For being so scarily landlocked, Boulder has a lot of sushi places.  The marvels of modern air travel and refrigeration, of course, but this place has specials which are flown in from Tsukiji market.  They use actual wasabi (and let me tell you, if you’ve never had real wasabi, but only the doctored horseradish in common use in this country [and indeed, everywhere outside Japan], real wasabi is eye-opening—it’s got an intense-but-short-lived burst of sinus-clearing sharpness).  They have excellent service, from Japanese niceities (irasshaimase as you enter, free tea, etc.) to just a universally appealing sense that you are a person and they are a person and they will treat you well, and you will be glad to return.

There’s not too much I can really say about Japanese food—in fact, less, the better it is.  The food at Sushi Tora is made with an elegant simplicity (but look out for the mayonnaise in the California rolls—it’s a thing they do out in this part of the country, apparently?  But you can always ask for real crab and no mayo) and in a pleasingly sunlit and calming atmosphere.  It’s a bit expensive, but when you want great Japanese, and to not have to think about it, but just let it make you sit up straighter in your seat and half-long for a zabuton rather than a chair, it’s the place.

The West End Tavern is over on Pearl and 9th in Boulder, and serves that weird sort of cuisine that I have no satisfactory name for, as it lacks a distinct ethnic or national identity.  I’ve been once for lunch and once for dinner, and both times the food has taken a bit of time to arrive, but the atmosphere is pleasant enough that this is really a plus.  The service is wonderful, attentive without being overly so.

When we sat down for dinner, Mom found herself sinking deep into the plush seat, and was offered a pillow to counteract the deep upholstered wonderfulness.  The dressing she put on her salad was too strong for her, and they offered her another salad.  And so on.

The food itself, when it arrived, was wonderful: a perfectly rare-medium-rare burger for Mom was perhaps the highlight, though the vegetable enchilada i had was excellent, too.  But the real gems were the beer we had (Young’s Oatmeal Stout on tap, a rich and complex stout, all-around excellent) and the dessert, which involved a fresh-made chocolate chip cookie in a cast-iron skillet, with icecream atop it, and all drizzled in chocolate and caramel.  The whole thing still sizzled from the heat.  It was amazing.

This is a place I want to go back to on any special occasion that might arise.

Pasta Jay’s is a restaurant I’ve walked past often (it’s just blocks from my house) but only recently gotten to.  It’s usually bustling on a weekday lunch, with large groups at the red-and-white checked tables.  The fare is pasta and pizza, but, from my small sampling, very well done.

We went there for lunch today, after intending to go Sushi Tora, next door and finding them closed.  It was a choice of desperation, or default, or something starting with D, imposed by Mom’s injured leg and a desire to not walk far.  It turned out very well.

Italian food is a bit of a workhorse in this country, with quick pasta and red sauce being a common no-thought meal of choice.  But it can also be truly wonderful, as I rediscovered last year.  After almost four years of college-cafeteria pasta bar being my main reminder of Italian food, I went to a then-new nearby Italian restaurant, and was blown away by their bruschetta (garlicky, with bread at just the right level of toasted crunch), their mussels (cozze al vino bianco is not something I usually think to order, but it called to me that night, and did not disappoint) and most of all by their tomato-mozzarella-portobello tower.

While Pasta Jay’s was not quite as much of an awakening, it was just the sort of solid, complex and satisfying food I seek when having Italian.  My parents ordered minestrone, and I had a mushroom ravioli.  The ravioli was wonderful, though not particularly mushroomy, being much more clearly about the tomato, onion and garlic.  Not at all bad, but not quite what I had envisioned.  The minestrone, however, was amazing: the sort of real-vegetables-in-real-broth that one seeks.  All together, and with tip, it came out to about $10 a person, which isn’t bad for lunch and is really rather good for the west end of Pearl Street.

I’m not going to attempt any numerical classification, and certainly not on the basis of one visit, but I will say that the food was very good, the service was attentive but not annoying (they even gave a small taste of the soup to Mom when she was trying to decide what to order), and the price was reasonable.  Definitely recommended.  It’s also one of very few Italian restaurants in downtown Boulder that I have come across.

(Next time, I’ll try to remember to take out my camera, and provide some pictures of the more scrumptious dishes.)