we loved the black beans that accompanied the dish. The duck tacos were brilliant, reminding me happily of Mexico City-style street tacos I enjoyed while living in LA. Two perfect corn tortillas topped with a pile of shredded duck carnitas, lightly dressed shredded cabbage that gave it a dose of crunch, a few crumbles of smooth cheese and some luridly pink pickled onion. The sweet and sour and spicy flavors melded beautifully until I was wishing I hadn’t eaten quite so much ceviche and saved myself for the main course.

My trust in Centro’s chef was not misplaced; the food was excellent, creative and fresh.

And while our service was attentive and friendly, I found the atmosphere left a lot to be desired. My friend and I ended up at a coffee shop down the street to finish our evening because we were tired of shouting over the din of the loud music and noisy crowd. Maybe if it had been a different kind of evening we might have enjoyed some drinks and small plates at the bar before heading out to go dancing or to our next step on the pub crawl, but as it was, it was a challenge even holding a conversation without shouting.

Good thing we had great food to occupy our mouths.

Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace
Three Stars
950 Pearl Street, Boulder
303.442.7771
centrolatinkitchen.com
Bottom line: Exciting food; overexcited atmosphere.

But as craft brewing moved into the new millennium, the usual styles and their parameters were becoming passé. Looking to kick up the torque and horsepower of its production beers, Avery began making limited batches of beers of which The Maharaja (which numbers it batches; currently at number 10) is one of three in the Dictator series. The result induces a full-body pucker from hopping rates that don’t just cleanse the palate, they sandblast one’s taste buds. Sure, there’s a heap of malt in there to provide “balance” and the attendant alcohol that malt produces. But as IPAs go, this one goes to 11.

“The American palate has grown up to where they want even more flavor,” said Todd Thibault, marketing director of Breckenridge Brewery in Denver. “It’s funny the complexity that we can build into these beers. Avalanche is a nice, comfortable beer. But when you want to do it up big, you head to these small batch beers.”

These pumped-up beers typically have more alcohol—the Maharaja packs nearly 10.7 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). Some, like Avery’s Mephistopheles’ Stout, can clock in at a hellish 15 percent ABV.

Curiously, the high hopping rates and alcohol content lend these small batch behemoths to being put down, literally.

“Hog Heaven (9.2 percent ABV) is insanely hoppy,” says C.V. Howe, marketing specialist for Avery. “I say drink them fresh. But there are a lot of people out there that say Hog Heaven is at its best after two or three years. You start to get some sweeter, sherry-like flavors. Time allows the malt sweetness to come through and there are other reactions that happen that compliment those flavors.”

So as much as brewers like to tout their beverages as being less high-brow and more complex than wine, don’t be surprised if you start seeing aged vintages of high-octane ales being sold at better liquor stores for a premium.

Yes, They Can
Oskar Blues Brewery out of Lyons was the pioneer of canning; its flagship Dale’s Pale Ale—followed by Old Chub, Gordon, Ten Fidy and this spring, Momma’s Little Yella Pils—is only available in cans.

It turns out that putting premium, craft-brewed beer in cans was smart. Oskar Blues saw its beer production increase by 64 percent in 2008 and it is on a pace to keep the six-year growth spurt going.

Not blind to such success, local craft brewers Wynkoop Brewing Co. and Breckenridge Brewery, both of Denver, will join New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins in the canning line later this summer. The new Boulder upstart brewery, Upslope, is canning too. New Belgium started putting its Fat Tire ale in cans last summer and included its Sunshine Wheat in the lineup this year.

Look for Wynkoop’s Railyard Ale for sale in cans from its downtown brewpub and, if they can get the canning line hopping, at Denver liquor store giants Argonaut and Applejack.

Breckenridge, too, will join the can gang with its Avalanche Ale. Their initial targets are concert and sports venues and golf courses—places where glass is prohibited—and then branch out to local liquor stores.

