The best bread pudding I ever had came from La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona (the town mentioned in the Eagles song “Take It Easy”). The chef called it breakfast, but it was really a dessert: rich and filling and having that one touch that makes it special, in this case prickly pear fruit syrup (which the restaurant offers for pancakes and waffles as well). Next in the category of breakfasts that are really desserts: Root Down’s banana bread French toast with walnuts and organic chicory and crème fraîche (I asked for extra, which arrived when I was almost done), notable especially for its amazingly dense texture. It required a couple of hours of down time just to recover. In the category of bona fide desserts, I present this lemon ice from Panzano. The plating was so simple and beautiful I couldn’t resist. (By the way, when we were there, Panzano also offered a cherry bread pudding, for dessert. It’s not listed on the menu now; I believe it was part of the tasting menu. You could always call and ask.)And finally, something from D Bar. I wanted to show the palmond3 again, but it’s not on the menu now, so I settled for the “molten cake thingy that everyone has” with Malbec fruit compote and ice cream. The current menu mentions pistachio ice cream, but the topper here is some other flavor that I can’t remember. Currently D Bar offers 4 desserts I haven’t tried, including the bel canto mocha and the apple Sammy. So get over there and try them for me!

Bones is, at heart, an economical restaurant. It doesn’t waste much time on signage, for instance. I was walking down Grant thinking it was on 8th and had to call the people I was meeting to get new directions. When I did get to the intersection at 7th, nothing presented itself except Luca d’Italia, Mizuna, and the Lancer Lounge. I asked the guy with the spotted dachshund if he knew where Bones was, and he said he’d never heard of it. Presumably a man walking a dog comes from the neighborhood, so that boded badly.

Finally, with trepidation, I approached this door. You can’t tell from the picture, but “Bones” is painted above the door in tiny type, and in larger type to the left of the door. It’s a small place, about the size of D Bar Desserts. At 5:30, it was full.

Turned out that I was supposed to have been there at 5, which I would have known if I didn’t go on email strike on the weekends.

Turned out that the same man, Frank Bonanno, owns Bones, Mizuna, Luca d’Italia (all on the corner of 7th and Grant in Capitol Hill), and Osteria Marco in Larimer Square (Luca and Marco being the names of his sons). He’d probably buy the Lancer Lounge if he could and turn that into yet another restaurant. Or expand one of the others, since Bones and Mizuna are both small.

To me, running so many places implies an economy of effort. A person that busy has to know exactly what to do and when to do it, or the restaurants all come crashing down.

Yet he still found time to come by our table twice in the three hours we were there, and even signed my grease-stained one-page menu. If he devotes the same level of care to his staff as he does to his customers, his restaurants must be great places to work.

Our waitress took good care of us too.

And the food, Beth?

Oh, yeah. Since I arrived half an hour late, Denveater and our other dining companion had already started, but they were kind enough to leave me a steamed bun with suckling pig (shaped like a taco rather than a traditional pork bun), a beef eggroll, and some bone marrow, which was a treat for me. My first thought was to compare it to pâté, but its texture was less firm than most pâté, more like silky blobs of cooked fat, and its flavor was more meaty. I can see why Denveater loves it so much.

Also, there’s something about sticking a knife into the bone and prying out your food.

My favorite, though, was the black cod tempura. The batter was more delicate than your typical tempura from a Japanese restaurant, and on the first bite, my mouth filled with a light fish flavor. The jalapeño added the right amount of heat.

Almost everything I ate at Bones, with the exception of the eggroll and the steamed bun, was wet and soft and fatty. I did wish the escargot potstickers had been crispier on the outside (and I also wish I had focused a little more carefully).

But then, wet is appropriate for food at a noodle bar. My egg noodles with duck leg confit (meat cooked in its own fat) and oyster broth were delicious, but I had to take a break for a while because I was so full. The duck was lovely, but the oyster broth didn’t really register with me.

In case you can’t tell, I’m in over my head here. It’s been so long since I’ve had either escargot or oysters that they taste new.

If I stick around Denveater long enough, I’m sure I’ll get used to them, since she loves oysters. She was entertaining us at Bones with stories of how she got from “I don’t care if it’s good. I just want to eat” to the food writer extraordinaire she is today. Be sure to check out her (future) blog post on Bones, especially her take on all the namazake (unpasteurized sake) that we drank.

Did I say, at the beginning, that Bones was economical? Well, we got the bill. Considering all we ate and drank, it was a fair price. But if you go there, don’t let the low prices fool you. They add up pretty quickly.

