These photos were taken without flash in near darkness. The top photo is The Keg's classic New York, the second is their filet. They come with choice of potato and vegetables.
The Keg's menu is broad without being ridiculous. Offered are sirloin, New York, filets, prime rib, with various arrangements of lobster and other seafood items, sauces and sides. They also offer straight seafood and chicken plates, a very nice variety of starter plates, soups, salads and desserts.
The bread is delivered immediately. It appears to be individual rolls baked as a loaf, freshly baked and piping hot. The dough seems to have been aged. Crackly crust, dense crumb, white bread. It is very good.
My companion would have preferred to start with some kind of fresh fruit, but alas, the Keg is fruitless.
The French onion soup is fine and I ate it to the last drop. It is very close to the real deal.
French onion soup.
Here's the thing as I understand it from paying attention to Julia Child as a lad and as I've experienced it restaurants that took pride in authenticity: onion soup is a peasant's meal, made from beef bones and a lot of onions. Stale bread is put to use, toasted. You will notice provincial French cooking found many ways to avoid wasting bread. The whole thing is jazzed up with cheese and baked to brown. So there are three stages, the broth, caramelizing the onions, baking the cheese.
The kind of meat bones that are used are the kind you would toss to your dog. The bones are spread on a sheet pan and roasted until they spill out their marrow. the marrow burns on the pan. The burnt bits are lifted with water or with wine stovetop. This is the meat base of the soup. If the soup lacks little black flecks of burnt bone marrow, then it is not French peasant beef stock. You can imagine a steakhouse having on hand an abundance of beef bones. (The Keg's beef stock is undisturbed with errant flecks of burnt fond from marrow, a key indicator)
Onions are caramelized slowly. A huge amount shrinks nearly to nearly nothing. They are sweated on low interminably until they turn brown. The process cannot be rushed, in fact, the process is continually slowed with additions of small amounts of water. The process should take at least an hour. Opposite from the bones, the onions should never singe or char.
The cheese that covers the bowl of onion soup that hold in my mind as ideal is roasted not simply melted, and floated on a crouton raft -- a toasted piece of old bread that absorbs the broth from the bottom and supports the Swiss-style cheese, usually a gruyere. |
Bacon-wrapped scallops.
Valet parking. Additional paid parking available across the street. Metered street parking.
One might not notice at first the place is huge. The modern sectioned off sidewalk runs the length of the warehouse type building, a third the length of the block. The full front of the building is a low metal fence with a tabletop surface to accept stools and with lower tables between the tabletop fence and warehouse windows. The entrance is cut into the corner with towering doors fitted with outrageously tall vertical handles, features carried through to the interior.
The first thing you'll notice after noticing the women are gorgeous, so the second thing noticed, is a lounge to the left with a bar and television screens. Through a short passageway beyond a dividing wall the restaurant opens up and goes and goes and goes apparently forever. We were seated right in the front and I did not explore the depth of the restaurant, but as already noted it occupies the whole of the first floor of a third-of-a-block building. The dining area is sectioned. Each table is also sectioned so intimate within a larger somewhat noisy pubic space. The leather booths appear new.
There is a high ratio of staff to customers. Mostly female, very engaging. For example, I brought with me a wine aerator. (Our bottle of wine, one of the two house selections, was excellent and could hardly be improved by the aerator) The staff wanted to know what it is. Our waitress asked for a demonstration. If she was feigning interest, then she's an excellent actress. I told her a demonstration involves comparison before/after sips. Was she willing to have sips with us? Sure! Now where are you going to see that? I cannot imagine any other place not demurring in order to keep a separation between customer and staff. Her willingness to mix it up with us was charming. She expressed, at least, interest in the aerator, acknowledged its value even though its value there was negligible, inquired inquisitively about how it works, and insisted she must get one for herself.
We noticed that with the customers too women outnumbered men by a significant percentage. We thought it odd at first. It was not unusual for each male to be accompanied with two or more females, and for females to be seated together and to walk in together in groups. Then we noticed the same was true for the whole area of LoDo. We did not know if that was just for that Saturday night of if it is like that all the time. Even late into the night, the whole area was crawling with people, all young and beautiful, well-mannered, and mostly female. The area, once rundown and neglected is now enlivened and sufficiently safe for women to cruise at night, purposefully it seemed, they had someplace specific to go.
