One eats lunch in the Denver Technology Center not out of desire, but out of convenience. The food itself is generally an afterthought to the business at hand. DTC is littered with establishments that reflect the simple necessity of the Business Lunch, offering standard, non-offensive fare that is the culinary equivalent of the order for IBM equipment: No one gets fired for ordering the house special and taking a few nondescript bites only to push the food out of the way to display the powerpoint presentation you "just happen" to have with you. Into this clich�d wasteland of chicken sandwiches and cobb salads spring up a few unexpected delights. One is the Cajun Crab Cake sandwich (#33 on the menu) at Heidi's, 8665 East Prentice in Greenwood Village (and www.heidisbrooklyndeli.com). A highlight of my youth (that I can repeat in a public forum) were trips to St. Michaels Crab House on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, which meant dozens of crabs spilled out on the picnic table, with reams of paper towels for the mess. Ever since those trips, I've always had an affection for crabmeat. Part of it is the sheer folly of a creature that has 10 legs but can only walk sideways (and badly). Part is the quick transition from animal to adjective. Probably most of it was the angry adolescence's delight of getting a little hammer to whack the heck out of the creature while pulling meat from its collapsed carapace, covered up to my elbows in crabshell bits and goo. Crabmeat itself is delectable: enough texture and flavor to hold its own with nothing but a little butter (and some vats are, relatively speaking, "little"), but better when drowned with sauce. Heidi's Cajun Crab Cake sandwich is firm (crumbling apart is a bad sign) and comes with a spicy, flavorful sauce that rope-a-dopes for the first bite or two before jabbing you right in the nose. It's best with Ciabatta bread, a thick, Italian loaf that soaks up the sauce and suffers only from an unpronounceable name ("Cha-bah-tah"). This is a sandwich that's likely to keep the powerpoint in your pocket, much less erase any mention of "monetizing multi-layer value-added revenue opportunities" from your palate.
Heidi's full name is Heidi's Brooklyn Deli, although it was founded and only operates in Colorado. I've always thought that calling yourself after something you are clearly not is an admission of instant regret; a bit like the fat kid with the nickname "skinny", or when someone insists on referring to their girlfriend as Tyra Banks. Still, Heidi's, � with eight locations and ten more apparently on their way � has no such regrets. And after a few bites of their Cajun Crab Cake sandwich, I could care less about Brooklyn.
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