Over at the Lowenstein project, Neighborhood Flix has gone dark. The combo food/flick operation stayed open for this past Saturday’s Denver Zoo wildlife film festival, then shut down. Eleven months. That’s how long owners Melodie Gaul, Jimmie Smith and Michelle Dorant-Smith were able to keep the place going. I spent…
Last week, I got stuck in three “best pizza in blahblahblah” discussions. One was a drunken confession. One was a declarative statement: If I didn’t agree that this was the best pizza ever made, I was some kind of idiot. And one was almost a fistfight over thin-crust-versus-sorta-thin-crust, an angry,…
Standing in front of Thai Lotus after our first meal there, Laura and I look at the place, amazed. Stuffed and carrying takeout, we need something to aid our digestion. “In Florida,” Laura says, “my grandmother used to take a walk every time she went out for Chinese food. Not…
When I reviewed Pho 99 two months ago, I stuck with the Vietnamese soup for which the place was named, in deference to some complicated dental work. I slurped it with flank and tendon, with tripe, with chicken, and even managed to eat — carefully — some chao tom: homemade…
I’ve passed by Thai Lotus many times without going in. I’ve been to Charlie Brown’s dozens of times without ever cracking a menu. But when I did, I was just as surprised as when I finally stepped inside Thai Lotus. There are many reasons to go to Charlie Brown’s. For…
Have you ever dined with us before?” our server asked. She was penny-bright, scrubbed and polished in her house livery (black on black), standing with her hands folded in front of her and a spark in her eyes that bordered on fanaticism — a glow of barely contained glee at…
It’s rare for a restaurant to have a night go the way of our first meal at Black Cat. I’d watched (in weird, mimed silence, thanks to the panels of glass set between most of the line and the floor) as the night dissolved — the scramble through spiked checks,…
American sandwich-makers have come a long way. Now that serious, heavyweight chefs have begun muscling in on the action (see my review of Masterpiece Delicatessen, page 51), a boy of eclectic appetites can easily score a Cuban, a banh mi, a beef on weck, a Croque Monsieur, a panini or…
Libertines though they may be, chefs love making sushi because sushi is so limiting, so rigorous in what is allowed and what is not, so rooted in tradition and steeped in modernity. There is nowhere to hide with sushi, no cover for mistakes or dumbassery. You’re either on your game…
At Masterpiece Delicatessen, partners Justin Brunson and Steve Allee do some pretty amazing things with a little bread, a little meat, a little this-and-that. Their simplest creations — egg sandwiches, grilled cheese, turkey with pears and cranberry honey — show their command of the artistry of restraint (just enough, never…
So it’s over. The political circus has folded the big top, loaded all the donkeys and elephants, packed up the clown cars and skipped town. Was it fun? Hell, yeah. I wish it was still going on, would go on forever, if only for the sudden injection of action and…
No matter how many bodies you pack inside, some restaurants are always going to be as cold and sterile as a surgical pre-op, where voices seem to evaporate into wisps of cold before they can travel across the length of a table, and even a surfeit of love won’t stop…
Tacos Jalisco does a good job of blending the Mexican, New Mexican, Texan and Coloradan styles of Mexican food into one reasonably coherent whole, and even offers authentic side trips into Michoacán and norteño cuisine. But Benny’s doesn’t even try. This is wholly and completely a Colorado Mexican restaurant —…
Democratic National Convention? Okay, that’s big news. But believe it or not, there’s stuff happening around town that has nothing at all to do with who will become the next president of the United States — stuff of vital interest to those who will still be here in town after…
This is not the first invasion Denver has suffered. There was a sci-fi geek incursion just a couple of weeks ago, that basketball thing a couple of years ago. We’ve had Baptist conventions and World Series games and a thousand smaller, less publicized wrenches thrown in our collective works. And…
SAT prep question: Z Cuisine À Côté is to Le Central as apples are to blank. If you said toaster ovens, typewriters, shag carpeting or anything of the sort, you’re correct — because Le Central and À Côté (reviewed this week) could not be more different. While À Côté is…
Dear Democratic National Convention delegates, candidates, committee heads, chairpersons, hangers-on, fixers, runners, dealers, pimps, organizers, producers, enablers and members of the press: I know you’ve been bombarded with helpful hints about how to enjoy your time in Denver. You’ve been told which restaurants are worth visiting, which bars are good…
Wednesday is market day for Patrick Dupays, chef/owner of Z Cuisine and Z Cuisine À Côté; market day for the cooks, who lay into his ever-changing menu with a fervor, adding this, subtracting that, finding places for the new acquisitions; market day for the À Côté servers, who know exactly…
Some restaurants change over time. Some places stay exactly the same. The mission of Second Helping is to separate one from the other. Via was an awesome restaurant when I reviewed it sixteen months ago. Opened by Venanzio and Anthony Momo — who also own Cucina Coloré in Cherry Creek…
In last week’s Bite Me, I got into the ongoing saga of the Master family and their restaurant empire, which now consists of just one Denver restaurant: Mel’s Anti-Bistro, at 1120 East Sixth Avenue. Talking with Mel and Jane and Charlie, I realized that I hadn’t talked with one of…
My notes from my most recent meal at Il Posto are almost indecipherable — hasty scrawls on the back of an envelope I’d found in my car, on a credit-card receipt from my pocket. Moscato, they say. Froot loops, Van CA, stale, bur-stuffed chix boob, peach salt, shirt cuffs and…
I don’t get it. I hear people talk about this place, and they call it a dive. I see people write about it online, and they say they wouldn’t think of coming here because of the rattletrap exterior, the dimness of the windows. But the outside of this joint is…
