Leave it to the Institute of Drinking Studies to host one of the biggest events in a very young man’s life in the oldest saloon in Denver: My Brother’s Bar (2376 15th Street). We here at the Institute feel that it is important to demystify drinking by showing our progeny…
Gene Tang has always had a beautiful place at 1515. The Victorian storefront wears its age well, handling crowds with a kind of shotgun feng shui — moving people back and forth through the long room, around the well-spaced tables and banquettes. The upstairs dining room is elegant, the dimly…
I like Greek food, but it’s never seemed like much of a cuisine to me. Greek food isn’t a cuisine because it has no rules. Ask a hundred Greeks how to make tzatziki — the ubiquitous yogurt and cucumber sauce — and even though tzatziki contains only about four ingredients,…
May is going to be a big month for Troy Guard. And not just for Guard, who’s currently standing post as exec chef at Nine75 and Emogène and also overseeing the Caribbean menu at Wings and Wraps, which opened at 4736 East Colfax Avenue, but also for his wife, Leigh…
If you’re like me (and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be), you yearn for a return to basic values. This means you think that pros playing in the Olympics (especially hockey) was the primary reason that TV ratings for the Winter Games hovered somewhere between those of Supernanny and Fox’s…
If you’re like me (and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be), you yearn for a return to basic values. This means you think that pros playing in the Olympics (especially hockey) was the primary reason that TV ratings for the Winter Games hovered somewhere between those of Supernanny and Fox’s…
There are two ends to every spectrum, including the spectrum of Greek restaurants, although in this case, neither end is necessarily better than the other. On one, there’s Yanni’s (see review) and places like Yanni’s that attempt to present the best of Greek food culture in a comfortable environment; usually,…
“Yes, please.” “Yes, please.” “Yes, please.” For two solid hours at Super Star Asian, from one until three on a Sunday afternoon, the food never stopped coming. Brought on carts and plates, on unbreakable orange plastic cafeteria trays carried by smiling, indomitable women packing scissors and wearing rubber surgical gloves,…
I had my very first bowl of shark’s fin soup last week at Super Star Asian (see review). As a culinary indulgence, it wasn’t worth the money; if I’m paying $46 for a bowl of soup, it had better come garnished with about $38 in small bills. But as a…
I know I’m going to have my cool card taken away, but I love Lowry. As a girl from the Denver suburbs, I think it’s great that kids can grow up in a comfortable, new-urbanist environment without their parents having to deal with I-25 during rush hour in order to…
It’s horrifying to admit, but the signs are all there: We are growing up. On my birthday, I’d denied the usual urge to overindulge in food and booze simply because it didn’t fit with my diet. JP just put down “earnest money” on a house, meaning that he earnestly wants…
The dim-sum experience varies from restaurant to restaurant, but I know I can usually count on the tea. Always green, almost always served in squat white pots with loose leaves steeping in hot water, inevitably accompanied by small, plain-white cups nicked and tinted the color of bone by long use…
Sean Yontz is a survivor, a success story in an industry that does not take kindly to failure. He worked in the shadow of Richard Sandoval at Tamayo when modern Mexican and Nuevo Latino were all the rage, then set off on his own and wound up taking some serious…
In my original Best of Denver 2006 list, Chama (see review) was up for something like 74 awards. Why? Because the place is just flat-out fantastic. And while the haters out there can say what they like — scream bias because I know owner Sean Yontz, refire the rumors of…
I was in New Orleans a couple of years ago for Jazzfest. On that trip, beer with breakfast was not only acceptable, but encouraged. One day while we were walking, cocktails in hand, along the packed sidewalks of the French Quarter, we happened upon a ragtag band singing in the…
If you’re still not convinced that men and women are totally incompatible, then you haven’t been out in the world for way too long. At least 30 percent of the GNP is dedicated to mitigating the constant conflict. How else to explain Dr. Phil and daytime TV and in general?…
Five years ago, chef/owner Richard Sandoval’s Tamayo was on the cutting edge of the Nuevo Latino culinary movement, with critics in Denver and beyond raving about the pipian de puerco (tamarind-marinated pork tenderloin in a pumpkin-seed sauce), the ceviche (mahi mahi in a spicy tomato broth) and the crepas de…
Empty restaurants make me nervous, skittish, worried that everyone knows something I don’t. I always get the feeling that I missed the ambulances or the SWAT team by a few minutes — that some weird action cleared the place out just prior to my arrival. Empty movie theaters affect me…
Next week’s Best of Denver 2006 will mark the end of several solid months of eating and note-taking, list-making and writing — but mostly eating. I have no idea how many dollars and how many hours I’ve spent scrambling around the city in a desperate fever to find the best…
Is Kokopelli a fertility deity — or just a dick? When I stepped inside Kokopelli’s (formerly Manny’s Smokehouse), I instantly loved the look and feel of the place, right down to the wonderful oxblood banquettes and the fabulous blues singer playing on a tiny stage draped with red curtains. But…
If not for all the evidence that I’ve had heterosexual intercourse, I’m pretty sure I could be a priest. As all you Catholics and everyone who makes fun of us know, we’re in the midst of Lent, when we get back to the “Judeo” part of our Judeo-Christian heritage and…
Saturday nights at Duo are loud and boisterous, a cacophony of sensualism that washes like crazy rogue waves back and forth across the floor and bar. The front door never stops swinging, releasing a blast of piano jazz out into the evening every time it opens, and the bar is…
