Return of the Food Grump

I’m back at the blog after a fairly long hiatus during which I finished a novel I was writing and submitted it to a publisher. Also did a  lot of traveling, some recipe testing for friends, and some recipe development. I’m going to be taking a slightly different, more concentrated approach in future posts. Hope there’s something there you’ll like. Please see http://cookingcolorado.blogspot.com/

Chiles

Subtitle: When a Poblano isn’t.

 

Cooking Mexican food at home can be a bit intimidating at first. There are a lot of unfamiliar ingredients, some of which are unavailable at our local supermarkets. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the same ingredient can have more than one name, which may not match what’s called for in your recipe. Some of the names are incorrect, making you think you’re buying one thing when you’re actually getting something entirely different. This can have some disastrous consequences. I’m going to try to sort through some of the confusion, as it applies to chiles, and hope I can make things a little more understandable.

 

The confusion can begin with one of the most commonly used chiles, the Poblano, which is used in a great many Mexican recipes. If you go to Whole Foods, you’ll find Poblanos. If you go to Safeway or King Sooper, you won’t. At the latter two stores, Poblanos are called Pasillas, a name they were given at some point in California, which has spread to other states.

 

So Poblanos are called Pasillas, even though they aren’t Pasillas. The real Pasilla is a dried pepper, not a fresh pepper as is the Poblano. It is the dried form of the Chilaca chile.

 

Anaheim chiles are often called New Mexico chiles, even though they sort of are but really aren’t. New Mexico chiles are just chiles grown in New Mexico and are most often varieties like the Big Jim, Rio Grande, and Sandia, although they can be Anaheims. The chiles you will usually find being sold as New Mexicos can carry a little more heat than the typically mild Anaheims, although they shouldn’t give you any really unpleasant surprises.

 

You will often see it inferred that Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets are the same pepper. They aren’t, although they are in the same family. You can treat them the same if you’re cooking with them. Both are EXTREMELY hot, and you should use caution when handling them, taking care not to get their juices in your eyes, nose, or on other sensitive parts of your body. Many people wear latex of vinyl disposable gloves when working with high-heat chiles, and it’s not a bad idea. If you haven’t cooked with these peppers before, you might want to start with about a quarter or half of the called-for amount and see how that suits you. They can be brutal.

 

I’ve heard people say to use either a Jalapeno or a Serrano, as if they are interchangeable. They aren’t. A Serrano can pack quite a bit more heat than a Jalapeno, although here we get into kind of a dodgy area. Jalapenos vary greatly in size, as we get them in our local markets. There are times when they can be as much as four inches long, are double the size of those I grow at home, which I pick when they’re about two inches long. So, is a honkin’ big grocery store Jalapeno equal to two normal ones in a recipe? I think so.  I also grow Serranos, and in cooking I find that the heat from one Serrano is almost equal to that of two regular-sized Jalapenos, if you treat them both the same. By treating them the same I mean whether or not you remove the ribs and seeds, which is where most of the heat is carried.

 

You might also want to be a little cautious in recipes that call for Chipotle chiles. Chipotles are smoked Jalapenos and can be found in dried form at Whole Foods, but are more commonly purchase canned in Adobo sauce. Because they come whole, coated with sauce, many people don’t treat them the same as they might treat a Jalapeno. Their recipe will call for one or two Chipotles, usually chopped and they’ll just pull them out of the can and chop them up, not thinking about the fact that they are including the ribs and seeds. A dish that calls for two Chipotles can pack a real punch.

 

Anyway, that’s some of the basics of the misinformation and issues with using chiles. And, now that I’ve mentioned misinformation, I’m sure there are a lot of people who will disagree with some or most of what I’ve said here. There’s more names and opinions about chiles than you can possibly imagine. Here’s a list of the commonly found chiles in our local stores, and some information about them. I’ve surveyed Whole Foods, Safeway, and King Sooper. I haven’t managed to get to Sunflower Market, even though I intended to. When I get there, I’ll do a little editing and add them to the list.

 

Fresh Chiles:

 

Whole Foods

Poblano

Anaheim

Habanero

Serrano

Jalapeno

Red Fresno

 

Safeway

Poblano (called Pasilla)

Anaheim

Jalapeno

Serrano

 

King Sooper

Poblano (called Pasilla)

Anaheim

Jalapeno

Serrano

Habanero

 

I didn’t currently find Habaneros at my local Safeway, although I’d swear I’ve seen them there before. I also think I’ve seen Thai Chiles and Bird Chiles at different times. I’m sure there’s some variation in what each of the stores stocks from season to season, but most of the above chiles should be available pretty much year-round.

 

Some notes about the fresh chiles:

 

Anaheim: Long, mild green chiles that are often used for chile rellenos. Can be called Chile Verde, California Green Chile, or when mature, California Red Chile. Also called New Mexico or New Mexican, chilacate, chile college, chile Colorado, chile de ristra, Hatch, and pasado.

