For weeks now, I’ve been wanting to revisit Mad Greens and Wine, at 12th and Acoma in the Golden Triangle over by the Denver Art Museum (whose acronym lends itself to lots of stupid jokes).

I convinced my husband to join me there, but first I had a solo “splurge hour” at Gateaux down on Speer between 11th and 12th.

I wanted to see if I could match Timothy Ferriss’s record for cupcake consumption that he mentions in The Four-Hour Workweek (12 cupcakes in one day). But I have to confess I am a wimp when it comes to sweets: I could only manage 1 double-chocolate cupcake, 1 white chocolate peach torte, and 1 frosted cookie. Clearly, I require more training.

One question that recurs to me as I haunt Denver is this: “How do these small shops earn enough money to pay their bills?” I was in Gateaux for a little less than an hour on a Saturday, and at least 7 other customers came through the door, one to pick up a custom-made cake. I spent $14 on 3 pastries and a cookie (keeping up with Ferriss is not cheap, plus Todd required a cherry pastry), and I think one of the customers dropped $30 on a smallish cake. So the store brought in perhaps $50 in that hour? In an eight-hour day (and Gateaux is open only 5 days a week), that would be $400, or about $8,000 a month, not counting large orders like wedding cakes.

Half of the customers were white women and half were black; some were overweight, and some were skinny. One said, “If I worked at a place like this, I’d weigh 5,000 pounds ’cause I’d always have to taste everything.”

I guess that wouldn’t be as much of a problem at a place like Mad Wine. If you tasted everything there you’d be too drunk to keep your job. Though I wouldn’t say that Mad Wine has a large selection, I did enjoy the 2007 Muga Viura Malvasia from the Rioja region of Spain. (Wasn’t that a tongue twister? Viura, and, I guess, Malvasia, are the grapes here.) And I got the 2007 Montes Sauvignon Blanc from the Leyda Valley in Chile for half price. It was drier than the Muga, and better, I thought.

It wasn’t exactly a wine tasting, since Todd was immersed in his Cobb salad. Or I guess you could say he tasted the white wines I chose, and I finished them. Is that like being a cleaner? Or do you need French wines for that?

Our waiter/bartender/general party tender took good care of us. When this cheese plate came with Brillat-Savarin triple cream (France, on the left), Cana de Cabra (Spain), and Pecorino Ginepro (Italy), and I said, “I ordered the Manchego” (from Spain), he brought me a fourth cheese without apologizing overmuch.

I liked the first two, the soft cheeses, better than the other two. The Cana had a nice bite to it, and of the hard cheeses, the Manchego lived up to its nutty description from the menu. I think they might have paired better with red wines, but I ordered whites because Todd prefers them.

The last time I was in Mad Wine, I sat alone on the wine side of the restaurant, and the place was just about empty. This Saturday afternoon, there was a party in the main section of the wine bar and people getting coffee and salad and whatever else was to be had. More people milled around in the sculpture-laden space between the restaurant and the art museum. There was a busy, friendly feeling in the air.

So of course we had to spoil it by going to see a movie with incubi* in it.

*It just now occurred to me that the translucent square plates in front of the incubi faces might have been inspired by their name. And when they took off the plates, their eyes glowed like headlights (on buses?).

I think I’m taking this just a little too far.

Cuba Cuba

The oldest buildings in Denver—that’s where Todd and I had a late dinner Friday night.* Cuba Cuba restaurant in the Golden Triangle consists of two houses soldered together. And the sloping, spongy floors certainly showed their age. But the wall of talk that greeted us as we walked in to put our names on the list was as young and vibrant as the crowd—and, well, rather impenetrable.

At that point we beat a quick retreat to Gallery 1261, which was much quieter, and had cake for an appetizer. Only the first of the evening, it would turn out.

When we did return after an hour, we scored a table in the corner of the left-hand house near the bar and ordered mojitos. What else would we order? They were strong and refreshing and packed with mint. Not just mint: it turned out that an uninvited guest had hitched a ride—one of those small brown beetles whose back looks like a geometry problem.

I didn’t scream or anything. After all, it wasn’t a cockroach or a spider. And I was even happier after I showed the waitress and she brought me a new drink and didn’t charge us for any of our drinks. “That’s awesome!” she said, about the bug on the mint.

Which is the vibe you’d expect from a Cuban restaurant.

Turns out we could have looked at art for another half hour. About 8 o’clock we got a table in the right-hand house, where the volume was more conducive to talking. When our croquetas de jamon came, they were delivered by a no-nonsense woman who informed us, “Your server is right there,” when we informed her we were ready to order.

