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We had a wonderful meal at Abattoir. This is a fairly new restaurant from the same folks behind Bacchanlia. We went there because the menu looked quite exciting and on Joe's high praise for its sister restaurant. It certainly delivered on its promise. It's currently in the running for top-10 meal of the year and 2013 was a tremendous food year for us that included Rose's Luxury, 2 trips to Roberto's 4, Sushi Taro's Omakase, and an awesome trip to Montreal. The restaurant itself is a beautiful spare space with lots of room between tables, so the room never got loud even as the tables filled up. The service was quite good and attentive, though they seem to have minor kinks to still work out amongst their front house staff (very minor things that did not affect our enjoyment at all). The bread service here is quite good and the desserts are quite delicious. The highlights were the crab fritter, the 3 items ordered off of their butcher's menu (lamb heart, oxheart empanadas, and a divine lamb sweetbread dish), and fried to order chicharrones that came out crackling and light as air.

Devereaux's recently closed. Bacon Brothers Public House is a new restaurant and it's really something special. Locally sourced organic meats and veggies, across-the-board good execution, very good prices, big portions, and nice enthusiastic staff. Also - it's located in a strip mall so we can park for free right in front of the restaurant. The interior has the classy farm-to-table restaurant look, but you can still catch the game on the 4 big screen TVs located in the bar area. These guys hit all 4 quadrants and then some. They have a smoker outback and a meat curing area right in the dining area. Not a single misstep in our orders for 5 people. Highlights for me include the excellent bean-less smoky brisket chili, smoky St. Louis dry rubbed ribs, and pimento cheese jar.

They have a fantastic crisp texture when raw, so they're nice in salads, slaws, and as refrigerator pickles. Just don't have too much at once, they're a very *windy* vegetable.

We've been very impressed by the sandwiches and Nate's fries (cooked in aged beef fat) on offer at the Mosaic District location. The only other sandwich joint (so excluding fine dining establishments that charge a much higher price) that is comparable would be SunDeVich. They're also selling an excellent bolognese sauce that has the rich taste of a good restaurant bolognese sauce.

My cover crop of fava beans is starting to flower, so I harvested the tips to redirect their energy. The 4 to 6 inch tips, quickly blanched, tastes just like pea shoots (fat tender ones at Asian markets, not the stringy and skinny ones occasionally encountered at upscale restaurants). It's really good with a peanut butter vinaigrette that I also use on blanched spinach. I may need to grow these every fall, just for the greens.

Halfway through our dinner I said to +1 that "this reminds me of F.I.G."

In my experience, the offerings from the roasting station seems to be the weakest, so the high proportion of items from that station that might have affected your experience there. I find that room temperature-ness of dishes to be a common fault at both Range and Volt. Bryan V's cooking style just require so much fussing with ingredients and techniques and plating (I sat through a Table 21 dinner where it seems like 90% of the kitchen staff's time was spent on assembling the plates) so the food always tastes like it might have sat five to ten minutes too long. Add the large size of Range's dining room, the coldness of the AC, and confusion of the staff - I've found some otherwise excellent dishes to be marred by the long wait.