Unlike the days of old, cans today have special liners and don’t impart that metallic taste and feel to beer. They also are impervious to light (bad for beer), are easy to recycle, are the only containers allowed in our National Parks and have a smaller carbon footprint than glass.

To start, we had a plate of delicious mini Maryland blue crab cakes served with a sauté of fresh fennel, English peas and mint and plated with a creamy lemon aioli. Skokan grew up in Chesapeake, and thus has a soft spot for the classic combination of crab and mint, as well as peas and mint. A little olive oil and a bright splash of lemon juice rounded out the sauté, and I had to pace myself to keep from scarfing down the entire plate.

Next up was a beautiful piece of roasted lamb rubbed with black pepper and sumac served with a mint yogurt sauce and lightly sautéed baby radishes. From the East Coast to the Mediterranean, Skokan played with mint’s bright versatility, building on the taste traditions of Turkey, Greece and Lebanon with the sour flavors of the sumac and yogurt, bringing out the earthiness of the lamb and the mint. The entire dish was alive with different textures and flavors that played off one another on the tongue.

Finally, as a crowning touch, Skokan brought out a plate lined with chocolate mint leaves straight from his garden and dipped in actual tempered dark chocolate. Without a lot of added sugar, these little delights were simple, intense and beautiful: the perfect finish for a light meal without being overwhelming.

Skokan is no stranger to developing menus on the fly; as our photographer finished up shooting the dishes, he and another chef stood chatting about what had been harvested from the farm that day and making up the menu as they went. Who needs 24 hours to come up with a dish? Skokan and his staff do it nightly with only a few hours before their first seating.

Black Cat’s menu changes frequently; we suggest ordering the five- or seven-course tasting menu for a true Black Cat experience. The restaurant is located at 1964 13th St., one block off the Pearl Street Mall. Visit blackcatboulder.com for reservations and more information.

I became an instant Francophile and wanted desperately to go with my classmates when the French club planned a trip, but I didn’t end up visiting until my honeymoon, firmly cementing France’s place in my heart.

So it is no wonder that I find French food utterly romantic in the most indescribable of ways. It’s not the froofy over-indulgent gastronomic visions of five-star chefs that turn me on, but rather the pure simplicity of French country food, of Parisian home cooking that makes my heart pound.
Brasserie Ten Ten in Boulder is a pleasant approximation of a Parisian brasserie, with the characteristic dark wood, tiled floors and white butcher paper on the tables. The space is much larger than any bistro I ever entered in Paris, and the tables spread further apart—which, to an American, is definitely not a draw back.

My husband and I were glad to let our waiter guide us through the wine list and ended up with a delightfully crisp Californian Sauvignon Blanc at his suggestion, which was a grapefruit-laden, understatedly bitter foil to our meal. We ordered the chips comme avant to start, which the menu described as potato chips with sun-dried tomatoes and bleu crème, but which, our waiter confided, the staff lovingly calls “French nachos.” The chips definitely veered toward the over-indulgent end of the spectrum, but they were too ridiculously luscious for me to care. I watched my husband scrape the last of the bleu cheese crème up with a spoon before he allowed the plate to be taken away.

After two salade simples—which lived up to their name superbly—our entrées arrived. My husband ordered the Long Family Farms pork tenderloin, which was plated in a gorgeous tower atop Himalayan red rice, jalapeño-thyme pistou and steamed turnips. The jalapeño was an unusual choice, we thought, but gave the dish an aromatic kick without overpowering the other flavors. My husband was duly impressed, but I was too busy making goo-goo eyes at my entrée to really give his the time of day.

I had it on good authority that the brique poulet, a recent addition to the menu, was one of the owner’s personal favorites and as soon as it arrived, it was clear why. Nothing could have been simpler, yet I couldn’t imagine anything more ideal. Half a free-range chicken had been dusted in salt and tarragon before being roasted to golden perfection and served simply with frites and steamed vegetables. It was the sort of meal you might expect to be served on an enormous, ancient wooden farmhouse table in someone’s kitchen, lovingly prepared for the Sunday afternoon meal. I was transported by the beauty and simplicity of the dish, back to the France of my fondest dreams.

