Brunch is almost always a bad idea. For consumers, it spans the dullest, most grinding hours of the day — that weird, timeless space between a leisurely late breakfast and the early start of happy hour — and brings to the table nothing but the worst of two meals that…
I’m still receiving heated responses — both pro and con — regarding the December 5 “Smoke Free or Die” Bite Me. Among the messages was this, from reader Matt Roper: “Unfortunately, I read your article a day after the public meeting on the 5th. I read somewhere that even if…
For about 1,100 Denver shut-ins, Santa won’t drop down the chimney this Christmas. No, he’ll walk through the front door bearing the gifts of a hot meal and caring company, courtesy of a special force of two-days-a-year Samaritans who deliver supper for Meals on Wheels each Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every…
The weather outside may be frightful, but inside the Ship Tavern, the corner bar of the Brown Palace, things are always warm and cozy. And a glass of Williams’ Eggless Egg Nog ($6) can be a downright delightful nightcap after an evening of downtown winter festivities. To make this traditional…
Kim’s is not the kind of place where anyone goes on purpose the first time. It’s the kind of place you almost always find by accident. A happy accident, as it turns out. Maybe you discovered it through that annoying vegetarian ex-girlfriend, who always seemed to have a takeout box…
Many restaurateurs have promised to open new places by the end of the year (and before the post-holiday lull), and at least a few are going to make it. Last Friday, Larry Herz opened his new spot, Indigo, in the former home of Papillon Cafe, at 250 Josephine Street. The…
Long Island Iced Tea is infamous for its tendency to make drinkers pray to the porcelain god, and the Bank’s version ($5) should only cement that reputation. By substituting Blue Curacao for Coke and then mixing it with the standard rum, gin, vodka, tequila, Triple Sec and sour mix, the…
On a perfect mild afternoon before the last cold snap, I found myself perched on a stool before the small, half-moon bar at Bistro Adde Brewster, contemplating a late-day snack. I’d been poking around Cherry Creek looking for something interesting to do in the neighborhood, with a vague notion of…
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… Few lyrics capture the holiday season like those famed words from Nat “King” Cole’s 1946 “The Christmas Song.” But in Colorado, that line gets a big “Bah, humbug” from local vendors. “We do roasted almonds, hazelnuts and peanuts; that stuff goes over real well…
Sometimes the best way to pass the day is by drinking — and when the sun is shining, nothing goes down smoother than a good, old-fashioned screwdriver. Hanson’s Grill and Tavern, on the corner of Pearl and Louisiana in West Washington Park, is a comfy neighborhood bar, just the sort…
Bistro Adde Brewster (see review, page 71) is no longer on the front lines of the smoking war. Owner Adde Bjorklund’s attempt to take his subterranean Cherry Creek digs non-smoking was just a recon mission, a bold foray into enemy territory to check the disposition of the other side’s forces…
I watched her walk away. I watched her come back again, smudging the glass on the display case with perfectly manicured fingers. I watched her walk away again, high heels clicking on the tiles, her basket empty but for one lonely glass jar of Stonewall Kitchen raspberry-peach champagne jam. For…
I know what you’re thinking: Cook’s Fresh Market (see page 69) sounds like a pretty interesting place, but you’d rather have gum surgery than drive to the Denver Tech Center during rush hour (which runs from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. on every day ending with a Y). Fortunately, Denver…
Ahhh, Thanksgiving: the official start to the glorious holiday season, when friends and family are certain to drive you crazy — or at least drive you to drink. And there’s no better place to do that than Charlie Brown’s Bar and Grill, a wonderfully dilapidated Denver drinking institution and a…
Sean Kelly is no celebrity chef. His hands give him away. They’re big, strong, the wrists thick from handling sauté pans, fingertips mauled, palms rough as untreated leather. Cooks know cooks from the feel of each others’ hands, and they can gauge how long someone’s been in the business from…
“I wanted the perfect meal. I also wanted — to be absolutely frank — Col. Walter E. Kurtz, Lord Jim, Lawrence of Arabia, Kim Philby, the Consul, Fowler, Tony Po, B. Traven, Christopher Walken…I wanted to find — no, I wanted to be — one of those debauched heroes and…
Jose Lara knows what people associate with tequila. “Having a really great time, getting crazy,” he says. “And headaches, throwing up. Everybody has had a tequila nightmare.” Mine is coming back to me: Freshman year in college, I picked up hitchhiker Stanley Claxton, who spied my first bottle of Jose…
When you’re searching for a delicious martini downtown, all you have to do is look up. A bright-blue neon martini glass — complete with a green neon olive and red neon swizzle stick — glows like a beacon on the facade of Marlowe’s, a longtime favorite of tourists, business types…
There are moments in a chef’s life that forever define him. The first taste of foie gras; the oily reek of anchovies; the crisp, celery-stalk snap of a rabbit’s neck being broken; the explosion on the back of the tongue set off by the full, huge, deep-brown flavor of a…
Keeping it in the family: When you taste Anthony Sarlo’s cooking (see review, page 67), you get a taste of the family he grew up in. But Vita Bella isn’t the only restaurant in the area flavored by this Colorado restaurant clan. Anthony’s Aunt Elisa and her husband, Troy Heitman,…
A century ago, the neighborhood we all know and love as LoDo was teeming with fancy saloons, gambling halls, opium dens, rough cowboys and sinful prostitutes — also known as “brides of the multitudes” or “soiled doves.” Capitalizing on this history of debauchery, the Soiled Dove is still dark and…
It was Saturday night in Littleton, and the wife and I were arguing. She was upset because she couldn’t find her favorite pair of black strappy heels, so she’d fallen back on the black Doc Martens that dated from her days as a Philly punk-rock girl, and one of our…