I can recommend the Sleep Inn in Moab as a *budget* place. It's a pretty basic motel setup, but it's clean, spacious, and has a decent continental breakfast for under $100/night. The federal shutdown left us scrambling for alternative options to national parks, so we didn't spend nearly as much time around Moab as we originally anticipated. We can say that: Quesadilla Mobilla had very substantial and tasty quesadillas; Milt's Stop & Eat had very tasty bison burgers and ginormous cook-to-order sides I'll also include Boulder UT, Grand Junction CO, and Page AZ on this post, since they're less than 5 hours' drive away :-) Boulder - Hell's Backbone Grill was okay, not great. The food was kinda bland and executed at the level of a decent but not expert home cook. We did eat here for both lunch and dinner because there weren't many alternatives and the food was at least quite healthy, local, and organic. Grand Junction - Bin 707 Foodbar was good, not great. The best of the bunch were the various fried veggies, light and flavorful. The Berkshire pork tacos were tasty enough. The kitchen fries were fine, as was the burger. It's a solid pitstop if you're in Grand Junction or passing through, but not worth making a big detour for. Page - Blue Bakery & Wine Bar's tapas options were limited to about 10 things and they were out of 3. The meat and cheese plate turned out to be sausages sliced into 1/6 inch rounds and cheese in 1/2 cubes without any other accompanyments - tasty enough, but rather surprised to see this presentation at somewhere other than a friend's impromptu house party. Other stuff we ordered was fine but unmemorable. Also got habanero wings from Dam Bar & Grill (reasonably tasty, but not the amazing and lip blistering wonders of our memory) and RD's Drive-in (both agreed that chili fries were not worth eating after the first bite, +1 claimed that the green chile burgers were "eat-able" and ate it, eat-able being a category of foods we put just above "edible").

Had dinner at Chada Thai last Saturday. The service was attentive and wonderful - the wait staff is very knowledgeable and happy to steer us to the right dishes (and wines for other tables). The food was lovely too (though I'm discovering that I just don't like southern Thai / Malay food as much as I like Northern Thai / Lao food) and love the smaller portions that lets us try more dishes. The costs are quite reasonable, if not quite *cheap* by strip mall ethnic food standards. It rather sad to see so few customers during a prime time on Saturday night though - frankly, if you have the chance to go here, go now because I'm a bit worried about the long term financial health of the establishment. We also tried China Mama in the same strip mall. The cumin lamb was very tasty, tender with nice flavors from chile/sansho/cumin. The soup dumplings were well made but the filling tasted like it spent too much time in the freezer (the restaurant was only 10% filled on a Saturday night). The fried buns had tasty fillings and a decent crust, but it wasn't the soupy and delicious Shanghai style shengjianbao that I was expecting - it was okay but I would not order again. I really hope Vegas just has a different busy restaurant time than other cities (I believe Chada Thai is open until 3 AM everyday), because it's sad to see good restaurants stand so empty during Saturday evening.

Reporting back on Rioja, Kitchen, and Frasca. Rioja - both Rioja and Kitchen were very very good. +1 gives the edge to Rioja, citing their innovative menu and flavor combinations. Everything we tried was was very good. Pretty good service and nice restaurant space too. Kitchen (Denver) - Kitchen was definitely my favorite of the trip. The food was very fresh (dare I say pristine? I guess I just did), lightly prepared, and delightful. The space is beautiful, in that clean modern *straight out of high end life style magazine porn" way. The staff was gracious and the peekytoe salad special we tried was the amongst the best things ever. Frasca (Boulder) - deeply, deeply disappointing. The service and decor are nice, as it really has to be at this price level. The charcouterie plate was the best of the bunch, very substantial and attractive presentation at a very reasonable price. The pesce crudo was fresh and attractive presented, but smallish portions and not particularly tasty. We focused on trying 4 of 5 pastas on the menu, a big mistake. The pastas, were to my taste, just badly made, chalky or gummy, rather than silky or light. The saucing was off too - too bland for gnocchi, trenne, and tortelloni; harshly acidic for the chitarra. +1 is less sensitive to pasta textures and consequently liked the pasta more, but even he admits that these are far inferior to the (much cheaper) pasta dishes that we come to expect from Casa Luca, Red Hen, 2941, etc. We were frankly so disappointed that we didn't even bother with secondi or desserts.

Thanks Leleboo! We've made a lunch reservation at Rioja (and will try for a stopover in Kitchen as well) and a dinner reservation at Frasca. Will report back.

Any recommendations for a Saturday lunch in Denver? We're going on a Denver to Vegas roadtrip in October. Wondering about a good place for chow in Denver (would also appreciate pointers for Rocky Mountain NP, Aspen, and Grand Junction). Duo sounds promising, but wonder if there are other good options for lunch.