As we finished our meal, full of loving remembrances of our magical week in Paris, we were tempted by the dessert menu. I ordered an espresso—a habit of our nights in the City of Light, though rare at home—and we settled on the tarte tatin. Silky butter-poached apples arranged attractively atop a patê Breton cookie were served with a fine vanilla ice cream and a caramel nutmeg ganache, which was a little heavy on the nutmeg. A sweet ending to a fine meal and a delicious excuse for a trip down memory lane.

Brasserie Ten Ten
Four Stars
1011 Walnut Street, Boulder
303.998.1010
brasserietenten.com
Bottom Line: Whether you opt for indulgent or simple, the food is outstanding.

Starting with either their traditional New York-style crust or their new cracker-style gluten-free crust, the pizza is built on a bed of ever-so-slightly sweet caramelized onions—it needs no additional sauce. Then they add tender roasted chicken, roasted red peppers and sautéed spinach. Once this base has been cooked in the huge pizza oven, the whole thing is topped with a cool, fresh slaw of Easter egg radishes, spring shallots, cilantro, mint and jalapeno peppers.

Where’s the peanut butter, you ask? Drizzled artistically over the top of the whole thing as a part of a spicy Thai peanut sauce made with coconut milk, chili paste, garlic, lime and Thai fish sauce.

“We know this isn’t the first Thai pizza ever,” Nancy said with a smile, but it was certainly one of the best we’d ever had. The herb slaw was fresh, crisp and zesty without being overwhelming, and the onions created a rich, balanced base for the entire pie.

Even better, the dish (as with most of the items on Zamparelli’s menu) is made almost entirely from local ingredients. The produce and inspiration came from Red Wagon Organic Farms, while the peanut butter came from Boulder-based Justin’s Nut Butters.

When I asked who was the mastermind behind their challenging elements dish, they looked at one another and gestured to each other. “We did it together. We almost always work on things together,” Nancy said.

The Thai chicken pizza will be available through June at Zamparelli’s Italian Bistro, located at 2770 Arapahoe, #101 in Lafayette, near 95th Street and Arapahoe. Visit zamparellis.com for directions, menu and more information.

Inside, the restaurant looks a bit like a caricature of an American Chinese restaurant. But the first hints of its hidden authenticity come from its location—attached to the Pacific Ocean Marketplace, a specialty Asian grocery store—and from its wait staff and clientele.

After being seated and giving our drink orders, we made our way to a room with three long buffet tables, a sushi bar, a Mongolian barbecue station and a table strictly for fried foods. We have never tried the Mongolian barbecue—despite visiting on several occasions—because there never seems to be anyone available to cook; in all fairness, there’s also always been more than enough for us to eat without the barbecue.

One of the main buffets is cold foods, salads and desserts. Steer away from the boring iceberg salad and hone in instead on the seaweed salad, kimchi, peel-and-eat shrimp and other cold seafood. Seafood here is a specialty and always seems fresh and good quality.

From here, my dining companion ventured over to the sushi bar. We were a tad skeptical at first—sushi from a buffet didn’t seem like the best idea ever—but were surprised by the variety of rolls, sushi and sashimi. While not the best we’d ever eaten, it was passable.

There are little gems hidden along the steam tables of the main buffet; tucked in between the dishes one would expect are little bastions of authenticity and interest. The seafood soup, for starters, is unusual and a definite standout with all the fruits de mer swimming in a rich, savory broth. On the table beyond the soups, four shiny steamer baskets hold various dim sum-style tidbits. To be honest, the shu mai (steamed purses of shrimp, chicken or pork filling) usually have to be refilled after I visit, and the steamed peach buns are like perfect pillows stuffed with sweet bean paste.