 

Habanero: Fruity and extremely hot. Imparts wonderful flavor if used judiciously. Sometimes incorrectly called Scotch Bonnet.

 

Jalapeno: One of the most popular chiles, with heat that is tolerable to most people. Very flavorful in fresh salsas. Pickled and jarred, they are popularly used in nachos. The pickled variety is less hot, and some are sold as having much of the heat removed, which is pretty wussy, but there you go. Also called acorchado, bola, bolita, candelaria, cauresmeno, gorda, huachinango, jarocho, mora, morita.

 

Poblano: Poblanos are large, fairly mild chiles, although every once in a while one will surprise you. The skin is fairly thick and can be a little unpleasant to eat raw, so they are often roasted first and the skin removed. They are commonly used in Mexican recipes and are often stuffed or cooked with an egg batter. As noted, they can be called Pasillas, and are sometimes called Anchos, which is also incorrect, as the Ancho is the dried form of the Poblano. Also called chile para rellenar, joto, mulato.

 

Red Fresno: The red version of the Fresno can be slightly hotter than a Jalapeno. They have thinner walls than Jalapenos, so can be very good in fresh salsas. Also known as “hot chile.”

 

Serrano: Thin walled, so they can be used without peeling or charring. Serranos have a wide range of heat, so should be used with a little caution. Very good in sauces and salsas. Also known as Balin, chile verde, cora, serrannito, tipico. You will notice that the Anaheim is also called “chile verde,” so it would be a good idea to be sure which pepper is being called for if that term is used in your recipe as there is a very large difference in the heat level of the two chiles.

 

Thai and Bird Chiles: We get into a pretty confusing area with these chiles. Thai chiles can also be known as Bird Chiles, Bird Peppers, Prik Chi Fa, and Thai Jalapenos. Cayenne peppers can also be called Bird Peppers. The hottest form of the Thai is supposed to be the Bird’s Eye. Given the labeling conventions at some of our stores, I would assume that any Thai or Bird pepper is going to be pretty darned hot. I’ve included a wide range for them in the head index table below to reflect what you might expect, given the range of peppers that can be called by these names.

 

 

Dried Chiles:

 

Whole Foods

Ancho

Chipotle

Chile de Arbol

Habanero

Guajillo

 

Safeway

Japoneshontonka

Dried California

Dried Hontaka

Chile de Arbol

Whole Chile Pequin

Chile de Ristra

 

King Sooper

Chile de Arbol

Whole Chile Pequin

Chile de Ristra

 

 

Some notes about the dried chiles:

 

Ancho: The Ancho is the dried Poblano and as such will be mild to medium-hot. Other names for it are Chile Colorado, mulato, and (incorrectly) pasilla.

 

California, Dried: The only chile I find that is referred to as a “California” is the Anaheim, so these may be dried Anaheims. Not sure.

 

Chile de Arbol: Hot! Sometimes called alfilerillo, bravo, cola de rata, cuauhchilli, ginnie pepper, pico de pajaro.

 

Chile de Ristra: I’m confused on this one. A ristra is the decorative string of red chiles you often see in illustrations for homes in the southwest, restaurants, etc. The most common chile used in ristras are Anaheims, which are very mild, but the packages of dried chiles called chile de ristra in our stores are marked “HOT” so I’m not sure what is in these bags.

 

Chipotle: A smoked jalapeno.

 

Guajillo: A dried Mirasol pepper. Fairly hot. Also can be called a cascabel, puya, pullia, travieso, trompa, costeno, and chilhuacle.

 

Habanero: Dried habanero. Danger. Use with caution.

 

Hontaka, Dried: A dried Hawk’s Bill chili. Typically grown in Japan. Used in many cuisines. Hot.

 

Japoneshontonka: Despite the spelling, I’m going to assume that this is the Japones Hontaka. The word Japones refers to the fact that these are commonly grown in Japan. Used in Mexican, Chinese, Caribbean, Latin American and a number of other cuisines. These can be smokin’ hot little hombres.

 

Whole Chile Pequin: HOT. Used in sauces, soups, vinegars. Also known as the bird pepper, pinhead pepper, chile petin, piquin, chiltepin, and chile mosquito.

 

 

I’ve put this information together in the hope that it will clear up some (certainly not all) of the confusion related to the chiles sold in our area. A lot of research has gone into this, but I have to say that there is so much conflicting information, so many people who will tell you with great vehemence that what you just heard from the guy standing next to them is totally wrong, that I am not sure about much of it. I’ll make changes to this as I become aware of errors – maybe. On the other hand, I may never look at it again, since it’s kind of made my head hurt.

 

Despite the confusion, it’s important to that chiles have great flavor, are wonderful to eat and to cook with, and are there for our enjoyment every day of the year. Eat ‘em up. They’re terrific, even if they do eat your face once in a while.