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We had really good softshells this summer at Hank's (cornmeal batter) and Sushi Taro (squid ink tempura).

Mana Foods is definitely worth a look for staples.

For me it's Trader Joe's vacuum fried pineapple chips. They were addictive as heck and perfectly portioned to prevent overeating. And now they appear to be impossible to buy in orders smaller than twenty-foot container units.

Just tried it on Friday night and I don't think it will be knocking out Momo as my go to place for specialty rolls (Momo can be as good as Kaz and Sushi Taro for specialty rolls). The fish is fresh and the service is pleasant, but the chefs' execution leaves much to be desired.

We made a first time visit to Montreal to take advantage of July 4th holiday. Overall, very impressed by the food, though with three notable exceptions. Another nice thing is that even with the flood of New Yorkers and the Montreal Jazz festival, we were still able to book all the tables that we wanted (though Au Pied du Cochon required an 11 PM reservation) only a day or two in advance. The top tier places here are really good, and definitely cheaper than their US equivalents. Another thing I really like is that even though the restaurants were really good and the service was excellent, they still retain joie de vivre often missing from high end US restaurants that tend to be too serious about their *art*. Le Filet - +1’s favorite and if we ever go back to Montreal we may make two reservations to have a complete survey of the menu. The comparison to a DC place might be Range – if Range executed everything perfectly and brings it to you seconds after its made. The space is also very cozy and relaxing. Le Quartier General – probably my favorite. On paper it seems like a cliché of a black chalkboard bistro. But the food is so good and reasonably priced (especially as it is a BYOB) and the atmosphere is very convivial. Le Club Chasse et Peche – the food and atmosphere is as good as Le Filet. We prefer Le Filet because we’re grazers who like a lot of small plate options, but this place would be great for a more formal romantic dinner. Europea – on paper, this seems like another clique of a high concept, molecular gastronomy palace. But after a minor misstep at the beginning (stale truffle popcorn) the food was as good as the presentation. Though we ordered a la carte they gave us a lot of extras that we thought only came with their tasting menu. Le Comptoir – very good value, nice atmosphere and service, terrific food Pintxo – the portions were quite reasonable for the price and well prepared. Only quibble is that the food seem to have a similar flavor profile and started running together a little bit. Au Cinquieme Peche – we stopped by for the novelty of its seal charcuterie plate, so we didn’t try much. But the service, cosy and not too boisterous atmosphere, and level of execution suggest that this would be a good place to return to. Le Salle a Manger – very loud and boisterous, generous portions. But the still plenty tasty preparations were a little lacking in delicacy compared to other places. Pastaga – my complaint is that their menu is a little limited and brunchy, but execution is as good as I’ve ever encountered for brunch. Their Frenched banana bread is the single best piece of brunch food I’ve ever eaten. Restaurant Toque – I feel like if I could have ordered differently, I would have like RT much more. The limited lunch menu and high prices pushed us to order lamb shoulder and pulled pork filled crepes for mains. While those were well executed, they didn’t quite elevate them to another level of goodness, as good restaurants can sometimes do for boring sounding dishes. The appetizers were very good however. The rhubarb dessert I had was rather small and too precious. Au Pied de Cochon – we were disappointed by APdC, especially given its outsized reputation (as others have mentioned, the restaurant is quite small and narrow). We had a strangely mushy and bland duck carpaccio. The $60 seafood platter was fresh but totally dominated by clams (at least 30 of various varieties and preparations) with only 4 oysters, a whelk, and two jars of frankly nasty periwinkles for variety. I would really have liked urchin or shrimp (the local shrimp are exceptionally tasty) or a couple raw scallops for variety. We didn’t think the seafood platter was particularly big. The bison tartare tamaki was pretty good and fried foie gras mousse was very good. The foie gras poutine is a well made poutine topped by a nicely seared piece of foie gras (our waiter was nice enough to get us an appetizer size portion to try). And the bread was the best thing we had at the place, it’s even better than Ashby Inn’s bread service. Good We enjoyed our ginormous poutines from Poutineville Meh to Meh-est St-Viateur Bagel – It was well made and warm, but I didn’t realize Montreal style bagel was so bready Schwartz’s Deli – not very impressed with the smoked meat sandwich (kinda dry and less flavorful than Takeateasy’s version) and the stale fries lacked flavor Maison Boloud – priced at a level where I demand mind blowing goodness, got good (but small) charcouterie, adequate (and small) burger, and meh (and small) portion of fries. The $38 steak tartare was a decent effort, but less tasty than $10-15 versions we encountered everywhere else in Montreal.

