Joe Vostrejs knows fry bread

Long after my review of Tocabe was safely in the can, I was still dreaming about fry bread.  I was also eating fry bread — having made at least three post-review visits to Tocabe’s home at 44th and Lowell just to “check my facts.” One that almost slipped by me?…

See? I’m not the only one who loves O’s…

Steven Shaw, founder of egullet and a serious food-world heavyweight, was in town this month for the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, and he somehow found time to take a spin up to Westminster to check out Ian Kleinman’s molecular gastronomy menu at O’s Steak and Seafood. I’ve been…

Tocabe inspires a fry bread confessional

Like whiskey and the music of the Pogues from the Irish, tortillas from the Mexicans, prosciutto from the Italians and mother sauces and threesomes from the French, fry bread is the Native American people’s proud contribution to our mutt and multicultural present, one of the most awe-inspiring culinary innovations of…

Ask the Critic: Where should Guy Fieri eat?

Last week, I got a phone call from Amanda, a lovely woman doing research for the Guy Fieri Food Network show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. The company that produces the show was giving Denver a serious look-see — trying to assemble a list of restaurants for Guy to hit –…

The List: Mexican on my mind

  This week’s review of D’Corazon marks something of a return to reality — to a restaurant where I can dependably guess what my food is going to look and taste like when I order it, a place where I don’t have to worry about anyone trying to sneak pomegranate…

Drown your sorrows in a Rio Grande margarita

At the Rio Grande last week, I watched a lawyer getting fired. There was no screaming, no tears, and it was all handled with reasonable decorum, a fairly civil proceeding between two bosses and the woman being canned, with another onlooker there as backup. But all I could keep thinking…

D’Corazon will steal a little piece of your heart

To see more of D’Corazon, go to westword.com/slideshow. Since coming west almost a decade ago, I have developed a deep and meaningful relationship with Mexican food — a love affair with few disappointments, one of the most stable of my otherwise rather unstable life. I’m not saying I love tacos…

Biker Jim is on a roll

I love hot dogs. In particular, hot dogs from a cart. In particularly particular, the weird, freak-ass dogs served by Biker Jim Pittenger at Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs in Skyline Park. And now comes word that Biker Jim has got himself a new cart (all custom, with its own exhaust…

Another little piece of my heart: D’Corazon

Here is a city where I can get breakfast burritos (delivered to the office, if necessary), tacos on almost every corner, decent (though never fantastic) green chile, the combined cuisines of Puebla and Michoacan and Chihuahua and the D.F., all without being assaulted for flaunting my literacy, without having to…

IACP Conference Report: Chocolate Threesome

For those of you not yet hipped to the big foodie news in Denverlast week, the International Association of Culinary Professionals wasin town — a kind of traveling circus show of food writers, foodeditors, food pimps, chefs, authors, wine gurus and associatedtradesmen. And, of course, Jason Sheehan was embedded right…

IACP Conference Report: Dispatches from the front lines

For those of you not yet hipped to the big foodie news in Denver this week, the International Association of Culinary Professionals is in town — a kind of traveling circus show of food writers, food editors, food pimps, chefs, authors, wine gurus and associated tradesmen. And, of course, Jason…

IACP Conference Report: Food writers are good in bed

For those of you not yet hipped to the big foodie news in Denver this week, the International Association of Culinary Professionals is in town — a kind of traveling circus show of food writers, food editors, food pimps, chefs, authors, wine gurus and associated tradesmen. And, of course, Jason…

It’s all sammies, all the time at this Aurora shop

While eating my way through the Best of Denver 2009, I tried Which ‘Wich, an Aurora sandwich shop that’s part of a chain of a hundred-some shops that has grown like kudzu across the country since it started in Dallas in 2003. Which ‘Wich makes sandwiches and only sandwiches (okay,…

The food at Root Down gets a thumbs-down

I don’t know where to begin. Should I start with the girl in the full-length (faux) fur over her sundress in the dining room — the one I’d pegged as a Russian mafia princess until I heard her speaking flawless English — or the beautiful people on the patio discussing…

Best of Denver: They coulda been contenders

So here we are…another Best of Denver issue in the rearview mirror, and it’s all over but the shouting. The real blizzard wasn’t last Thursday’s snowfall, but the avalanche of calls and e-mails from restaurant fans and owners wondering why their place (ahem…Root Down) didn’t get the notice they thought…

WTF?!!? A new menu at Chipotle

I have to extend an apologetic hand to both my fellow Westworder Joel Warner and, by extension, the Highland Mommies — the web message board group in North Denver; See, at Monday’s editorial meeting, Mr. Warner brought up a rumor he’d heard that Chipotle was changing its menu. There weren’t…

The List: The best new restaurants of 2008

Many great restaurants opened in 2008, as I discovered while researching the Best of Denver 2009. Root Down, which I review in this week’s paper, was not one of them. My favorites:1) Bones2) Shazz (same goofy philosophy, same kind of ridiculous name, much better food.)3) Venue 4) The new 8…

Fine pastries at Marczyk Fine Foods

Just got off the blower with Pete Marczyk at Marczyk Fine Foods, and he passed along a nugget of really good news: As of April 6, the market will be bringing aboard John Hinman — renowned pastry, pie, cake and cookie guy — as a full-time staffer.If his name sounds…

And pho it goes: One door closes, another opens

First, the bad news.  Pho 99, the excellent little pho shop in Alameda Square — the plaza now being torn down to make room for an enormous hardware store — has closed. I wrote lovingly about this place in a glowing review last year (one that had everything to do…