 

 

Scoville heat index for chiles commonly sold in Fort Collins/Windsor stores

 

Chile Type	Scoville “Heat” Index
Fresh chiles:
Poblano (Pasilla)	1,000-2,000
Anaheim	500-2,500
Jalapeno	2,500-8,000
Serrano	8,000-22,000
Red Fresno	5000-10,000
Habanero	150,000-300,000
Thai chiles, Bird chiles	30,000-100,000
Birds Eye	100,000-225,000
Dried chiles:
Ancho	1,000-2,000
Chipotle	5,000-8,000
Chile de Arbol	15,000-30,000
Habanero	150,000-325,000
Guajillo	2,500-5,000
Birds Eye	100,000-225,,000
Dried California	500-2,500
Dried Hontaka	50,000-100,000
Japoneshantonka	35,000-100,000
Whole Chile Pequin	40,000-100,000
Chile de Ristra	?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creekside Cellars

On an unseasonably warm day in February my wife and I sat on the deck of the Creekside Cellars restaurant in Evergreen, Colorado enjoying the sun, the clear blue sky and the comfortable ambiance. Below us, two pair of Mallards paddled around in Bear Creek, quacking at each other, going butts-up to grab some tasty moss from the creek bottom – doing duck stuff.

 

Creekside Cellars is a regular stop for us. We like the town of Evergreen and make the drive over there from our home near Fort Collins four or five times a year. While we’re there I thrash around in the Village Gourmet, finding something that I absolutely need for the kitchen, while my wife never misses a chance to visit one of her favorite clothing stores, Bits & Pieces. There are enough other shops to satisfy my wife’s shopping jones, and there are plenty of good places to walk the dog. You’re surrounded by restful mountain views, lots of trees, and a laid-back atmosphere.

 

The Creekside Cellars restaurant is small and convivial. The service is attentive, the kitchen timely, and the food uniformly excellent. We’ve tried many of their offerings, but on this day we both opted for the Rosemary Chicken Panini, which is available as a half-sandwich only for $8.95. A word about their portion sizes is in order here. A half-sandwich at Creekside is the equal of most full sandwiches anywhere else. With the included side of pasta salad, it is plenty to eat. Other offerings, like their cheese board and antipasto platter are way more than two average people can eat. If you’re in doubt, take a look at what’s being served to other tables. The portions are generous.

 

The Rosemary Chicken Panini is a grilled chicken breast, fresh rosemary, fresh mozzarella, roma tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil and salt and pepper, served on lightly grilled, cloud-soft homemade focaccia bread. Pretty standard stuff, you say. Where’s the innovation, the grapes, the smear of miso, the jangling, edgy flavor juxtapositions from other cuisines, the little gobs of flavored foams that bring back warm memories of when your brother spit on your spaghetti? Gee, you’re going to have to miss out on that, I guess.

 

There is something very original about the food at Creekside, however. What’s truly innovative is the care given to each plate of food. I think most of us have come to accept the idea that the meals we are served – especially lunch – will be at best, “pretty good” or “good enough,” and a lot of times we’re downright relieved when the food isn’t flat-out awful. The exception then, is food as it is served at Creekside. This is a kitchen that honors the quality of the ingredients and has enough respect for the history of the flavors, and enough restraint, to not have to put their own stamp on it just so they can show you how clever they are. Thank you.

 

With lunch, my wife chose the Chardonnay ($7 per glass), while I stuck with my favorite, the Syrah ($8 per glass). Their Rosso and Reisling at only $6 per glass are also good choices, or you can opt for a Cab, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, etc. We’ve had a number of their wines and I’ve found them all to be food-friendly, with well-developed varietal flavors and no rough edges to detract from the enjoyment of your meal.

 

To finish our meal, we decided to have some of their good coffee and a piece of cheesecake. Their cheesecake selection varies by the day, and our choices were vanilla or chocolate. We chose the vanilla and were told that it was available with a Marionberry-port wine reduction, which we ordered. It was an absolute wonder. I’m an old guy and I’ve been fortunate enough to have lived and traveled where there have been many fine restaurants. I can’t honestly say I’ve ever enjoyed anything more than I did that piece of cheesecake with its marvelous berry-wine reduction. Fantastic.

 

Okay, so I’m a little gushy here. I like Creekside Cellars for a lot of reasons, on a number of levels. On another winter visit we sat at a table next to one of the back windows, sipping our wine and enjoying the great food while a small herd of deer picked their way slowly up the snow-covered hillside across the creek in a perfect tableau of winter peace. You can’t expect something like that every visit, but Creekside does seem to be the kind of place where nice things happen.

  

You can see their menu and wines at: http://www.creeksidecellars.net/

Mexican Everyday

I sat down to write an article in which I would try to explain the different chile peppers available in our area, what they are called in our stores, and the characteristics of each. Instead, I found myself in a long digression about Rick Bayless, so that is what appears here. The chile pepper article will follow.

 

Like most of the world’s other great cuisines, most Mexican dishes were originated by people who were trying to make something good out of not very much. In some cases this involves the use of local ingredients not available to cooks in the United States, but in the majority of recipes you’ll find common, mostly inexpensive ingredients, with the emphasis on developing flavors and a great deal of care in their cooking.

