Cafe Star (see review) was brought to us by the same people who opened Trattoria Stella six years ago. And while there’s not anything wrong with Stella (in fact, there’s a lot I really like about it), if I were told to pick two places on absolute opposite ends of…
When I reach Tom Bird, owner of Pho Fusion, the first thing he does is apologize. He’s sorry that the place doesn’t look the way he’d like it to. It’s kind of empty, not yet finished to his satisfaction. “I know, you walk in and you can see that it’s…
We are a highly mobile people these days. Not many of us are now where we were yesterday (or yestermonth or yesteryear), and we feel this displacement in weird ways. For example, I’m always gripped by a wicked wave of homesickness in the middle of October, right around the time…
When I heard there was a new Vietnamese restaurant named Parallel 17, I wondered why anyone would saddle a place with such a horrible reminder of war. I also wondered if the owners would have gone with the same name if the restaurant were located on Monroe Street instead of…
No one here at the Institute of Drinking Studies is dumb enough to admit that he is a virgin. In fact, I’d guess that every representative has had carnal knowledge of someone, and I’d also guess that most members are fairly prolific, if not proficient. I base this on a…
After eating pad thai everywhere from Noodles & Co. to Alameda Square, I thought that maybe I just didn’t like pad thai. I suspected that all the pad thai I’d put away over the years had probably been just fine, and that I — being the bumbling dimwit that I…
I love expensive cheeses. The good ones — cave-aged, smeared in ash, riddled with veins of carefully tended mold, rubbed down by nuns and Italian virgins in towns whose names I can barely pronounce, made from the milk of animals whose teats I wouldn’t squeeze on a dare. Cashel Blue,…
Last summer I stumbled across Mike Frislie at the Bugling Bull Trading Post, where he was working the drum grill and smoker out on Highway 67 (1668 North Highway 67 in Sedalia, to be precise) and cooking up burgers, brats and some of the best damn barbecue I’d ever tasted…
Never trust a guy who drinks a Bubble-Lee. Over the years, I’ve adopted a couple of clear-cut rules about guys. They must be willing to suffer through at least one theatrical performance a season and at least pretend to enjoy it. They cannot have more piercings than I do. They…
I am a big fan of Mexican culture. It’s brought us Taco Bell (a legal form of crack), sombreros for any occasion, MTV Spring Break in Cancún and uncounted Girls Gone Wild videos, as well as the Latin Representative to the Institute of Drinking Studies. But some imports from south…
No local discourse on comfort food would be complete without a few words regarding the humble breakfast burrito. And while there are many, many places in town that serve up great breakfast burritos at all hours of the day and night, this week I’m stumping for one that may be…
I hate admitting that I’m wrong. Up to this point in my somewhat spotty career, I would have insisted that certain rules govern a restaurant’s survival. A space that can only be located by satellite photography is never going to make it. A fusion menu that fuses the cuisines of…
So how is it that Tin Star (see review, page 57), a Tex-Mex chain outfit from Dallas, and John Jourde, a first-time restaurateur more comfortable around software reps than line cooks, came together in Colorado to create a place that so impressed me? Good question. Rich Hicks opened the original…
The second I walked into Steak au Poivre, I expected a diminutive man in a white suit to run past me, pointing into the air and screaming “Da plane, da plane!” The ambience of the place is very Fantasy Island, complete with wicker chairs, a big palm in the corner…
We all pine for simpler days, like those in high school when our only real worries were what to wear, who was engaging in heavy petting with whom (or, better yet, actually doing the deed), who you were going to stuff in his locker that day, when you were going…
Although fast-casual Mex is all the rage today — and with good reason, in the case of Tin Star — there was a time not long ago when Denver was inundated with white-tablecloth Mexican joints. But they were still years behind Las Brisas, which opened in 1987 and has real…
We have reservations for dinner — just the two of us, prime time on a Saturday night — but we don’t need them. Three months to the day after the opening of Nine75 — the high-gloss, high-concept, locationally challenged and oh-so-eager-to-please cafe/bistro that took over the former home of the…
On my visits to Nine75 (see review), I pretty much avoided the desserts — and not because I was watching my trim and girlish figure. No, I skipped the massive slabs of peanut butter-chocolate cake and individual apple mini-pies (dressed with mint leaves) because I knew that the pastry department…
Shake it like you got it. Herman’s Hideaway was the first live-music venue I got into with a fake ID. As a Denver teen who hadn’t traveled much, I imagined that it was our version of New York’s legendary CBGB, the thoroughly hip and cool place to see up-and-coming bands…
Planning a wedding is a big job for a bride and her family. They have to decide on the service, the flowers, the wedding-party members, the date, the reception hall, the menu, the availability of alcohol, the invitations, the tuxedos, the bridesmaid dresses that will never be worn again, the…
During the first months of Mao’s existence, developer-turned-restaurateur Jim Sullivan (yeah, the same Sullivan behind Nine75, reviewed this week) probably took more heat than any other owner in town has taken for the opening of anything. Restaurants, check-cashing services, massage parlors. Anything. I mean, the guy plopped a Chinese restaurant…
One of the reasons I’m staying married to Laura for the rest of my life: She’s got a real good eye for hot dogs. And it’s not just hot dogs, either. She can suss out a decent Mexican spot from a block away, will know — with just a glance…
