MY PROJECT TO EAT AT EVERY EATING ESTABLISHMENT ON COLFAX, FROM GRANT TO COLORADO BLVD IN GEOGRAPHICAL ORDER, MINUS THE CHAINS.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Cheeky Monk

I arrive at Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Café, at 534 E. Colfax, around 7:30 pm on a Wednesday. The evening air is cool and breezy and I have a long-time, not oft-seen friend on my arm, Melissa. The plebians of the block are out in full force at the moment, like it's the post-heat of mid day scramble to get whatever it is you need before the sun sets, before it's time to hide away for a couple hours and then inevitably come back out around 11pm to scare up some more trouble. From outside I can see lots of white people with white hair in the restaurant, and I think about how Cheeky Monk seems a little incongruous in this location, this block of Colfax, not because of the color of the clientèle, but because it's always seemed so bourgeois to me. It's like Cheeky Monk is a destination location, not so much a neighborly neighbor of the block but an entity by itself, an island if you will. Wow, a pub is making me think these thoughts? Well come to find out, it's not exactly a pub.


Stepping into the doorway I see it really is crowded. I have been here on two other occasions and both of those times I was one of the only guests. I always thought it was a big waste of beautiful space, long walls of exposed brick adorned with faux-Renaissance paintings, beckoning me to lie outstretched on a dark leather settee whilst someone brings me my food on a silver tray. That's how I feel about exposed brick, lavishly lazy. But now all that brick is doing is helping to muffle the din of the other patrons, this place is positively packed. Strangely, there is a sign that says please seat yourself, and I'm a little incredulous, it's way too crowded to not have a host, we'll see how this pans out. I can see the bar is entirely full and we snake our way around the main room, finally spying a little two-top against a wall near the end of the bar. It's a little dark, bad for note- and picture-taking, but hey, we're hungry and thirsty and I'm just thankful I know how to read a sign and do something about it. And as is the problem with busy restaurants without hosts, we wait. And wait. And wait. A server tells us he's going to grab us some menus and then promptly forgets about us. Okay no problem, this to me is really only a minor issue with restaurants, something that can be completely forgotten if the rest of the experience is up to par. I go up to the bar to get the bartender's attention and see the look of "d'oh!" on his face behind a really big, genuine smile and I know everything's going to be okay from this point on. So we're the charges of the bartender. That's great, as bartenders tend to be a little more relaxed and personable and aware than servers, and every time one of the servers whooshes past our table their long apron flutters around my calf and I think about how the server doesn't even know it, they're so in the zone and can't possibly imagine something on them has touched something on me, albeit an apron. If I was in Paris I would find this poignantly poetic, but we're in Denver so it's just a sign of modern disregard. Suddenly another server comes up to us and asks us if we've been helped yet, yes the bartender gave us menus I tell her. "Oh do you want to go through him then?" she asks. Oh jeez, the unmasked inconvenience of waitstaff.


With menus in hand and an inkling of what I'm going to get, I glance up at the bar which really is beautiful, lots of shiny metal and spotless glasses, and the Tour de France playing on the tv. Ah, a bar that uses it's tv as an extension of who it is and what it stands for, not just to appease the (bored) customer (with a short attention span). Everyone at the bar is male and over 40, they, too, in the scramble of doing something --getting drunk-- in between the humdrum that is work and home. I can't help but remember the last time I was here, sitting at the bar, the bartender a young ignoramus who, when I asked for a description of a certain beer said, "it's an IPA, an Indiana Pale Ale" completely straight-faced. I assume she no longer works here. Their beer selection is impressive of course, but here's the problem I find with Belgian beers. They're either light, easy-drinking, tasty but a little boring, or they're huge and bold and interesting and complex. What I'm trying to say is, it's either 4% or 9% ABV, with nothing in between. I'm sure I'm wrong of course, but that's what the Monk was offering on their menu. I'm a 6.5 or 7 kind of girl, so I'll start light and go from there. Blanche de Bruxelles, a classic Belgian wit, 4.5%. The logo for the beer, etched on the glassware, is a little boy spraying out his bladder, arms akimbo. Hmm, yup that's kind of what it tastes like, not bad or pissy, but young, inexperienced, sassy, a beer that doesn't know how good it could be if it just grew up a little. I choose the fried pickle spears for an appetizer, which I had heard were some of the best in Denver. Arranged vertically in a silver cup wrapped in paper, they are strangely a little soft. We wonder if there's a layer of cheese in there, that's what the texture is like. But no, it's just the seedy part of the pickle, gone mushy, and if it were detached from it's fried sheath I'd probably think it was not worth eating. They're still tasty though, thanks to the deep fryer, and I dip them in what I assume is plain old mayonnaise. By this time it's way too dark in here to make out colors but the taste is unmistakably Hellman's. The website had a choice of dipping sauces including honey mustard, curry, or chipotle, and I'm beginning to think I should just stop reading the websites all together. Nothing but disappointment really, and not part of the lived-experience anyway. Moving on to the next beer, something with a little more heft, I ask the bartender/our server to tell me about something special. He gets a 10 for friendliness and a 7 for knowledge of what's on tap. Perhaps my first order of the Blanche pegged me as a wuss and he wasn't going to recommend anything much bigger than that. It's almost like we're negotiating, he staying low and me trying for high, with me winning (I was the customer after all): a Tripel Karmeliet, 8.4%. This beer had a gorgeously dense head, and after I got through that, the taste was slightly sour, then a little sweet, with an orangey bite and moderate spice. That's more like it.


Our entrées arrive just after the beer. I ordered a Frenched chicken breast, which comes with roasted garlic stoemp, French beans, and mustard chicken jus. Explanations: "Frenched" chicken is a breast cut into 5 or so large strips, but not completely separated. Chicken strips it is not. Bone-in, skin-on, roasted, with hints of tarragon, and the mustard jus was light and sweet and understated, the way mustard should be I think. The chicken was a tad dry, the skin a little too crispy, my only complaint. "Stoemp" is a classic Belgian dish which is basically mashed potatoes and/or root vegetables with herbs and spices. The beans were fresh and crisp and snappy. A winner! I would love to insert a photo here, but like I said, I could barely see my hand in front of my face it was so dark. Melissa ordered the chicken cordon bleu sandwich, which comes on a brioche so buttery it actually reminded me of France. And the french fries, oh yes the Monk has some damn good french fries. So thin, so crispy. There was nothing left on our plates.


And to finish we did something I don't normally do, which is order dessert. People on vacation like to order dessert, or at least find it easily justifiable, and so Melissa ordered us the beignets. Three little fried ovals of decadence, dusted with powdered sugar, one with chocolate hazelnut sauce, one with cream cheese icing, one with cinnamon sauce. Oh yes, with grapes and strawberries on the side. The grapes made perfect vehicle for getting the cinnamon sauce into my mouth, which oozed out onto the plate and begged to be lapped up. The Cheeky Monk is definitely doing something right. While they could just as easily give us chicken strips and fried mozzarella, which also go great with Belgian beer, they offer the full Belgian tasting experience. This uniqueness, albeit a little bourgeois, can't hurt Colfax a bit.
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1 comment:

  1. I'd like this place. In Salt Lake City, the Bayou ( they serve great Belgians ) is a favorite.

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