Gay (Pride) by the Bay
This weekend was a wild one for the DOD boys, both of us in San Francisco to see friends and my Gentleman Friend, and to celebrate the wonders of Gay Pride. Alastair did more of the latter; I go more for “Gay Acceptance” than “Pride.” It’s not like I had anything to do with it, after all. As my brother is fond of saying, nature or nurture, it’s on my parents either way. So, on to the weekend…
We started off with a Thursday night trip with gal pals of Alastair’s to Tubesteak Connection (vile name, huh?), the weekly party at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in the Tenderloin. The space is tiny and crowded with hipsters. The drinks are strong and the disco tunes kept coming. Aunt Charlie also forbids the use of cell phones (even for texting!); Blake approves. Your DOD boys danced the night away and then headed somewhere-or-other (memory gets fuzzy at this point) for an after-party. Way to start the weekend off with a bang!
Chow on Church below Market
The next day started with a little recovery. Alastair and I brunched at Chow, just below the corner of Church and Market. We began with a couple salads; Alastair had his perennial Chow favorite, the Shrimp Louie, and I went for the iceberg wedge. Mine wasn’t so great. They throw in just about everything imaginable: carrots, cucumbers, radishes, olives, even a beet! (Alastair’s was served with the same accompaniments, though he didn’t seem to mind as much). We finished things off with a smaller portion of the fusilli with sausage and mushrooms (me) and a cheese pizza with arugula (Alastair). Deelish! But even more tasty from Alastair’s point of view was that we were served by DJ Jason Kendig. Cause that’s the way things are in San Francisco: your afternoon waiter will be spinning at that night’s club. The afternoon was a lazy preparation for a friend’s party that night: running in Golden Gate Park (lovely for a jog if it’s not too windy) and a little happy hour cocktailing at DOD favorite Blackbird.
The rest of the weekend was a blur of cocktails and recovery (I was heavier on the latter than the former). Alastair, of course, attended the Goldfrapp concert in Oakland on Saturday night as well as Juanita Moore’s Pride Party on Sunday afternoon and evening. I admit it: I skipped the Pink Party on Saturday night, where a good chunk of Market and Castro is closed off for pedestrians (probably for the best as I also avoided the tragic shooting death), and I skipped the parade on Sunday. Bad gay! I did, however, dine with my Gentleman Friend at Memphis Minnie’s, a barbecue joint on Haight Street (their phone number is 415.864.PORK; they’re serious about their meat). We split the Minnie’s Taster: any three meats and two sides for $17.95. Combine that with an order of their very tasty BBQ-dusted shoestring fries and I was totally stuffed.
On Monday we regrouped, stopped at Bean There at Steiner and Waller for a coffee, and headed downtown for a little shopping. I picked up a discounted blazer at H&M that will be perfect for a summer wedding I’ll be attending in August. Alas, and despite all the sales, Alastair’s shopping ambitions were somehow stymied and he returned to Denver empty-handed. We then had a gossipy lunch with some of Alastair’s gal pals at Stacks in Hayes Valley. Their slogan is “Comfortable Food.” Really. It’s basically a diner with enormous (and very dusty) fake flower arrangements in gigantic urns, but in a very nice location right at the corner of Hayes and Octavia.
All in all, a very fun weekend was had by both of your DOD boys!
Wednesday Links
- Looks like Beauty Bar has finally opened. The chain has franchises all over the country, from New York to San Francisco. Denver’s Beauty Bar, located in the old Snake Pit space, is owned by three locals, but no doubt has all the same bells, whistles, and kitschy ’50s salon décor of its sisters.
- Grow up Cristiano Ronaldo.
- I’ve been thinking about celebrating an upcoming milestone birthday somewhere unique and outside of the norm… with a few good gal pals, of course. One of the places on the top of my list is Marfa, Texas, best known as the home of The Chinati Foundation and the filming location for the movie Giant, starring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. I’ve been dying to see Prada Marfa for years and you’ll most likely find me staying here.
