T.G.I. Friday’s

I know what your thinking, why the hell is the Denver Food Snob at TGI Friday's? Occasionally you find yourself in an office situation where a group of colleagues drag you to a horrible chain restaurant known not for its food but for the iconic appearances it makes in our movies. How much flair do you wear?

Yes, occasionally you find yourself in these situations not by choice but more of a strategy of keeping friends and participating in major society. Of course, as a known food snob in the office, someone in the group will ask "What if you were totally surprised and it was awesome?". Everyone knows you can't slap tomato sauce on cardboard and expect a pizza. The same applies in an industry known for using sub-par processed ingredients. The chances of a great tasting plate coming out of the TGIF kitchen are as likely as Jesus showing up on my toasted hamburger bun. Nil. 

In a place that worships the trifecta of fat, sugar and salt you can expect only one thing, sensory overload at a level usually served by drug dealers and not a great tasting plate served by a teenager dressed in red and white stripes.

So what do you order in this situation? You order something simple and safe.

Safe, you ask?

Yes, safe.

In this situation I'm trying to survive eating the food not trying to survive the type of situation with the potential to turn a work lunch in to a social disaster which ends with branding one of your coworkers a life long nick name. After reading "Eating Animals " I'm actually afraid for my life because of the commonly found bacteria in the beef supply produced by the meat industry used in these chains. Have you seen where your meat comes from ?

After careful consideration I order the "New" Big Mex Burger.

"Is medium-well fine?" She asks me.

"Cook the shit out of it." I think to myself.

My fate now resides in the kitchen.

Thinking that a burger might have more flavor because of the added Mexican ingredients may have been a pipe dream on my part but it was the adjective "New" in front of the burger name that really intrigued me. Why not get the latest creation from the food geniuses of the Casual Dining Industry and be "wowed" as my colleague suggested?

When the plates arrived I took two solid bites before getting a taste of my burger. It had a vague resemblance of a Cinco de Mayo I spent in a TGIF in the Spring of 1989. You know the kind, lots of care free fun that ended with an epic hangover . There's was nothing memorable to taste in this burger except the carcinogenic flavors of their beef. The melted jack, black bean & corn pico de gallo, lettuce and spicy chipotle mayo that really brings the texture to a mash potato like crescendo. Occasionally you find the taste of a vegetable but mainly experience the burnt tasting beef in a mushy goodness greased by spicy chipotle mayo.

I was totally surprised all right. But not in a good way. In the process of cooking this masterpiece they somehow removed the flavor instead of enhancing it. Unless of course the flavor was never there to begin with but where do you find food  like that?

I had to take out the gem of this dish, the pablano chili, and taste it on its own to see where its flavor had gone. I thought it was a real chili but had to confirm it with a clean taste. Yes, if you try real hard, you can taste a chili but not like one you would find off Federal Blvd during hatch season. This was more like a steamed green bell pepper.

The fries were mushy and devoid of taste sans the special seasoning they shake across them like a powdered doughnut.

When I asked a colleague at the table what he thought of his dish, he responded with 

"Well its big, got lots of stuff and bacon. I like it." He said with a smile.

Notice how taste was third on the list of how he rates his dish. What is wrong with America when someone rates their dish on how full it makes them and not how it tastes?

As we walked out the door I heard many of them say "I'm so full." and yet I was feeling empty inside. My stomach was in pain but somehow I remember tasting nothing. This kind of eating is about substance not taste and just like the reality tv show, Jersey Shore , you get no redeeming value but you can't stop watching it.

Ernie's Bar & Pizza

New to the Highland's area is Ernie's Bar & Pizza located just off Federal on 44th Avenue. You may remember the place as Three Sons italian restaurant a while back. If you have a great memory and have been around for longer than a while, you may remember it as the same name Ernies, which was originally established in 1943. The new Ernie's Bar & Pizza has no relation to the old owners from the 40's but they have brought a new style and food selection to the area and brought back just a bit of history.

Ernie's Bar & Pizza has changed the interior quite a bit from Three Sons decor and thankfully the food has changed dramatically as well. If you ever ate at Three Sons I have sympathy for you because it was one of the worse experiences in Denver I have ever had. Ernie's has changed that experience with a new modern look and a dark wood bar atmosphere that is filled with lots of high top seating and a little bit of standard table seating as well. The new bar fits well in to the neighborhood and has a gaming area with a pool table and even a pair of skee ball lanes. I know it seems like I'm playing this up as a bar, which it really is, but the food takes it to another level and I would put its pizza against other restaurants in Denver.

The menu is fairly small but filled with enough options and combination choices that you should be able to try different tastes for at least few visits. To start off with, the Antipasto selection has 38 items to choose from to create your own plate of cheeses, meats and giardiniera. You could try a few combos for an appetizer before a pizza and with so many to choose from you can't go wrong pleasing people. A menu like this is great for trying some exotic sounding items too like the Balsamic Cipollini Onions, which tasted great or the Taleggio cheese which was also fantastic.

The appetizer menu is filled with a lot of the standard Italian items you might be accustomed to seeing in an Italian restaurant. I tried the Calamari as I do in most Italian restaurants and wasn't too thrilled with it. It was a bit doughy and slightly undercooked but not a disaster. It comes served with a spicy tomato sauce and a garlic mayo. Both sauces tasted good and work well with calamari.