I went out last Saturday looking for markets, and I visited five: the Winter Farmer’s Market in Longmont, Urban Pantry (which I wrote about here), Ujamaa Holiday Market (a once-a-year event in Five Points focusing on gifts), Marczyk Fine Foods, and the Market at Larimer Square.

Of the four, Marczyk is the only full-service grocery store, by which I mean it offers fresh produce, both raw and cured meat, fish, pre-made foods, an entire rack of spices and condiments, and lots of soft drinks stacked by the windows facing 17th Avenue. And for true one-stop shopping, Marczyk Wines, at the back of the store, will help you select a wine to complement your meal. (I wonder if it’s a trend in Denver to pair wine stores with markets—there’s Marczyk Fine Food with its own wine store, Urban Pantry next to Divino on South Broadway, and the Market at Larimer Square across from équipement de vin, which sells Colorado wines and has a tasting room).

Marczyk prominently occupies the corner at 17th Avenue and Clarkson in Uptown Denver, my favorite neighborhood in Denver thus far. (But I make no promises of fidelity. South Broadway is hot too, and Highlands is awfully cute.)

One thing that distinguishes Marczyk from Urban Pantry is the former’s focus on local goods, including Haystack Mountain cheeses from Niwot and Continental Sausage from Denver. Marczyk also had Palacios chorizo and Serrano ham, though the obliging staff behind the deli counter didn’t seem quite as well-versed as Alexandra Failmezger of Urban Pantry in the ins and outs of USDA approval of Spanish ham.

I was impressed by the case containing “Market Made” food. There’s a “Meals-to-Go” menu on their website about the takeout made every day in the store, including mashed potatoes, quiche, soup, and Jamaican jerk chicken. Marczyk will cater vegetable crudité, antipasto, sandwich, and cheese platters. Gift baskets are available through local business A la Carte Baskets.

In short, Marczyk’s has a larger and more complete selection of foods than Urban Pantry, but I stop short of saying a “better” selection, because the items at Urban Pantry were so unusual and just plain cool.

At the end of a busy Saturday, my husband and I stopped in at the Market for a quick bite to eat, and I immediately fell in love with their dessert case, full of lusciously frosted cakes. They can make you cheesecake, pound cake, mousse, pies (with two days’ notice) … and they’ll also sell you chocolate truffles.

A downtown grocery in the 1970s during the era of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, whose activities spawned the historic preservation movement in Denver, the Market at Larimer Square changed ownership in 1983 and became a deli and espresso bar. Its website calls it the first espresso bar between New York and Los Angeles.

It’s a huge store with well-worn wooden floors (in contrast to the cement floors at Marczyk and Urban Pantry). The espresso bar is on the left as you walk in the door, with exotic drinks such as black forest latte. To get to the deli, ascend the stairs; the dessert and truffle cases sit to your right. You can order sandwiches, hot food, cold salads, and wine and beer at the deli. Specialty food items fill the shelves built into the walls, though it takes a little fancy footwork to reach them through the tons of tables.

Todd and I had a French dip sandwich, which was very good, and some green chili, which was more like soup (with black beans, among other things) than the typical pork chili ladled over a burrito. The tea, white chocolate, and dark chocolate truffles we tried were good.

The salad bar at the far end of the deli was not terribly impressive, but of the food we ate, there was nothing not to like, and the service was very good.

The Market offers box lunches, party trays, and custom catering. There is a small delivery fee for the downtown area.

équipement de vin

It was embarrassing, I confess.

The proprietor of équipement de vin, Cheryl Webster, caught me in the wine cellar photographing a champagne cooler with my cell phone. I had forgotten to bring my camera to my second visit to her store and was making do with my phone.

Even if I wasn’t professional enough to ask whether I could take pictures, Cheryl was both professional and warm, handling all the customers with ease, and letting them feed carrots to her dog.

In honor of the holidays, Larimer Square was holding a “tailgate” party, with some stores offering food or drink to their customers (see the website for information about the party on December 17). Cheryl had set up some hors d’oeuvres in the wine cellar and was directing customers to go next door for beer.

Equipement de vin is an attractive, Tuscan-style store, long and narrow with echoing wood floors. When you enter, you can see all the way to the back, but displays are arranged to slow you down and entice you to consider the wares. Everywhere you turn you find wine racks or glassware or bottle cozies or just about anything else you can imagine having to do with wine or entertaining.

On the tall black shelves across from the register, which display color-coordinated sets of candles and tableware, I discovered the perfect coasters, made of black slate, to complement my blue slate tables with wrought-iron frames.

