Bite Me

Read all about it: With or without foie gras on the menu, Sean Kelly's Clair de Lune leaves out-of-town foodies absolutely weak in the knees.

Exhibit A: Eric Asimov's piece in the October 5 New York Times travel section, which read like a love letter to the diminutive, 25-seat Clair. Asimov, a Times food writer who occasionally does duty in the travel section, loved Kelly's style and Clair's unaffected decadence. "While Mr. Kelly's preparations are simple, his ingredients are superb and his execution is almost flawless," he wrote. (And given the generally ascetic local boosterism of the Timesdining section, that reads like an unalloyed declaration of ardent passions.) "It's hard for me to imagine a smarter, more satisfying vegetarian dish than Mr. Kelly's ragout of chanterelles and summer vegetables, served with a green onion pudding as eggy as Yorkshire pudding, and crisp squash blossom beignets," Asimov said, but he also pointed out that the fried artichokes were "fabulous," swooned over an amuse of mussels and saffron aioli, and couldn't remember ever having a flourless chocolate cake as good as the one currently lurking at the end of Clair's dessert menu.

And that's high praise coming from a guy who 1) really knows his food and 2) could go and have flourless chocolate cake on the Times's tab pretty much anywhere he wanted.

Asimov also had some nice things to say about Goose and Brian at Solera. "Mr. Sorensen is skilled at composition, especially in his main courses, reaching around the globe to construct plates full of light accents and contrasting flavors, but without the hyper-creativity that so often weighs down such efforts," he wrote, marveling that such a comfortable, easygoing joint could be found among the "muffler shops and fast-food joints" dotting the landscape. Frankly, that kind of surprised me, too, my first time at Solera.

Along another muffler-shop and fast-food stretch, on Federal Boulevard, Asimov stopped by New Saigon, where he scored bo bop thau (rare beef marinated in lime juice, with mint and onions on sesame crackers), bo nuong la lot (kinda like a Vietnamese dolma, stuffed with beef) and some do-it-yourself summer rolls. All in all, he reported, it was better Vietnamese food than he can get in New York.

But Asimov's meals in Denver weren't all deserving of praise: He took a couple of slaps at LoDo national-media darling Adega, which he found dogged by inconsistencies.

Sean Kelly also got a bump with the publication of Best Food Writing 2003, which included my review of Clair de Lune ("Life on the Line," November 21, 2002) in a section titled "Someone's in the Kitchen." Yes, folks, it's my big book debut, and while compared to most of the 49 other contributors -- including former WestwordCafe critic John Kessler, who does a nice bit on the Zen of three-minute barbecue, and a fantastic piece by Adam Gopnik from the New Yorker on a modern-day Manhattan jeu de cuisine -- I come off sounding like some wheezy, half-bright punk trying to make nice at the grownups' table, I'm glad Kelly's getting some well-deserved recognition.

So go out to your local (independent) bookstore and buy a copy right now. Hell, buy two. There's a lot of really good stuff inside, and I'd hate for the two copies I bought and the one that Jeffrey Steingarten's mom picked up on the remaindered rack at the Baychester Avenue Barnes & Noble to be the only three copies sold.

Leftovers: Want to get a taste of the best Denver has to offer? Be at Panzano, 909 17th Street, on October 23 for its five-chef, five-course, five-wine, fifth-anniversary dinner. Courses will be ably handled by Jennifer Jasinski (of Panzano), Bryan Moscatello (Adega), Sean Yontz (Vega), Eric Roeder (Bistro Vendome), and Kathleen Kenny and Brad High, who'll be tag-teaming it from Gateaux Bakery. Tickets are $85 a head and benefit both Work Options for Women -- a welfare-to-work program that teaches low-income women the food-service trade -- and the Doug Fleischmann Fund, a scholarship program at Johnson & Wales University established in honor of the late co-owner of Mizuna and Luca d'Italia.

And finally, get your fill of food, fun and me in a Richard Nixon mask at Westword's Menu Affair, Thursday, October 16, at Invesco Field, featuring signature dishes from dozens of local restaurants and a Steel Chef challenge pitting reigning champ Frank Bonanno against John Calloway of the Hilltop Cafe in Golden. Tickets are $30 in advance, $40 at the door -- and worth it at twice the price.