Ten days ago, my faithful staff here at Bite Me HQ and I were giving the Best of Denver 2004 its final tuneup, a last polish before sending it out into the world. There were still eleventh-hour additions and subtractions being made — awards sneaking in under the wire, awards…
Just when you thought you’d tried every possible mind-bending beverage, along comes Dan Benavidez. An international trade consultant and former Longmont city councilman, Benavidez has spent the past five years importing pulque. “How do you compare it to anything else?” Benavidez asks as he opens a can of Nectar del…
I was pleasantly surprised when I strolled into Brix — a tiny, hip bistro in Cherry Creek North opened earlier this year by Charles Master, whose parents own Mel’s Restaurant and Bar — and saw that it was serving cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in brown paper bags as a…
On a sunny Sunday, it’s hard to remember all of the literary brilliance rolling around in my head and spewing from my mouth the night before at Old Chicago (1280 South Colorado Boulevard, and about a zillion other locations on the planet). Here’s what I can remember: I’ve been a…
It was the steak knives at the Capital Grille that really got to me. They were beautiful, utilitarian works of art with gleaming, sharp blades laser-etched with the restaurant’s logo near the forte, perfect balance, full-tang handles and black grips cold-riveted with bright steel. On the table, they had the…
Long ago, in a column far, far away — July 18, 2002, to be exact, when Bite Me debuted — I had pretty strong things to say on the topic of restaurant decor, service and all that pomp and stagecraft that goes along with the execution of a fine meal…
When your co-workers are bees, you’d better be industrious. And Mark Beran — engineer, inventor, snowboarder and beekeeper — lives up to the standards of his hardworking colleagues. In his tiny, 350-square-foot shop in Niwot, he produces world-class mead. “Somewhere out in the universe, there can be a non-linear event…
The hot new Zengo wants to fire up Denver’s restaurant scene — and exotically named cocktails that combine Latin and Asian influences are just the right fuel. My favorite is the cool yellow Huetzi ($8), made with Bacardi and mango rums along with fresh mango, ginger and lime juices; it’s…
Part of being Dad is enduring unimaginable torture at the hands of your child. I’m not talking here about the dirty diapers that curl nose hairs from a mile away and defy all laws of physics because there’s no way a ten-pound child should be able to unload thirty pounds…
It was getting on toward late, but I was still sitting at Cielo, sprawled in a soft, comfortable, sky-blue chair across from the fireplace in the vaulted dining room, closed in by cloud-white walls, the arched black ceiling above me like starless midnight. There had been four of us for…
To finish off the Chinese-American trifecta that filled my mailbag (see below), last week I took a spin by Little Olive, at 1050 South Wadsworth in Lakewood. In the beginning there was Little Ollie’s, a Cherry Creek offshoot of the popular Aspen eatery owned by Charlie Huang and John Holly…
St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday, and this year I’m going to start things off right. So bright and early next Wednesday morning, you’ll find me tucked into a cozy booth at the Squealin’ Pig Irish Pub, holding tight to a glass mug and sipping an Irish Coffee ($5.25)…
I hate mass-market American “beer.” And not just for the obvious reason — that it’s the root of all evil. We all know that just about every college kid in America is controlled by brain waves transmitted via television commercials that feature the Coors Light Twins or the Miller Lite…
Imagine that you’re a restaurateur who’s just been handed a million dollars. A little more than that, actually, but for the sake of nice, round numbers, I’ll call it a million. You’ve got a big, fat check in your hand, ink still wet on all those zeros. What do you…
I found a lot to love at M&D’s Cafe (see review), but one thing that didn’t wow me? The cornbread. And since cornbread (or, failing that, slices of spongy white Wonder bread) is an integral part of the barbecue experience, I was left feeling a bit cheated. M&D’s kitchen makes…
I always pictured John Wayne as a whiskey-straight-up kind of guy. But the Duke must have downed at least one margarita in his 72 years, because the sign hanging over the long wooden bar at the Minturn Saloon — which boasts the Minturn Mountain Margarita as its house cocktail –…
I want to set the record straight: I did not knuckle under to corporate pressure — at least not without trying to get a kickback at the same time. We headed to Chopper’s Sports Grill (80 South Madison Street) the other night to watch the Timberwolves continue their dominance of…
Matt checked the steel-bodied German dive watch clipped through the top buttonhole of his chef’s jacket. “Eleven minutes,” he said. “Total?” I asked, turning to make a bare-handed grab out of the salamander, the count “one-one-thousand-two” in my head as I set a searing hot platter on the stovetop rail…
Try as he might, man cannot live on risotto alone. And after this man had made three visits to Parisi (see review) in five days, it was starting to look suspicious. The wife — vastly overestimating the dubious sex appeal of a scrappy, long-haired, foul-mouthed restaurant critic — began suspecting…
Forget light and low-carb beers. “Ultra Wimp” and his beer-drinking pals have a better method for fighting fat: They run while they drink beer. Wimp and his buddies belong to the local branch of the Hash House Harriers, a global group of rule-breaking recreationists who combine running, orienteering, beer drinking…
I believe in ghosts. Not the spooky, haunted-house kind that live in basements, but benevolent beings who watch over us from beyond. And while I never got to meet Doug Fleischmann in the flesh, I could swear I felt the warmth of his spirit when I entered Luca d’Italia. Killed…
I’d been eating out with Glen again, which is almost never a good idea, and I think I felt the building housing Sonoda’s shudder with relief when the two of us finally showed the front door our backs. Although the servers had never rushed us, had never been anything other…