 

My own efforts in Mexican cooking were greatly simplified and made much more successful when I came across the book Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless (W. W. Norton, November 7, 2005). I have one of his previous books, Mexico One Plate at a Time, and have several other books on Mexican cooking, but my efforts to that point were less than stellar.

 

It was Mexican Everyday that simplified things for me to the point where I could begin to build a foundation of understanding of the cuisine and understand some of the basic flavor profiles. Bayless took some criticism when this book first came out for saying it was okay to use canned ingredients and bottled salsa if that was all you could get or had time for, but for me this is one of the most thoughtful aspects of the book. He recognizes that people are at times interested more in getting something good on the table than in being slaves to tradition, and he makes it easy to do so. For the special meal, pick up Mexico One Plate at a Time. The recipes there are more traditional, require more time acquiring ingredients and more attention to the cooking skills involved. They are also uniformly excellent.

 

Some Mexican dishes are very spicy, and some are not. This is true of many cuisines – Italian, Chinese, and Caribbean to name just a few. Not all Mexican food is fiery-hot, but some of it is. Rick Bayless gives you wonderfully informative recipes, but no heat index. Some of his recipes can be real flamethrowers. If you’re just starting out cooking Mexican, you might want to temper your use of the chiles, cutting the amount by as much as half until you get a feel for how much heat the different chiles will bring to the dish.

 

Rick Bayless is, by most accounts, a pretty terrific guy. He’s won the Beard Foundation’s Humanitarian of the Year award, and was named the Bon Appetit Cooking Teacher of the Year, among other honors. His enthusiasm for the cooking of Mexico and his part in making us aware of the fact that it is truly one of the world’s great cuisines, for me, continues to be his greatest accomplishment. You can’t go wrong with Everyday Mexican if you buy it. You won’t be overwhelmed. You’ll probably have some fun. And you’ll end up with some great “everyday” meals.

Lalvain du Jour

When we first moved to Colorado, it was to the town of Silverthorne. We lived above the town a bit, just enough to put us at almost exactly 9,000 feet. That was six years ago. I had just become semi-retired, and in what was probably not the act of a rational person, I decided I wanted to learn to bake all our daily bread.

 

The list of failures was a long one. I had bread that didn’t rise, bread that rose like that foam insulation stuff you spray in gaps in your foundation, and bread that rose beautifully and then fell in the middle at the last minute. I wanted beautiful artisan loaves, with great texture, full of holes that trapped butter and toasted to a satisfying crunch. Everything I baked came out looking like pound cake. I wanted deep, satisfying, bready flavor. Everything I baked tasted like, as Julia Child once said, “the stuffing inside a teddy bear.”

 

In the six years that I’ve been baking our bread I’ve run through probably thirty recipes. Many of them were okay and could have been made a little better if I’d spent time tweaking them, but they just weren’t good enough to make the effort. These decisions may have been based on how the flavor developed with the kneading and rising times that work best at our altitude, or they may have just been recipes that didn’t suit our particular preferences. For whatever reason, most of them didn’t make the cut. Some of them were outright flops, and I have to wonder if they ever worked anywhere.

 

My current favorite breads are those I make from the Lalvain du Jour starters from King Arthur Flour. The starters are tiny packets of yeast you use to create a bread that is supposed to be similar in flavor to an Italian Pain de Campagne or a French sourdough, depending on which starter you use. I can’t claim to be an expert on how the authentic versions of these breads should taste, but I am very satisfied with the flavor of the bread I have been baking. Baking this bread is a three-day process, but you only do a little each day, and I don’t find it all that time consuming.

 

When you buy the starters from King Arthur’s Baker’s Catalogue, they include a recipe and a detailed set of instructions. I would encourage you to follow these instructions, at least the first couple of times. You should get good results. I have gone down a slightly different path, which suits me and which I will outline here. This is by no means a better way. It’s just a little less detailed and easier for my simple mind to manage, and I’m happy with the results.

 

I’ve made only one slight change to the ingredients, and it is one that is contrary to what I usually do for high altitude baking, but it works for me. I increase the flour for the dough portion of the recipe from 3 to 3¼ cups.

 

You begin this bread by making a sponge, hand-mixing ¼ teaspoon of the starter, 2 cups of flour, and 1 cup of water in a bowl. I use bread flour. The recipe says you can use unbleached AP flour, but I’ve never tried it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, set it on the kitchen counter and let it remain there for a good 24 hours, by which time the sponge should have tripled in size and become bubbly. The picture below shows my sponge after sitting overnight.

 

I mix the bread on the second day in my bread machine. I put in all the sponge, 3¼ cups of flour, ¾ cup of warm water, 1½ teaspoons of fine-ground sea salt, and ½ teaspoon of instant yeast. I let the bread machine run for the full dough cycle, at the end of which I have a smooth, elastic dough.