That honestly sounds cheap to me. They were going for $2/each in Kauai.

Just want to add a quick data point for this place. Inferior to La Canela in every way. The food ingredients were inferior (which really comes through with ceviche), the saucing was unsubtle, and the service was at best inattentive. The prices are a bit lower than La Canela, but the portions are noticeably smaller so the price per pound is actually higher. The place is jammed packed too. I feel like this might be one of those places that gets a pass for being in a strip mall. Or they had an insanely off-day last night.

If non-beef burgers have not yet been kicked out of contention, I would nominate 2941's Daffy burger. A duck patty topped with foie gras on a nicely toasted brioche roll, it's a hard formula to mess up and they didn't mess it up.

Maui – we had less time in Maui and ended up in the priciest places. The food/service were very good but the prices are very high. (favorite to least favorite) Mama’s Fish House – as noted by others, pricy but great location and atmosphere, +1 loved the food here, whereas I thought it was good but somewhat inferior to Lahaina Grill and Red Salt in Kauai. The mai tais here are very good and enormous in size. Lahaina Grill – everything we tried here was very good to exceptional (wagyu beef ravioli). The wait staff here has mastered the art of making their guests feel like a million bucks without any intrusive hovering. There’s no beach sunset view here and $5 parking is necessary, but this place just feels very special. Mana Foods – a sort of supercharged health food store. Very good quality food at very reasonable for Maui prices. The deli/bakery area has some very good selections including an excellent Thai beef salad. Spago – The sunsets from the outside dining area is beautiful, but best done with a sunhat and sunglasses. And you will get people repeatedly coming up next to you for sunset snapshots. The food was pretty good overall, but smallish portions and very high prices. Hali’imaile General Store – pretty good food and a bit cheaper than the fanciest places, but not quite as farm to table as their reputation would suggest. It seems like the sort of place that would be considered very special 10-15 years ago, but feels a bit dated for 2013. Hana Farms – we visited Maui in a relatively slow time, so this was one of the few open fruit stands on the Road to Hana. The prices are pretty high, but they do carry a largish range of things made or grown on their farm. The enthusiasm of the college age workers in the farm stand is delightful. They do clay oven pizza night Fri-Sunday and pizzas are pretty credible. I wasn’t as much a fan of their banana bread, too dense and sweet. Activities Snorkeling boat trip on Fair Winds II – the boat is very comfortable and the food is pretty good, the coral garden location is very nice with lots of coral and fish (they usually go to Molokini in the morning, but the sea was too rough on our day). These guys are very aggressive about selling add-ons like snuba, wet suit rental, and DVDs – that’s probably the main downside of going with them. Pipiwai trail – the first mile is not very interesting, but the bamboo forest to 400’ waterfall section is beautiful and very worthwhile. It does get muddy and a little slippery after rain, but nothing like krazy Kauai trails. Haleakala – it was alright, but we’ve seen more spectacular volcanic scenery on the Big Island, New Zealand and West Coast. It’s a nice drive up. I think the reputation for coldness around sunrise/sunset comes less from altitude than wind velocity. Road to Hana – it’s a pleasant drive except for all the scary 1.5 lane blind corners. The waterfalls along the way are pretty, but not really worth the hassle of stopping for. The scenery is not *that* spectacular. The hike around Waianapanapa beach is pretty nice. Additional mention Island Air – Larry Ellison’s third world airline, this outfit is apparently quite a joke amongst the locals. They managed to almost lose us on our Honolulu-Kauai flight (by giving us the wrong boarding time and directing us to the wrong terminal) and lose a piece of our luggage for several days for our Kauai-Maui leg. They also don’t have A/C in the cabin while the plane is on the ground.

