Denver Restaurant Review Club

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by my husband. We love this recipe and I wanted him to share it.

Today is Superbowl Sunday, the ultimate day for super awesome food that is super bad for you. This recipe for Buffalo wings is something I wrote about on my own blog, but being that today is the biggest sports day in America, I’m happy to share it with the RRC readers.

Ultimate Chicken Wings

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours

Ingredients

• Chicken wings and drummettes
• Franks’s or your favorite wing sauce (BBQ sauce is a good alternative)
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Olive oil
• Blue cheese or your favorite dressing (Ranch isn’t bad)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Arrange wings and drummettes in a baking dish or pan.
3. Drizzle wings and drummettes with olive oil and a touch of salt and pepper.
4. Bake uncovered on middle oven rack for 1 hour.
5. Remove wings and drummettes from oven and mix them around a bit (to prevent them from sticking to the pan).
6. Add a bit more olive oil, salt and pepper.
7. Place the meat back in oven and bake for another hour.
8. Remove wings and drummettes from oven and mix them around again.
9. Place the meat back in the oven and bake for another 30 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and add some wing sauce. My family uses a lot. Use what you think is right. Remember that you can always add more after the wings are done.
11. Bake for another 30 minutes. The wings are done when most of the liquid cooks off.

Nobody wants their oven on for three hours during the middle of summer. So, an option for this recipe is to grill the meat on direct, low to medium heat for about 30 minutes, turning the meat every five minutes or so. The cooking time, of course, will vary depending on your grill. I don’t care for the grilling method as much as this oven-baked method, but the wings are still really good.

I have decided to compile a list of random items that we (generally me, but other people have input) think are the best in Denver. These are things where during the course of eating them we exclaim “These are the best [wings, fries, whatever].” The list is again, random and is by no means comprehensive. Also, I’ve thrown out the “no chain restaurants” rule for this one instance.

Appetizer’s/Sides:

Best Hummus: Damascus Grill

Best Artichoke Dip: Seven 30 South

Best Fries: J. Alexander’s

Best Wings: Tie between Jackson’s & Cherry Cricket

Best Onion Rings: Ted’s Montana Grill, with Wazee Supper club a close second

Best Fried Cheese: 9th Door - Fried goat cheese (served only during Happy Hour)

Best Vegetable Tempura: The Dish Bistro

Main Dishes:

Best Steak dinner: Sullivan’s

Best Ribs: J. Alexander’s

Best Thai food: Wild Ginger

Best Empanadas: Buenos Aires Pizzaria

Best Rueben: Wynkoop Brewery

Best Take N’ Bake Pizza: Nick N’ Willy’s

Best take home pizza: Abo’s

Best Eat-In Pizza: Tie between Little Ricci’s and Old Chicago

Best BBQ: Wild Mountain Smokehouse & Tavern (in Nederland)

Best Sandwiches: Spicy Pickle

Best Fajitas: Rio Grande

Desserts/Drinks:

Best Malted/Milkshakes: Steuben’s Food Service

Best Gelato: Tie between Buenos Aires Pizzaria & Gelazzi

Best brewed beer: Wynkoop Brewery’s Railyard Ale

Random Stuff:

Best people watching: Palmino (get a seat in the bar facing 16th)

Best place to see men in weird pants with meat on a stick: Rodizio

Best place to go after dinner and digest: Tattered Cover

This month our Denver Restaurant Review target will be Dalat Vietnamese Restaurant. The restaurant is located at 940 S. Federal Blvd., near Federal and Kentucky. As always, feel free to review the restaurant on your own and send me your comments on your experience.

If you would like to join me for an outing (where you will be required to fill out the RRC form), we will be heading to Dalat on the evening of Saturday, January 19th. Please let me know if you would like to attend and I’ll give out the secret time and instructions on the club handshake…

I have to admit, I fear making truffles a little.  In the past, they have come out a little oblong, not circular and sometimes I just can’t get the consistency of the chocolate right.  But I found this recipe in one of my many dessert books, and it turned out to be pretty simple.  And I have finally figured out a little truffle “trick”.

Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles

8 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips; if you use a block of chocolate, chop it up a bit)

1/4 cup chocolate hazelnut spread (Nutella for example)

3 Tablespoons heavy cream

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

Utensils: Wax paper, latex or vinyl gloves, metal bowl, stirring implement (wooden spoon for me), sauce pan with water

Put the bittersweet chocolate in the metal bowl and put it in a pan where the bottom of the bowl is in the water.  On my stove I turned the pan to medium, so that the water is bubbling, but not boiling.  Stir the chocolate occasionally as it melts.  Remove the bowl from the pan when the chocolate is melted and when you stir it the chocolate is smooth.