 

I then place the dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning the dough once to coat it with the oil. I cover it with plastic wrap and set it on the kitchen counter for the first rise. You’ll notice I don’t say to set the sponge or the dough in a warm place to rise. I like the slow rise in a room temperature or slightly cooler atmosphere. We keep our house at about 65 degrees. I think this cooler rise helps the dough develop better at high altitudes, as it is easy to have the dough puff up way too fast in our lower atmospheric pressure, which I think greatly hampers flavor development. I allow the dough to rise until at least doubled in size, and perhaps a bit more. The picture below shows the dough at the end of the first rise.

 

I make my bread for this recipe in bannetons. I like the support they give to the bread during the long, slow rise, and I like the pattern they make on the finished loaf. Just my preference. I’ve made these as free-standing boules, and they came out just fine. At the end of the first rise I divide the bread in two and shape each half into a small ball, tucking the ends underneath repeatedly until I have a nice smooth ball on top. This tucking into the bottom give a loosely-formed bottom structure to the bread, full of tucks. When the bread is turned over for baking, I find that this allows for expansion without the bread splitting down the sides, which was a problem for me for a while. The picture below shows the dough ball nested in the banneton.

 

I then wrap the bannetons completely in plastic wrap, leaving the wrap a little loose on the top to allow for expansion of the dough and place the bannetons in the refrigerator overnight. The following day, the bread will have risen only slightly. It should be removed from the refrigerator several hours before you intend to bake it. Allow it to come to room temperature and then to rise until the dough has at least doubled, preferably tripled in size. The picture below shows the dough in the banneton at the end of the second rise.

 

I heat the oven to 450 degrees about an hour before I want to bake the bread to give my oven stone (mine is a FibraMent) plenty of time to come to temperature. I cut a piece of parchment paper for each loaf and place one piece on top of each banneton. Placing a peel on top of the paper-covered banneton, I turn the whole works over and remove the banneton, then slide the dough and parchment paper onto my stone. After putting in the second loaf I spritz the oven thoroughly with water. After a minute, I spritz it again, and then again a minute later. I turn the oven down to 425 degrees and bake the bread for 21 minutes after the last spritz. If you want to check the bread with an instant-read thermometer for doneness, the bread should be done when it reaches an internal temperature of about 195 to 200 degrees. The picture below shows the finished loaf.

 

 

I have several breads I bake on a regular basis, alternating them to provide some variety. I’ll bake two loaves and freeze one. Then bake two of another kind and freeze one, so we’re never eating the same thing for more than a few days at a time. My two other regular favorites are the Rustic Potato Loaves from Julia Child’s book Baking with Julia, and Variation One of White Breads: Three Multipurpose Variations by Peter Reinhart, from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

 

I make some slight variations to these breads to compensate for our 5,000 foot altitude, and to accommodate my own personal tastes. In the Rustic Potato bread, I use 3 teaspoons of salt instead of four (personal taste) and cut the flour from 4¾ cups to 4½. I bake this bread at 350 degrees rather than 375, for 40 minutes.

 

In the Peter Reinhart bread, I cut the salt from 1½ teaspoons to one teaspoon, and because I personally found the recipe too sweet as printed, use 2 tablespoons of sugar rather than the 3¼ it calls for. I use 1¾ cups of water. I bake this bread at 350 degrees for 33 minutes.

 

I hope this information helps anyone who wants to bake some good bread at altitude. Of course, these recipes will work well, most likely just as they are written, at lower altitudes. I’d be glad to answer any questions that I’m able to. I’m floundering around with all of this just like everyone else, but I’ll try to help.

 

Breakfast at Little America

My sanity has been in question a number of times during my life and that’s okay. Being “normal” and “sane” is kind of overrated anyway. Getting up on a mid-winter morning to make a 94 mile round trip to eat hash and eggs probably won’t go on the positive side of the ledger.

 

Worth it, though. My wife and I make the drive to Hathaway’s restaurant at the Little America Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming because we can get something there that is better than anything closer to home – a very good breakfast in a serene, comfortable setting.

 

Hathaway’s opened in June of 2006 and is named for the late Wyoming governor, Stan Hathaway. Hathaway’s is open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a brunch added on weekends and breakfast and lunch buffets.

 

The room itself is part of the attraction of Hathaway’s, for us anyway. It is a fairly elegant, open, uncrowded space with comfortable seating and enough textural variety to keep the noise level very tolerable. The service is friendly and efficient and when breakfast is over there’s an interesting gift shop to wander through – a real bonus for my wife.

 

I am a hash-eater. I love hash. I’ll even eat the oversalted canned stuff if I have to, and eat it with great joy. Hathaway’s homemade corned beef hash is better than any other hash I’ve eaten, hands down – delicate of flavor, not too salty, and cooked to perfection. The hash is topped with two perfectly cooked poached eggs, and comes with hashed browns, toast, and your beverage for $8.75. This is the “Sunrise” breakfast on their menu. There is also a Hollandaise sauce with the breakfast and this is one of the slight areas of imperfection. The sauce was broken and weeping butter the last time we were there, but was hot enough and flavorful, so I managed to get over it. Perfection, like sanity, is not all that desirable anyway. After perfect, what’s left?