And she was right there, with red lipstick and black braids but still managing to resemble Heidi.

I am not a fan of ham. So for me the main attraction of croquetas is the contrast between the crispy-fried outside and the squishy inside. Oh, and the novelty of putting something as pretty as that dark-red croqueta between two saltines.

I ordered the Picadillo, which is really the Cuban cousin of Sloppy Joes. It’s ground beef in a sofrito base (onion, garlic, tomato, pepper) with raisins and potatoes, served with rice and maduros (fried plantains). The maduros were wonderful, but the meat was a little too salty and had two raisins, as far as I could tell.

I much preferred Todd’s lechon asada. The pork was wonderfully tender, and I kept stealing bites of his rice with black beans.

The last time Todd and I had Cuban food was at Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine in Fort Lauderdale, where we’d flown to scuba dive and celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. We ordered croquetas there too, so I must be a hypocrite about them. Todd had a monster meat plate, and I had grouper in a cream sauce, which was good.

In my two experiences of Cuban food, I have yet to be blown away. But that seems ridiculous—like going to a couple of Mexican joints and ordering, say, fajitas and tacos, and then deciding Mexican food isn’t for me.

I’ll keep hoping there’s more to discover, and try Cuba Cuba again sometime.

*According to Robin Riddel Lima of the Native American Trading Company. Of course, the first building in Denver was supposed to be a saloon. But she didn’t say “first”; she said “oldest.”

Le Central

On my way from the Native American Trading Company to Le Central for lunch, I passed the Diamond Shamrock where Todd and I used to fill up our Honda Civic GX, a natural gas vehicle. I much preferred driving that smaller car to driving our bounce-along Dodge Dakota (now sorely in need of a paint job we don’t feel like paying for), but neither of us preferred having to drive the Honda 10 miles to Boulder or Denver to find a natural gas pump. When we bought the Honda, we could drive it from Denver to Glenwood Springs, but the stations along the way closed over the years, and so it became more and more inconvenient. It’s too bad, because it was nice to drive a car that had no emissions, though every time I drove among the Western Slope natural gas wells I felt guilty about the problems gas wells caused the homeowners (gas in their water supplies, for example).

That was a rather long segue into what should probably be a Restoration Nation post. But instead this is a restorative lunch post.

Todd and I have been to Le Central before, including for my fortieth birthday dinner. (I still have the menu; they change it every day.) But today was the first time I’d ever eaten there alone.

And I got the dreaded table for a single diner by the kitchen! OK, there’s an entire room by the kitchen, which is perfectly pleasant, but I was in a two-top right by the door. I immediately suspected something was up.

At least it was an exciting place to sit: waiters kept whizzing by with their arms full of plates. Getting up to go to the bathroom required the utmost care on my part to avoid sending one careening into other tables.

I even saw one waiter bearing a full tray catch his foot in a purse carelessly set down across the aisle. Amazingly enough, he managed not to fall, and the woman pulled her purse strap off his foot.

All this activity made me hungry, and I promptly ate all the bread, despite the fact that their pretty little butter pats were ice-cold. And blindingly white. But good.

I made friends with my waitress by admiring her necklace, which she said she’d bought in Pasadena, and I replied that my sister lived in Glendale, just down the road in California terms.

When I asked her whether I should get the salmon salad or the duck salad (Salade de Magret de Canard), she jumped up and down at the thought of my ordering the duck. And when she brought it to me, she announced, “The best salad EVER!”

Actually, I’m not sure what the best salad ever would be. I think of salad as a utilitarian dish, one that I eat when I’m tired of meat or I’m trying to maintain my weight or I need a certain quota of vegetables. There are weeks or even months when I have a large salad every day. Occasionally, they’re very good—ever had a really wonderful Caesar or a salad with just the right combination of fruit and nuts and a not-too-tart vinaigrette?

When she said that, though, it raised my standards. And although the salad was good, I couldn’t get quite as excited about it as she did. The “smoked salt-cured duck” slices were just right and nice with the apple and candied walnut, the blue cheese and cranberry went well together, and I was even able to get a bite of everything on my fork one time. Just to say I did.

The salad was the perfect size, especially after eating all that bread. The only thing I wondered about was the slice of tomato on top. Is that French?

Dazzle Supper Club

Originally I’d planned to take my husband to Dazzle’s happy hour last Wednesday, February 11, partly because there was no cover charge for the music. But Todd decided it would be too much for him to work a full day and then go straight to happy hour without a nap. He’s healing well from his surgery for superior canal dehiscence syndrome, but it’s only his first full week of work since the surgery. He still needs a lot of rest.