Stir in the chocolate hazelnut spread until the mixture is smooth.  Add the heavy cream and stir again until well blended.  The chocolate will become thick pretty quickly.  Once it’s a little thick and the cream is mixed in, put the bowl in the fridge to cool.

I set my timer to 5 minutes and after that time was up, I stirred the mix once, put the bowl back in the fridge and then set the timer for another 5 minutes. 

After 10 minutes in the fridge (with that one stiring), remove the bowl from the fridge.  Have a bowl ready with the chopped hazelnuts and a flat container or plate that can go in the fridge ready with some wax paper on the surface.

Here’s the trick.  Usually when you roll truffles the warmth of your hands melts the chocolate, gets chocolate on your hands and makes the truffles not a round shape.  So the trick here is the gloves.  They provide a nice barrier to the warmth of your hands, and they don’t get as covered with chocolate as your hands would.  Wash the gloves and rinse with cold water.  Dry off the gloves (I’m assuming you’re wearing them at this point) on a towel before you start.

Use a teaspoon and spoon up a bit of the truffle mixture and then roll that bit around in your gloved hands until it makes a nice ball.  Roll the ball around in the hazelnuts until it’s thoroughly covered and then put that on your wax papered surface.  You might have to wash the gloves off once or twice in the process, just to keep the chocolate from building up on the gloves; follow the same process, wash, rinse with cold water, then dry.

Once all of the truffles are made, put them in the refrigerator to cool and harden.  The cooling did not take too long for mine; the consistency was “truffley” in about 1/2 hour. 

This should make about 24 truffles.  Unless there’s two for you, like there was when I was making it, in which case, it makes 22 for other people…

Gelman’s Gourmet Market & Bistro

Address:  2911 W. 38th, on the corner of 38th and Eliot

Hours: Mon - 6:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m., Tues - Sat - 7 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sun 9 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Serving Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Website:  http://www.gelmansmarket.com

Parking: Free parking in the lot (it’s in a shopping center) and along Eliot

Reservations: Gelman’s does not take reservations

A new bistro opened up in Sunnyside last year and four us ventured out to try Gelman’s Gourmet Market. It’s fortunate that there were only four of us, since Gelman’s is a small place, and they probably could not have accommodated more than about 6 of us at a time.  There are a few small tables, for four and two mostly, with one table for six.  There is also a small bar, where apparently they serve a wide range of martinis.

We arrived at 7 p.m. and as is usual on Friday nights in Denver, Gelman’s was busy.  To get a table for four, we had to wait for about 15 minutes.  This was an advantage to Gelman’s since we had time to ogle over the items in the dessert case.   The desserts they were offering looked pretty good…

The “market” portion of Gelman’s is really just a refrigerator case with a few fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as a few muffins and bread products that can be purchased in the market.

Gelman’s menu is small, but seems to have a wide enough range to suit almost all tastes, with items that could be an adventure, but they also have some standard items like burgers.

For starters, we ordered the chicken satay and the roasted garlic and bread.  The chicken satay was great and had the usual lovely peanut sauce to go with the skewered chicken.  The roasted garlic and bread was alright, but the garlic had either not been roasted enough or had not been roasted properly.  Normally, if you roast the garlic correctly it is spreadable upon the bread and this was not possible with this garlic.  It turned out to be a slightly roasted clove of garlic on top of bread.  Perhaps it was an off night for the garlic roaster…

The four of us ordered the following items from the menu for our dinner: Champagne Lavender Chicken, the Salmon en Papillote, Linguine and Meatballs, and the Mediterranean Haddock.  The wait time for the food to get to the table was just about right, not fast, but not too long either, enough for a little conversation.

The service at Gelman’s should be mentioned here.  It was great; our waitress was attentive and quick, but not intrusive.  She was nice, and helpful.  When my husband asked about the ginger jalapeno fried chicken, she was honest and told him that it was mostly dark meat.   I always appreciate an honest and informative server.

The Champagne Lavender Chicken was a little fatty, but good.  Don’t order this if you don’t like the smell of lavender, since lavender adds that same smell to the taste of the chicken.  The Linguine and Meatballs was not hot enough when it arrived, but the noodles were either homemade or close to it and the meatballs were very good, just not as warm as it should have been.  Our lovely server, cut open the Salmon en Papillote, which is fortunate, because otherwise I think we would have struggled trying to figure out how to get in there.  But once it was opened, it was enjoyed thoroughly by its reviewer.  The Mediterranean Haddock was also rated as good by its reviewer, but don’t order this if you’re not an olive person, as these are plentiful on the fish.