The pizza is the real gem here and come in two sizes, a 10" and 20". What's nice about the pizza is the thin crust that is cooked correctly and not soggy or chewy. A lot of places in town try to do the thin crust pizza but don't pull it off. The pizza has a crispy crust and you can top it with some of the 31 toppings available. I tried one of the pre-configured pizzas of prosciutto, oven roasted tomatoes and arugula. This was a fantastic combination and all the ingredients tasted great. The arugula did not look like it sat in a refrigerator for the last few days and the prosciutto crisped up nicely on the pizza.

I would go back again to try some different variations and with as many as there are to choose from I may be going back for a while. Be sure to read about the building's history on the wall by the bathroom. This is the kind of place that makes Denver the real deal.

Gastro Cart Denver

Long has been the tradition of small food vendors on the corners of the streets of downtown. Most of the time they are simple hot dog stands with little choice and no nutrition. Not so for the Gastro Cart who resides on the corner of 18th & Curtis bringing hand crafted street food.

Gastro Cart has traded nitrites for nutrition and brings variety to an otherwise predictable bland cart menu with a special that changes about every week. They serve a gyro, two types of tacos and a special. Make it a combo and you also get the B & B Quinoa with a drink.

The tacos are a nice change to the food cart scene and not expensive at $3 each. The Veg Taco comes on a corn tortilla with a sausage like roll filled with carmelized cabbage, whole grain rice, cream cheese, duxelle and topped with a smoked jalepeno aioli. The Veg flavor is subtle and could use a bit more flavor compared to the other selections but a great offering to the non meat eaters.

The Spicy Chicken Taco seemed a far better choice for the tacos. The chicken is crisped up on the griddle and served with kim chee, caraway and topped with their own version of a 1000 island dressing. The chicken adds a nice texture to the taco and the spiciness in not too hot but tastes great together with the kim chee. It was a bit heavy on the sauce but thats what comes out of the casual street environment of cooking on a cart.

Along side the tacos I also had the B & B Quinoa. The quinoa tasted fresh and delicious with diced home made pickles. Well worth the extra $2. Get the taco combo then make it a "combo-combo" to try one of each taco.

The special of the day was the real treat. crispy prosciutto, cheddar sauce, carmelized onions, oven roasted tomatoes on a thick slice of texas toast and topped with a fried egg. The taste had a nice balance between the saltiness and sweet of the ingredients bringing harmony to my taste buds. By far a huge leap for cart cuisine. It was a bit messy to eat but well worth it.

The Gastro Cart gives downtown Denver a great choice for the lunch scene and coming in under $10 for a tasty lunch they have beat about half of what is offered in town. You can find out what the daily special is from their Facebook page or from Twitter .

Corn Dogs

I know this seems like a strange topic to talk about but I have to share my experience at a recent outing. I was at the National Western Stock Show spending the day amongst the fine animals of the show and came upon the carnival like section outside where the bulk of the food concessions are. Amongst the signs surrounded by flashing bulbs was corndogs. I'm not one to usually run to these kind of roach coach trailers at fairs but occasionally I make an exception.
The corndogs here was a great example of tasting an original concept that has mutated throughout the years and what you find in most places now resemble a weak tasteless version of the original. This was a foot long dog on a stick, dipped in corn batter and deep fried to its golden brown finish. The outer corn batter was delicious and flakey and reminiscent of good corn bread. Not much you can say for a hot dog besides it is what it is.
What really struck me is how different this was compared to what you might get anywhere else besides a fair like setting. We've seen the type you can microwave from the supermarket. You may have ordered one from a restaurant off the kids menu that was been baked in an oven or even deep fried from a frozen state of cryogenic suspension. But when was the last time you had a corn dog freshly dipped in batter and deep fried? Its been long enough for me to be completely surprised when I ate this one.
I guess the lesson here is even circus type fair food can be a good treat if its made correctly, even for a food snob.

GB Fish & Chips

Checking out the new GB Fish & Chips on Sheridan Avenue I was impressed by the great view of Sloans Lake and the CIty. It looks like a promising patio spot for afternoon drinks in the summer. The decor is nothing to write about and it is quite small inside making it hard to find somewhere to sit down if you have more than two people in your party. It seems more like a bar with its table top sitting areas, TVs and community style tables than somewhere to eat. The smell of the fryer soon reminded me of why I was here and I placed my order at the register and waited for my name to be called.

Buying a Boddingtons to go with my fish & chips was the obvious choice and a good beer to serve. Pouring it in a plastic cup however is a big negative and not how I like to drink my English beer.

Once they called my name I went to pick up my order of the full Cod meal of Fish & Chips with Crisps. When the man behind the counter handed me a bag of crisps to go with my cod I thought I heard a needle scratch on a record. Why would you serve a bag of chips when you have fryers back there cooking everything else on the menu including the fires? Especially for the same price as the fries? "No thanks, I'll take the Chips." I told him. What good is going somewhere to eat when the food is already wrapped in a bag and probably old?

Once I got in to my cod I found them nothing to rave about. They were average and sometimes chewy. There's nothing worse than chewing on fish. I tried them with the tartar sauce and it did not help matters, especially the chewy part. Splashing some malt vinegar on them at least let me temporarily imagine I was back in England for a moment.

The Chips (fries) were a big disappointment also. When I say big, I mean they were huge wedges that were mushy and not very appealing unless you were two years old. A taste of the Coleslaw gave me a gib surprise. By far the best thing I've tried so far and actually tastes good. It was not too creamy and had a fresh taste to it. Unfortunately you can't eat an entire meal of coleslaw and beer unless you live in the south.

I would say the food was a big disappointment and the only reason you would find me back there would be to have a beer and sit on the patio. Perhaps the South Broadway location serves better food but this one has a long way to go.