- MCA Denver’s newest exhibition, Energy Effects: Art and Artifacts From the Landscape of Glorious Excess, opens today with an all day celebration featuring artists talks, cocktails, and general mayhem. Energy Effects is presented in partnership with the 2010 Biennial of the Americas.
- 87% of women want you to want them… and so do Betty, Mama, and Pepper over at The Denver Omelette.
- The 20th annual Cherry Creek Arts Festival opens Saturday and will run from July 3-5 in Cherry Creek North.
Goldfrapp by the Bay
Things got retrofuturistic when Goldfrapp performed at 9:30 club on Monday. (All photos by Kyle Gustafson/FTWP)
I’m about to depart for the City by the Bay to catch one of only a few performances by Alison Goldfrapp happening this month in the US. Seriously, I may just die at the end of the show based on reviews (and photos) I’ve seen thus far… so this may be the last you hear from me. I die. Do you die?
In any case, Blake and I will have plenty to share regarding our Bay Area excursion when we return. Until then… stay down and stay out.
Things got retrofuturistic when Goldfrapp performed at 9:30 club on Monday. (All photos by Kyle Gustafson/FTWP)
Peet’s is Back!
You may recall my disappointment of the disappearance of Peet’s Coffee & Tea on the 16th Street Mall and how that disappointment was quelled by the forthcoming Pinkberry. Well, I almost fell to the ground at the sight of this last week:
Peet's Coffee & Tea coming back to 16th Street
Have You Dined With Us Before?
How many times — and it seems like it’s increasing — does one get asked this question at a restaurant? My normal inclination is to answer honestly, as I do to most questions. But considering what the server will say if I answer in the negative, this is what I would like to say:
No, I haven’t. But let me guess what’s going to happen here. You’re just about to hand me a piece of paper, maybe even a very fancy one, that will have a list of food items and prices on it. They might even be divided up into different groups: some smaller and less expensive; some larger and more expensive. There might be a list of beverages as well.
Then I get to pick one or two of these food items from the list, tell you what they are, and in due time you (or some minion) will deliver them to my table where I will be able to eat them. I may not have dined here before but I have been to a restaurant and 99.9% of them work exactly the same way, so stop pretending that your little twist on dining out is so remarkably special. Your food may well be delicious (and I hope it is!) but it’s still coming to my table on a plate.
One is most often asked the question, it seems to me, at two places, one of which might have a more legitimate reason to ask it in the first place. Category One, without reason to ask the question, is the Alice Waters type of restaurant where all ingredients are grown locally and the menu changes regularly. Potager (which we here at DOD otherwise adore) is such a restaurant and, before they recognized us as regulars, the servers always asked us if we had been before. If we had said no they would have launched into a long (and boring) spiel about local produce. Unnecessary. It’s still food. Category Two, with a somewhat legitimate claim to ask the question, is the restaurant with unusual serving sizes: either’s it’s family style or it’s all tapas-style small plates. I try to avoid both of these kinds of restaurants but most readers will probably agree with me that neither option is so bizarre that it necessarily requires an entire explanation apart from what is usually made quite clear on the menu to begin with.
In sum, I ask restaurants — which as a genre of place in the world might well be equivalent to a secular version of the Church of DOD; in other words, we love them — to get over themselves just a little bit. You serve food. We get it.
Wednesday Links
Neon Indian performing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
- Cafe Society’s Jonathan Shikes reports on the Civic Center Eats Outdoor Cafe which returned to Civic Center Park yesterday for its weekly run through the summer. Here is some of what was available.
- Adam Richman tackles Boulder, kicking off a new season of the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food tonight at 7:30 p.m. MST.
- The Westword Music Showcase, Denver’s biggest one-day music festival, takes place this Saturday. Neon Indian, a major player in bringing the country’s attention to the chillwave movement of 2009, performs on the Mainstage at 4:30 p.m.
- The 28th annual Highlands Street Fair takes place this Saturday. Held on the Saturday of Father’s Day weekend, the street party features live music, tasty food, beer, and much more.