Some of the main-course dishes, of which there are many, will look familiar, but many are unique and definitely more interesting. On a recent visit, the baked fish and salt and pepper squid were unexpected but became quick favorites; the fish was simply roasted and not the least bit fishy, while the squid was coated in breading heavy on the black pepper and fried to crispy golden perfection. And the sesame chicken was also a success, with its surprisingly complex sauce and still-crispy fried chicken.

I am firmly of the opinion that one must apply different standards to different restaurants. I like to ask what the restaurant was trying to achieve and then decide whether or not it was achieved. International Buffet is not trying to be a fancy fine dining establishment, or a modern Asian bistro. But it succeeds at being what it is: an inexpensive option for tasting a buffet-sized variety of pan-Asian dishes.

International Buffet
Three stars
6600 W. 120th Avenue #G, Broomfield
720.887.3679
Bottom line: Inexpensive with variety and good value. The food is best at busy times with turnover.

The menu is as eclectic and wide reaching as the patrons, covering three meals a day as well as Saturday high tea and Sunday brunch. The cuisine is billed as contemporary American “with a Mediterranean accent”—wood-fired pizzas, various pastas and dishes like the Colorado rack of lamb served with white polenta and house-roasted peppers. On the other hand, mixing high and low—pizza and burgers for less than $10 across the page from steaks and seafood for more than $30—left the menu feeling slightly quixotic, perhaps a quality of being, at its core, a hotel restaurant that must cater to the aforementioned variety of patrons.

We started with the most irresistible item on the appetizer list: hand-made tater tots with truffle parmigiano-reggiano aioli. The six tots were perfectly formed little cubes of mashed potatoes fried golden and served in a little pool of the addictive aioli. They were overly salted for my taste, but a clever haute twist on a freezer-aisle classic.

I was pleased to be able to get small versions of the meal-sized salads; though, they fell a little short of expectation. Both the goat cheese salad and the 900 walnut salad had excellent ingredients, but neither were dressed well. I enjoy a salad that lets the greens and other ingredients speak for themselves, but to my mind, both would have benefited from a kiss of a well chosen vinaigrette.

The main courses did not disappoint. The ricotta and fig preserve stuffed ravioli was a masterpiece. The layers of flavors covered the spectrum from the creamy sweetness of the fig and ricotta filling to the rich, savory brown butter and sage sauce all the way to the salty parmigiano-reggiano sprinkled on top. My dining companion ordered the Cuban panini and especially enjoyed the traditional Cuban bread and the relish of pickled vegetables.

The dessert menu called to us and we were wooed by the banana split for two. Like the tots, the split took a common Dairy Queen menu treat and elevated it with high quality ingredients including Nutella, caramel bourbon and vanilla gelato covered in clouds of chantilly cream and drizzled in butterscotch and chocolate as well as fresh bananas with a crunchy caramelized veneer.

The crowning touch at Jill’s is the excellent service. Our server was both knowledgeable and attentive, providing flawless service in a dance with the other servers in the room. This attention to detail was the gilding that elevated this restaurant well into fine dining status.

The minor flaws I noted didn’t overshadow the pleasure of dining at Jill’s. The experience is as promised: elegant yet comfortable, an ode to the high-class traveler, the local foodie and everyone in between. In this case, judging a book by its cover may not be a bad idea.

Jill’s Restaurant at the St. Julien
900 Walnut, Boulder
720.408.7399
jillsdining.com
Bottom Line: Excellent food, service and ambience.

Editor’s Note: After visiting Jill’s we discovered that they are in the process of releasing a new dinner menu; however, many of the dishes reviewed here will still be available at lunch.

Twenty-four hours later, Lindsay Killion, the Boulder Rib House chef, came out of the kitchen with a gigantic square of triple-berry cobbler paired with a perfect sphere of fresh whipped cream and drizzled in a tart blackberry lemon sauce.

