Denis Culinary Tours

Ragland Road Irish Pub in the Power and Light district is the most recent place to fall under the spell of what I’m learning is a trend of cuisine confusion. The restaurant is gorgeous to behold, although its sheer size betrays some of the intimacy of a real Irish pub. It has an excellent beer selection and what appears to be a correctly inspired menu until the final result arrives. I have lamented over the recent gimmicky trend of restaurants to try to dress up food that is better left alone. I ordered fish and chips, a bellweather for Irish food if one ever existed. I received some sort of fish sculpture with a couple of confused sauces and a creative and, frankly, useful chip presentation. If only the fish came the same way. Fish and chips is a lovable dish from the U.K., one of the few palatable native cuisines of that area of the world (and I am an anglophile, I drive an English car, wear English clothing, and am an intolerable Doctor Who fan). I expect it to be served in a s...

There is a confusing trend in the restaurant world these days: upmarket 'gourmet' prolaterian cuisine. While I am not adverse to food like hamburgers and pizza, the recent attempts to somehow turn these into a special dining experience makes little sense. If one is going to do it, however, pizza can at least be understood, especially since Wolfgang Puck’s experimentation with gourmet pizzas in the 80’s. Even with that the concept is a tricky one to navigate. Pizzabella is a nice execution. California Pizza Kitchen is not. Apparently this has now morphed into the fad of upscale hamburger joints. To me, the best hamburgers can still be found at places that smell of grease and serve them in paper, in a manner that is completely unpretentious and serves the nature of the food. Recently I attended a team lunch at Blanc in Westport. Blanc is situated in the location previously filled by Tatsu Arai’s unsuccesful sattelite bistro. Although the name is reputed to be a reverent nod to Wh...

My wife and I recently had dinner at Azul Latin Bistro and loved it. The interior design is remarkably different compared to its exterior. It set a great mood for a great meal. We started off with the chorizo and goat cheese quesadilla and a couple of their signature cocktails. The drinks were a bit strong, but good nonetheless. The quesadilla was fantastic, perfect amount of cheese and chorizo. Our dinner took about 20 min to get to the table, which was fine considering my wife ordered the chicken and received a bone-in chicken breast cooked perfectly. I had the chile relleno and found it impressive. The black bean puree and ancho chile sauce was a great contrast smoothed out by the cream sauce. The presentation on all of the dishes was great and each had a good balance. I read on some other posts that the service was sub-par but I have to disagree. We had excellent service, very attentive and the right amount of talkative. Perhaps some of those post were older and they enacted some p...