The story behind the name of a new restaurant at Stanley Marketplace is a sweet one. “Boychik” is a Yiddish term of endearment for a boy or a young man. The Nanas of childhood friends Charles Troup and Chase Devitt would say “I love you, Boychik” when saying goodbye or goodnight. Chase and Charlie became friends at the age of 11 when attending Hebrew summer camp and have been friends ever since. Together they opened the first Boychik location, a food stall in Avanti Boulder in 2020. This location is their first brick and mortar, sit-down restaurant and bar.
More of the Boychik story…
Knowing a desk job wasn’t going to be his thing, Charlie followed Chase to Colorado where the friends spent three years in Vail Valley working in the restaurant industry and skiing, of course. Both then worked for Oak at Fourteenth in Boulder. In 2019, Charlie went on a culinary trip to Israel with the Safta restaurant team and returned feeling inspired by the cuisine. Looking for an opportunity to work for themselves, Charlie and Chase launched Boychik in Avanti which has been a big success. That motivated them to open this location in a spot within Stanley Marketplace that has been something of a Bermuda Triangle for other fast-casual restaurants. After our visit to Boychik though, I have no doubt that this spot will be a big success for the team.
That assessment started the moment I walked in the door and saw the open space with creamy coloring, arches, and hip, earthy textile hangings. There are glass garage doors that let in plenty of light and that open up to a wrap-around patio that seats 50, in addition to the 50 inside. Ten or so people can sit at the bar for sips or an entire meal.
The lighting was lovely (I hate it when it’s bad) and pale pink carafes sit at every table for the next water refill needed. It’s just a pretty place.
And now, the food at Boychik…
There are a lot of ingredients on Boychik’s menu that will make you want to look them up discreetly under the table. Even though I make some Middle Eastern dishes, I had to look up several of the items – there’s no shame. The majority are herbs and spices that are earthy, aromatic, and take the food to new levels.
The food menu is divided up by Dips & Spreads, Salads & Mezze, Entrees, and Bites. Traditional Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Whipped Feta, Labneh (seasoned Greek yogurt), Muhammara (a spicy pepper-tomato dish) and Moroccan Sweet Potato comprise the Dips & Spreads section. They are priced at $8 each or 3/$22, all served with pita or veggies. Sensing that my husband and I were hemming and hawing over the choices, our lovely server mentioned that the Sweet Potatoes were her favorite and that they are very unique, with ras el hanout, cilantro, mint, pomegranate molasses and Urfa biber spiced nuts. (I see you looking up some of those.)
As delicious as that sounded, we went for the Baba Ganoush which, along with Hummus, are my personal indicators of a good Middle Eastern restaurant.
Boychik’s Baba Ganoush passed the test just fine, although I was looking for more of the smokiness I grew up with that came from my grandmother roasting the whole eggplant right over the open flame of her gas stove until the skin was charred and the insides were pulpy. Still, it was very good. Now the pita bread… oh, that pita bread! It was so pillowy and delicious. It’s the best I’ve had (don’t tell grandma).
There are a lot of choices under the Salads & Mezze menu ($10-$18) including Fried Cauliflower, Quinoa Tabbouleh Salad, Shrimp (which they said is very popular), and Marinated Swordfish. We ordered the latter, served with labneh, zhoug, lemon and scallion because we’d never seen swordfish on a Middle Eastern restaurant menu. It was glorious! Firm but tender, moist and full of flavor, it’s something the restaurant should be pushing. Order it!
With so many options in those two menus, you could easily make a meal of a few and be just fine. We were eager to try the Entrees though, which are divided up into “wraps,” “hummus,” and “plates,” each with similar options of chicken shawarma, falafel, fried cauliflower and lamb gyro. So, it’s just a matter of whether you want that main thing in the form of a wrap, over hummus, or in a plate that comes with pita, cucumber-tomato salad, zhoug, traditional hummus and quinoa tabbouleh. Prices in this section range from $14-$20.