Cheryl was dealing with several sets of customers while I was in the store, but she took the time to answer this rather pointed question: “How do stores make money when most of their stock is fairly inexpensive? Is it just volume?”

Well, yes, she said, but her store also sells furniture, wine-themed art (a popular item), and glassware, including exquisite decanters that cost as much as $300.

My next question was about “nosing” wines, a subject that has vexed me for years. She suggested a way to develop my nose using the store’s wine-tasting guide:

1. Throw a wine-tasting party focusing on one varietal.

2. Find a small amount of every item listed under that varietal on her store’s guide (blackberries or spices for merlot, for example) and put each item in a separate glass.

3. Smell the item, and then smell the wine and see if there’s a match.

She solved my problem, and I bought the wine-tasting guide, a wine and food matching wheel, and the coasters.

Equipement de vin offers tastings of Colorado wines Thursday through Saturday. Cheryl’s cellar was full of Colorado wines that were new to me. I’m looking forward to doing a wine tasting this weekend.

***

After a long day of visiting stores in Denver on Saturday, it was a relief to return to équipement de vin and hang out at the bar in the back with Matthew, who knows a lot about wine and is a writer to boot. We tasted the Whitewater Hill Riesling (a wine made in Grand Junction, Colorado) and four red wines from Bonacquisti, a winery at 46th and Pecos (the grapes are grown on the Western Slope). Our favorite was the Riesling; I didn’t love any of the reds, but the Delagua Red (mostly merlot) and the cabernet franc were my favorites.

Among the things I learned from him:

1. Merlots are fermented with the grape skins for only a short time in order to preserve the silky texture of the wine.

2. Merlots don’t spend much time in oak.

3. When I perceive a “burnt” smell in a wine, it has to do with how deeply the oak barrels in which it was aged are toasted.

4. To properly smell a wine, tilt the glass and smell from the “bottom” of the glass to the “top.”

5. He also explained the difference between aroma and bouquet, which I can’t remember. Another tip he gave me (so I can remember more of this stuff): take wine classes at International Wine Guild in Denver.

I’ve never eaten at a place quite like D Bar. It’s a tiny restaurant located right next to Strings on Restaurant Row in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood. The interior is modern, with light blue walls contrasting with counters and 5 tables in dark brown. You can face in and watch the owners and other chefs making desserts only a foot or two away, or you can look out the windows onto 17th Avenue and a view that characterizes Uptown for me: a weedy undeveloped lot in front of condos.

In contrast to the simple décor, all the food I’ve had there has been luscious.

Or perhaps I should say dessert, since I’ve had only one non-dessert item: the dressed avocado. That was on my first visit, when I ate two desserts and took two home. The avocado and greens drizzled with nutty-tasting dressing were the perfect beginning to an hour of dessert sampling.

I was impressed that the waitress brewed me a pot of decaf and charged me for only a cup, although I drank three. And I was even more impressed when the owner came out to clean up broken glass with a broom and dustpan.

The oatmeal raisin cookie (my favorite type of cookie) tasted nourishing, not just sweet, and the chocolate truffle was good, although I didn’t love the crust or the garnish. I would have preferred the chocolate by itself.

However, when my husband and I returned a few days later and ordered the “molten chocolate thingy everyone has on their menu,” I did love the garnish, a stained-glass biscuit that formed the crispy top of the molten chocolate cake. The contrast in textures raised that been-there dessert above the average. (I thought the chef called it an “Australian glass biscuit,” but perhaps I misheard.) An added bonus was the chef’s detailed description of exactly which ingredients went into the sauce. She also explained that they build the molten cake out of crumbs left over from the chocolate cakes featured in their case.

If I could eat desserts all day, I’d sit at the counter at D Bar and do just that. I think that as long as the restaurant isn’t too crowded (which it hasn’t been during the late afternoons I’ve eaten there), the staff wouldn’t care if you stayed for a while.

D Bar is also a wine bar, offering red, white, sparkling, and fortified wines by the glass, and joining Tastes Wine Bar and the soon-to-be-open Caveau Wine Bar in making 17th Avenue “Wine Bar Central” in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood (Caveau was supposed to open in the summer of 2008, but D Bar beat them to it). And if you want something more substantial than liquor or sweets, you can do what the elderly couple at the counter did: order Kobe sliders and a salad (or mac and cheese, or a panini). They said they came in once or twice a week for the sliders.

In short, D Bar is a friendly place to be. It can also be an expensive place, if you start ordering wines by the glass, but you can get a meal and a cookie and coffee there for about $15.

D Bar was opened by Keegan Gerhard and his wife Lisa Bailey in the summer of 2008, making it probably the newest thing in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood.

