{"id":6412,"date":"2012-11-07T04:14:40","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T04:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eataspen.com\/blog\/?p=6412"},"modified":"2012-11-07T04:14:40","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T04:14:40","slug":"will-eats-the-red-onion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/will-eats-the-red-onion\/","title":{"rendered":"Will eats: The Red Onion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Review of The Red Onion<\/a>
\nBy William K.
\nAugust 2012<\/p>\n

The Red Onion opened for business after many false starts two years ago. It\u2019s Aspen\u2019s oldest–but not continuously operating–restaurant. The building itself is worth a visit.\u00a0 Situated on the Cooper Street pedestrian mall, the restaurant has been restored with great care. The result is an authentic, laid back cowboy-style bar and restaurant, a go-to place for a weeknight dinner or just a drink and snack with friends.<\/p>\n

I head to the Red Onion<\/a> because it\u2019s got one of\u00a0 the best and largest outdoor eating areas, removed from traffic and well-positioned for checking out the Aspen scene. I don\u2019t go there expecting fine cuisine or an elegant atmosphere. It\u2019s a regular, unpretentious destination for kids,, raucous drinkers, locals and tourists–who all coexist there quite happily.<\/p>\n

One of last times I ate at Red Onion was for my brother\u2019s 13th<\/sup> birthday dinner. Imagine a group of 12 tweeners, swigging pitchers of coke and demolishing plate after plate of excellent nachos, piled high with cheese and black beans. Delicious. And the service couldn\u2019t have been more accommodating to our unruly group.<\/p>\n

More recently, I stopped by the restaurant with my buddy Alexander for an early dinner on a warm summer evening. \u00a0We were exhausted from a long day outdoors and profoundly hungry. Luckily, we scored a table outside. \u00a0I ordered the Grilled Romaine Wedge salad as my appetizer. The salad was a creative interpretation of the basic Caesar. Augmented with a little extra dressing (the waiter was very accommodating), the salad was pretty darn good. I followed it up with the Red Onion Burger, cooked medium rare as requested.\u00a0 A side fries made the meal complete. I was in burger nirvana.<\/p>\n

Alexander took a more adventurous route. He had the steak and chicken fajitas, a sizzling and satisfying choice. He started his meal with a sampler plate of the Red Onion\u2019s famous wings and I helped him out.\u00a0 We sampled the wings in all three flavors\u2014Thai chili, Spicy Buffalo (our favorite) and BBQ.<\/p>\n

Nearly faint from overeating, Alexander and I decided to share the brownie sundae for dessert. It was a good decision. There\u2019s a tendency these days to take old-time desserts like brownie sundaes and overdress and deconstruct them with cinnamon ice cream and spun sugar. This particular brownie sundae was served just as it was advertised: nothing fancy, just a warm brownie, vanilla ice cream and caramel and chocolate sauce. A classic dessert in a classic setting.\u00a0 The cowboys of yesteryear would have definitely approved.<\/p>\n

– William K.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

William, a self -trained epicure and sophomore at Aspen High School, has been an Aspen resident for five years. A native New Yorker, William honed his young taste buds in fine eating establishments throughout lower Manhattan. When not eating (or writing about eating), William can be found playing his guitar or throwing a mean fastball. Writing for eatAspen is the perfect intersection of his favorite interests\u2014good food and the written word.<\/p>\n

View the Red Onion<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more reviews by William<\/a><\/p>\n

See all eatAspen eater reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in burger nirvana…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[439,440,451,460,612],"class_list":["post-6412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aspen-restaurants","tag-project-eataspen","tag-project-eatreviews","tag-red-onion","tag-reviews","tag-william-k","author-dmwkes","aspen-restaurants"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aUGV-1Fq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}