Biker Jim’s, Rioja and Table 6 all on the national radar

While y’all already know that Westword’s Cafe Society blog is far and away the best place to digest all your local food and restaurant news, it just so happens that three of our favorite food places — Rioja, Table 6 and Biker Jim’s — got some well-deserved love and ink…

Lola gets back to the barrio tonight

Lola, at 1575 Boulder Street, rolled out its new brunch menu yesterday. The chicken and waffles plate is gone, but the award-winning chicken-fried steak is back, alongside peaches and cream pancakes, buffalo chimichanga, a lamb torta and sweet corn grits. And the weekend brunch menu isn’t the only change. Tonight…

Milking It: Cinnamon Chex

Cinnamon Chex General Mills Rating: Three-and-a-quarter spoons out of four Cereal description: The familiar Chex shape — puffy, square grids, like graph paper made for chewing — is present and accounted for, as are the base ingredients of rice and corn flour. Some of the pieces are a light brown…

Red meat, wine and a cookbook signing tonight at Morton’s Tech Center

Morton’s the Steakhouse just launched Morton’s the Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Every Kitchen, and tonight, Morton’s Denver Tech Center, 8480 East Belleview Avenue, is hosting Klaus Fritsch, the author of that cookbook and co-founder of the Morton’s steakhouse chain. The signing, which is $59 per person, goes from 6 to…

Arf, arf! It’s Panzano’s Pooch Power Hour

From 2:30 to 6 p.m. today, Pooch Power Hour (or hours, as the case may be), a dog-friendly powwow where you can fatten your pup with complimentary housemade peanut butter pupcakes (and other doggone good snacks), premieres on the patio at Panzano, the Italian restaurant at 909 17th Street, in…

The List: Denver’s most fantastic fusion

Denver hasn’t done fusion very well, historically speaking. Matter of fact, Denver has done fusion fantastically poorly, and has seen more fusion restaurants close in shame than flourish in these skeptical latitudes. Nine out of ten times, a fusion restaurant is doomed to suck before it even opens its doors…

Colfax, South Pearl host street festivals today

At 11 a.m. today, the first Local Flavor Fest kicks off on Colfax Avenue, right by the Lowenstein Complex that houses the Tattered Cover, Twist & Shout and Encore restaurant. The festival, which will run until 4 p.m., celebrates local businesses, and features a raffle, food booths, vendors, book-signings and…

Cafe Society: Week in review

Things you might have missed this week while using the PopTart setting on your toaster… July restaurant closings and openings.Seeing Jason Sheehan in person: Check out this video of a chat he had at the Denver Press Club.Jason asking where the best Rocky Mountain oysters can be found.Sketch losing Charlie…

Doghouse Tavern opens in Bear Valley

The Little Pub Company just got bigger, with the opening of the Doghouse Tavern in the Bear Valley Shopping Center (in the space at the intersection of West Hampden Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard that was formerly Bear Valley Inn). “My brother lives in the Sheridan neighborhood and has been after…

Lunch at Larkburger

I did not have the greatest food luck in the mountains. I found a good spot for breakfast and lunch (read about it next week), and the pizza from the Blue Moose was at least decent (and better by a long stretch than anything else we ordered). But everything else?…

Elway’s/Matsuhisa shochu dinner so good

I hated the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. For a year the PR hype machine had told me how great it was going to be, and then everyone I know who saw it told me how great it was and how much I’d love it. So by the time I…

Guess where I’m drinking?

Party! party! You don’t need a special occasion to enjoy a mojito here, but it doesn’t hurt.Guess where I’m drinking, and there will be a mojito with your name on it at the bar…

One night in Beaver Creek

On our first night in town, Laura, the kid and I had only one overwhelming concern: where to get a little dinner.  And rather than drive down into Avon, we decided to take our chances in the minor utopia that is Beaver Creek Village. It was beautiful (as was only…

Guess where I’m eating?

Whereas a weekly hamburger fix is the norm for some of you, at my house, it’s the street taco or the hot dog — the latter because my kid is extremely picky about where he’ll eat a burger (Old School Burgers is about the only place that doesn’t make him…

Cheba Hut gets ready to smoke

Cheba Hut, the pot-themed sub-shop chain, could open its first Denver location as early as Monday, August 10, says franchisee and store co-owner Matt Clark-Johnson, who’s at the store at 1531 Champa Street making some final preparations this morning. Although Clark-Johnson, who also owns a Cheba Hut in Boulder, had…

Geek in the Galley: The toaster of tomorrow

See that picture above? Yeah, that’s exactly what you think it is: a toaster with a pre-determined Pop Tart setting. And that is just about the coolest thing in the world. Or in the world of toasters, at least. The toaster pictured is the one that came with my room…

This weekend: Chocolate, Colorado wines and craft beers

Many restaurants will be offering specials tonight to coincide with First Friday, and the Infinite Monkey Theorem winery, at the edge of the Santa Fe Arts District at Fifth and Santa Fe, is even hosting a wine-tasting at 5 p.m. with light bites from Masterpiece Delicatessen. For info, call 970-260-0710…

Giant Dale’s Pale Ale can attacks Longmont!

A gigantic painting of a can of Dale’s Pale Ale is nearing completion on a silo outside of the Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids & Solids, the brewery which makes Dale’s. This is what the can, which we wrote about here, looked like as of about 4 p.m. on Thursday, August…

Candy Girls: Fluffy Peanut Brittle

In our families, grandma usually does all the holiday candy-making to create our yearly dose of buttery toffee, peanut clusters and peanut brittle. But grandma never made peanut brittle like this. The Fluffy Gourmet Peanut Brittle made locally by “Grampa” Michael Apodaca at Grampas Candy is “injected with air to…

Liquor at An’s Lemongrass Grille

Starting next week, you can enjoy some alcohol with your meal at An’s Lemongrass Grille — at least the downtown location at 1617 California Street. It was recently awarded a liquor license, and the plan is to start serving beer and wine, and maybe some sake as well. The local…