Okay, so the big man may not have granted all the Christmas wishes I outlined in this space two weeks ago (although I’ve heard there’s some interest in the pros’ market idea), but I don’t mind — because someone gave me the massive, two-volume set of cookbooks from El Bulli…
In our continuing effort to make the world more amenable to the foibles of drinkers, the Institute of Drinking Studies is preparing a proposal for the National Institute of Health that’s certain to get us a large discretionary grant, since health care today is all about prevention: prevention of heart…
I love some restaurants (like Pho Saigon, reviewed on page 39) because of the way time stops just inside the front door. I love other restaurants for the way they predict the future. And then there are places like Pho 79, which are all about the moment, this meal. Pho…
There are some restaurants where the world does not intrude — rooms where time does not pass, weather does not change, current events go unnoted. Often inadvertently, these restaurants have successfully stopped time — a trick that mad scientists and evil super-geniuses have been attempting since forever with dark matter…
This has been a helluva year for restaurants, full of adventures and tragedies, good times and bad. Although the rest of the economy continued to bump along, the restaurant economy picked up in a big way — and for reasons that no one has yet been able to adequately explain…
“You’re invited December 31 to the rawest fucking New Year’s Eve party! Leave the expensive hype and boring shit to the amateurs…bounce your ass all over the dance floor.” I’m willing to bet that this is not how Dick Clark envisions a “rockin’ New Year’s Eve.” In fact, the only…
By now you’ve dug out from under the mounds of wrapping paper and leftovers generated over the last few days and are almost ready to return to work so that you can start paying the minimum payments on your credit cards. Sure, Christmas is wonderful, especially for kids, but the…
At the Palace Arms, I could easily spend two, maybe three thousand dollars on dinner without feeling cheated. A thousand dollars on the appetizer course alone. Another twelve hundred on a bottle of vintage bubbly wine. A couple hundred on soup, an entree and dessert. If I really wanted to…
Hey, big guy, I wanted to drop you a line and see how things are going up at the North Pole. How’s the wife? Reindeers healthy, I hope? Everything good with the elves? Okay. Enough about you. Let’s talk about me. I don’t mean to be a dick or anything,…
Islamorada Fish Company 7970 East 49th Avenue 720-385-3600 Last weekend I really needed a change of scenery, but I got stuck working. So a friend and I headed to the Bass Pro Shop — which, while technically still in Denver, might as well be on the moon for most of…
Thank God there are only a few more shopping days until Christmas; I’ve had it with staggering debt. But as long as the malls are going to ruin our credit ratings, they could at least provide a few amenities. For example, they need to do something for us dads waiting…
If you want a taste of the luxe life and can’t afford a meal at the Palace Arms, what do you do? You go to the Brown Palace’s Churchill Bar, where you can experience many of the amenities available next door, at a slightly more reasonable price. The menu offers…
Excess—that’s what I love about the Palace Arms. And not just plain excess. Not cheap, tawdry, modern excess but classy, well-aged and dignified excess. The kind of excess that almost demands you don an ascot and monocle before partaking. And yet, there is no credit check at the door, no…
Like any American chef (current or former), I’ve had a love/hate relationship with France for a long time. Before I knew enough to know better, I hated the country for producing some of the white-toqued, chain-smoking, red-faced bastards who trained me — guys who bigfooted their way through the kitchen,…
I’ve often been accused of having a bias toward certain foods. Barbecue, American diner classics, specific types of very cheap Mexican grub. I’ve been told that I have a weakness for any restaurant that attempts Irish cuisine or the native specialties of upstate New York. Even my own darling wife…
You’re getting sleepy. There’s nothing more disappointing than loving a restaurant but hating the service — as my recent visit to Snooze so sadly showed. I knew we’d have to wait for a table during Sunday’s prime brunch hours, especially after the eatery appeared on an episode of The Real…
Stupid question, but have you ever just needed a drink? Not wanted one, or felt compelled to have one because it was Friday or Monday morning, or because someone exerted some major peer pressure by calling you a certain female gynecological body part. And not needed physically, either — to…
Under the command of chef Eric Roeder, Bistro Vendome did some French dishes better than any other place in town: steak frites, sauces of all description. But brunch was always the best reason for visiting Vendome, and even though Roeder is gone and the restaurant is now firmly in the…
Like any American chef (current or former), I’ve had a love/hate relationship with France for a long time. Before I knew enough to know better, I hated the country for producing some of the white-toqued, chain-smoking, red-faced bastards who trained me — guys who bigfooted their way through the kitchen,…
Only in Denver. Certain things — Crocs, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Elway’s steakhouse — could only come out of Colorado. Others, like 99-cent strip-mall sushi and Western states hockey, seem anachronistic, yet flourish here regardless. But I’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. And while I’m…
Denver is full of seriously screw-loose culinary mash-ups. For a time, fusion cuisine was the only thing this area produced more than microbrews and ski injuries. Remember Vega? French/Latino fusion in the jewel-box style, fish napoleons, albondigas in swooping white china bowls, oxtail tamales: It was doomed from the start,…
Like the beer! When I lived in Manhattan, I had a friend named Michael Jackson. Whenever he introduced himself, people would ask: “Where’s your glove?” or “Where’s Bubbles the Chimp?” or “Can you moon-walk?” Local comedian/ sportswriter Sam Adams has taken advantage of his famous name (trust me, people aren’t…