There are as many ways to fix cobbler (grunts, slumps, dumps and crumbles) as there are kinds of barbecue. The Rib House’s version starts with a puff pastry crust rather than a more traditional pie or biscuit crust, because Killion feels it stands up better and doesn’t get lost under the weight of the fruit. Two full inches of gorgeously purple organic blackberries, blueberries and raspberries make up the filling, which was not too sweet or syrupy, letting the flavor of the berries themselves take center stage. The lightly sweetened whipped cream and drizzle of lemon-infused sauce are a perfect foil to the natural sweetness of the fruit.

Cobbler seems like the perfect dessert to go with barbecue, homey and familiar, appropriately messy, not ever contrived. Killion’s managed to feel light (though we aren’t talking about calories), like something you might still have room for after a huge meal of ribs, pulled pork or brisket.

As we chased the last few crumbs around the plate, scooping up whipped cream and sauce for the perfect bite, Tracy mentioned that most of the produce at both locations of the Rib House comes from Colorado farmers. He told how, in the summer, he goes to the farmers market and tells the farmers what he needs, and then picks it up when they come to Prospect later in the week. He mentioned that they had added more salads and vegetarian options to cater to a more diverse crowd.

And with triple-berry cobbler on the menu? Yeah. We think The Rib House will do just fine in Boulder.

The triple berry cobbler will be on the menu throughout May at The Rib House in Boulder, 1801 13th Street, and Longmont, 1920 South Coffman Street. Visit theribhouse.com for directions and more information.

“Do you dip it in the curry?” I asked, unsure whether naan—or roti—should be used as a palate-cleanser or utensil.

“Either one,” he nodded, gently tearing his roti in half and scooping up a mound of curry-scented dried apricots with his spoon. Neither dish was dramatically pungent, but the spices worked their magic subtly beneath the quiet aromas.

“Philip,” I asked my friend between bites, “what’s actually in curry?”
His answer came with a chuckle: “There are too many to name. And they have to be used in just the right balance, or the whole dish is ruined.” Which is why, I suppose, I couldn’t—at least initially—pluck one flavor from my dish.

“How’s your roti?” I asked, distracting myself from my frustration.

“Well, it’s not quite like they make it back home,” he said, “but it’s pretty good.” And then he segued into stories of his childhood and family meals eaten from the same enormous dish. I, meanwhile, helped myself to his apricot curry.

We continued on in silence, me puzzling over spices—cumin? turmeric? white pepper?—and he, daydreaming about worriless days in the south of India. Slowly, the flavors became apparent, maturing with each additional bite. Apricots lent my friend’s curry an earthy sweetness, which was unique in its musty cue of pale yellow turmeric, nutty cumin and a hint of spice—cayenne pepper. But there was more: a trio of spices that reminded me somehow of holiday baking, of Christmas cookies. Clove! And cinnamon, lurking in the background. The chicken curry was equally as revealing, lacking the sweetness of fruit and suddenly forward in its mix of pungent coriander and salty cumin. The naan, however secondary it seemed at first, made up for any balancing sweetness the chicken curry lacked; it was both perfect companion and useful utensil. Spoons, after all, can only do so much.

In a matter of moments, the food was gone, bowls cleaned and table cleared.

“Philip,” I asked, unable to let it go, “is there usually cream in curry?” It was far too smooth, too rich to be made without some kind of indulgent dairy.

“Yes. Sometimes cream, sometimes yogurt.” He smiled at me and lounged back in his seat. We swapped stories from our childhoods and laughed at our respective ignorance of various cuisines—mine of Indian, his of European. In the back of the restaurant, an Indian family gathered around baskets of freshly baked naan and pappadam. Little girls sat on fathers’ knees; mothers talked on and on in Hindi. Around them, stretching back to the kitchen, the restaurant staff bustled with vindaloos, dals and kormas.

I don’t know what India is like—I’ve never been there. But I imagine, if I were to eat in India, it would feel a lot like Himalayas Restaurant. And of all places, it’s tucked away in Boulder.

Himalayas Restaurant
Four stars
303.442.3230
2010 14th St., No. 1, Boulder
himalayasrestaurant.com
Bottom line: Satisfying, authentic food with quiet ambience and gracious service.