Colorado gave birth to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (Durango) and Enstrom’s (Grand Junction) and Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop (Castle Rock). There’s definitely a wine and chocolate thing happening on the Western Slope.

Not to mention Wen Chocolates and Roberta’s Chocolates and Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso and Telluride Truffle (courtesy of Le Chocolatier). Also, Russell Stover Candies started up here in 1923 and then was bought by a Kansas City businessman in 1969. Isn’t it unusual for a state to have so many chocolate makers? (And I haven’t even gotten around to investigating Steve DeVries, who makes his own chocolate and sells the bars at a few locations in Denver, as well as chocolate for other chocolatiers.)

Here are links to each of the chocolate makers listed below:

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso

Enstrom’s

Indulgences, Etc. (Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop)

Le Chocolatier

Roberta’s Chocolates, Candies, and Nuts

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (RMCF)

Russell Stover Candies

Wen Chocolates

If you want:

All sorts of things dipped in chocolate: Dietrich’s, Roberta’s, Enstrom’s, RMCF, Wen

Antique or unusual molds (to shape chocolate): Roberta’s, Wen

Brightly colored designs in your chocolates: Le Chocolatier (Telluride Truffle), Roberta’s, or Russell Stover Urban series

Chocolate and coffee: Dietrich’s; Enstrom’s; Indulgences; you can take Wen Chocolates hand-made marshmallows to Paris on the Platte (down the street) and melt them in hot chocolate

Chocolate art tiles: Wen, but also see “Made-to-order chocolates”

Chocolate with your breakfast: Dietrich’s; Indulgences and Wen also sell baked goods

Ganache from heaven: Roberta’s, but RMCF is also good. (“Ganache” is chocolate cream.)

Gold dust on your truffle: Wen

Elegant molds: Indulgences, Le Chocolatier

Extra-large truffles: RMCF; Roberta’s are pretty big too

Kosher chocolate: Enstrom’s

Made-to-order chocolates: Indulgences, Roberta’s

Organic chocolate: Russell Stover

Peanut-free: Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop’s factory in Castle Rock is peanut-free (but remember that most truffles contain almond or hazelnut pastes!)

Pomegranate-flavored truffles: Roberta’s

Sugar-free: Enstrom’s, Indulgences, Le Chocolatier (Amber Lyn), RMCF, Russell Stover

To eat your chocolate in a trendy Denver neighborhood: Indulgences (Colfax in view of the Capitol), Le Chocolatier (Highlands), Wen Chocolates (15^th and Platte)

To eat your chocolate in a strip mall: Enstrom’s, RMCF, Russell Stover

To eat your chocolate on a bench in Highlands: Le Chocolatier, Roberta’s

To have your own chocolate franchise: Belvedere Belgian Chocolate Shop, RMCF

Wine and chocolate pairing/martini and chocolate pairing: Indulgences will do this in your home

Yet Russell Stover began in 1923 as Mrs. Stover’s Bungalow Candies, operated out of Russell and Clara Stover’s home in Denver. Given how much I love chocolate, it’s as if moving to Denver twenty-one years ago was a return to my origins.

If you love chocolate, you understand.

Now, according to its website, Russell Stover is “the largest producer of fine boxed chocolates in the United States.” It has three stores in the Denver Metro area, one in Arvada, one in Lakewood, and a candy kitchen and ice cream parlor at 625 South Colorado.

But I didn’t visit a Russell Stover’s location. Instead, I walked up to King Soopers near my house in Broomfield and bought two six-chocolate boxes, “Origin Select Assorted Chocolates” and “Urban Modern World Chocolates.” Pretty fancy, eh? I liked all the Origin Select chocolates except the almond nougat, though the caramels were a little too chewy. The Urban chocolates were very pretty. The soft caramel had a blue bottom, which was cool, though I did wonder what unnatural dyes went into making that color, and the pistachio nougat definitely grew on me. I liked the dark chocolate squares in both boxes.

King Soopers is getting better about selling chocolate besides Hershey’s, but I haven’t seen chocolates by any of the chocolatiers I discussed earlier in this series. Or from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, which brings me to my next subject.

I seriously thought about not including Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in this series. It’s such a big company, with franchises throughout the United States and in Guam, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates. Even Russell Stover doesn’t make it past Canada.

But that’s a pretty stupid reason to exclude a company. After all, they have stores throughout Denver, including two on the 16th Street Mall (in Writer Square and Pavilions).

And if I’m going to include Enstrom, which originated in Grand Junction, then I should include RMCF, which started in Durango.

