The Festival Italiano does it right — with sausage on a stick!

The Festival Italiano at Belmar, which took place this past Saturday and Sunday, has quickly become one of the best festivals in Denver. Not only was there great food and wine, as well as very little shlock for sale, fewer stroller and dogs, and lower temperatures (September beat August hands…

Milking It: Kellogg’s Low Fat Granola with Raisins

Low Fat Granola with Raisins Kellogg’s Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four Cereal description: What isn’t in this stuff? There’s whole oats and whole grain wheat, some of it fused together in random wads, like meteorites collecting fragments during the trip through space, other parts shattered into jagged fragments. Add…

Guess where I’m eating

Breakfast, my mother used to say, is the most important meal of the day.  And while she was probably right about that, one of the details not precisely fixed by that nugget of motherly wisdom was when, precisely, breakfast had to fall.Me?  I like a nice middle-of-the-night breakfast.  I like…

The other side of Grub Street: Polling the foodistas

A couple of weeks ago, the esteemed folks over at grubstreet.com (the daily internet food organ of New York Magazine) published their 2009 Grub Report — a survey of the state of our food union (their words, not mine). And while I generally enjoy the work done by those web-crazy…

Guess where I’m eating?

Everything I ate at dinner last night was astonishingly perfect, but the high-rise of pork belly and watermelon threatening to tumble into a pool of fragrant, sambal-spiked broth stole the show. I hadn’t even finished the first bite before I propped the plate on my lap, shuffled my chair off…

Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill opens today in Park Meadows

Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill, a Centennial fast-casual concept restaurant chain, opens its fifth store today in Park Meadows, at 8225 South Chester in Englewood. Created in 2007 by Alon Mor, Garbanzo’s serves pitas, shwarma, falafel hummus and other mixed Mediterranean specialties with a healthy (no trans fat, no preservatives) bent. Its…

Candy Girls: Droobles Best Blowing Gum

Normally gum wouldn’t be the first thing we’d grab for a review, but the fact that this one starts off as cotton candy certainly captured our attention.  Droobles Best Blowing Gum is one of the Harry Potter products that began its life as a literary invention of J.K. Rowling and…

Part two: Chef and Tell with Paul Reilly of Encore

This is part two of Lori Midson’s interview with Paul Reilly, executive chef of Encore. You can read the first part of Midson’s interview with Reilly here. Culinary inspirations: My mom and my Aunt Sharon, both of whom were amazing cooks and really sparked my interest in cooking. As for…

Confusion reigns over Zaidy’s Fusion Grill

The residents of Writer Square were ready last night with their petitions complaining about a proposed liquor-license change for the former Zaidy’s Deli Downtown, which morphed into Zaidy’s Fusion Grill this spring and was planning to transform itself again into Fusion Cantina, offering salsa dancing and live entertainment. But the…

Tonight: Harvest week wine dinner with monkeys at Avenue Grill

While close to forty members of the Denver Independent Network of restaurants are rolling out menus offering locally sourced products through Friday, September 18 — the last day of Harvest Week — a few restaurants are also celebrating the state’s allegiance to the locavore movement with special dinners. At 6:30…

Bacaro hires Fabio Flagiello

Bacaro Venetian Taverna already boasts a winning DeKuyper Mix Master bartender in Ken Kody. And now it has a new chef: Fabio Flagiello. Flagiello trained in Italy and France, and worked in restaurants in Los Angeles and San Francisco. During his time in L.A., he consulted with the film industry…

Toast comes to Cherry Creek, while Juicy Lucy’s takes off

We weren’t really looking to do a second restaurant, but everything just kind of fell into place,” explains Bill Blake. Along with business partner Jason Parfenoff, he’s just signed a lease on the long-vacated Village Inn space at 222 Columbine Street, where he’ll open a second outpost of Toast, the…

Jason Sheehan, back in the saddle

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been missing from both these virtual pages and the actual dead-tree pages of Westword for the past couple of weeks. And while I’m sure that some of you out there in Hotcakesland have rejoiced in thinking that finally someone over here came to his…

Zaidy’s liquor license up tonight

The lights were off on Monday, and the listing suddenly disappeared from the upcoming hearings schedule at the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses — but by all accounts, the liquor-license hearing at which the city will consider whether to expand Zaidy’s license to allow live entertainment at the Writer…

Guess where I’m eating?

There are few things that piss me off more than restaurants that serve frigid tomatoes. I’m only going to say this once: Your walk-in, refrigerator — whatever — is a tomato’s mortal enemy, its murderer of flavor, its slayer of scent. Ever wonder why the flesh of a tomato is…

Our Weekly Bread: Cafe Options

The sandwich: Rare Roast Beef What’s on it: Rare roast beef, grilled red onions, lettuce, tomato, horseradish havarti and aioli on a baguette Where to get it: Cafe Options (1650 Curtis Street, 303-573-0733) How much: $7.25 Do you believe in second chances? I do. That’s why I’ll probably try a…

Chef and Tell: Paul Reilly of Encore

“Ever since I saw Grover waiting tables on Sesame Street, I knew I wanted to work in restaurants,” says Paul Reilly. And he didn’t waste much time following in Grover’s footsteps, considering that he got his first taste of restaurant life while washing dishes in a German joint at the…