And then it was on to dessert!  We were told that they make the desserts daily and in the dessert case that night they were offering a variety of cheesecakes, a few fruit tortes, two different kinds of chocolate cake and a chocolate and marshmallow trifle. 

We ordered the marshmallow trifle and a slab of chocolate cake.  The chocolate cake was obviously homemade and quite weighty.  The reviewers who ordered it felt that it was a little dry, but still good.  Trifle, for those of you who don’t know, is an invention of the English to put to use day old cake.  The trifle was layers of chocolate cake, whipped cream and marshmallow, topped with more whipped cream and some M&Ms. The trifle was good, but there was almost too much marshmallow cream. 

In the end, we spent about $20-$25 per person, including appetizers, main course and desserts, plus a little extra for those of us who had wine and beer. It was well worth it.  Gelman’s has great atmosphere, service, and good food.  It’s not overly pretentious and is a nice way to spend an evening with a small group of friends. 

Recently, two friends and I all took a “High Altitude Baking Class” at Cookstreet cooking school. It was a great learning experience; the chef gave us lots of good tips, and we got to play around with our recipes, adjusting to see what worked out best.

It was a “Cakes and Muffins” class that was designed to teach us how to fix and adjust recipes so that they work well at altitude.  The problem with baking here at altitude is the lack of air at this level and here in Colorado, it’s dry as well.  Cakes (and bread and cookies too) fall and become dense at this altitude if you don’t adjust them properly.

Eggs, butter, sugar and flour are your four basic cake ingredients.  The chef told us that each of these either weaken or strengthen your cake.  So depending upon your cake problem at altitude, you can adjust accordingly. 

For example, if your cake sinks in the middle, it means that there is too much moisture (eggs or butter that have weakened your cake) and not enough flour in your cake. 

There were several simple things that I was really glad to learn in class:

1. Packing your flour down is not good when measuring it for cake.  You must “fluff” your flour and measure it, otherwise you might get too much flour. And the chef suggested that we use a scale every time to make sure that we get the right measurements.
2. 1/2 cup (or any measurement) in your liquid measuring cup is not the same as a dry 1/2 cup.  I sort of knew this, but every once in a while when I’ve used all of the dry cups and haven’t washed them, I use the liquid cup.  Never again!
3. When the recipe says “cream the butter and sugar together” they really mean cream, like the texture is not very gritty, everything is mixed in well and the mixture is pale and creamy looking.  We worked very hard (or rather our mixers did) getting the creaming right in our recipes last night.
4. Always beat your eggs before you put them into a cake batter.  I always just throw the eggs in and let the mixer do the work.  Our chef instructor, took all of the eggs in our Pound Cake recipe, beat them together in a bowl, added the milk, and then added it to the mixer in a slow stream. Her Pound Cake was good, so I’m not going to argue with her, and will do it that way from now on.

We were assigned to make a Pound Cake and a Devil’s Food Cake.  We made an “adjusted” Pound Cake recipe, but without the above instructions about creaming and eggs. Later the chef showed us the “better” way to make it, but all of our cakes turned out “perfect” anyway.

And then we adjusted a Devil’s Food Cake on an experimental level to see which adjustments worked best. The making of the Devil’s food cake was the best part of the class.  I was watching the creaming of the sugar and butter in the mixer, while someone else was working on beating the eggs and the buttermilk.  At some point in the middle of us adding the egg and milk mixture, I actually started to pay attention to the recipe and realized we had beaten 4 eggs instead of two.  Oops! So one person voted that we start over again and two of us voted to keep on with the experiment.

So we stopped adding eggs, added a little more flour, and threw in a little more buttermilk for fun.  I laughed through the whole process, because seriously, what does it matter? If a cake I make in class totally sucks, who is hurt here?  Cooking is 80% experimentation anyway, so why not have fun in your kitchen lab?

We were labeling our cake pans before they went into the oven with our “team name” and so the Devil’s Food Cake was appropriately labeled “Freak”, because we were not sure what the heck we did to the batter.

After the cakes were baked the chef pulled them all out on the counter and discussed the various flaws of each one.  There were some that had some serious cave-ins, and those were the ones that had too much moisture, and then there were ones that were marbeled, where the ingredients had not been mixed in properly. 

When she gets to “Freak”, she asks “Okay, this one is labeled Freak.  Who made this?” I then got to try to explain what happened to our cake and try not to laugh at the same time.  I laughed anyway, it was hard not to do so.