Many times, when I’m on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver or the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder, I’ve stopped in at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for one of their super-large truffles, easily twice the size of most other truffles. I make a habit of visiting the Boulder store after going to the Boulder Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays or Saturdays.

The company website chronicles how founder Frank Crail and friends learned how to make truffles on a ping-pong table. Eventually they realized the truffles were oversized, but that has become a store trademark.

The last time I went to the Boulder store, I bought café au lait, ancho chili, coco loco cream, maple walnut cream, a sugar-free coffee meltaway, and a sugar-free raspberry meltaway. My favorites were the coco loco cream, which was a little crunchy because of the coconut bits inside, and the maple walnut cream, which was very rich.

I don’t think I like RMCF truffles as much as I liked Roberta’s, and they aren’t as imaginative as the truffles at Wen Chocolates, but they’re still a good chocolate fix.

And there are always the apples dipped in all kinds of coatings, and the fudge that they make in the store.

On Thursday I’ll post comparisons of the various chocolatiers and their products, and then I shall lay the chocolate theme to rest.

I spent part of a Saturday afternoon in Enstrom’s, in a strip mall at one end of Cherry Creek North, after I’d spent the morning at Dietrich’s. The two stores are quite different: Dietrich’s is small and homey, and Enstrom’s is large and shiny.

Maybe I should have told the young clerk at Enstrom’s that I was sampling the chocolates for an article about chocolatiers in Denver. She didn’t seem to know what to make of me. When I told her I wanted a selection of truffles, she immediately went to the nearby shelf and selected a box for me. It was very helpful, but I really wanted to pick them out myself. So I did, asking her to write them all down so I could remember which ones were which. I had felt a bit odd before, walking into these chocolate stores and telling them about my blog. I couldn’t stop the voice in my head from sneering, And why should they care? But this was the first time I’d felt like a weird middle-aged woman jonesing for chocolate.

Once I got all the treats to a table, though, I was fine. Next to me was a bank of computer monitors all along the front of the store, looking out onto University. No one was using them when I was there, but a steady stream of people kept coming in to buy candy. Two other clerks were doing some stocking or inventory. It was a light, bright, peaceful place to sit and sample chocolate.

But back to the chocolates. Two of their truffles really blew me away. The first was the Ceylon cinnamon, in a hard shell dusted with beige powder. The cinnamon taste was wonderful. And the Milk Meyer Lemon had a lovely, subtle lemon flavor.I liked their black licorice caramel quite a bit, and their other truffles were good, but the two I just mentioned really stood out among all the chocolates I’ve tasted in the last couple of weeks.

Of course, Enstrom’s is known for its toffee, which Chet Enstrom started making three generations ago in Grand Junction. I liked their toffee (coated with milk or dark chocolate), but I much prefer chocolates. My husband said Enstrom’s toffee was really good, so you’ll have to take his word for it.

As far as I can tell, Enstrom’s is the only shop in Cherry Creek North that sells chocolate since Indulgences, Etc. (Belvedere chocolate) moved to Colfax near the Capitol. I walked from University to Steele and back again a couple of times that Saturday but couldn’t find any evidence of another place to buy chocolate (or of the high-end bakery that I considered using for my wedding cake six years ago).

My apologies for the picture. It doesn’t do the store justice. The next time I get out to the store I’ll take a better one and post it.

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso Place

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso Place had a pleasant, festive, old world atmosphere when my husband and I arrived there for breakfast September 6 and settled into a corner by the window. Business was brisk. A woman and her young sons occupied the table next to us, and a group of four sat across the way.

The lady I’d met the weekend before served the food, while Erich Dietrich stayed busy in the kitchen, cooking. Since Dietrich’s is open every day except Monday, I wondered if he spends six days a week there, cooking breakfast and lunch and making chocolates.

Todd ordered the Bavarian breakfast and I ordered the egg breakfast, along with hot cocoa. I melted one of my last Wen Chocolates homemade marshmallows in the cocoa and felt deliriously happy. Todd said the breakfasts reminded him of the breakfasts he had in Germany the summer he and his best friend spent six weeks in Europe. Ah, the memories of youth—when we could eat all this stuff and not get fat.

Our two breakfasts were heavy on the meat and cheese and light on the fruit, but mine looked so pretty on the plate, I had to take a picture of it. I tried to make my poached eggs on a croissant into an Eggs Benedict without sauce. It was a little awkward, and I felt that I was failing Restaurant Etiquette 101. I guess I should have slid the cheese under the eggs. Somebody tell me how to eat this food, please! I don’t have any memories of Bavarian breakfasts to fall back on!

