Wine bars come and wine bars go. Like Sketch (see review, page 53), they often enter the scene with a splash — but then, crippled by the double demands of being excellent in both the kitchen and the cellar, too often vanish almost as quickly. For more than ten years,…
Halfway through my lunch at Islamorada Fish Company, it occurs to me that this is the worst meal I’ve had in five years. I’ve eaten a lot of breakfasts and lunches and dinners out in that time. And I’ve had a lot of bad ones. I’ve been disappointed, nauseated, poisoned,…
United Airlines and Trader Vic’s recently announced a partnership deal in which Vic — or at least Vic’s minions — will provide the airline with both flight-ready Polynesian cuisine and mai-tai cocktails. Passengers flying first class on all flights to and from Hawaii will be offered complimentary frou-frou drinks, garden…
When most people hear the start of “We Three Kings,” they think of those Oriental kings bearing gifts from afar. Until recently, when I thought of three kings, they were Elvis, Martin Luther and Burger. But after a visit to 3 Kings Tavern, I now know they’re co-owners Jim Norris,…
Although I hate mass-market American “beer” — aka the root of all evil — there are times when drinking anything else would be wrong. And camping accounts for five of the top ten times when it’s absolutely correct to drink this swill. The first time is guy camping, when you…
I’m all for consistency in restaurants, and grouse loudly (and too long, some might say) about restaurants where the organic squab in styrofoam demi is delightful one night and too dry the next. The Kitchen does not have a problem with consistency. Last week, it was almost exactly the same…
I can still miss it something awful, but there are now times when I’m glad I’m no longer a chef. When it’s 103 degrees on a Friday afternoon and I remember deep in my blood and bones the crushing, slaughtering heat of summers spent working the line, I don’t miss…
When the people behind Aji (see review) decided they wanted a second restaurant — or, in the case of Sara and Lenny Martinelli, a fifth — they didn’t have to look any farther than right next door. Leaf — an organic, seasonal, global vegan and vegetarian concept offering everything from…
Progress is not always a good thing. I liked it better when draft beer only came from a keg, not a bottle or can. I remember when telephones were heavy, two-piece objects that could inflict severe closed-head injuries, not miniature electronic earpieces that people apparently think make them look cool…
What kills me about Opal is that it’s not necessarily a bad restaurant; it’s just so much less of a great restaurant than it once was. When I started this job four years ago — when chef Duy Pham was making his first passing glances at genius in its kitchen…
We’d already ordered drinks, Laura and I, and were just settling into the purple banquette behind a scratched black cafe table at Prima, Kevin Taylor’s most recent revision at Hotel Teatro. This isn’t the first restaurant Taylor has had in this space. Until last year it was jou jou, a…
There’s Restaurant Kevin Taylor at Hotel Teatro (see Second Helping), Kevin Taylor at the Ellie, Kevin Taylor’s Rouge at the Teller House, Prima here in Denver (see review), Prima in Boulder, and catering operations working out of at least three of those locations. Can Taylor possibly do anything else? Why,…
Welcome to www.matchmycocktail.com. Uncommitted drinker who loves to laugh and imbibe looking for unconventional cocktail at new hotspot of chef Alex Gurevich, also of Café Bisque. Turn-ons: big glass containers filled with rum and vodka infused with ginger, coconut, honey and citrus. My perfect first rendezvous would include delectable drinks…
Suburban life is tough these days. Although we were hooligans growing up, the only things that could get us in trouble hadn’t changed much since our parents were young. So the run-ins with booze, sex, dangerous/moronic driving, gateway drugs, mild vandalism (no mailbox within a ten-mile radius of our neighborhood…
Toby, my waiter at Restaurant Kevin Taylor, is very excited. When he hands me the menu, the look on his face is one of barely contained joy. He waits while I look over the first page — beaming, fairly spilling over with enthusiasm. I’ve already told him I haven’t been…
Not every country under the sun deserves its own pizza, but don’t tell that to John Pool. In his mind, there’s no land too far-flung, no cuisine too unusual, no food tradition that can’t be boiled down to three or four or five key ingredients, blanketed with melted cheese and…
Larry Herz is adamant. “No,” he says. “No. You gotta go back and check what I said. Read your column. I said, ‘I will never open a restaurant again.'” And damn it if he isn’t right: That’s exactly what he said when we talked six months ago (“Herz Tries Harder,”…
Party like my grandma! When I asked my mother if she wanted to try Steuben’s, she wondered aloud, “Why does that name sound so familiar to me?” And when we walked into this new restaurant on 17th Avenue, it came to her: When my mom was a little girl growing…
The Food and Drug Administration should start requiring warning labels, or at least ingredient lists, on all margaritas. This would undoubtedly decrease work days lost, liver-transplant rates for those of us not lucky enough to be upstanding Americans like David Crosby or Larry Hagman, and the volume of next-day bleating…
Two-Fisted Mario’s must drive John Pool nuts. Here he’s doing his international thing, throwing down the masala pizzas and the lobster pizzas and the freaky rattlesnake pizzas — but at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, there’s no one at Pizzeria Mundo (see review). Meanwhile, just around the corner, Two-Fisted…
His Presidential-ness George Bush is scheduled to visit our fair city tomorrow. What the fuck is Dubya doing darkening our collective doorsteps this time? Why, politickin’, of course. He’ll be in town for a $1000-a-plate lunch in the Cherry Hills home of Charlie Gallagher (of the private equity firm Gallagher…
For barbecue fanatics, summer is like one lengthy treasure hunt, a months-long stretch when, every weekend, the faithful can pile into their cars and strike out for the mountains or the plains in search of the next find. As with all great adventures, most of us have no idea where…
