Q: What does the Institute of Drinking Studies recommend after a monumentally bad week? A week that leaves you bruised, battered and trying to get the footprints off your back from life running roughshod over your carcass? A week where the only thing that keeps you going is the thought…
I believe that life, in all its brutish, stupid grandeur, is the ultimate extreme sport. Forget mountain biking, snowboarding and base jumping. You just haven’t lived until you’ve Indian leg-wrestled a hungry Russian grandmother over the last fistful of peel-and-eat shrimp bobbing in the melted ice at a Chinese buffet,…
Shrimp and chicken shao mai; steamed duck spring rolls dipped in warm soy; short ribs with red onions in a scallop sauce; a whole striped bass, split, head and tail mounted on opposite ends of the plate and served with the tender filets soaking in a gingered soy broth. While…
I hated all card games as a kid, but the true bane of my existence was the mind-numbing Go Fish. Even before I started losing brain cells from a combination of booze, age and bad genes, memory was never one of my strengths. And now the Go Fish Grille –…
Every day, it becomes increasingly obvious that those in power count on citizen apathy to let them skate by with policies that pander to special interests and are out of touch with the average American. How else can you explain the continued presence of Katie Couric and Oprah; 24-hour news…
Saturday night should be busy. Cute place like this, good food, service that’s old-American doting without being old-French smothering — Dario’s Restaurant should be running the edge of a full house, playing the curve of table turns so that every party leaving brushes shoulders with the next one coming through…
Some weird geopolitical analogies about the shifting influences of power and turf can be applied to Denver’s ever-changing restaurant scene. Not so much by the big openings and closings and the movements of recognizable chefs and restaurateurs, but by the constant shift and wiggle of the little guys. Ethnic eateries…
After too many jobs that required way too much travel, I try to avoid hotel bars. They depress me. They’re usually filled with smoke and professional salesmen who spend 90 percent of their lives on the road and typically believe that their marriage vows are legitimate only within a hundred…
Whatever happened to customer service? Bars don’t have Guinness on tap. I get soggy fries at McDonald’s. If I’m out eating with five other people, the restaurant assumes that group-think has ruined our math skills and tacks a 15 percent tip on the tab even though we probably would have…
Of Earth and Spirit is how I describe my style of cooking. The foods chosen are pure and of the Earth; they are intended to be food for the spirit as well as sustenance. They have been prepared for generations by the distinctive combination of Native, Mexican and Spanish flavors…
Movies and food, food and movies. Would I have enjoyed Julia Blackbird’s New Mexican Cafe (see review, page 61) had it not been for the unfortunate mention of Like Water for Chocolate on the menu? Not likely. Still, there should be a rule in the restaurant business about not setting…
Jerry Seinfeld once imparted these words of wisdom: When you hit that high note, say goodnight and walk off. So for my final act as Drink of the Week girl, I gathered a group of faithful friends and headed to Moda Ristorante & Lounge for several rounds of Gocce di…
After a year of our close collaboration, the Head of Research at the Institute of Drinking Studies finally shared this piece of information: The true Irish often frown upon the Black and Tan that I love so much. Historically, the drink’s components are Guinness and Bass ale, the latter an…
Back when I was hungry and vicious and always questing after dumb-luck fortune in the galleys and basement kitchens of this country, I could smell doom in a restaurant a mile away. It was a survival mechanism then, learned rather than instinctive, though no less hardwired into my autonomic switchboard…
The in-laws were in town again recently. It was just a quick visit, a few very busy days of catching up and shooting the breeze, punctuated (of course) by meals. Lots and lots of meals. That’s the thing about visiting me and Mrs. Critic — no matter who you are…
Most people who wear cowboy hats in Colorado are, as one variation of the saying goes, “all hat and no cowboy.” But now these wannabes can put some beef under their brim and gain a certain cowpoke credibility, thanks to Hollingsworth Land and Cattle’s meat-buying program, which allows them to…
Summer nights seem so right for a little Latin lovin’. And since my blue-eyed, blond-haired boyfriend doesn’t exactly fill that bill, when I’m in the mood for Caribbean spice I hit the twinkling patio at Cuba Cuba for a Havana Special ($6.50). A recent addition to the exotic drink menu,…
I’ve been in bars all over the world, and good bars are pretty much the same no matter where you find them. They’re all dark, smoky — as long as you’re not in the People’s Republic of Boulder — and serve greasy food. Everywhere I’ve gone, even Bahrain, a good…
Here’s what Emil-Lene’s Sirloin House is missing: a really big steak. Not just a big steak — big steaks it’s got. There’s a 16-ounce sirloin on the board, a 10-ounce prime rib that’s cut so generously it takes up half a plate, even a 24- ounce T-bone that certainly far…
Forty-six years. That’s a good run — a historic run, even — for any restaurant. And that’s what Emil-Lene’s Sirloin House (see review,) has rung up since 1958, weathering every storm, every up-and-down surge of the economy, by following one credo: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. “You don’t…
With summer in full swing, I’m longing to spend every afternoon lying by a pool. But while I’d be nice and tan, I’d also be broke. So instead, I’ll be spending my evenings reclining on a black leather couch at the hot Swimclub 32 and sipping a Lychee Martini ($8)…
Two weeks ago, the planets and several other heavenly bodies — as well as most of the cheesy guy population in the greater Denver area, four representatives from the Institute of Drinking Studies and several hundred dollars’ worth of alcohol — collided at Avalon (9535 Park Meadows Drive, Lone Tree,…