I'll add my roundup for Kauai and Maui while everything is still relatively fresh in my mind. One thing to keep in mind for the main Hawaii islands is to bring your Costco membership card. Their locations are all within 5 miles of the airport and their gas prices are 30-40 cents cheaper per gallon than anywhere else on the islands. Also – while Kauai’s North Shore is beautiful, I find everything to be much easier on the south side – drier, better roads and facilities, less traffic, and much lower prices. Kauai restaurants (somewhat subjective best to worst) Ishihara Market - we tried all the local fish market (all are quite good) and this was the best. Amongst the best tasting, definitely lowest price and largest selection. They have 15-20 different kinds of poke alone, at lower than Costco prices. Unlike the other "markets", this is a well stocked store that offers all the essentials at very competitive prices. Great place to stock up if you're staying on the south side of Kauai. The staff is great too - we must have tried 15 different samples before making up our minds on poke purchases and they were generous with samples. Red Salt - this is the only fancy restaurant that we really *liked* on Kauai and its kitchen blows the competition out of the water. Ask for the sushi menu, it's pricy but whoever is manning the sushi station knows what he's doing. Pono Market - the deli is like Ishihara Market, but with smaller selection, higher prices, lack of non-deli items, and trickier parking situation. The staff was very friendly and generous with samples. Koloa Fish Market - the deli poke selection is smaller and more expensive than Ishihara or Pono, but our kayak guide (born and raised on Kauai) said they have the best kalua pork and lau lau plate lunch and we would tend to agree. The parking can be a bit tricky and food is best eaten as takeout (whereas Pono Market and Ishihara Market both offer eating areas). Lapperts Ice Cream - very good ice cream (and sorbet and gelato) with lots of exotic choices. The staff at the Poipu location were happy to supply us sample after sample. Papalani Gelato - pretty good gelato (they were refreshing but a bit sorbet-y) and friendly service, though the store is not quite as nice as Lapperts-Poipu, prices were slightly higher and the scoops a bit smaller compared to Lapperts. Kilaueau Fish Market - good dine in food. The deli/takeout options were very fresh and tasty, but considerably higher in price and smaller in selection than all other Kauai "markets". The service was also a bit snottier than other markets. Original Jo Jo's Shave Ice and Treats - there are two Jo Jo's in Waimea, we went to the larger one that had a retail looking front. The shave ice is great - big fluffy cones with up to three flavors. The flavors are highly colored and artificial tasting and very sweet, but that's to be expected for shave ice. The specialties that include coconut milk or fresh fruit are less sweet and easier to finish. Kilaueau Bakery - what we had was good and reasonably priced. Nothing special, but good place to pick up a loaf or something sweet for breakfast. Merriman's Cafe - pizza and burgers - pretty decent pizza and surprisingly enormous burgers cooked to the ordered temperature. Probably could be ranked higher, but no point in flying 10 hours each way to have decent pizza/burgers. Hukilau Lanai - Tripadvisor fails us again (it’s déjà vu Iceland). #1 ranked in Kauai restaurant was unexceptional with notable missteps. The portions were big, the service was good, and the prices were pretty reasonable but the food was heavy and felt dated (maybe late 90s feel). The fish entrees were overdone and seasoning lacked finesse. Beach House Restaurant – the location is fantastic, the food was slightly above average and somewhat pricy. The cocktail I had was pretty good and the service was nice. Puka Dogs – Kauai’s variant of half smoke is pretty good. The grilling gives the sausages a good crackly texture, and the condiments complements the dogs pretty well. The downside is the long wait to put in order and receive orders, the rather high prices, and too much bread for amount of sausage. Chicken in a Barrel – decent BBQ plate for the price. Not worth stopping if other Kapa’a food truck or plate lunch options are open. Tahiti Nui – okay food at high prices for smallish portions Josselin's Tapas Bar & Grill - overpriced, mediocre dreck. The menu reads far better than the food tastes. The prices are very high for the smallish portions. Other activities in Kauai (again, favorite to least favorite) doors off helicopter flight with Interislander – is awesome, definitely our best splurge of the vacation. Most of Kauai is inaccessible except by helicopter, and the views through Waimea canyon, Na Pali coast, and Waialeale area are awesome. We’ve seen lots of photos of these places before our trip, but experiencing them in a helicopter was so much better. We definitely had a fantastic experience with Interislander (chosen because they were closer to our lodging and had “private” flight options for two people). Although their flight is about 10 minutes shorter than their competition, their route misses the residential areas that Princeville or Lihue companies have to fly through, so we didn’t feel rushed at all. Our pilot’s narrative was information and thoughtful, and the ride was a thrill from start to finish. Niihau/Napali trip with Holo Holo – although the Ultimate Guide to Kauai highly recommend Na Pali boat trips leaving from North Shore rather than Port Allen near Waimea, we chose to go with Holo Holo out of Port Allen because we got more bang for our buck (we got a trip to Niihau and snorkeling at crater nearby for only $15-25 more than recommended North Shore Na Pali only trips). Although we were a bit disappointed by the snorkeling site (too little coral and fish, the captain’s first choice had too strong a current, unfortunately), the boat ride was a blast and we saw monk seals and dolphins in really clear water. The crew was very approachable and enthusiastic. Wailua River kayaking with Alii Kayak – We chose Ali’I because it was the cheapest but I couldn’t imagine a better guide for the trip than our guide Josh. Nice relaxing kayak up, followed by a somewhat muddy hike to a waterfall. It’s a fun and easy way to try out kayaking, but the trip route does get quite crowded and the scenery is not particularly amazing. Snorkeling – overall, snorkeling was a bit underwhelming. Kauai is too cold for a lot of colorful coral and most of the coral and rocks were covered by dull brown algae. We saw lots of colorful fish in Poipu and good number at Ke’e. The lack of parking, especially at Ke’e and Tunnels, and the rough sea conditions make snorkeling much trickier than I would have thought. Due to ocean conditions and traffic, we ended up not snorkeling at Tunnels at all, even though that’s the best snorkeling location on Kauai. Hiking – Kauai was highly touted for hiking so we were excited about the prospect of hiking before the trip. But upon closer observation, it turned out to be a very frustrating place to hike. The local red dirt becomes extremely slick mud with anything more than a sprinkling of rain. And we experienced rain everyday while we’re on Kauai. And many of the most interesting sounding trailheads require driving through extremely rough dirt roads or have inadequate parking. The hikes we did were beautiful and interesting, but with the exception of Maha’ulepu, footholds were scary even with hiking boots and trekking poles. In retrospect, we should have hiked with five fingers shoes for extra grip, rather than conventional hiking boots. The Ultimate Guide publisher has a too relaxed attitude about what visitors can attempt in a rental car – I would recommend just hiring a local guide or hike with the local chapter of the Sierra Club. Guiding service is an expensive option, but we were certainly glad for it when our guide drove past half a dozen rental cars caught by a rainstorm on Camp 10 Road – a road that I would be afraid to drive in a jeep in dry weather. Smith's Family Luau (show only) – $15/person is pretty cheap option for the show only and the setting is pretty, but this was a far inferior production to the Kona Villages show that we saw on the Big Island 4 years ago. The show felt like a high school talent show, not a group of entertainment professionals.

@ JeffC: Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, we missed Pranee's by a day. We ended up getting pizza takeout (wrapped in banana leaves) at Hana Farm's stand.

Good grief! I would recommend forgoing Little Serow and go to Bangkok Golden instead. An April first visit to Bangkok Golden cured me of moaning about the recent lack of Little Serow in my life.