Areas of Unrest

12 August 1999 - The Boulder Restaurant Report

I did my part as a good citizen Monday. Just after I got to work on Monday morning, I realized I had forgotten to pack my alarm clock. Since I just hit the "mode" switch to turn it off, this meant it would beep for several minutes every morning without me home to stop it. The inconvenience of running back home before heading for the airport is minor compared to making lifelong enemies of any neighbor who might hear that "beep beep beep" for 15 minutes at a time at 5:17 a.m. for three days straight. My neighbors don't realize how much they have to be grateful for.

Anyway, the main meeting I was out in Boulder for was reasonably productive, though I also spent roughly an hour and a half in a much less useful meeting. Amazing what a difference having the right people there can make.

But what would a trip to Boulder be without food pornography? I was very self-indulgent Monday night and went to Full Moon Grill. If you want to make me very happy, one thing you can do is feed me wild mushrooms. If you throw in a little cream and sherry, you'll hear me moan with delight. Which is a complicated way of saying that the wild mushroom soup I started with was phenomenal. I continued to be happy through a main course of seared ahi with a balsamic butter sauce and roasted vegetables. Then I tried the peach-polenta upside down cake for dessert, which was a nice summery touch. I do admit that the bill would have made me much less happy if I had to pay it myself. It's not like I am all that unfrugal with the company's money, but if I can have a fancy meal and keep within the per diem, I might as well indulge a little.

There is one thing Boulder lacks, compared to (say) the Bay Area. I refer to the Japanese breakfast. I guess there aren't enough Japanese business travelers there to make it worthwhile to offer rice, miso soup and pickled plums. Poor me just had to settle for blueberry pancakes with warm blueberry compote at Le Peep instead.

Mary Joan was in Boulder for a meeting on Tuesday and I talked her into joining me to try a new place before she drove back down to Denver (where she was staying because her Wednesday meeting was there). We invited Lance along, but he isn't particularly adventurous so we weren't surprised that he declined. We ended up going to Rhumba, which is Dave Query's latest venture. (He also runs Jax and Zolo, about which I have rhapsodized in the past. And Blue Plate Kitchen which might not be closed, as there seemed to be a crowd on their patio as I passed by on Monday night.)

Rhumba has a Caribbean theme, though that has more to do with a few ingredients and techniques than with actual recipes. We quickly concluded that Lance would have hated it, since the menu comes with a glossary. I opted for jerk tofu with noodles and peanuts, while Mary Joan tried the salmon and smoked cantaloupe skewers with ginger rice. My food was tasty enough and Mary Joan seemed to like hers, so it's certainly worth going back there. I had a sort of rum cake with kiwi fruit and raspberries for dessert, while she had a chocolate tart that appeared to contain enough chocolate to satisfy the entire Belgian nation. Which reminds me to mention another one of my odd food biases. Namely, I generally don't eat chocolate in summer. It isn't that I object to the idea per se, but chocolate isn't seasonal and fruit is. If you really want to make me happy, you'd just give me a bowl of strawberries with a dash of kirsch (or, interestingly, with balsamic vinegar - this sounds weird but works well). My favorite dessert to serve other people consists of blueberries and bitesize apricot slices marinated in apricot brandy. If you serve this over either pound cake or high quality vanilla ice cream, your guests will beg you for the secret and will never believe how simple it is.

Wednesday night I was back on my own and decided to try a new Indian restaurant. Tandoori Grill has a fairly standard menu and I figured that aloo ghobi (a potato and cauliflower dish) would be a reasonable test, since it's something I eat often enough to have criteria for. Theirs was reasonably good, though I had asked for it "medium hot" and was served something I'd consider "mild". The mint chutney that accompanied the poppadams was very good but the mango chutney was too sweet. There was also rice pilaf, which was fine but I could have lived without the fake coloring. If you're not going to use real saffron (and charge accordingly high prices), then don't bother with flavorless safflower to try to deceive the unwary. I'd also ordered onion kulchi on the grounds that any freshly made Indian bread is a wonderful thing and, yes, it was. Overall, I'd go back to Tandoori Grill, though I would ask for my food to be "hot" instead of "medium". And I still think Royal Peacock has the best Indian food in Boulder.

After dinner Wednesday night, I decided I was in the mood for a movie. The service at Tandoori Grill had been a bit slow, so I ended up getting to the theatre too late for Mystery Men and settled on Dick, instead. It's entirely implausible and very silly, but I laughed a lot. The heroines seemed awfully young for 15, though; my friends and I had abandoned our crushes on Bobby Sherman right around the time we turned 13. Still, this was great 1970's nostalgia and, while nobody would mistake it for high art, was quite entertaining. After the movie, I treated myself to ice cream at a newish place that's in the same building as the Marriott Hotel. I have no idea what the name of the place is or whether it might actually be part of the hotel, but I can say they make damn fine cinnamon ice cream.

Thursday's meeting was short, really just a wrap-up, so I was able to get the 12:30 p.m. flight back to L.A. and put in my travel request for next week. That one's Colorado Springs, though, so less exciting from the culinary standpoint. The early return also meant I was able to make it to Community Storytellers, which is always fun. Except for yet another stand-up comedian showing up and doing a bit from his show, which would be okay if these people ever actually had any clue as to what a story is. Major hint: beginning, middle, end. And, oh, yeah, a point would help.