Japanese rice-bowl joints are supposed to be fast, cheap and nutritious. If they were just fast and cheap, they’d be McDonald’s. If they were just fast and nutritious, they’d be Juice Stops. And if they were just cheap and nutritious, they’d be U-Pick berry farms. You get the picture: Remove…
Q: I’m getting married in the fall. Who do you think makes the best wedding cakes? A:I haven’t been invited to enough weddings to have tested every wedding-cake bakery in town, but I did get to swoon over two incredible cakes recently. One was from Le Delice (250 Steele Street,…
When Bella Ristorante opened at 1920 Market Street back in 1995, the Italian eatery was one of the most ambitious locally owned restaurants to venture into the Ballpark Neighborhood. The concept took off — in fact, Bella opened a southeast outpost (now located at 8770 East Arapahoe Road in Englewood)…
When the woman in the little black dress spit a mouthful of Champagne at her date, everyone in Citrus Champagne and Vodka Lounge tensed up. Was she now going to slap him across the face? Throw her glass across the room? Shoot him and drop the gun on her way…
Q: What’s a locally owned Mexican restaurant not far from the center of town with a nice atmosphere and terrific food? A: One of my favorite Mexican eateries is La Loma (2527 West 26th Avenue, 303-433-8300), a nearly thirty-year-old institution that serves some of the town’s best green chile and…
After 41 years as a Japanese restaurant, Akebono (1255 19th Street) is turning Chinese, I really think so. Fred Aoki, who was born in California, was one of the first people to lease space in Sakura Square when it was built in 1960. Back before WWII, Aoki’s parents sent him…
A cowboy walked into the bar and ordered a Bud. “Sorry, we don’t have Bud,” the bartender said. “Well, what do you have?” the cowboy asked, adjusting his hat and hitching one Wrangler-clad leg up on the stool. The bartender threw out a few microbrew names, none of which seemed…
Colorado Cache Reading through the three cookbooks produced by the Junior League of Denver serves as an armchair tour of Colorado’s recent culinary history. The now legendary Colorado Cache, published in 1978, featured an intriguing mix of salt-of-the-earth favorites (Spaghetti Pie, Corn-Broccoli Bake, Perfect White Cake), exotic-sounding foreign classics (Twelve-Boy…
The cookbook looks more like a scrapbook than something a person would refer to for information — much less precise, instructional information. Pieces of torn paper and yellowed newspaper clippings stick out from all sides, and a thin veneer of sugar, shiny and browned, coats much of the back. Both…
Q: Where can you get a decent hot dog in this town, preferably one that isn’t some fancy upscale thing that costs five bucks? A: No yuppie pups at Chicago (8590 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood, 303-233-0500), where two bucks buys a big, fat Vienna beef with the works, including tomatoes,…
The Tom-Tom club: Tom’s Diner isn’t the only place in town named after a true Tom cat. For almost three years now, Tom Unterwagner has been cooking up a storm at Tom’s Home Cookin’, a Southern-inspired takeout joint at 3403 Holly Street. But that location is now closed, and on…
While waiting for our food to arrive at Tom’s Diner, we gaze out the window and watch two drug deals, one hooker pickup and a drunk depositing the contents of his stomach on the sidewalk. And our food arrives fast. “Oooh, sorry about that,” the server says as she spots…
Q: Do you know of any amateur wine clubs in Denver where people meet on a regular basis to talk about wine? A: Since our state legislature put the kibosh on wine tastings in liquor stores this past session, the most obvious avenue for organized but informal wine tastings has…
That hits the Spot: It was googie while it lasted, but the White Spot has finally closed its doors at 800 Broadway — despite the fact that those doors led into a room so California coffee-shop classic that it ranked as a true googie (named after Googie’s, a long-gone roadside…
Diners who see their plates as half empty rarely venture into a hole-in-the-wall eatery to discover what it might offer. Those of us with a more optimistic bent, however, regard every tiny, off-the-beaten-track spot as a potential pearl. One such lucky find: Moongate Asian Grill, a very small (six tables)…
Q: Is there anywhere in the area where I can walk in off the street and buy a deviled egg? A: I thought I was going to lay an egg on this one, since the only place I could count on for freshly made deviled eggs was the now-defunct East…
As an avid mountain biker — is there any other kind? — and beer lover, I was a guaranteed sucker for Bike & Brew America: Rocky Mountain Region (Brewers Publications, $16.95), the first in a series of six books proposed as a joint effort of the Association of Brewers (headquartered…
The new kid on the block is a blockbuster. The people who brought us Mizuna are far from newbies, however. Owners Frank Bonanno and Doug Fleischmann have been around the Denver dining block a few times, usually in conjunction with restaurants owned by Mel and Janie Master, such as Mel’s…
Q: Friends were recently discussing how much fun it is to go to restaurants that allow you to bring in your own wine and beer. Are there any places like that in Denver? A: Either your buddies are from out of state or they frequent local eateries that are run…
Good to gone: Now that he’s had some time to think about it, Tom Moxcey says that if he had it to do all over again, he’d still open Diane’s Good to Go — but he might do things differently next time around. Moxcey closed two of his five Diane’s…
At first glance, it would seem that the cooking of Greece and Mexico have nothing in common. The two countries are thousands of miles and an ocean apart, a distance emphasized by different terrains, different soils and different climates, which in turn translate into different agricultural practices, different ingredients, different…
Q: We’re going to the Aspen Food & Wine Festival the weekend of June 15 and plan to linger for a few days afterward. What’s the don’t-miss restaurant in Aspen for someone who’s never been there? A: If I were you, I’d skip the festival and spend the money on…
