In many ways, Boulder’s restaurant culture, with its focus on local, organic and high-quality ingredients and preparation, serves as a model for what the rest of the country could be doing to help Americans eat better. But a significant barrier to that end is that many Americans find the forwardness of that culture pushy or obnoxious, even if they embrace those values. As Weird Al Yankovic (a committed vegan for several decades sang) in his song, “I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead,” “don’t want no part of that vegetarian scene … you won’t catch me sipping Perrier down at some sushi bar.”
With that in mind, the place to then look for how best to export Boulder’s food values may not be the farmers’ market but Turley’s Kitchen, which has been serving Boulder since the late ’70s. While the architectural holdovers from its days as a franchise make it look and quack a bit like a chain steakhouse, it cooks like something else altogether. That makes it familiar enough to lure in the normies, and then pull the old bait and switch, giving them a burger made from grass-fed beef with the option of seasonal veggies on the side. Boom. Now you’re eating better, suckers.
The menu features a selection of sandwiches, salads and soups, with the prerequisite Colorado selection of Southwest- and Mexican-influenced dishes. It’s mostly familiar items like burgers, chicken salad sandwiches, Ceasar salad and wild salmon. Perhaps the most adventurous item on the menu, strictly from a composition perspective, is the buffalo meatloaf ($17.50), which is served with mashed potatoes, seasonal veggies and a tomato chutney.
I ordered a chili relleno ($5.25) from the appetizers menu to start. The poblano chili came wrapped and fried in a wonton wrapper on a bed of green chili. It wasn’t much more than a nibble (appetizer and all), but it had a nice crunch and structure to it. The green chili was definitely more on the rich side than the spicy side, with the chili almost being an ornamental term, but it was a nice flavor regardless.
A cup of Hungarian mushroom soup I ordered had a smooth, creamy flavor and thick structure free of the particulates that can haunt the dish. A red quinoa salad ($10.50), made with organic kale, black beans, roasted peppers, cilantro, jicama and roasted pineapple, had an excellent balance of sweet and earthy flavors. A blueberry cobbler for dessert came with a nice scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.
The breakfast menu at Turley’s Kitchen — which placed in two categories of this year’s Best of Boulder voting — hems the same line, with omelettes, benedicts and pancake/waffle options.
An excellent food writer I used to work with constantly railed against diners and chain restaurants, saying that she couldn’t understand “why people insist on still eating like it’s the 1970s.” Turley’s Kitchen isn’t keeping the spirit of ’77 alive in the Village Inn sense, all straight hashbrowns and club sandwiches. Instead, it’s using that as a starting place to find a path to healthier eating with food familiar enough for those that aren’t ready to admit that the ’80s and its sushi revolution are here to stay, but healthy enough to make a difference. Either here in Boulder, or out there in Sarah Palin’s “real America,” Turley’s Kitchen would be a hit.
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