While the restaurant business is down across the country, eateries have reported that sales are up for two things: comfort foods and alcohol. “We’ve just been selling the heck out of mashed potatoes,” says a server at the Buckhorn Exchange (1000 Osage Street), one of my many stops during Dine…
Forget Cipro. Right now, a shortage of mashed potatoes has far more potential to do Denver in. Not that we should start petitioning the government to remove the patent on Yukon golds just yet. But at the rate that we’re consuming comfort foods, Betty Crocker needs to watch her back…
Q: Where’s the best place to have five beers and a good meal and watch Monday Night Football? A: My favorite Monday-night spot is the Lazy Dog Sports Bar and Grill (4100 East Mexico Avenue, 303-300-6666), which has all the crucial ingredients for a satisfying sports meal: a big beer…
Technically, El Azteca Grill & Cantina (1780 South Buckley Road in Aurora) qualified as the metro area’s first Cuban restaurant — but initially only on Thursdays. An offshoot of the El Azteca that sprang up several years earlier at 3960 South Federal Boulevard, when this spot opened three years ago,…
I discovered Cuban food on the streets of Miami a dozen or so years ago when I lived in Naples, two hours’ drive across Alligator Alley. The first time I wandered through Little Havana, I felt as though I’d been transported to another country: English as a second language, sidewalk…
She’s ba-a-ack. Not even six years in the joint could keep Ruth Chiffon von Seeburg-Schausten Prager from returning to the restaurant business, even though she did her time because the evidence against her involved years of bad money deals for eateries she either worked in or ran (“Would You Buy…
Q: I’m very excited that my 93-year-old great aunt may visit. I’d like to find a special “old-lady” kind of place to take her. Since her hearing and eyesight aren’t what they used to be, it can’t be too dark or loud ‹ but it has to be nice. A:…
Big night: There wasn’t an empty table at any of the dozen restaurants I visited on Thursday, October 11, during the Dine Out to Help Out fundraiser — and it sounds like that was the case at many of the several hundred participating eateries around Colorado. In fact, the state…
Restaurants that don’t change with the times — and tastes — can find themselves washed up. After seven years, Coos Bay Bistro is long overdue for a course correction. Brett Davy opened the restaurant in 1994, taking over a small space that had been home to a neighborhood Italian joint…
Q: I want to find a fancy, old-school, elegant place where between ten and twenty folks in their late twenties/early thirties can go for a fancy, dress-up holiday dinner. But we don’t want it to be too stuffy, and we don’t want to spend thousands of dollars. Any ideas? A:…
Laurence Iwamoto isn’t offended by Hapa’s hot, sexually charged atmosphere (see review, above). What he finds offensive is the restaurant’s name. Not long after the sushi bar opened in Cherry Creek, Iwamoto, a Japanese native and Denver resident, wrote the owners to complain that the term hapa — which Iwamoto…
Our order read like the trailer for a porn video. Some foreplay, please, and 69 would be great. We definitely wanted a multiple orgasm (who wouldn’t?), and the rock ‘n’ roll and magic mushrooms, too. And could we finish that off with a climax? If your average porn flick doesn’t…
The wind is just starting to die down on Fremont Pass when a faded-blue ’71 long-bed Ford swerves onto the gravel. “Thank God,” says the driver, a wiry little man dressed in jeans the color of his truck. “I was worried it would be too windy for you today. I…
Q: I’m looking for a nice restaurant with good food outside the Denver metro area, somewhere on the south or southwest side of town. A: Try Sage Southwestern Grill (699 West Littleton Boulevard, Littleton, 303-797-2181), a small but charming spot that features innovative Southwestern fare, or Luigi’s Bent Noodle (8130…
Prawn in sixty seconds: Singapore Grill (see review above) isn’t the only place in town where you can suck out the heads of shrimp. First came the Isle of Singapore (2022 South University Boulevard), a small eatery that’s won several Best of Denver awards over the past few years. Tucked…
Sucking the meat out of a shrimp’s head may be as close to exotic adventure as we’re going to get in the near future. So there’s no time like the present to visit Singapore Grill — and be transported to Malaysia. Malaysian cuisine is a variation on the foods of…
Q: Where is the best happy hour on a Friday night in the LoDo or Washington Park areas? I’m looking for a hip, upscale place that has good ambience, great food and food deals, a big bar area and sociable crowds. A: In what’s officially LoDo, the good places for…
Fast on the heels of a name change at what had been Mel’s Bar and Grill — the restaurant at 235 Fillmore Street is now Mel’s Restaurant and Bar — came the announcement that executive chef Goose Sorensen is moving on. Former sous chef Ben Davison, who’d moved to Mel’s…
At the end of a yoga session, participants often stand with their hands placed together as if in prayer, bow to the instructor and say, “Namasté” — Sanskrit for “I bow to the divine in you.” The word, which is also a traditional Nepalese greeting, carries both respect and gratitude,…
Q: You may be tired of calamari, but it’s one of my favorite foods. Who makes the best in Denver? A:Although I’ve eaten more than my fair share of squid in this town, it’s always been a pleasure at three Kevin Taylor joints: Zenith (815 17th Street, 303-293-2322), jou jou…
It’s not easy to find a restaurant with character in the chain-linked suburbs, much less a spot as charming as Sage Southwestern Grill. Sage occupies a cottage that was formerly the home of Geppetto’s, an Italian eatery that was also quite charming. But when Rich and Cheryl Brown took over…
Q: We live near Parker, and we are looking for a place down south for our anniversary. Is there anything romantic and upscale in this area? A:Hop onto I-25 and head for the Swan (200 Inverness Drive West, Englewood, 303-397-6350), a beautiful restaurant in the Inverness Hotel. The Swan’s food…
