Audio By Carbonatix
No. 90: Albóndigas meatballs from Solera
Solera chef Goose Sorensen, who’s been turning out beautifully composed plates around Denver for years, can pretty much nail any dish, plunging mussels into a sea of fragrant green curry, slicking his calamari with a Thai red chile glaze, using truffle oil judiciously (which means that it doesn’t smell like an arm pit) and taking first-rate, seasonal ingredients to new heights — his buttery autumn stew abob with root vegetables, for example.
But Sorensen’s albóndigas meatballs, loosely packed orbs of wild boar and bacon swathed in a stew of tomatoes fired with cascabel chiles and lightly sweetened with orange juice, are superlative. He sinks them into mini cast-iron cocottes covered with heavy lids, that once removed perfume the air with an enduring rusticated intoxication that nearly knocks you on your ass. Sorensen serves the dish with butter-glossed bread swiped with grill marks to mop up the sauce, which is so good that you’ll beg for a vat of it to lug home.
Hungry for more? All the dishes in our countdown are linked below:
When news happens, Westword is there —
Your support strengthens our coverage.
We’re aiming to raise $50,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to this community. If Westword matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.
No. 100: Italian wedding soup from the Squeaky Bean No. 99: American Classic Burger (and fries) from Tarbell’s No. 98: E’s clam linguini from Mangiamo Pronto No. 97: Queso a la plancha taco from the Pinche Tacos wagon No. 96: Prosciutto-wrapped jalapeño poppers from Tony’s Market No. 95: Fried chicken from the Pinyon No. 94: Seafood soup from Farro No. 93: Posole from The Porker No. 92: Breakfast Burrito from the Taco Wagon in Lafayette No. 91: Hummus from Shish Kabob Grill
In late 2009, we embarked on a culinary journey that took us through our favorite dishes in the Mile High City — one hundred, to be exact — as a precursor to the Best of Denver issue. Now we’re back with round two, counting down (in no particular order) a hundred more of our favorite Denver dishes in a list that, by our imperfect calculations, should be wrapped up by the time the Best of Denver 2011 hits the streets on March 31. In the meantime, if there’s a dish you think we need to try, tell us about it in the comments section below, or shoot us an e-mail at lori.midson@westword.com.
Follow @CafeWestword on Twitter
