Volume 4, Issue 21
April 18 - May 1, 2002
by Rob Williams
Yeah, I know what you are thinking. Opening my column with an homage to Rowdy Roddy's second best film ever is a heck of a hook, but then again he DID get to do the mau-mau with Sandahl Bergman.
Alas, if only my night on the town was as much fun as the aforementioned Ms. Bergman, or blasting frog mutants with a shotgun. Instead, I went to meet some friends over at Wolfgang Puck/s. Yes, that Wolfgang. The elfin Austrian whose cry of Auf Weidersehn reminds me of Doug McClure waving to a burning U-Boat at the end of The Land That Time Forgot.
So now you know I love shlocky B-Grade film. Maybe you didn't know I also like upscale food. Though now that Wolfgang is selling his $6 soups (butternut squash?) at King Soopers it's hardly upscale. On a side note--back during the Y2K scare you couldn't FIND a can of Campbell's chicken noodle, but ol] Wolfgang's butternut squash wasn't moving at all. Apparently the average survivalist perfers chicken broth, spaghetti and tiny square hunks of chicken in condensed form. That's right gang, even Mad Max won't be able to trade a can of butternut squash for shotgun shells or AA batteries or anything. In fact I'm thinking butternut squash soup pretty much explains Max's love of Dinky-Di Dog food.
But back to the topic at hand, namely Wolfie's Café. You can imagine my raised eyebrow at the prospect of meeting my little sister (OK, not really my little sister--it's a radio mafia thing) and her jam-band posse of deadheads and Phish followers at an "upscale yet casual" dining room like Wolf's, right? So, dressed in my standard Johnny Cash black and sporting some new pointy-toed kangaroo boots, I sauntered through the broken tile facade and made my way towards the hostess.
Immediately I was staggered by the room's constructivism-meets-southwestern design scheme. Terra cotta and turquoise, heavy use of ceramic tile and angled iron. Waitstaff running to and fro carrying massive plates of --sushi? ?
OK call me ignorant, but since when is sushi remotely Austrian? (Unless you consider filleted Plesiosaur enjoyed by the aforementioned U-boat commander.)
So approaching the hostess, I smiled. "Hi, I'm looking for the O'Malley party?" Leering down her long nose at me she icily replied, "Are you late?" Confused, I looked at my battered Timex and countered, "not unfashionably so." She waved towards the windows at the back and mumbled something about "them" taking over the lounge area. So much for service with a smile. I never thought 25 paying customers was an inconvenience.
Soon I was among friends and enjoying an adult beverage provided by a much friendlier and enthusiastic waitress. She even smiled when I asked to see a menu, though all of my patchouli pals were already on their second round of sushi delights.
Thai Chicken Pizza? Mozzerella cheese, Granny Smith apples? Carrots? (who on earth puts carrots on pizza?) Bean Sprouts? The guys at Benny Blanco's would get shivved trying to pass off this rabbit-food excuse for a pie in the Bronx. Chicken doesn't belong on pizza, OK? Just deal with it. "California Cuisine" is generally another way to say, yeah, we have a BLT, but ours is Canadian bacon with arugala and sun-dried roma--see where I'm going with this? These are the same people who would drop a daquiri into a cocktail glass and call it a "frozen Key Lime martini." They take everything you know and make it wrong.
In their defense, the sushi was good, though really it's hard to screw up raw fish. Besides, eating raw fish is good training for the post-apocalyptic wasteland when you are all out of Campbell's Chicken Noodle, right?
Looking over the menu further, I did note "wienerschintzel"--some of us grew up thinking that was a hot dog--though apparently that's a "plate-sized thin crispy veal cutlet with warm Austrian potato salad." Well, while it sounds authentic--even my meat-eating hippie pals would give me a look snootier than the hostess if I ordered the veal.
So let's re-cap. An Austrian guy serving Japanese and Italian favorites in a trendy-south-western style setting--I could hear the coyotes goose-stepping. Isn't this the kind of thing my grandfather fought against in WW2? Citizens, I submit to you that this axis of evil will cause WW3--just like marijuana leads straight to heroin.
You can take your chances. If you decide to go, I'd recommend doing it at happy hour when assorted sushi is a buck a piece, and the hostess hasn't had time to get an early model Volkswagen shoved completely up her rear. Me, I think I'm gonna head over to Frogtown and have a can of Dinky-Di with the Gyro Captain, then maybe scrounge up some gasoline. Anyone want to trade for some Chicken Noodle?
Wolfgang Puck's Grand Café, Denver Pavilions # 262, 500 16th St. 303-595-9653
All Rights Reserved © 2002 Go Go Media, LLC, Denver, Colorado