On another afternoon at Brooklyn M.C.’s Pizzeria (see review), I was sitting in the dining room waiting on a pizza, listening to the two cooks talk. An Andrea Bocelli song was playing, the blind tenor singing something pretty in Italian. Although the cooks seemed friendly enough, they hadn’t struck me…
Giant Statue of Liberty sculpture in the corner? Check. Blinged-up, chunky NY necklace covered in fake diamonds around said statue’s neck? Check. Sopranos memorabilia? Check. Shelf full of New York tchotchkes? Check. FDNY keepsakes on shelf? Check. Overtly patriotic pictures of the New York skyline, sans Twin Towers but full…
After my time at D Bar Desserts, I wanted to revisit another dessert bar. One major problem: Though Denver has seen a few dedicated dessert bars open, it has also seen just about all of them close soon after. Remember Emogene and how fast that nascent chain tanked? Though the…
Last week, after I’d finished my review of D Bar, I called chef-owner Keegan Gerhard to ask the Food Network star a few questions. First and foremost: How the hell did he end up in Denver? “That’s funny,” he replied. “That’s a result of a few things, really.” And then…
The first time I saw Keegan Gerhard, it was on TV. That was also the second place I saw him. And the tenth, fiftieth and hundredth. Given Gerhard’s ubiquitous star status, there was a time — like, right up until last week, maybe — when a man (like me) could’ve…
After my first meal at Hamburger Mary’s, I went next door to Marczyk Fine Foods to poke around and see what was going on behind the market at Marczyk Fine Wines, since this was the first Sunday when it could sell liquor. The clerk seemed happy to be working on…
I like community-oriented restaurants, places that hang their existence on serving one specific subset of society but also gladly welcome others from outside the targeted demographic — seeing them as so much gravy. Hamburger Mary’s, the gay-themed burger joint transplanted from San Francisco is one of these, but so are…
One of the most awesome things about this job is that I never have to worry about who’s buying the cheeseburgers. I just have to worry about finding new cheeseburgers for my boss to buy. That’s no knock against Denver — God knows, this city has more burger joints than…
Pho 99 serves a surprisingly authentic, working-class, streetside kind of pho that, while not exactly rare in Denver (what with its million numbered pho shops and half-million more unclassifiable Vietnamese restaurants), is not the most common iteration of the classic Vietnamese breakfast-lunch-dinner-midnight-snack food, either. Its focus on ingredients and plain…
I was driving a lot last week, bouncing between pho restaurants all over town, trying to decide which one was going to be my lucky number. There was the new(ish) Pho 7, at 10009 East Hampden Avenue in Aurora (in the former home of Istanbul Grill), where I still haven’t…
My dentist hits the button and slowly brings the chair back to vertical. “All right,” he says. “We’re done. How ya doing?” I nod, say something about being okay, all good, splendid. “Really done?” I ask. “That was…” Gross. Annoying. Disturbing. Double-gross. “…not so bad.” He smiles, turns half away…
While I messed up at Mona’s, at least I didn’t blow my cover until I went to pay for my last meal there. Which means that for at least for two full meals and nine-tenths of a third, I was still working under my normal, modest cloak of anonymity, still…
I’d been having such a good day. A full night’s sleep and then some — rare for me, insomniac that I am. Waking late, bumming around the house in sweatpants, in a rush to get precisely nowhere. First cigarette of the day and a mug of green tea on the…
I love a Mexican restaurant that opens for breakfast. One of the reasons I know I could never again live happily east of the Mississippi is that I could never survive without breakfast burritos, steaming plates of machaca and day-old takeout green chile in my fridge. There’s one thing I…
When Matt Selby and Josh and Jen Wolkon were planning Steuben’s, their paean to classic Americana that opened in a coolly retro space at 523 East 17th Avenue two years ago, they worked hard to get their showpiece lobster roll just right. This was a sandwich they cared passionately about,…
Albuquerque, New Mexico, about eight years ago… The rush started around five. There was never any way to gauge it — nothing scientific, no outward sign. Though we flew a jolly roger from the fryer end and my guys comported themselves like the hippest of pirates (bandannas, tattoos, ear and…
When Rebecca Weitzman left Cafe Star for the greener pastures of Manhattan last September, I thought for sure that was going to be the end of the place. I mean, if ever a restaurant was defined by a chef, it was Cafe Star, where Weitzman’s easy command of the eclectic…
My problems with Second Home went beyond the short and affectless menu, the sense of a kitchen running on autopilot, and really elemental mistakes in both prep and presentation of several dishes. I was also bothered by the apparent lack of any overarching concept, any theme (for lack of a…
Colorado is absolutely beautiful in spring. Unlike the East Coast — where spring will come on hot and wet and odorous, the land itself like some live thing waking after a long sleep, desperately in need of a bath — and unlike the North — where the first spring thaws…
Three years ago this month, Tante Louise finally faded from the Denver restaurant scene, after three decades of good works — including serving as a training ground for many cooks who would later come to form the top rank of Denver’s chef elite. As owner Corky Douglass bowed out, Ed…
This has been a good year for Colorado’s oenophiles. First, Wine Experience Cafe (reviewed this week) brought the pleasures of both the bottle and the table to those neglected souls living in the south suburbs. Before it opened, I’d talked to owner Eldon Larson, who told me that one of…
I started worrying about Wine Experience Cafe the moment I stepped inside. The place was empty, completely deserted on a day and at an hour when the eighty-seat dining room should have been packed. I was thinking that in this neighborhood (Southlands, another one of those commercial/residential, new-urbanism developments that…