The first time I’d visited Dietrich’s, on Labor Day weekend, they were closing early since business was so slow—everyone was up in the mountains, one of the women at the store said. Personally, I’d rather stay in town and check out the candy stores. I’d grabbed a box of 25 chocolates and proceeded to devour them within two days (with some help from Todd), but this Saturday I had some time to linger, observe the vibe, and try the chocolates I’d missed before.

The store sells virtually every kind of chocolate candy imaginable. If you’re craving some kind of chocolate-covered thang, it’s the place to go. When Erich comes out of the back, get him to tell you how he double-dips the truffles to keep them from drying out in Colorado’s arid climate. He’s happy to talk about all the new flavor combinations he’s created lately.

One of my favorites was the chocolate-covered pistachio marzipan. Another, the mint truffle, was gently minty. I also liked the ginger and port truffles. Subtle flavors are definitely a hallmark of Dietrich’s creations. But then, as if to contradict me, there’s the lemon cream, and the Irish cream is rolled in bright green sprinkles.

And, of course, since it was one of the first stores I visited, I didn’t think to take pictures of the individual truffles. My apologies. They looked good, OK? Go see for yourself already.

Dietrich’s Chocolates and Espresso is one of the oldest chocolate stores in Denver, if not the oldest. Erich Dietrich trained as a chocolatier in Germany, opened his first shop in the United States in 1975, and brought it to Denver in 1978. Perhaps the Russell Stover’s stores in Denver are older, since Russell Stover’s was founded here in 1923.

NOTE: Indulgences, Etc., has closed. The only Belvedere Belgian Chocolate shop now open in the Denver area is the one in Boulder. The factory is located in Castle Rock.

I’ve been sampling chocolate in Denver for two weeks now, and part of me is disappointed that I still weigh the same as when I started.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this blog. I’d done blogs before, and it was like talking to myself. This time I wanted to talk to other people.

I knew that the Democratic National Convention would offer up all kinds of craziness and probably come with a built-in audience, but then what? What else about Denver could I use to show people its heart and mine without sounding too self-absorbed or too much like a travel guide?

I picked chocolate because it’s my passion. I assumed it would be easy: I’d eat lots of candy at unique shops, maybe even experience the unusual sensation of having enough chocolate. But I didn’t anticipate the challenges to my taste buds. The difficulty of deciding which truffle was best.

I’ve discovered that every store hides a story.

Take Indulgences, Etc., formerly of Cherry Creek, now located on Colfax near the Capitol, and selling Belvedere chocolates. After talking to Laurie and Ivan (the proprietors) and Marie, whom I met on my first visit to the store, I found out that maintaining a chocolate store in Cherry Creek was not easy. I would have expected a small specialty store featuring Colorado chocolate to flourish there, but irregular foot traffic and high rent motivated the owners to move downtown. It’s a common story in Denver and around Colorado, for homeowners as well as businesspeople.

Indulgences opened on Labor Day weekend, 2008, during the Taste of Colorado just down the block at Civic Center Park. Laurie said the foot traffic in the new location was much better. She was full of plans for the future, involving wine and chocolate pairings and martini and chocolate pairings and art exhibits and donations to charity, but said that first she would just like to get established.

Did I just say Indulgences was a small store? Perhaps it was in Cherry Creek, but the Colfax location is huge compared to the other stores I’ve written about so far. It feels open and spacious. At one end sits a bar, awaiting their liquor license, and they also serve Colorado Novo coffee and tea and baked goods.

I’ve been to the Belvedere store in Boulder several times and had thought each location was the same (like the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory stores), but apparently not. Last year Laurie and Ivan bought American Country Candies, operating in Fort Collins since 1930, and moved the equipment to Denver. When they get the back of their new location remodeled into a kitchen next month, their store will be one of the few places in the country making old-fashioned ribbon candy.

I had a revelation on this visit: maybe I should actually show my readers the chocolates, instead of just stuffing them in my mouth and writing about them later, so here’s a picture. Laurie gave me 5 samples, and I bought 6 truffles. My favorites were the seashell (a typical Belgian chocolate with crunchy hazelnut filling); the sugar-free chocolate with coffee (sweetened with Maltotol, a natural corn extract, according to the Internet; the square one with the coffee bean); the green tea, which had a really long, dark finish (upper left on the cookie); and the caramel with rock salt (the only truffle on the plate). I had to buy another caramel and rock salt for my husband.

When I left at 6, after hanging out for an hour, I stopped to take a picture of the window. Downtown Denver has lots of cool details like that. People were finding their way home from work, and a bus drove by spewing diesel fumes, sporting this ad, “Take Care of Our Summer Air (ozoneaware.org).” And when I got on my bus, I sat next to to a man reading Ivan’s War.