- J.W. Anderson, the 26-year-old menswear designer out of London (and Alastair’s professed pretend boyfriend) is one to watch. The NYTs T Magazine talks to the 26-year-old about his protogrunge-adventurer collection.
- Cougars on the prowl in Colorado nightclubs AND at Elway’s? I can’t imagine…
- Have you run out of ideas for Father’s Day? KI.D Collective offers up her own idea… and presents some handsome bags for the guys.
Cellar Wine Bar
I know… you may be thinking to yourself that Alastair seems a little less DOWN (and out) these days. Well, don’t be fooled… I’m trying to focus on the positive. Perhaps it’s the warm and sunny weather, or the weekend bike rides, but I’m sure that will all change after my trip back to the Bay Area at the end of this month.
In the meantime, I’m riding high and I’m happy to report that my Oklahoman gal pal, her gal pal Whitney, and I recently stumbled upon a lovely new wine bar in Denver’s LoHi neighborhood, Cellar Wine Bar. Located on the perfect corner (where 15th becomes 29th Avenue), Cellar Wine Bar offers a nice selection of reasonably priced wines, (we shared a shockingly well priced bottle of the rosé) a small beer list (for those of you who must have beer), and cheeses, meats and sweets. Sorry, no whiskey, vodka or gin available here.
We were all very impressed by the well appointed interior. Whitney was a fan of the chalkboard in the ladies room. While my Oklahoman gal pal and I were rather impressed by the table tops and lighting choices. The large street-front windows make for great people watching and I felt like I was instantly transported to Seattle given the interior atmosphere and the light rain that washed the streets of Denver.
Blake in Italia
View of the Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi Gallery, Firenze
Forgive my silence of late (not that you’ve probably noticed, Alastair has been so busy in his postings), but I have been abroad. In Italy, to be specific, with mi famiglia (that is about the extent of my Italian). La famiglia di Blake rented a house on a working vineyard in the hills northeast of Siena (courtesy of la mamma di Blake). We spent a couple nights in Firenze and then rented a car and drove south. When we arrived at what we had somewhat facetiously been calling “the villa,” we realized the description was not far off. It was a house on the property of an actual eighteenth-century villa. We were met by the scion of the wine-making family, who acted as caretaker for the rental properties. Pietro came in from a nearby field he had been tending, and, dear reader, he was seriously cute. He was also a former semi-professional tennis player. Were I a heterosexual teenage girl, this would have all the makings of a summer blockbuster starting Amanda Seyfried. We would have had a romance complete with moonlit chases in fields of grapes and chaste makeout sessions in abandoned medieval castellos on winding lanes. It would have ended in heartache when I returned stateside, but then Pietro would have… I digress. Instead let me share some of my observations on the pluses and minuses of Italia.
The pluses:
1. Gelato. In all of its many wonderful flavors. My two favorites — which, I kid you not, I consumed every single day — are caffè and cioccolato.
2. Wine. As I believe I mentioned, we were staying on a working vineyard and while we consumed plenty of wine just about every time we ate (including lunches), we also got a tour of the vineyard and a private wine-tasting with Pietro’s older brother, Alessandro, who heads up the vineyard. Though it is purely coincidental to Alastair’s recent post on the wonders of the rosé, I brought back a bottle of the very stuff that I look forward to sharing with him soon.
3. Wine, part due. We mostly drank red — we were in Chianti, after all — but ordering a glass of house white in Italia you can be almost guaranteed you will not be served a dreaded, oaky, buttery California chardonnay. It’s pinot grigio and soave and orvieto all the way.
4. Acqua gassata. I hate water. I need flavor or carbonation to drink the stuff. And so I love that at all restaurants in Italy you are automatically given the choice of acqua naturale OR gassata.
One of the tamer moccasins at Maledetti Toscani
5. Footwear. The shoes are gorgeous. From the moment we landed at Roma’s Fiumicino airport, I knew I was in a different land because people were just so well shod. The leather! The stitching! The colors! The shapes! Women and men, boys and girls. I picked up two hand-stitched pairs in a shop in Montelpulciano called Maledetti Toscani. Check out their men’s selection here.
