Colterra Food and Wine

Duck pate with bronzed apples and warm toast.


Escargots with mushrooms, crushed potatoes, grilled bread, garlic-parsley butter sauce, and a balsamic reduction.


Seared sea scallops with asparagus persillade, gaufrette potato, and sauce vierge.


Grilled quail with dandelion greens, roasted gala apples, bacon croutons, and sherry-honey vinaigrette.


Quail is so tiny!!


Pan roasted Colorado lamb with caramelized onions, garlic crushed potatoes, carrots, snow peas, and lamb fennel essence.


Duck Confit Gnocchi with forest mushrooms, tomato, chard, truffle butter and Parmesan cheese.


Warm Date and Vanilla tart with toasted almonds, espresso ice cream and creme anglaise.


Chocolate Symphony: In the cup is a chocolate pot de creme, in the quenelle is a dark chocolate mousse, to the upper left of the mousse is a chocolate cookie, next to that is a homemade truffle rolled on almonds, and finally a flourless chocolate cake. The swirly sauce decoration is berry coulis and creme anglaise.

I first heard about this restaurant when I was in Niwot at my friend's house. I spent three weekends raising enough money to pay for 8 different dishes. We started the meal with a duck pate with bronzed apples and warm toast. The duck pate was very rich, it was almost like foie gras. If anyone has ever had foie gras you will know it is paired with fruit very often because of how rich it is. The fruit will bring acidity and sweetness to a very rich and decadent pate. Every single flavor worked perfectly together. The one thing I must say is that the plating could have been a bit better. In my opinion the pate was being hidden by the bread and the pate could have been in a tighter quenelle, that would have given it a much more eye popping appearance. The next dish we had was escargots with mushrooms, crushed potatoes, grilled bread, garlic-parsley butter sauce, and a balsamic reduction. With this dish, again, the escargots were buried under the bread. Other than the bread hiding the snails the dish looked a very good and was probably one of the best things I ate all night. The snails were super tender and every thing else on the plate went perfectly with them. The mushrooms added a great earthiness and the crushed potatoes added a very nice soft and creamy texture and tying it all together with a garlic-parsley butter sauce was just fantastic. The next thing we enjoyed was seared sea scallops with asparagus persillade, gaufrette potato, and sauce vierge. They were better than the scallops I ate at Jean Georges. The scallops were perfectly cooked and caramelized. The sauce was a very intense acidic sauce and that complemented the sweetness on the scallops. The asparagus was perfectly cooked and soft, with just a bit of crispness in the middle. The potatoes were very nicely salted and fried. The pattern added a very nice look to the dish. Scallops are an ingredient that are not good unless they are fresh. In Colorado there are no oceans and that means unless the scallops are being delivered fresh they will not taste very good. Well I do not know whether they were fresh or not but they sure tasted fresh. All the flavors and textures from the salty, the sweet, the sour, the crispy, the soft, and the tender all made the dish great. Our next dish was grilled quail with dandelion greens, roasted gala apples, bacon croutons, and sherry-honey vinaigrette. For me, most poultry ends up being very dry. Quail is incredibly moist and because they cooked it properly it was very tender. There was a slight problem with the amount of greens compared to the amount of quail. There were just too many greens on the plate. For our larger meat items we had pan-roasted Colorado lamb with caramelized onions, garlic crushed potatoes, carrots, snow peas, and lamb fennel essence. The chef really knows how to make garlic crushed potatoes. I was using all my self control to leave some for my dad. The lamb was perfectly cooked and medium rare. The only little thing that did not jive with me was the sauce. It was a little grainy and incredibly over powering on the fennel. Also, there were no actual caramelized onions; there were these little fried onions on top that were actually not that good. Next we had duck confit gnocchi with forest mushrooms, tomato, chard, truffle butter and Parmesan cheese. From the sound of each ingredient it seemed like it would be a very heavy dish, which it was, but in the midst of that the gnocchi stayed very light and fluffy. They were not quite as good as my gnocchi at Radda but they were still really good. The duck was very tender, I mean when you cook something in its own fat it is probably going to be super tender. Now into dessert: the first dessert was warm date and vanilla tart with toasted almonds, espresso ice cream and creme anglaise. The tart was fantastic with so much vanilla flavor and dates in every single bite. The ice cream added a great bite and temperature change and the creme anglaise was very nice. One thing was that there was not enough creme anglaise on the plate. Our next dessert was the chocolate symphony:dark chocolate mousse, chocolate pot de creme, flourless chocolate cake, nut truffle and a chocolate cookie. The chocolate pot de creme was the best. It was perfectly set on top and then hot and liquid in the center. I am so glad I have found a place where they make good chocolate mousse. So many people make it wrong when it is as simple as making chocolate whipped cream. The mousse was very good. At the end of the meal I had a long conversation with the chef about wagyu beef compared to filet. I totally recommend this restaurant.