But really, Freak looked like she (I’m going to go ahead and make our Freak cake a girl) had held up pretty well.  Freak had a small cave-in the middle, but not as much as the other cakes on the counter. Whatever we did do to Freak, the cake turned out really well.  A small cave-in, but when we cut the cake in half and looked inside, the chef said that the texture and density were what we were looking for in a good Devil’s Food cake.  Hilarious!

Next time I make a cake, I’m going to be less afraid to mess around with recipe.  What a great experience this class was, I got to make cake, eat it and play with the recipe without fear.  

I made these for the first time this weekend and they are delicious! I took them to a friends house (Ellebee and Nate) as payment for letting us stay at their mountain hide-away for the weekend, and I think they went over well with our hosts. They’re easy and yummy!

Cherry Chocolate Pastry Bars

2 cups flour

3/4 cup butter (softened)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese

1/3 cup more sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup cut maraschino cherries

1/4 cup almond slices

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used the mini chocolate chips and they worked well)

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a mixing bowl (flour, softened butter, sugar and salt). Mix/beat on a low speed until the particles of the mix are fine. Press 2/3 of the mixture into an ungreased 9 x 13 pan. Press down firmly! Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. (Watch that the edges don’t get too dark brown. )

Blend together the cream cheese, sugar and egg until smooth and creamy. Stir (do not beat) in the remaining ingredients. Spread over the baked crust and then sprinkle with the rest of the flour mixture. Bake 25-30 minutes, until light golden brown. Again, watch the edges, I burned them a little, but the cookies were still good.

Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting. Enjoy!

I made these sour cream bars this weekend because I realized I had a plethora of sour cream in the fridge.  These are a favorite of mine since childhood and I hope you will like them too.  They are super easy to make and taste a lot like cake donuts. 

Greetings! I’ve moved my personal blog to a new website - http://www.denver-rrc.com/dorrie/.  I’m trying to keep the cooking and restaurant stuff separate from any personal blogging I feel the need to do.  So if you’re interested, head on over to the new site…

Address:

Hours: Mon - Thu 11-10 p.m., Fri - 11-11 p.m., Sat - 9-11, Sun - 9-9

Serving: Lunch M-Sat, Dinner M-Sun, Brunch Sat & Sun

Website: http://www.730south.net/

Parking: Some parking in a lot on the North side of the restaurant, otherwise, street parking

Reservations: Accepted for any size party; can be made by calling or submitting a reservation form from the website

Seven 30 South has long been an established neighborhood bar and grill located in Bonnie Brae.  However, the quality of the food surpasses that of the usual “neighborhood bar” and seems to draw more than the locals. It’s casual, which contrasts with the food being upscale, but the prices are pretty reasonable for the quality of food.

The restaurant is good for groups, but a little noisy, especially in the main dining room.  The atmosphere is probably not quiet enough for a romantic dinner, but for a dinner that involves a little conversation, I would recommend sitting on the enclosed patio, rather than in the main room.

For appetizers, I highly recommend the Artichoke Dip.  The dip is creamy and cheesy (I suspect parmesan and something else), and comes with ciabatta toast points. You will gobble this up and like me, consider licking the bowl…

If you like pesto, you will love the bread and pesto dip that will arrive while you wait for your entree.  Fresh basil pesto mixed with olive oil and served with bread.  Yum!

I think that the best dish that was ordered at our table the night we ventured to Seven 30 South was the “Ron’s Rigatoni”.  It’s a huge portion of rigatoni in a creamy tomato sauce with sausage, peas, garlic and basil. The sauce is nicely done, not overwhelming, and matches well with the sausage and peas.

The Shrimp and Lobster enchiladas are excellent as well, but be prepared for a cheesy experience if you order this entree.  There is definitely more cheese than there is tortilla or seafood on this enchilada plate.

The beef stroganoff is hearty, and comes with plenty of egg noodles for those hungering for this dish. 

The cheeseburger is average, but comes on a nice actual Kaiser roll, not a pre-sliced bun and comes with plenty of toppings.  The fries served with it are average as well.

Unfortunately for Seven 30 South, it’s directly across from Bonnie Brae ice cream.  We ended up walking off some of our dinner crossing the street and getting ice cream rather than partaking in the dessert offerings at Seven 30 South, although the dessert menu is stacked with plenty of tempting items.

The service at Seven 30 South was friendly, and fairly attentive, but it was a pretty busy Friday night.  On the whole, we were not ignored ever and we never waited too long for our server to check on us if we needed anything at our table.

I can say that I would definitely recommend Seven 30 South; the food is good, the prices are excellent and the artichoke dip alone will keep bringing me back.