What burns my toast: Bad bacon

I’m a hopeless romantic and my one true love is food — so when it betrays me, I am especially hurt. On Monday I ambled into my local Whole Foods (which is the equivalent of a candy addict going into a candy store or a porn addict into a porn…

Veggie Girl: Dazzle happy hour

After work, I often need a drink. Since I’ve been working at Westword, my after-work watering hole of choice has been Dazzle (930 Lincoln Street) — which not only offers $4 specialty cocktails during happy hour, but great food options at $5 a pop. But what really makes Dazzle stand…

Shazam! Shazz Cafe suddenly appears

If you were the person you’d always wanted to be, would you look like this? Suddenly, Lowell Boulevard is becoming a very hot restaurant street. First, of course, there was the much ballyhooed transformation of the old Billy’s Inn at 4403 Lowell into the very cool, very hip Billy’s Inn…

The Cooler is very cool

Yesterday we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to visit The Cooler, a bar/restaurant at 2045 Sheridan in Edgewater that not only has a great outdoor patio with a view of Sloan’s Lake, but an unbeatable gimmick: Every beer — and there are lots of them available — comes…

Beatrice & Woodsley is easy to love

For photos from inside Beatrice and Woodsley, see the slideshow at westword.com/slideshow A room inspired by the story of two lovebirds: Beatrice, the life-loving daughter of a French wine-making family who relocated to California in the early 1800s to create a small vineyard. And Woodsley, the handsome and crafty son…

Delite lives up to its name

I know: Small plates are supposed to be dead, right? A fad. Last year’s news. And yet one of the most notable new restaurants in the city (Beatrice & Woodsley, reviewed this week) is doing small plates. And one of the best expansions of the year — Delite, which Dylan…

Beatrice & Woodsley and South Broadway: Heating up together

In this week’s Westword, Jason Sheehan reviews Beatrice & Woodsley, the new (and gorgeous) restaurant on South Braodway. To further whet your appetite, we’ve got two slide shows: one from inside the Beatrice & Woodsley kitchen and dining room, and one from South Broadway itself, where a growing collection of…

Buy at Whole Foods, help SAME Cafe

On Thursday, November 20, on Whole Foods Giving Day, 5 percent of all purchases made at the Capitol Hill store at 900 East 11th Avenue will benefit SAME Cafe, at 2023 East Colfax Avenue. According to the Whole Foods website, that store “has been an integral part of the Denver…

The most famous line cook at HoJo’s: Jacques Pepin

Dwayne Clark just opened his third Davies Chuck Wagon Diner — this one inside a Howard Johnson’s at 12100 West 44th in Wheat Ridge. I remember the days when every HoJo’s had its own restaurant, but the chain has not fared particularly well through the ups and downs of this…

Beatrice & Woodsley is a real trip

Chef Pete List welcomes you to Beatrice & Woodsley. After dark, Beatrice & Woodsley glows. The windows, tinted gold, show a dreamlike version of the interior. The interior shows a dreamlike version of a restaurant that’s supposed to be a cabin in the aspens that is really the fancy of…

A late-night visit to Izakaya Denver

(Photo from izakayaden.net) In light of the recent departure of chef Gabe Stallone from Izakaya Den, I decided I’d better get back there and see whether the crew he left behind was capable of turning out food as fine as it had been under Stallone’s command back when I reviewed…

After expansion, more of the SAME Cafe

SAME Café — the name is an acronym for So All May Eat — is now making sure that all may eat at once. Today, the innovative restaurant that serves healthy, organic food on a pay-what-you-can basis opened up a new dining room. The expansion basically doubles the size of…

Milking It: Oat Cluster Cheerios Crunch

Oat Cluster Cheerios Crunch General Mills Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four. Cereal description: Three variations of the trademark O’s — original recipe, a glazed-looking, slightly yellower version, and their deeper brown siblings — made from a melange of oat, wheat, rice, corn and barley. Also present are oat clusters…

The Branch Inn is history

When the building housing the Branch Inn exploded in Pueblo on Thursday, it not only took a life, it wiped out a piece of history. Although the building at 301 South Union, in the Union Street Historic District, had been empty for some time before new proprietors reopened the Branch…

Another local on Top Chef: New York

The premiere episode has run, the first two chefs have been booted, and while I know everyone in town was excited about having two locals in the game (Hosea Rosenberg, exec chef at Jax in Boulder and Melissa Harrison, sous at another Dave Query joint, Centro Latin Kitchen), how ‘bout…

Encore for Encores on 26th

There’s action in the 2600 block of Welton Street, with a new sign suddenly appearing on the outside of the 725 Club. But as it turns out, the real action is around the corner on 26th, just past Zona’s. Because after a long delay, Encores on 26th is now getting…

Candy Girls: Nestle Chunky Bar

While scouring the candy aisle at Walgreen’s earlier this week, I happened upon a mysterious box filled with giant candy bars that looked like they were left over from the Reagan administration. The packaging had a decidedly retro ’80s feel, and since the box was sitting all alone on the…

Parallel Seventeen is without parallel

Parallel Seventeen continues to set styles. Since it opened three years ago, Parallel Seventeen has always been a style leader — in food (Mary Nguyen’s classical Vietnamese cuisine, which Jason Sheehan raved about when he reviewed the restaurant), in decor (elegantly hip), in entertainment (with rotating DJs). And now it’s…

What’s in store for the green movement? Ellie’s

Want to see what’s next in the green revolution? Head to Boulder, a hotbed for businesses specializing in natural and organic products (for more on that, see my Naturally Boulder blogs). That’s where the first Ellie’s Eco Home Store will debut tomorrow at 2545 Arapahoe Street — right by a…

So pho, so good at Pho 7

You can’t keep a good pho place down. A few days ago, I wrote about the temporary destruction of Pho 7 by two men, one silver BMW and too many action movies in “Talk about a cursed location!” When this spot at 10009 East Hampden Avenue in Aurora was home…

Cutting off the bartender at K’s China

“Would you like a lime with that?” Sounds like a missed a wild night at K’s China in Boulder last weekend. According to police reports, cops were called to the joint at 1325 Broadway because the owner of the joint was allegedly smashing glasses on the bar, and shattered glass…