Dessert at Jax

Trio of creme brulee(from left to right): Vanilla bean, raspberry, and coffee.


Milk chocolate bread pudding with chocolate gelato, fresh berries, whipped cream, and a bourbon caramel.

After a large meal of roast chicken and mashed potatoes cooked by my very own mother we our family went out to get dessert at one of our long loved family favorites, Jax Fish House. The fish is very good but I really enjoy the desserts. We started with a trio of creme brulees: Vanilla, raspberry and coffee. The vanilla was very nice, it had a perfect crust of burnt sugar on top. The vanilla creme brulee had a very light vanilla flavor, I would have liked a bit more vanilla flavor. The coffee creme brulee was very strong. It had coffee beans baked into it and the whole custard was flavored with coffee. On the top was a chocolate covered coffee bean. Now I want to talk about the raspberry. This one was special. It was a plain creme brulee, with whole raspberries baked into it. In the process of baking the raspberries let out juices making the entire custard taste like fresh raspberries. The next dessert was a Milk chocolate bread pudding with chocolate gelato, fresh berries, whipped cream, and a bourbon caramel. The bread pudding had a great chocolate flavor and was piping hot so it was only logic to put some ice cream on it to control the temperature balance. Then the whipped cream added a very light refreshing flavor and texture to all that decadence. Over all great desserts!

Radda Trattoria

This is Radda.





Salumi Misti: Proscuitto, spek, salami and cured beef with EVOO and bread sticks.


Gnocchi bolognese.


Prosciutto and egg pizza.


Whole roasted striped bass with a radish, fennel, and arugula salad.

Radda is a small Italian restaurant in my home town, Boulder. In fact, I used to work at this restaurant. Now, I am not meaning to pick on our waitress, but, the service was terrible. Our waitress was all over the place and clearly did not know what she was doing. The food, on the other hand, was very nice. The very first course was Salumi Misti: Proscuitto, spek, salami and cured beef with EVOO and bread sticks. I really enjoy salumi when I can identify every flavor in the meat. With this I could tell what was salami I could tell what was cured beef, but I could not tell the difference between the proscuitto and the spek. But, over all it was a very good dish. Next up we had Gnocchi bolognese. This has been my favorite at Radda for a very long time, in fact, it was the very first dish I cooked in the Radda kitchen. The bolognese sauce has the perfect amount of meat to sauce. The sauce is super rich and a flavorful, with just pinch of heat at the end. The gnocchi are so light and soft. You could chew the gnocchi with your tongue they were so soft. Probably the best dish in the restaurant. Our next offering was a proscuitto and egg pizza. The crust was super crispy and yet very soft on the inside. There was a great amount of proscuitto on the pizza, and to top it all off there was an egg cracked onto the middle of it. It was a very good pizza. Our final dish was a whole roasted striped bass with a radish, fennel, and arugula salad. What was really cool was how the fish had no bones, but stayed perfectly in tact. The fish was cooked very well it just needed a bit more salt. My big problem was that the fennel was not fresh so it had a pretty rubbery texture. Well Radda is a very good restaurant, and I hope that more people will come visit.