Denver also has its quirks.

]]> http://bethpartin.com/like-feet-walking-for-chocolate/feed/ 3 http://bethpartin.com/where-is-wen/ http://bethpartin.com/where-is-wen/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:58:18 +0000 Beth http://bethpartin.com/?p=250 Continue reading →]]>

Wen Chocolates

Note: Wen Chocolates closed its Platte retail location on February 14, 2010. Please see the website for more information.

I’ve had extraordinary chocolate in my time—Vosges from Chicago, Belvedere from this area, Chuao in San Diego, Neuhaus—but I think Wen Chocolates has them all beat. Of the three, I think Wen is most like Vosges in the composition of the truffles, though Vosges, of course, is a much larger company creating large batches of truffles to be shipped around the world. But some of chef William Poole’s creations are more creative and exotic than any I’ve had from Vosges.

My favorite was the “Violette,” described as “an infusion of black violet tea, brushed with violet pearl dust, and topped with candied violets.” I could clearly taste the tea (which I can’t say about all so-called tea truffles), but the flavor was delicate. I was sad that Wen was out of “Prazen Sladkor,” covered in edible gold dust. Maybe next time.

(I remember reading about some restaurant in LA that Tom Cruise supposedly frequented—and there was some kind of “Gold Dust” dish on that menu. At the time, I got real busy scorning all those rich people who eat gold. What if it had cyanide in it from the leaching process? I sneered. And now … well … I guess chocolate makes it all different.)

Wen Chocolates has been in its location, near 15^th and Platte, for a year now. The neighborhood isn’t new, of course, but it seems much more shiny and spiffy than it did years ago, when I used to stop in for coffee at Paris on the Platte, only a couple of doors down. There’s a Vitamin Cottage across the street, a spice store next door, and REI a block or two away. New condos rise next to the grocery store, and the Platte River flows shallowly on the other side of them. The neighborhood gives off a self-contained air; I think I could live there for years without leaving the block.

The only bad thing is that Wen Chocolates is a little hard to see from across the street. I was looking at the numbers, knowing it must be over there somewhere, but the signage is cryptic. And when I walked into that tiny store, I was immediately struck by how big it seems because the back window opens onto the spice store.

The whole place gives off a fairy tale vibe. Renovated by Poole, Wen Chocolates has brick walls and a beautiful gray ceiling. There’s room for a few people to stand and look over the displays and, on the right wall, a display of cards with pictures of the truffles. As in a sushi restaurant, you order your truffles on a slip of paper and hand the order to the person behind the counter, who wraps them up for you.

The website states that Wen offers “small-batch artisan chocolate with no added sweeteners, preservatives, or stabilizers” and that “no machinery is involved.” (I did notice some dyes in the ingredients list in one of the beggar’s coins, however.) While I was perusing the other candies (and asking about the pate de fruit, which my husband loves), the clerk assured me that Poole makes everything by hand (in a kitchen in Wheat Ridge).

There were cube-shaped cakes in one display case, which can be ordered with 3 days’ notice, and chocolate art pieces, called “tiles,” with raised designs on them. Poole also makes his own marshmallows, which melted obligingly into a cup of hot chocolate supplied by Paris on the Platte. (I tried eating one to “cleanse my palate” between chocolates, but I don’t recommend it, unless you really love the taste of marshmallows by themselves. I’m such a dork.)

Wen Chocolates was recommended by two other chocolatiers in the area, Patty Moore at Le Chocolatier and Roberta of Roberta’s Chocolates (see last week’s posts). Their recommendation was right on—and I applaud them for not being afraid of the competition!

***

Wen’s has a new look these days. The shelves with pictures of truffles are gone (“We got through the first year with those pictures,” the clerk told me the last time I visited), replaced by a nice glass case.

I don’t visit Wen often enough to get to know the staff, especially now that I’m on a diet. But Saturday, May 26, was my splurge day, so I went to the tiny store (maybe 100 square feet) and started ordering truffles. As always, I got some freebies, one of which pleasantly surprised me: the Rozmary truffle, my favorite of the day. It looks plain but has a distinct, delicate flavor of rosemary. Prazen Sladkor is simply the best caramel I’ve ever had, and the pear hazelnut is awfully pretty (see picture above). I couldn’t taste the pear at all; next time I order it, I’ll eat it first.

The full review of the Downtown Denver Arts Festival, from which this update is excerpted, can be found here.