 

My wife’s preference is the “Devil’s Tower” breakfast, which is biscuits and sausage gravy with potatoes and beverage for $6.25. My wife is a biscuits-and-gravy fanatic. She’ll order them just about anywhere they show up on the menu. Hathaway’s are at the top of her list of the best. Not being a devotee, I heard the humming and little groans of pleasure coming from across the table and finally had to have a sample. She’s right. They’re great. The biscuits are not the usual little hockey-puck shaped things that barely get by as biscuits and are all too common in most restaurants. These are big, tall, light, and flavorful. The gentle touch of Hathaway’s kitchen continues in its sausage gravy which has a good, light consistency and just enough sausage for excellent flavor without being overbearing.

 

You’ll probably gather that I recommend Hathaway’s for breakfast. It’s the only meal we’ve eaten there, so I can’t vouch for the lunch or dinner menus, but would imagine they’re pretty good if the care given to breakfast extends to the rest of the day.

 

This is a restaurant that may not appeal to everyone. It is gracious, slightly elegant, and has a peaceful ambiance. I think it’s a great place to go. If you are interested in seeing their menu, you can do so at: http://www.littleamerica.com/cheyenne/hathaways.html

 

 

Zquila Restaurant, Fort Collins

If I gave out stars, Zquila would get a couple of them, but not all of them. We had dinner there last Saturday night because my daughter, who had been there once with a friend, wanted to go back for the shrimp Flautas. It was the first time there for my wife and I. This is not a real restaurant review, okay? Just some impressions from one visit.

 

Let me start by saying that the food is very good, the service efficient, and the kitchen admirably fast, given that the restaurant was at capacity. Given the quality of the food, the size of the portions, and taking all the other factors into play – the service, ambiance, clean new surroundings, etc. – the prices they ask are well within what you would reasonably expect. Most people who go to Zquila will be well pleased and I think it will be a very popular restaurant. I wasn’t all that crazy about it personally, but I think there are a lot of people who will be.

 

There are, however, a few issues. The first problem is not the restaurant’s fault. Whoever designed the center where they are located should read a little more in the parking and ease-of-use chapters of their textbooks . If there were more mixed-use businesses in this strip center, the parking might be closer to adequate. As it is, there are three restaurants in a row, all new and popular. Big surprise, they’re all busy at the same time. At dinnertime the parking is woefully inadequate, bordering on being a total pain in the butt.

 

The second problem we came across is the restaurant’s fault, or the restaurant designer’s. Zquila is one of those places where you go in and give them your name and they give you a pager-thingy so they can call you when your table is ready. There are a few chairs up by the front window, but the space for people to wait for a table is almost nonexistent. There were only about a dozen of us waiting, and there was nowhere to wait without being in someone’s way. I know, the idea is that you go and wait at the bar and pay for a drink, but there was no space there either.

 

We were seated fairly rapidly, thankfully, and were given a nice booth. The seating at the tables on the main floor is a little crowded, but no more than you’d expect in today’s restaurants. The noise level was about what you’d expect also. The room was full, and it was pretty noisy, but that’s how we’re supposed to like it now, so get over it, right? It wasn’t as bad as some other places, and we could talk at our table without shouting, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. You can read my rant about noisy restaurants on this site if you want to know how I really feel about this issue.

 

We ordered our drinks, which came quickly and were well made, and placed our food order. The food arrived in a short while, which was impressive given the size of the crowd. I tasted my daughter’s favorite, the shrimp Flautas, and they were very good. Complex flavors, and tender shrimp. Very spicy, however, with a lot of jalapenos, and this may be a problem for some. If you don’t want spicy, what the heck are you doing in a Mexican restaurant, right? Well, there’s spicy and then there’s holy-crap spicy. These were toward the top end of the scale of what I would consider to be acceptable.

 

My wife ordered the tacos and although they lacked a lot in terms of presentation – just a couple of very white flour tortillas folded over with stuff in the middle – the flavors were extremely good and the portion was generous.

 

I ordered a trio of enchiladas and was at first a little surprised by the sauce, which was not the traditional tomato-based enchilada sauce I expected in a place that seems to cater to Americanized tastes. It was more of a mole, and it was a little unpleasant at first taste, probably because I was expecting something very different. After a few more bites I thought it was good, and a slightly different, perhaps even more traditional way to serve the enchiladas, but it may not please everyone. The cheese enchilada was good, as was the chicken, but I was a little disappointed when I got to the beef enchilada and found they had used ground beef instead of shredded. At a restaurant of this quality, I don’t think ground beef in an enchilada is appropriate.

 

Zquila has a bit of an identity issue, maybe. The food is kind of California-Colorado-generic Mexican. They use a lot of Monterey Jack cheese, rather than authentic Mexican cheeses and the dishes suffer for it but this will probably please a lot of people who aren’t really into authentic Mexican, and it does have some basis in Southwestern cuisine.