My husband ordered the Fried Cauliflower Wrap with hummus, sumac pickled onions, dates, arugula, mint and cilantro. He loved the flavor and texture but was so stuffed by this point, he saved the other half for lunch the next day and it held up well thanks, in part, to it being wrapped in foil.
I ordered the Lamb Gyro Plate because, well, more pita bread, and it gave me the chance to try Boychik’s hummus to complete my test. Our server seconded that the plates are a good option because they come with a variety of other items, some of which are stand-alone options on the menu. I’ll jump right to the hummus – it was silky-creamy and managed to balance the garbanzo beans, tahini paste, olive oil and tahini absolutely perfectly. It was what all bowls of hummus want to grow up to be.
I’d been watching Executive Chef/Co-Owner Chase carve away at the gyros and chicken shawarma cones on their upright rotisserie ovens. When we’d walked by them, even at a distance, we could feel the heat! No wonder it was often Chase who would deliver the plates to guests – he couldn’t stand the heat so he had to get out of the kitchen! The lamb gyros was tender, delicious, not overly salty, and was more slabs of meat than what one often gets that’s pressed and processed. And let me take a moment here for all of those who have been reading along, pronouncing gyro as “guy-ro” or “gye-ro”. It’s “yee-roh.” Always has been, always will be. Okay, read on.
What’s a wrap or gyros meat without fries? Nothing, I tell ya, nothing! So we ordered the Za’atar Fries ($7) from the Bites menu. What would be considered “steak fries” were exactly what you want a fry to be – tender inside, crispy outside and full of potato flavor. I’ve had Za’atar seasoning on fries before and it’s always been heavy-handed. This was just right, giving those spuds the perfect extra somethin’-somethin’.
Also on that Bites menu were Marinated Olives, Turmeric Pickled Cauliflower, Spiced Nuts and Marinated Feta ($6-$8). But there was also the Mezze Platter ($24) with hummus, baba ganoush, spiced nuts, marinated olives, pickled cauliflower, pita and veggies. Oh man, we shoulda, coulda ordered that and gotten a good taste of a variety of things. We saw several people making a shared meal of that platter with some wine and cocktails.
You’d think, after all that we’d eaten, even restraining ourselves to halvsies on our entrees, that we wouldn’t have one millimeter of stomach space left for dessert. But really, how heavy could something called “Citrus Cream Phyllo” be, with crispy phyllo, orange, pistachios, rose water and labneh?
Thankfully, it wasn’t too heavy and we managed to polish off every flaky, nutty crumble. We could have ordered from the other two dessert options but will save those for another visit. They were very tempting though – Flourless Chocolate Cake, something on many restaurant menus, got royal treatment with tahini ice cream, cacao nibs and black sesame. And Pistachio Ice Cream has candied pistachio streusel, date caramel and chopped dates. They run $8-$11. I mean, come on, those combinations? These Boychik fellas know what they are doing!
Besides the water frequently replenished from those pretty, pale pink carafes, there is a full bar menu with wine, beer, creative cocktails, after dinner drinks, and non-alcoholic options. And they have Happy Hour, with both food and drink specials, Monday-Friday, 3-5pm so you can try them out.
Any concerns I had for whatever restaurant went into that space at Stanley Marketplace went out the window almost from the moment we sat down. And it definitely went away with every bite I took. As I’ve said here on InGoodTasteDenver.com before, we get to dine out at many restaurants from high-end to food trucks. There are very few that I’ll say are exceptional. But I mean it about Boychik. They’ve got it going on and you need to go get in there.
Boychik is located at Stanley Marketplace at 2501 Dallas St., Aurora. Check out the website, which provides information on both this and their Avanti location in Boulder.
-Article and photos, except where noted, by Courtney Drake-McDonough, publisher and managing editor, InGoodTasteDenver.com.
Comments are closed.