Three weeks ago, I had the worst shrimp scampi of my life. Two weeks ago, I wrote about it when I reviewed Grand Lux Cafe. The shrimp scampi there was so bad that even though I ate only a few bites before pushing it away, the horror of it (and…
While going back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth…) from Gemelli’s for this week’s review, I noticed that one of Denver’s longtime Italian restaurants, 3 Sons, at 2915 West 44th Avenue, was sporting some new exterior decor: a huge FOR SALE sign. A couple of them,…
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I loved the Hot and Cold Margarita at Cielo. I don’t remember much else about the restaurant, since the food and service were forgettable — yet for years I couldn’t find a suitable replacement for that cocktail. Plenty of places have infused tequila, but…
“Oh, my gawd, I’m going to die!” exclaims the brunette seated to my left, the one with the new-haircut glow, probably from Stun! next door. It’s pretty dark inside Barry’s on Broadway (58 Broadway), but from where I’m sitting, the cut looks good — a little short in the back,…
“If you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna.” Napoleon said that, and I’ve always liked the line. He was speaking, of course, not just about sacking Austria’s capital, but of a certain conqueror’s mindset: Don’t just say you’re going to do something; do it. And once you’ve started, see it…
Mark Schlereth isn’t a green chile expert. He doesn’t know how to make it, he doesn’t have any favorite places around Denver that make it, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Colorado-style chile and New Mexico-style. Until recently, he admits, “I’d never had green chile…
I recently got an e-mail from Page Productions, a Minneapolis company that produces the show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: “We are researching the Denver area for our Food Network show which will be filming 6 or 7 different establishments in Colorado in a couple of months. I keep stumbling across…
Talk about a raw deal! According to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, the former owners of Osaka Sushi have been charged with human trafficking — because they allegedly made two South Korean immigrants work there for no pay, threatening them with deportation if they complained. Here’s the press release from…
At its most elemental, a great shrimp scampi consists of shrimp, garlic, lemon and white wine. It is shrimp in an Italian beurre blanc—the garlic (and shallots) used to start a sauté pan, seasoned with good olive oil, deglazed with white wine, spritzed with lemon juice and mounted, at the…
Can you digest a steel-belted radial? Are you goiter-popping iodine-deficient? If so, has Chubby’s got the lard-laced saltastic green chile you’ve been looking for! I understand why people don’t love this place. The north Denver landmark can put a hurtin’ on anyone’s bowels. Even those who were raised at the…
My Friends Tigger & Pooh Corn Puffs General Mills Rating: A half spoon out of four Cereal description: Not much innovation here. The enclosed corn puffs are, quite simply, corn puffs, as generic as they can be. Their hue is similar to to the color of Winnie the Pooh’s fur,…
Hamburger Mary’s (700 East 17th Avenue) has won the race to open the first new patio of the season. Its spacious back deck, with both a bar area (including heaters!) and seating for diners, made its debut on Tuesday, May 6. That beat Encore (2250 East Colfax Avenue), by three…
I forgot to mention this interesting little side note in my blog about Tazo’s sneak-preview, media-only dinner on Monday night (which also happened to be Cinco de Mayo)… We arrived a little early and were sipping some tea-infused cocktails when Chef “Goose” Sorensen of Solera appeared suddenly behind the bar,…
Tyler Wiard, chef at Elway’s at 3000 East First Avenue, is bringing home the bacon after taking down all comers at the Taste of Elegance — a national pig cookin’ competition organized by the National Pork Board out in California. Wiard bested twenty other chefs from around the country, and…
“Is that going to be okay with you?” challenged the barman at Pint’s Pub, located at 221 West 13th Avenue. He wasn’t so much asking if we would be amenable to drinking their “real ales,” as much as he was curtly warning us that others hadn’t been okay with drinking…
Funny thing about the way this job goes sometimes: I often don’t know exactly what I’m going to be writing about a restaurant until the minute I sit down and actually start writing about the restaurant. For example, this week’s review of Spice China? I hadn’t originally intended on talking…
One of the great things about being a gastronaut — one of the great things about living a food-obsessed life — is that you can engage in quests. And while you may not get to slay any dragons while you search out foie gras or Chinese soup dumplings in the…
I last talked with chef Chris Cina back in August 2006, after I stumbled across a corporate website that listed him as chief of Roundstone Restaurants LLC. Here’s part of what I wrote after that conversation: “Chef Chris Cina (ex of Tuscany, the Fourth Story, Beckett’s Table and the kitchens…
What’s with cash-only establishments and their insincere apologies? “We don’t take credit cards,” read the signs. “Sorry for any inconvenience.” But is anyone on the other end of the cash register or profit-and-loss statement really sorry? If these places were more honest, wouldn’t their signs read: “Welcome to (Name), where…
Most restaurants in town serve both lunch and dinner. And while at most of those places, the difference between the two meals is minor (the lunch menu missing only the most high-end steaks and chops, the most complicated entrees, the dinner menu slightly less cluttered with salads and sandwiches), at…
SAME Café at 2023 East Colfax Avenue is closed through May 9 for spring-cleaning – and the installation of some new kitchen equipment. When SAME reopens on May 10, co-owner (with wife Libby) Brad Birky will be devoting all his time to the restaurant, which allows diners to pay what…
Here is how you make a proper Peking duck. First, invent a time machine, go back to the mid-nineteenth century, grab yourself a plot of land in one of the booming cities of mainland China and enlist the help of a bricklayer to build you an oven. Then practice. For…
