What a week: We need wine

Tonight, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.,Morton’s in the Denver Tech Center, 8480 East Belleview Avenue, is uncorking five different Argentinian Malbec wines for oenophiles willing to fork over $45 for plenty of sips, plus hors d’oeuvres, including cheeses, sliced tenderloin with chimichurri sauce, broiled sea scallops and miniature hot chocolate…

Before you see Food Inc., eat today like there’s no tomorrow

Take solace in the present folks, because tomorrow is the day you’ll stop eating like you did yesterday. That is, of course, if you go and see the documentary Food Inc. The film opens in Colorado tomorrow at the Landmark Chez Artiste, located at 2800 South Colorado Boulevard. I recently…

Candy Girls: Skwinkles Sopeados

We like our chamoy and tamarind candy just as much your average Joe.  Okay, probably a lot more, since the combination of sweet, salty, and spicy isn’t exactly a flavor fusion well represented in your typical American candy aisle.  But we think there’s a place for this fun mixture, and…

A closer look at LoHi Steakbar

The boys from Larimer Square have been making us wait seemingly forever for LoHi SteakBar to open in the former North Star space at 3200 Tejon. Their last neighborhood venture (beyond Larimer Square) was the wildly successful Billy’s Inn, which has been packing them in since its opening. Like Billy’s,…

Denver’s Ritz-Carlton is puttin’ on a happy hour!

It was just a matter of time before the Ritz-Carlton, Denver’s swankiest slumbering pad at 1881 Curtis Street, realized that you’re only as good as your happy hour, which has never been one of the Ritz’s gazillion amenities – until now, anyway. Now, if you’re a guest at the hotel,…

Red Trolley rewards you for your ice-cream gluttony

As of late, Denver’s boutique ice cream war has been getting hot and heavy — or should we say cold and sticky. Sweet Action Ice Cream opened on Broadway in March, launching an icy broadside against the other super-premium ice cream joints in town, such as Red Trolley and Little…

The fried chicken at White Fence Farm really flies

Everyone who lives along the Front Range must visit Casa Bonita once. Really, you’re not a resident if you haven’t seen the cliff divers and suffered the mariachis, climbed through Black Bart’s cave, muscled your way through the knots of sticky, rapidly greening children and eaten the sopaipillas. I’ve been…

Wait! White Fence Farm also makes good fudge

Fried chicken isn’t the only thing worth eating at White Fence Farm. The place also makes some really mean fudge. I’m not a fan of fudge. I like my chocolate mostly in bar form, mostly plain and un-fucked with. Hershey’s is fine. I’ve got a weakness for Toblerone (though I…

The White Horse Bar is a genuine dive

“This here’s an Indian hangout,” Gary reveals to me and three friends just a few minutes after we’ve bellied up to the bar he’s tending. Although there are no Native Americans present right now, he says that during the March PowWow, the owner brings in three bouncers at night just…

God bless the USA… and Cracker Barrel

After experiencing the tacky shlock and awe that is White Fence Farm, I headed for the one place that could stand toe to toe with its down-home country-cooking style and pure Americana weirdness. The one place where, I am not ashamed to admit, I have eaten more than once on…

Say hello to two new debuts: LoHi SteakBar and Icehouse Tavern

We’ve just gotten word that LoHi SteakBar, the new restaurant spearheaded by Joe Vostrejs and chef-partner Sean Kelly, is opening tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. in the former home of North Star Brewery at 3200 Tejon Street, which is exactly seven hours (that would be 11 a.m.) after James Mazzio…

Cooking Dirty: A peek inside

While I have spilled gallons of virtual ink over the shameless self-promotion of my new book, Cooking Dirty, one thing I haven’t yet managed to tell anyone?  What the damnable beast is actually about.  What, in fact, someone willing to lay down a little dough might get for their hard-earned…

Barbecue in Boulder, by way of Kansas City

Okay, so this one, I did not expect. For quite a while after Kevin Taylor shut down the Boulder outlet of his Prima brand — the one in the big, lovely space at 1801 13th Street, in the One Boulder Plaza development just spitting distance from the site of the…

Newest Smashburger one burger short of a Colorado dozen

On Saturday, June 27, Northglenn residents will come to understand why the rest of us, including Jason Sheehan, are truly, madly, deeply in lust with Smashburger, the homegrown hamburger chain that’s multiplying faster than a calculator — here and throughout the United States. And when Colorado’s eleventh Smashburger opens at…

A la cart in Cherry Creek

Hollie Burr has rolled back into Cherry Creek, this time with two food carts. Yes, she has Colorado Gourmet Hot Dogs, which was a hit last year with its grilled chicken breasts and gourmet dogs: the Italian stallion (sausage with pizza sauce and melted cheese), the Chicago (with all the…

Down on the Farm

This ain’t my first rodeo, as they say. I’ve done my culinary tour of Colorado. I may not be to the Mile High born, but I have eaten the hell out of my adoptive home, taken to it with the fervor of a convert — of a man who knows…

Can Modmarket make it at Boulder’s Twenty Ninth Street mall?

Come August, Rob McColgan and Anthony Pigliacamto will open Modmarket at 1700 28th Street in Boulder’s flailing Twenty Ninth Street mall, a risky move that is nothing short of roulette, considering the succession of restaurants that have opened, and subsequently shuttered, in that wasteland of chains. But the 2,500-square-foot Modmarket…