So we made reservations for Dazzle’s Urban Brunch, which showed some foresight, because when we arrived at 12 on Sunday, it was packed. The hostess offered us a booth right next to the door, in the Dizzy Room (next to the bar), but we declined and then had a short wait before we were seated at a two-top on a raised platform in the Dazzle Showroom, where we had a good view of the stage.

The stage was empty at that point, the band on break.

Dazzle reminded me of DC somehow, when I lived there in the 1980s, of Kramerbooks and Afterwords Café at Dupont Circle, where I went once or twice for breakfast on weekends. Except that Kramerbooks never had music in the morning, as far as I know, or at lunch.

I saw people of all ages at Dazzle, mostly families, mostly white. The inner sanctum we sat in had burnt orange walls and chairs with dull red upholstery. All the paintings in the Dazzle Showroom were by Bunky Echo-Hawk. He’s a Pawnee and Yakima artist based in Denver.

There were two buffet stands, 1 in the Dizzy Room between the booths and the bar, and one in the Dazzle Showroom between the raised platform and the other tables. The one near the bar had smoked salmon and a limited selection of cheese and fruit and desserts. OJ and coffee and cider with brandy were on the bar.

The other buffet stand had roast beef (I found a lovely piece with burnt ends and lots of fat—yum, heaven), a man with a puffy beard making omelets, mac and cheese, grits, some kind of frittata, and a few other hot foods. It was somehow appropriate that the twin omelet flames never went out, burning blue until some fat hit them and they sparkled.

At times I feel cheated at buffets because I just can’t fit in enough food to justify the price. But not at Dazzle: I went through 4 plates, and Todd had 3. I had 2 servings of the “award-winning” mac and cheese (which deserved its award, but I’ll have to do a D Bar versus Dazzle mac-off sometime) and 4 of the pretzel-shaped chocolate cookies frosted with white icing and pink sprinkles. Those tasted really good dipped in coffee. I also had a small bit of waffle with lingonberries, roast beef, several pieces of cantaloupe (some of which looked like “blood cantaloupe”—I’ve never seen such reddish cantaloupe before), crackers with cheese and smoked salmon that I had to cut through because it was so chewy (I was a little disappointed because the last time I had it, at a bar mitzvah, it was soooo flaky), 2 deviled eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, and half a stuffed chocolate donut. I was so happy about the pastries cut in half—genius!

The band came back on after we’d been there about an hour. Julie Monley sang and played the congas, and Frederic des Moulins played piano. Two other men played upright bass and accordion, which I couldn’t hear at all. She had a pretty good range and was well miked; I could hear her clearly. At first people talked over the band, but the crowd got a little quieter the more the band played, and there were smatterings of applause after each song.

By the time we left, they had put the Twinkies out on the dessert bar. You know it’s time to leave when they run out of regular dessert and have to bring out the Twinkies.

Dazzle opened in 1998 and has had live jazz since 2003. It was named one of the top 100 jazz clubs in the world by Downbeat magazine. Dazzle Records launched in January 2008.

In between all the gelt on Saturday was an interlude of peace in the Golden Triangle in Denver. But like all the best peaces, I had to work for it.

Metropolis Coffee anchors one corner of the Prado, and I went in to check out their baked goods. The biscottis from Spruce Confections in Boulder just weren’t enough to tempt me; I have to be in the right mood for biscottis. So I hiked down to Speer to find Gateaux and remembered that it was a few blocks northwest.

Luckily, I made it in the door before Gateaux closed at 4. And what a sight greeted me. Fanciful cakes, mini-pastries, cookies galore, and this plate of cupcakes. I was restrained: I bought only two heart cookies and a couple of mini-pastries. A snack, I would say. And then I returned to Metropolis Coffee after a nice little walk.

I don’t know what your criteria are for a good latte (or just plain coffee). Mine is smoothness, because my stomach isn’t always happy when espresso drops in.

The latte at Metropolis was exceptionally smooth. The cookie frosted with chocolate icing was crisp but not hard and tasted of butter, giving the sweetness a strong foundation. It was perfect for dipping in coffee and didn’t last long. At that point I looked at my remaining treasures and realized I was about to eat all four. Shouldn’t I save one for Todd?

There was a brief skirmish somewhere near my amygdala, but love and marriage won out (and the looming specter of Valentine’s Day). I saved the pink-frosted cookie for Todd…all’s fair when eating sweets, right? I had to go get them, so I get three, right?

As I was eating the red velvet cake, Lou Reed was playing. Not “Sweet Jane”; I can’t remember the song. But I do remember my hands were finally warm.