Bittersweet

Bittersweet, 500 E. Alameda Ave., Denver, Colorado.

I did not make this, but I ate it to the last smear on the plate.

Joseph and I had dinner together last night. The idea was to go to Fontana, a sushi place at Pearl and Alameda. Joe, driving, noted the sign for Fontana and what appeared to be a parking lot associated with the building, but in fact was for the building next to it, for another restaurant for which we were not familiar. We decided  because of the parking to change our plans on the spot to go inside and to check out the menu, which we did. 

Bittersweet, it turned out to be. It looked fine to us so we asked for a table. See? Now that there's what you call flexibility!

We knew right off the place is a little bit different.

The hostess and the waiter were friendly, personable, amusing and engaging. Two dining areas are separated oddly architecturally by a zigzagging corridor wherein one passes by the kitchen crossing from one dining area to the other.  One dining area is associated with the bar and is slightly darker and more quiet than the other which has a view of the street. We chose the dining area with the greater light and the view of sidewalk and street activity of Alameda. The decor is modern table and chairs, simple lighting, its chief decorative element is an oversized map of an earlier Paris. There are two ordinary lamps on a table at the farthest easternmost wall. A fireplace is burning. 

The menu changes regularly. Bread is made onsite and changes daily. I admit to being an obnoxious bread elitist so I am always very curious when it is good and disparaging when it is not. The bread served at Bittersweet cannot be faulted. Super thin crust that crackles then melts in your mouth. I picked up a trace of garlic. The waiter confirmed, yes, garlic and sage, tonight and tonight only. I interrogated about the bread and the waiter was most knowledgeable, willing and apparently eager to discourse on the intricacies of the process when asked, steaming, aging, proofing, etc. 

I did not look at the wine list but Joe took a good deal of time deciding. His choice was excellent. 

We shared a house-made rabbit sausage with an exceedingly savory unctuous gnocchi which we were told was not parboiled.  We could have ordered a couple of those and called it a night. 

Joe had the duck, I had the lamb cannelloni. It was a difficult choice. We were both exceedingly pleased with our plates. Joe's duck was served rare to medium rare with a crispy crust. Which indicated the flesh and the skin were cooked separately. He was pleased with the ample size of his portion, which he noted is often not the case with duck. Now, we know that a breast does not have a bone shaped like one sees in a wing or a leg and yet there it is scraped of its flesh and sticking right out. Eager for me to have a taste Joe offers, "Wanna chew on my bone?" Then cracked up laughing like a loon. That's how one knows the cocktails and wine are beginning to work their sinister effect.  

The lamb I had was ground and mixed with ricotta rolled in a pasta cannelloni tube. Served with a Bourguignon demi-glace.

We cleared our plates to the last particle including three baskets of their wonderful bread. 

Joseph was especially pleased at having made such a delightful discovery on impulse. He noted upon leaving the restaurant appears to be setting up for spring and summer garden that could be quite impressive.  I should mention there is an outside fireplace that faces a presently unused patio. The restaurant is new. We wish for them the best success. From our experience there they do deserve it. 

Photography In case you are interested, and honestly, who wouldn't be?  These photos were taken in very low light. The iso was cranked up to 3200 which in most cases would render photos too grainy to be of any use. The aperture was wide open which on this lens is 1.4, very wide indeed, Marty Feldman-wide if you know what I mean. The shutter speed was very slow. You could actually hear it go in slow motion ))) kuh-clink-schwing ((( Lacking a tripod, that low-light situation required the Ninja stance. Joe, on the other side of the camera said, "Man, that camera sure is working! It's going Waaa wa waaaawaaaa wa focus light waaa waa waaawaa waa."  It's not the fastest lens in terms of  focusing, but it is very fast in terms of accepting light. The jpg versions of the photo set is like sepia. The customary Photoshop post processing tweaks had little effect. What you see up there ↑ are derived from the NEF versions, Nikon's RAW, with an unusual lot of messing around. Ordinarily it is sufficient to adjust the white balance, say from "as shot" to either "automatic" or to "tungsten." There is no choice for candlelight. Every alternate white balance I chose was worse. Actually, nothing much was working in RAW, a little exposure here, a little shadow lightening there, until I adjusted "temperature" waaaaaaaay over to the far left to hard blue. That's an adjustment I do not usually mess with. But here it worked wonders on the NEF version of the files. Much of that was lost once the files were compressed to jpg, but still, it brightened them up considerably from how they started. And that, my friends, is why human intervention is so often necessary. Brilliant as these devices are, and they are impressive, they have no judgement to speak of on their own. The calculations the cameras perform are truly astonishing but as Paul Simon says of the girls he knew, "♬ They'd never match my sweet imagination."

Post Script: email from Joe

Hi  Bo, 

That was one wonderful dinner, meal, conversation and evening. Thanks so much and what a wonderful discovery. I will have to really work at topping that place.

BEST REGARDS, 

JOE