Some nights call for dinner at a quiet, serene restaurant, where you can exhale, relax and whisper to your dining partner even if you’re leaning all the way back in your chair.
But some nights call for just the opposite, for squeezing yourself into an overcrowded restaurant, bumping elbows with customers at the table next to you, and yelling out your order just to be heard above the clanging dishes and boisterous laughter around you.
These are bistro nights, usually encountered in Paris, or New York City or maybe at Bistro Vendôme on Larimer Street. I love bistro nights.
Brasserie Ten Ten on Walnut Street in Boulder is my kind of bistro. Because when I need to get my bistro on, I want it loud, lively and impossibly busy.
And busy it is. Even on weeknights, when most area restaurants struggle to fill themselves halfway, Brasserie Ten Ten is alive and sparkling.
Patrons crowd the bar, noshing on house-cured olives and sipping Per- nod while they wait for their table, which is, naturally, still occupied.
Servers, eagle-eyed and focused, scurry from the kitchen pass-through to the tables, balancing overloaded trays and swiveling their hips to navigate the dangerously gesturing arms filling the air at waist level.
Wavelike aromas of mussels and tomato soup roll past your nose. Sultry notes from the latest Madeleine Peyroux CD wind through your ears. Flashes of champagne flutes and cleavage dart in and out of view. You order a drink, because you think you might stick around.
Brasserie Ten Ten’s menu is neither innovative nor unprecedented, but it’s unusual and welcome in our area – a straightforward, comprehensive bistro menu, anchored by the inevitable steak frites and seafood platter, and peppered throughout with essentials like croque madame, escargots and coq au vin.
While you peruse the bill of fare, you’d do well to order two appetizers for the table: One, the crunchy, salty haricots verts, tempura-battered and deep-fried green beans wrapped in a paper cone and served with a tangy garlic aioli dip. Two, the Roquefort chips, or house-made waffle chips drizzled with a decadent Roquefort cream sauce.
Next up, oysters. If you’re celebrating, spring for the seafood platter, a $45 orgy of oysters, mussels, shrimp and crab. Otherwise, two Malpeque oysters washed down with a bubbling glass of the St. Hilaire Brut.
As for individual appetizers, choose the steak tartare, a meaty chop-up of raw beef, eggs, onions, and marvelously briny capers. Escargots, appropriately butter-logged and garlicky. Or silky, rich paté de campagne, with poached pear alongside.
Skip the calamari, which came overspiced with paprika. And you’ll find better tomato soup over at The Kitchen on Pearl Street.
Woefully missing from the salad portion of the menu is a straightforward country salad with frisée, bacon lardons and poached egg. Luckily, the salade Perigourdine, an evocative tumble of greens, goat cheese, thin-sliced beets and seared duck breast, was a worthy stand-in. Also worth it: The “Simple” salad – butter lettuce, pine nuts and fried capers.
My favorite entree was unadorned, country-style coq au vin, a savory-sweet stew of wine-braised chicken legs, pearl onions and crispy bacon. Perfect for the season, and at $12.95, the best bargain on the dinner menu. Also excellent: crispy- skinned chicken cooked under a brick.
Seafood fans (myself included) would do well to order the poached sole, served Provençal- style with sharp sundried tomatoes and tart lemon beurre to slice through the soft, supple texture of the fish.
And then there is the classic, unquestionably required bistro plate: steak frites. Brasserie Ten Ten’s is a simple grilled hanger steak with a side of watercress and, of course, a paper-cone of crispy, hot, salty frites, thankfully devoid of any truffling or sweetening or any of that other stuff so many frites-purveyors tend to burden their frites with. (Note: There’s a truffle aioli available for dipping, if you must.)
Our steak, expertly cooked to medium-rare, came with a choice of three sauces. The best was the Béarnaise, creamy and gracefully flecked with tarragon. The second-best was the sweet, velvety Cabernet reduction with Roquefort, and the least-best was the too-smoky au poivre.
Less successful entrees: Sal mon with crostini and jasmine rice, pale and flavorless. Duck confit with lentils, beautiful but devoid of soul. Grilled filet mignon, dull and poorly paired with a portabella and blue cheese side.
Brasserie Ten Ten’s wine list is solid, mostly but not myopically Gallic. Many are offered by the glass, including a Pierre Sparr Riesling from Alsace and a Moueix Merlot from Bordeaux. If I were richer, I’d order the Chateau Pavie Grand Cru Bordeaux with my coq au vin, and toast my tablemates vigorously.
Service at Brasserie Ten Ten is mostly good, but in a space this crowded, the choreography, so regimented at some restaurants, is characterized by improvisation. Plates are often handed across tables, rather than seamlessly laid before diners. Drink orders are occasionally mixed up before being graciously rectified.
But that’s Brasserie Ten Ten. As a patron here, you’re half customer, half active participant in the tableau. And if sometimes that means reminding your waiter that you ordered the profiteroles, not the crème brûlée, it’s all part of the dance.
There’s a rotating “daily special” at Brasserie Ten Ten. Come on a Monday for cassoulet (not as awe-inspiring as the one you’ll find at Z Cuisine in Denver, but a fine example nonetheless), or on Friday for a restorative bowl of bouillabaisse. But if it’s Thursday, it’s seared scallops night, and you should stick with the steak.
Brasserie Ten Ten does a brisk brunch business on the weekends. Try the soft scramble of egg, sausage, scallion and gruyere and the plate of powdered beignets.
As to lunch, Brasserie Ten Ten served a very good burger, topped with caramelized onions. (No one looked askance when I washed it down with a glass of the J. Vidal-Fleury Cotes du Rhone.) For thems that would rather eat with a fork, the curried chicken salad was neat and satisfying.
Will Brasserie Ten Ten dazzle your eyes with a unique room? Nope. Will it challenge your palate with complex cooking? Not really. Astonish with perfect service? Nah. Lull you into a sleep-stupor with an understated vibe? Not even close.
But will an evening at Brasserie Ten Ten sate your once-in-a- while bistro cravings, complete with frites, wine and a bustling bar?
Mais bien sur.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-954-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
Brasserie Ten Ten
French
1011 Walnut, Boulder, 303-998-1010
***|Great
Atmosphere: Chic urban bistro with big windows onto the street, tiled floors, crowded tables, white-shirted servers and exposed brick walls.
Service: Servers are very busy, but they know the menu and will indulge your questions. Don’t expect them to fawn, but expect your food to arrive hot.
Wine: Solid bistro-worthy wine list, with about 20 or so wines by the glass, and more than just a few affordable ($30 and under) bottles.
Plates: Small plates, $3.95-12.95. Entrees $9.95-26.95.
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 9 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday; 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.
Details: All major credit cards accepted. Reservations encouraged. Have fun trying to find a parking place, or let the St. Julien Hotel across the street deal with your wheels. Kids will find plenty to eat here.
Three visits.
Our star system:
****: Exceptional.
***: Great.
**: Very good.
*: Good.
No stars: Needs work.
