Another opening, another show-biz eatery. With all the big chains linking their way across Denver, I sometimes worry that these warehouse-sized “concept” restaurants are going to overwhelm the small, locally owned places that have already mastered the only important concept: good food. And that’s when I hurry to south Denver…
Book ’em: Trying to cook up gift ideas? The cookbook-publishing business is healthier than Microsoft, with thousands of new titles appearing over the past couple of years–to the point where there’s a cookbook for virtually every food item and there soon will be nothing new to write about. Cooking With…
This is a tale of two eateries. Maharaja and India’s share some owners, and their menus are identical. But that’s where the similarities end. The food served at these Indian restaurants is as different as McDonald’s is from Morton’s–with the classy India’s making hamburger of Maharaja. The decade-old India’s is…
Made in Japan: This week’s review restaurant, Domo (see above), bills itself as the only Japanese eatery in the Rocky Mountain region to serve authentic Japanese country cooking. But I know of at least one other: Matoi, at 11020 West Alameda Avenue in Lakewood, which dishes out nabemono in the…
When Gaku Homma came to the United States from Japan eighteen years ago, he took his rice balls everywhere. “I couldn’t eat white bread,” he says. “It gave me heartburn and hives. I couldn’t eat tomato-based sauces and soups. Spaghetti was a challenge.” It took a while for his stomach–and…
Low spirits: Sostanza at 1700 Wynkoop is closed until this Monday, December 1, while it serves out its seven-day suspension for liquor license violations. Except that the owners, Steve Owen and Don Betts, aren’t the ones who did the violating. That honor belongs to Sostanza’s former chef, Marco Casas, also…
Some people look forward to leaving the house and getting away from their families. At Greek restaurants, though, the whole family tends to work together. “We’re a team,” says Demetrios “Jimmy the Greek” Lemonidis, who owns Thia’s with his wife, Evanthia, and their children. “We’ve been cooking together in restaurant…
Not many people know how to make a demi-glace, or coulibiac, or osso buco, or banh trang. This is a good thing: It keeps down the number of folks who delude themselves into thinking they should open their own restaurants. But any idiot with a skillet can scramble an egg…
Good morning, Denver: Okay, where should you go for a good sit-down, cooked breakfast that’s available weekdays? Dixons Downtown Grill (1610 16th Street) does great egg dishes, many with a Southwestern bent and all reasonably priced and filling. If you’re starving, though, head over to Hotcakes (1400 East 18th Avenue)…
The Master plan: When Mel and Jane Master sold almost all of their interest in Bruno’s to Tom Mirabito (see review above), they got Bruno’s chef Frank Bonanno out of the deal and moved him over to Mel’s Bar and Grill, at 235 Fillmore Street, where he joined Tyler Wiard,…
One of my litmus tests of an American-Italian restaurant is its Caesar–even though the salad was actually invented in Mexico (albeit by an Italian) and worked its way across the border without ever going overseas. Ten years ago you couldn’t find a Caesar on most Italian menus here–much less in…
What native cuisine has been as bastardized in this country as Chinese food? Mexican, of course. One Coloradan remembers having her first through tenth margaritas–yes, in the same night–at the Riviera, an outpost at 4301 East Kentucky Avenue that’s served up some of southeast Denver’s best Mexican food for decades…
At first the food at Little Ollie’s tasted bland. By my second meal there, though, I started noticing a few flavors, albeit unfamiliar ones. Wait. Was that what broccoli tastes like? Was that what snow peas taste like? Ahhhhh. This was fresh food cooked true Chinese style, without the Americanized…
Trick or treat?: Don’t be scared off by the chair problems at Vesta Dipping Grill (see review, this page), and do drop by on October 31, when in addition to the regular menu, three courses of theme cuisine (roasted-pumpkin creme brulee, for example) will be available for $30 per person…
Poor Josh Wolkon. This past summer the 26-year-old former Bostonian finally opened his own restaurant, after years of envisioning a grill with no pretentious “e” on the end, a place where people could have it their way–selecting sauces to match their entrees–in the midst of architectural splendor, with live music…
Lunch bunch: I took a lot of grief for my critique of the Laughing Dog Deli, at 1925 Blake Street, last year (Mouthing Off, March 14, 1996) because my negative review was based solely on problems I had had with delivery orders. Well, I’ve now eaten in the Dog five…
Eavesdrop on the average downtown office conversation around noon and you’ll probably hear the question “Do you wanna go out for lunch?” almost invariably followed by, “Where should we go?” Then a discussion of the possibilities ensues, at the end of which everyone agrees to go to the same place…
What’s in a name? Well, for a Boulder restaurant trying to overcome the bad taste left by a previous ownership, a new name could mean the difference between the business’s life and death. Until last week, that restaurant’s name was Diva, bestowed on it when chef Marietta Sisca opened the…
The egg and I: As the metro area slo-o-o-wly gains more first-rate restaurants like 15 Degrees and food a little less slowly surpasses sports in popularity–hey, we’re not being asked to fork over $180 million to build Pat Bowlen a new restaurant–we occasionally get a taste of what’s hot in…
Instead of bringing more chain steakhouses to Denver, why don’t we concentrate on wooing a few more original chefs to help put us on the culinary map? Once again, we’ve been snubbed by a food magazine–this time the October Gourmet, which completely deleted Denver from competition in its second annual…
Some dead guy once said (before he died) that “great eaters of meat are in general more cruel and ferocious than other men.” So it was fitting that three journalists and two music-industry insiders gathered one recent night to consume as much meat as possible at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle…
The Cherry Creek Shopping Center was still a twinkle in a developer’s eye when Adde Bjorklund and his wife, Halleh Hessami, and their partners at the time, Brewster and Carol Hanson, decided the basement space in a plaza off Steele Street might be a good spot for their first restaurant…