Jean Georges

Amuse trio


Seared scallops


Goat cheese gnocchi


Trout sashimi


Confit of chicken leg


Slow cooked salmon


Chocolate tasting




Petit fours


Jean Georges kitchen

Well who would have thought that me, a 13 year old boy from Boulder, CO, would end up eating at two three Michelin star restaurants in one trip to New York. Jean Georges is one of the best restaurants in New York City. I first herd about Jean Georges when I was reading about pastry chefs and found Johnny Iuzzini, his desserts looked so good that I just had to look up the place he worked. Now Jean Georges is located right next to the building where Per Se is located, but that does not stop people from coming. My father and I were seated, and then about 3 minutes later they brought out a complementary amuse trio: Fluke tartare with a sweet pea remolade, carrot and miso soup with lime oil, and a 7 grain toast with mustard butter and a breakfast radish. Fluke is a very silky fish so putting a very crunchy ingredient along with it is a very good idea. The pea remolade was very flavorful but did not over power the subtle taste of the fish. To me it tasted like tuna fish salad, no, more like the best tuna fish salad you have ever eaten. The carrot and miso soup was fantastic. Depending on the kind of miso you use, it can either overpower a dish or be overpowered by something else. In this dish the miso pact a large punch, but so did the carrot, and the lime oil kind of put it all to rest. Finally we had the toast with the mustard butter and breakfast radish. When I fist looked at it I expected the bread to be super crunchy or as hard as a rock, the bread was surprisingly soft. By the taste of the mustard you could tell it was homemade because of how strong it was. Most mustard you buy in a store has been diluted but this mustard was not at all. After we finished the amuse, our next dish came out, Seared scallops with caramelized cauliflower and a caper-raisin emulsion. I have never had, nor seen, scallops paired with cauliflower and I am not sure it works that well. The scallops were cooked very well. In my opinion, the sauce was the best part of the dish. It had a great contrast between sweet and sour. My one big problem with the dish is that they sliced the scallops into thin disks. I think if you have an ingredient that is as beautiful as a scallop you should keep it as it is, not slice it up. Scallops are also much prettier when in their full shape. The next course was Goat cheese gnocchi with crispy artichokes. Now this is what I am talking about. The gnocchi where so creamy, and so soft. The artichokes were so lights and crispy. It was quite a contrast in textures. I do believe there was a small touch of citrus in the bottom of the bowl, which made the dish all the more decadent and delicious. Our final appetizer was Trout sashimi with trout eggs, fried trout skin and lemon foam. I looked at the menu and I saw trout sashimi, trout eggs, and fried trout skin, that makes me really excited. It came to the table and just looking at it made me excited. Now, trout is a very light fish with a low fat content, it does not have a very robust flavor. When you pair trout, especially raw trout, with something as strong as lemon it will be over powered and that is exactly what happened on this dish. That was the only rough part of the dish was that the lemon over powered the trout. Now the first entree comes; Parmesan crusted confit leg of chicken with salsify and lemon butter. Usually when I eat chicken it is dry, this chicken was probably the most succulent, moist, tender piece of chicken I have ever eaten. Crusted in Parmesan cheese, my god, that to me is like gilding the lily, but in a very very good way. Our last entree before we moved into dessert was Salmon with spinach ravioli, crispy pancetta, and bacon vinaigrette. The salmon was cooked to perfection, it was cooked sous vide so it would be evenly cooked all the way around. Cooking sous vide is basically cooking something in a vacuum-sealed bag, in temperature controlled water. The vinaigrette had a very nice bacon flavor. All in all it was a very good dish. Now it's time for dessert. The Chocolate tasting: Jean Georges chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream and a honey caramelized flexible chocolate ganache with amaranth seeds, hibiscus streusel, and beets. This is what I have read about, watched TV about and now I finally get to eat. For me, there is nothing better than a perfect chocolate lava cake. If you agree with me you must try the Jean Georges chocolate cake. It is perfectly cooked on the outside, but just gushing lava when you cut into it. The ganache was super light but and the same time super rich and creamy. I do not know what is up with people putting vegetables on dessert but it is amazing. Then came our Petit Fours: Strawberry and raspberry macaroons, assorted chocolates, vanilla marshmallows. The marshmallows were cut table side from this large jar of marshmallows. All of them were great petit fours. At the end of the meal I got a private tour of the Jean Georges kitchen. What a trip!!!

Le Bernardin

Crab with cauliflower


Thinly pounded tuna


Smoked tuna


Egg and caviar


Charred octopus


Seared langoustine


Nori crusted skate


Pan-roasted monkfish


Baked striped bass


Crispy black bass


Surf and Turf


Baked lobster


Goat cheese spheres


Mascarpone Cream


"Egg"