6. Eyewear. Ditto above (minus the leather and the stitching). The colors! The shapes! Italians just are not constrained by trying to blend in and the men especially don’t seem to be super concerned with appearing masculine so they take chances that straight American men would see as “gay.”
7. Which brings me to my final point. Italian men wear clothes that fit. And while some of them are tight (even overly so at times), this is not my real point. They buy clothes in their actual sizes, not in the American straight man’s baggy large and extra-large. This is bad in one way because one of the American homosexual male’s tried and true methods for identifying his brethren is to look at the fit of clothing and Italian men (like many of Europeans) are thus confusing. But it is good for two even more important reasons: (a) it is so easy to find clothes that actually fit! Stores there have real size small and even the equivalent of an extra small. (b) Italian men look good in their fitting clothes!
Minuses:
1. The bread was surprisingly awful. Dry, tasteless, floury. As my mother remarked at one dinner, “And they’re really not that far from France, you’d think they could figure it out.” Indeed.
2. The showers (or lack thereof). Many European homes still insist on those cumbersome bathtubs with handheld shower heads that you have to manipulate yourself while trying not to flood the whole room.
That might be it. And when you’ve got a view like this one to come home to every night, complaints seem foolish:
View from the porch
Rosés, With All Due Respect
For anyone still refusing to take rosé seriously, the time has come. That is according to Eric Asimov, the wine critic for The New York Times. Yesterday Asimov’s column, “Rosés, With All Due Respect” discussed how few wines are both as beloved and belittled as rosé.
I’ve been trying as many rosés as I can around Denver (and beyond) and good rosé is out there. While Asimov’s panel offers their suggestions, here are some suggested stops around Denver, of my own.
Caveau Wine Bar. Located between 17th and 16th Avenues on Pennsylvania, Caveau carries Schug Carneros Estate Winery’s 2009 Pinot Noir Rosé. Schug is well known for their classic Carneros region Pinot Noir. This was the first time I tried the refreshingly dry rosé and I’ll be stopping by for more.
À Côté. Located in Denver’s Highlands neighborhood on West 30th Avenue and next to Z Cuisine, A’ Côté is considered Denver’s authentic French Absinthe Bar that also offers a rosé or two.
Joy Wines & Spirits. Joy Wine & Spirits is located in Capital Hill on 6th Avenue and offers a wide range of wines, including a number of rosés. This is a great place to stop by to pick up a bottle for back home or City Park Jazz. I’m obsessed with the Bieler Pere et Fils Rosé. It’s been a great wine to usher in the spring. Bieler Pere et Fils is a delicious dry rosé from Provence and at $10.99 a bottle it’s also a great value.
Socorro’s Street Tacos
Socorro's Street Tacos
I stopped by Socorro’s Street Tacos this past weekend with my Oklahoman gal pal and Kimmy (joined by her special friend). There is really nothing fancy about Socorro’s, the new taqueria at 19 East Bayaud Street, and that is part of its charm. It is an intimate space with a few bar stools and a hand written menu board describing a great selection of tortas, burritos, and three-bite street tacos.
chicken taco topped with onion and jalapeño
seasoned fish taco with special sauce, lettuce, and diced tomato
At $1.99 each and with names like ”Roadrunner,” “Eldorado,” “Sister Bernadette,” and “Rio Grande,” we had to try many. One of our favorite fillings was the moist fish that was full of flavor. Wrapped in two corn tortillas it was topped with a special sauce that I could have had more of. I rounded out my mini meal by sipping on a tall glass of horchata, the traditional Mexican beverage made of rice. Delicious!
Socorro's storefront
Keep in mind a few things. The space is small. It can get tight. There is a staff of two or three at any time. Tacos may take longer to prepare than you may expect, but the staff is warm, friendly, and on our visit, very attentive. Honestly, I have not stopped thinking about these tacos and I am seriously looking forward to stopping by again soon to try a torta.
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