Chocolatier: “A maker or seller of chocolate candy” (from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

Roberta’s Chocolates, Candies, and Nuts is a full-service chocolate shop, offering a selection like that of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. I have to admit my prejudice: all I really care about are the truffles. But if you’ve got a hankering for chocolate-covered nuts or raisins or gummy bears in milk chocolate (?!) or aspen bark or nonpareils, then Roberta’s Chocolates is the place to go. Or if you need customized chocolate favors for your party or business gathering, they have 10,000 molds (some unique to the store).

A case full of colored truffles greeted me after I walked in the door and scooted sideways to avoid setting off the doorbell again. Roberta’s offers twenty-four varieties, plus holiday flavors. My six-pack of truffles featured blueberry, pineapple, key lime, coconut, lemon, and pomegranate—definitely a more unusual selection than you’d find at RMCF, but the truffles I tried had about the same level of sweetness.

Like most of the chocolates shops I’ve visited in Denver (five so far), Roberta’s doesn’t offer a lot of space to sit down and enjoy your treat. The location features two rooms, one with chocolates and one with gifts, plus the kitchen where the chocolates are made. Each of the two rooms has a table and chairs, but there’s not much room between the tables and the displays. There are two benches outside, where I sat when I visited and enjoyed two of the truffles. It was a pleasant spot to rest on a Saturday afternoon in the summer.

While I was outside, Roberta came out with another customer. She saw me sitting there, invited me in, and told me to let her know if I had any questions. Although the shop was busy and, when I went back in, she was doing work on the computer, she took the time to answer my questions.

I started with the pomegranate in dark chocolate and decided the ganache was to die for. It had the loveliest texture, and the mold was delicate (they’re all shaped like cones rounded at the top). The blueberry and pineapple truffles didn’t do too much for me, but I liked the lemon. (My husband got to try the lime after I got home. He approved, which I didn’t expect, because he usually prefers less sweet chocolates.) My favorite by far, however, was the coconut, which smelled wonderful and had just a little bit of coconut crunch, followed by creamy white chocolate.

The location is off the main drag of Highlands, in a mostly residential neighborhood, but 32nd Street is only a few blocks north. Roberta said she wished she had foot traffic, but she’s been in business since 1995, and her milk chocolate mint just won best truffle at the 2008 Colorado Chocolate Fest (on Mother’s Day at the Merchandise Mart).

Le Chocolatier

Chocolatier: “A maker or seller of chocolate candy” (from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

Le Chocolatier was the third chocolate shop I visited in one afternoon, and I spent a lot of time there talking with Patty Moore, who’s been running it almost four years. Unlike other chocolatiers in Denver, she doesn’t make any of her chocolates but rather sells Neuhaus chocolates, Telluride Truffles, ralph’s sweets, and other products. Neuhaus has about 200 chocolates, so she rotates through their selection because she doesn’t have room to offer all of them at once.

It’s true Le Chocolatier doesn’t have a lot of space, but there is room for a few people to mill about from the Neuhaus case to the other case containing the small, brightly colored Telluride Truffles. Patty says it’s trendy now to put color in the mold (the outside of the candy).

Get ten people in this store, however, and it would be enough to melt the candy.

We began talking about the longevity of chocolate shops in Denver, and she said she did a lot of research before starting hers up. Some of the knowledge she passed on to me: The word praline is pronounced “prah-lee-nay” and refers to a nut paste (usually with hazelnut, but it may not contain nuts at all) that goes into the mold. A ganache (ga-nash), in contrast, is a chocolate cream.

She said that most of the other chocolatiers in Denver who make their own chocolates (the candies, not the ingredient) order hard chocolate or chocolate nibs from Callebaut (which she pronounced “kall-a-bow”). The only chocolatier in Denver who makes his own chocolate (the ingredient), according to Patty, is Steve DeVries. Some of that goes into chocolate bars sold at several stores in the Denver metro area.

I bought only five chocolates from Le Chocolatier (though I’ve sampled them on other occasions): art nouveau (ganache with hazelnut), a butter truffle (chocolate butter cream dusted with cocoa powder), a lime praline (no hazelnuts), a palet dark (what looked like a communion wafer made from dark chocolate), and a specialty item for the Democratic National Convention called Donkey Chocolates (handmade by B. T. McElrath in Minneapolis, where the Republican National Convention is now happening).

According to the Neuhaus website, more than one-third of its pralines are still made individually, by hand. Those I bought were certainly elegant, and they were all good. I think the lime was my favorite—its flavor is a bit reminiscent of Dagoba lime chocolate bars.

But what I enjoyed most was getting the skinny on the Denver chocolate scene from Patty.