Caramelized corn custard


Cinnamon-caramel parfait


Passion fruit mousse


Petit fours


Le Bernardin Kitchen

Le Bernardin, wow, this is a meal I have wanted to eat since I was first interested in cooking. Chef Ripert is the biggest influence on my love of food. I first saw him on an episode of Top Chef season 3, he was the guest judge, and he was like a walking-talking dictionary of cuisine and flavor profiles. Hearing him talk about the simplest of dishes with such love and knowledge really spoke to me and inspired me to start cooking.
The first thing that happened to me when I sat down at my table was that the headwaiter, Julio, delivered an envelope to my table. Inside the envelope was...A SIGNED MENU FROM CHEF RIPERT HIMSELF. After something like that a night can not get any better, right? Well, guess what, it did. Julio came to our table with the complimentary amuse bouche, lump crab with a Parmesan tuile and cauliflower foam. You could tell this crab was not fake because of the really briny texture. Crab is very sweet so you would not think it goes with something also sweet like cauliflower, but it works perfectly. Our next dish was thinly pounded tuna with foie gras toast, chives, EVOO, and lemon. Most of the time when I eat tuna, either the tuna is over powered by the other flavors or it is bland and only has a fishy taste. This tuna dish had fantastic flavor and you could still taste the tuna. Foie gras on toast just made that dish totally perfect. Our next course was smoked yellowfin tuna "prosciutto" with pickled vegetables and crispy kombu. The vegetables were perfectly pickled and not too vinegar intensive and the tuna was not overly smoky. It was perfect. Now before I go on, let me tell you about the service. Our waiter, Julio, engaged us in friendly conversation and it felt like we were his first priority. If our water was running short, we did not notice when it was re-filled because they were amazingly discreet about it. Now, back to the food. The next dish was a poached egg with black caviar, toasted english muffin and marinier broth. The egg was perfectly cooked with a great oozing yolk. Caviar is just amazing and was great with this dish. The next course was charred octopus with fermented black bean and pear sauce, squid ink and miso vinaigrette with purple basil. Every time I have ever eaten octopus, it has been like chewing on rubber but this octopus was so amazingly tender. The black bean sauce is in the running for one of the best thing I have ever eaten. Chef Ripert ferments the beans underground in his own backyard! The next dish was seared langoustine with a wild mushroom and mache salad with shaved foie gras, and white balsamic vinaigrette. Langoustines are so sweet that you have to pair them with something earthy like mushrooms and mache. This dish had perfect flavors that worked perfectly together. Next dish was nori crusted skate, with braised winter lettuce, oysters, and ponzu vinaigrette. The skate was moist and the oysters were like little bursting lumps of the sea. Next came the pan roasted monkfish with hon shimeji mushrooms, sake broth and a turnip-ginger emulsion. The monkfish was silky and smooth and the ginger-turnip emulsion actually melted in my mouth. The next two courses were bass dishes. Baked striped bass with a corn "cannelloni" and a light perigord truffle sauce and Crispy black bass with lup cheog and beansprout "risotto", mini steamed buns and a hoisin-plum jus. The striped bass dish was the better of the two. It was flaky and moist. The corn cannelloni was very good. The corn filling was not stuffed into pasta but actually wrapped in leeks. The sauce had many chunks of truffle in it that gave it a very funky and earthy flavor. The black bass was very crispy and the bean sprout risotto tasted very fresh. Our last savory courses before the cheese and dessert were: 1) Surf and Turf: Escolar and seared Kobe beef with sea beans, eggplant fritters, pesto, and a red wine bernaise and 2) Baked lobster on a bed of truffles and foie gras stuffing with a brandy red wine sauce. Now I love the idea of surf and turf, and kobe beef and escolar are a perfect match. Escolar has a very soft and moist texture, and a very delicate flavor. Kobe, on the other hand, has a very fatty, rich flavor. When put together they are a perfect pair. Lobster is one of my favorite things to eat and this dish hit the ball out of the park. Not quite as good as my lobster at Annisa but still amazing. Now some of you may be thinking, when does this meal end? Well, dessert is coming. Our last savory item was our cheese course; Creamy spherified goat cheese with Concord grape "caviar" and candied walnuts. This dish was very unique. The goat cheese was spherified and so was the Concord grape juice. The way you spherify something is puree it up until it is smooth. After that, balance chemicals in a bowl and spoon the puree into the chemicals. This process causes a chemical reaction that creates a thin sugar around the puree that causes it to be solid on the outside, and liquid on the inside. The dish was divine. The goat cheese tasted so creamy and the walnuts and grapes went perfectly with the richness of the cheese. Next came our pre-dessert, Mascarpone cream in a crisp sugar shell with almond cocoa pain de genes. The dish was just beautiful to look at. It was so interesting the way the sugar shell was shaped, though when I broke it the sugar formed sharp edges and cut the inside of my mouth a little bit. Other than my little injury the dish was great. The next dish was our complimentary "Egg" Milk chocolate pots de creme with caramel foam, maple syrup, and maldon sea salt. The flavors were absolutely perfect. The pot de crème had a fantastic chocolate flavor. I love the mixing of salty and sweet, and maldon sea salt is super salty so they did not have to put too much on. Our next dessert was Caramelized corn custard with hazelnut praline, brown butter ice cream and a popcorn tuile. Now when I think of dessert my mind jumps to chocolate or caramel, I never think of corn. Well, corn is what I think of now for dessert. This dessert was a revelation. The combination of corn, hazelnuts, and brown butter ice cream was just so good. The popcorn tuile was the best part; it is tasted exactly like cracker jacks. Our next dessert was Cinnamon and caramel parfait with liquid pears, smoked sea salt and fromage blanc sorbet. First of all, the plating on this dish was like a work of art and second, it was so good. They did the same spherfication process to pear puree as they did to the goat cheese. When I placed the liquid pear in my mouth it burst. It tasted like the ripest pear in the world. Fromage blanc sorbet is my new favorite ice cream flavor. So rich, and so creamy. We then got a free dessert, compliments of the owner; it was Passion fruit mousse with mandarin sorbet and white chocolate. The mousse was so light, fluffy, and fruity. All the textures and flavors were spot on. It felt like a $100 dish but it was free. We received our petit fours at the end of the meal, which were excellent, and then I got a private tour of the Le Bernardin kitchen. This exquisite 19-course meal is probably something I will remember my entire life as the best meal I have ever eaten, and I doubt that will change.