They avoid the fusion confusion that afflicts restaurants like Danny Bowien’s superhip Mission Chinese in New York City, where I recently ate. It may be that grounding-Hong Kong is a fusion hotbed, but deadly serious about its food-that gives Lee’s dishes (developed with chef Todd Somma, formerly of Uncle) such clarity. Lee, who also owns Uncle, is the Denver son of Hong Kong parents and has spent considerable time in that Chinese city. My research did not turn up marrow as a traditional ingredient in Chinese fried rice, and that brings up the authenticity question-as in, where along the spectrum from scholarly/purist to fusion/avant-garde does owner Tommy Lee’s food fall? Rice is also fried at Hop Alley, with little bits of bone marrow, egg, and peas, yielding one of those dishes whose blandness, to me, is sublime: The marrow gives your lips a sticky coating. A mouthful of la zi ji, soothed by Hop Alley’s steamed jasmine rice-also properly prepared, and whose aroma greets you when you walk in the door-is a bite of heaven. It’s a straight-ahead version of a straightforward dish, but it’s executed perfectly, with the seared quality that only comes from proper stir-frying. Consider its Chongqing dish called la zi ji: fried chicken morsels in an extravagance of dried red chiles, flavored with mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorns, garlic, ginger, scallions, and sesame seeds. So, yes, I find redoubled happiness in the exuberant flavors that Hop Alley delivers. That childhood dinner was as close as I’ve come to a religious conversion. This is where I discovered crab in black bean sauce, a dish whose miraculous existence I had not been made aware of in my home of Saskatchewan, Canada. This predilection dates to the time I was uprooted to Java, Indonesia, as a kid. I was a quarter of the way into an eight-dish, seven-person feast at Hop Alley in RiNo when I waved my chopsticks-with which I had pincered two slippery disks of Shanghai rice cake, each bathed in oyster sauce and dotted with bits of chewy pork-and remarked to my wife, “I think this may be the best food I’ve eaten in Denver in the past year.” She cocked an eyebrow, for few things get me as giddy as a good Asian meal. Colorado Bookshelf: “The Light of Paris”ĭON’T MISS: Fried chicken with Sichuan pepper, Shanghai rice cakes, suan ni pork chop with garlic, salt-and-pepper soft-shell crab.The 25 Best Neighborhoods in Denver in 2023.
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