 

One of the things I always look closely at on the first visit to a Mexican restaurant is the quality of the rice and beans they serve as this is where a lot of restaurants cut corners or just don’t seem to care. Zquila did a very nice job in this regard. The rice was flavorful and moist and the beans had good texture and flavor. High scores for that.

 

All things considered I think Zquila is very much worth a try, if you haven’t already been there. It may not be absolutely authentic Mexican, and there are some minor issues – what restaurant doesn’t have a few of those? – but I think most people will like it a lot. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Dining in the drum

So, this is a rant. If you don’t like reading somebody’s bitching and whining, then you should probably skip it or maybe go to one of the infinitely more well written blogs listed in my favorite links section at the right.

 

Personally, I like a fairly subdued atmosphere when I am dining. I don’t like to have to shout to be heard by the person across the table from me. I make allowances for places like sports bars and pizza parlors, of course. When I’m going to pay the price for an exceptional meal, I don’t want to feel like I’m dining with a couple hundred of my closest friends inside an oil drum.

 

It is hard for me to believe they’re still building restaurants with low ceilings, lots of hard surfaces, very tight seating, and no interest at all in acoustic dampening. This is so freakin’ 80’s. Can we please get over it? Noise is not exciting. Noise does not bring energy to the room. Noise is just friggin’ noise.  My assumption is that these places are still being built because there are still so many people around who have short attention spans and have to have lots of “action” around them. These are probably the same semi-deaf who you hear going down the street with their music blasting people off the sidewalks, or who can’t walk on a treadmill, sit in a movie, or do their grocery shopping with out talking, loudly, on their cell phone.  It’s as if the only way they can announce that they are alive is to make a hell of a lot of noise.

 

It is impossible that people go to some of these places for a fine dining experience. The ironic thing is that most of these restaurants charge prices that put them right at the top of the scale. A lot of the people who go there probably consider the consumption of food a major inconvenience, as it makes them have to do unattractive things like chew and swallow.

 

I was stuck in one of these places recently for a Christmas party, and it was hell on earth. The decibel level was louder than my leaf blower. The place was filled with arrogant, look-how-cool-I-am types, the kind of self-centered pukes that have brought this country to its knees. Folks, that pretentious crap impresses no one anymore. It is as dead as the elephant. MOVE ON. This was a major upscale chain restaurant and one of the worst places I’ve ever been in if you were actually interested in eating. Restaurants like this are for seeing and being seen, I guess. Certainly not for enjoying your food.

 

I prefer to frequent places where dining is a pleasant experience. Yes, when you are at one of even the best restaurants and the room is full there is a level of noise from the service and from people talking. This is to be expected, and is seldom overbearing. You can hear your server. You can hear your companions. You have no desire to punch anyone at the nearby tables. This is good.

 

Here’s another novel idea. How about when you arrive at the restaurant your table is waiting for you and you are seated immediately? No excuses, this is the way it should be done. I do not admire a restaurant that is so poorly run or so arrogant that they don’t have your table available when you arrive. What’s the point of making a reservation when you get there and they tell you it will be a half-hour before your table is ready?

 

Maybe some of these annoyances will be improved on a little now that the bubble has burst and the free-spending, put-it-on-the-credit-card-and-worry-about-it-later days are coming to an end for a lot of people. When there was plenty of loose money and more people wanted to eat out than the restaurants could handle, a lot of restaurants took the attitude that you should be grateful to be allowed to eat there. With things getting a little tighter, perhaps they will begin to notice that serving the customer actually has some bearing on what they do and how well they do financially.  

 

A fine dining experience should be just that. Fine dining and a fine experience. The best restaurants I’ve ever eaten in were quiet, pleasant places to eat, where you could enjoy your food without distraction, savor a great glass of wine, and talk pleasantly with the person next to you.

 

I know. Hell-zones like the ones I’ve mentioned wouldn’t exist if people didn’t go there and spend their money. I guess that’s okay with me if I can be forewarned somehow and not ever be lured inside. A listing of restaurants by decibel level and square footage per diner would be a good start, but that’s probably not going to happen.

Reading Restaurant Reviews

Way back in time, when the earth was new, I did some restaurant reviews as part of a weekly food column for a small group of newspapers. It was a difficult job then, and I’m sure it is more so now, with the proliferation of restaurants and the vast improvement in overall food quality.

 

Being fair to both the restaurant and to the reader means walking a pretty fine line. As a reviewer, you know how you think things should be, and you see how they actually are when you’re sitting at the table. But are you looking for the same thing that the average customer is looking for? Are you an effete freakin’ snob looking for a fine dining experience in a brew pub? Are you familiar enough with the nuances of the cuisine to make a fair judgment on what you are being served? How well are you able to serve the reader?

 

This is tough stuff. It’s a lot easier to do a good job of reviewing a mom-and-pop café, or a local grill than it is to review a white tablecloth establishment that may be on the cutting edge of cuisine, serving you a bunch of weird taste combinations under the guise of molecular gastronomy, with strange constructions on your plate that you can’t figure out how to eat and flavored foams that look like spit. If this isn’t your realm of expertise or the type of food that interests you, maybe you’d better stay out of there altogether. But then, of course you’ll feel like you aren’t  completely doing the job you say you’re doing.

 

As a reviewer, the best you can do is to shy away from places that are way out of your comfort zone, or if you must go there, be honest with the reader about your limitations. Chances are they are the same limitations that most of your readers have, and you won’t be insulting them to call it like you see it.

 

There are as many different types of reviewers as there are people trying to do the job, and most of them really are trying to do the best they can. Most of them do pretty well. They are trying to perform a service for their readers and are honestly trying their best to be as fair and as accurate as they can be in what is a very subjective arena.

 

Then there are the other types, the reviewers that are doing it only because it makes them feel important and strokes their huge ego. These are usually fairly easy to spot, as they seldom have anything good to say about any place you might want to go, but will be effusive in their praises of the latest version of snob hell. The worst of these reviewers are vicious, rabid dogs, totally self-involved, and are useless to the average reader, trying their best to make everyone else feel like they have no taste, no judgment, no class. People like this should be shunned and reviled, and should have to eat flavored foams by the bucket. Most often, however, they just get promoted.

 

There’s a common misconception that people who do restaurant reviews get a lot of free meals, deluxe treatment, and other kinds of restaurant payola. This is, unfortunately, an infrequent occurance with some really big restaurant reviewers for major publications, and it is sad and shifty when it happens, but it’s the way it can be up there very high where there are big bucks involved and some people with flexible morals.

 

Believe me, this is not the case with most restaurant reviewers, even at some of the largest, most influential publications. The majority of them do their best to remain anonymous, pay for their meals, even if it is on an expense account, and do everything they can to keep from calling attention to themselves in order to give an unbiased and fair review. At the local level, a reviewer is lucky to have any kind of expense reimbursement. Most of them are paying for their meals out of their own pocket and stay anonymous simply by virtue of the fact that no one notices them at all. They are not in it for the fame or the money, that’s for sure. They just want to do a good job, turn you on to some great places to eat, and protect you from the bummers.

 

Most reviewers are nice people who you’d enjoy talking to, and because they are good people, it is very hard for some of them to say bad things about the restaurants they are reviewing, even when there are bad things that should be said. I know two people, both very good reviewers, who quit doing reviews because they couldn’t bring themselves to badmouth a restaurant, even though that was what was plainly required.

 

Because of this, you often have to read between the lines. The reviewer may not  come right out and say the restaurant is kind of a rip-off, even though it would be a lot easier to understand if they did.  They will often do this by quoting the prices for each item they order. If you know that the price is at the high end of the scale for the item, then the review had better be glowing. If they pointedly say that they received a very small portion, or that it was “interesting” or that one flavor or another dominated the dish, anything that is kind of lukewarm in its praise, they are getting across the idea that what they got wasn’t worth the money or your time, without coming right out and saying it.

 

While most reviewers try to look at the restaurant as the majority of people would see it and take the preferences of the general public into account, there is still going to be a lot of subjectivity and there will be differences in personal preference. If you find that you frequently disagree with the opinions of a particular reviewer, don’t write them a nasty letter telling them they have no taste and are a low-life scum. Realize that your tastes differ and try to get over it. See if there is someone else in your area whose reviews work better for you. If not, maybe you’re the one who needs a taste adjustment.

 

One common practice among reviewers is to eat at the same restaurant several times before forming an opinion and writing the review. I had issues with this for a long time, feeling that it was more of a concession to the restaurant than necessary. If they lay out a bad meal first time around, why give them a second chance? After all, when you go in there, if the food isn’t good you’ll feel ripped off and unhappy and won’t go back. Why give them another chance? I felt this way in the days when I had a little shorter temper than now, which may be hard for some people to imagine. In time, I came to realize that it worked for the consumer’s benefit just as well. The reviewer may get two good meals and then a real clinker the third time out. This is good for the potential customer to know, and at the very least the reviewer should tip the situation off with a statement about the quality being inconsistent. Better yet they should just come out and say they had a really bad meal.

 

All of this may seem a little harsh, in terms of treatment of the restaurant. After all, they’re really trying, aren’t they? They’re really doing their best, aren’t they? Well, maybe. Maybe they’re having trouble and are cutting costs. Maybe they’re burned out and have been trying to sell the place of two years. Maybe they have some deluded idea of what good food is and think it’s the public who are misguided and insensitive. Maybe they just don’t give a damn and are in it to make a buck, putting the cheapest of everything they can on the table to maximize their profits. Maybe they have such an elevated opinion of themselves they think they are doing you a favor by letting you in the door and could care less how you feel about the whole thing, peasant that you are.

 

None of these things should be your problem. You have the right to expect a pleasant experience, good service, and the best food possible for the price you are paying.  There are so many good restaurants out there where the people care about the food they serve and do a really fine job of it. These are the places the reviewer is trying to help you find. When they do a good job for you, you might want to send them an email and say thanks.