As evidenced by the strange but incredibly successful tapas menu being done izakaya-style at Izakaya Den (see review), the Japanese know a thing or two about small plates. But other Asian cuisines have taken to the notion of little tastes of several dishes, too. The Chinese have dim sum; the…
I recently spent an afternoon at the University of Colorado at Boulder, boring the pants off an entire classroom of aspiring food writers with tales of my misfit adventures. But when their questions inevitably turned to how best to get into the food-writing racket — and whether this must necessarily…
It was almost midnight when I left Izakaya Den. I muscled my way out the big, unmarked front doors, turned to face a bracing, cold breeze whipping down the street and staggered just a little. I shook my head to clear away the cotton, patted down my pockets for a…
While I may always have a soft spot for the Bagel Deli (see review) with its cramped displays of Jewish deli essentials (Dr. Brown’s soda, bagel chips, Halvah and schmaltz), those looking for a wider variety of sundries could do a lot worse than the East Side Kosher Deli. Open…
In the restaurant business, the holiday season goes one of two ways. Either it’s all quiet on the Western front, complete with men in the trenches and hastily whispered prayers, or it’s a last-minute flurry of chaotic action — an eleventh-hour push to get open, get set, get closed or…
I’d spent most of a lazy Saturday avoiding the commitment of deciding where to eat that night. Laura kept asking, kept pestering me to make a decision — wanting to know what kind of freaky, dumb-ass experience her darling husband would settle on this time: raw fish, testicles, chicken-fried steak,…
When the people behind Prime 121 decided to bring yet another steakhouse to this crowded cow town, they were taking on quite a challenge (see review). But it’s been done very successfully a couple of times in the past few years, by operations that managed to jam yet another top-shelf…
I’ve heard it said a thousand times, by tourists and by natives, by local chefs and national food writers — said ironically, in jest, in cold seriousness, in rage. When your new, million-dollar French-Asian fusion restaurant goes under in a flood of bad debt and worse reviews, it’s what you…
There are easy lunches and then there are really easy lunches. At the Corner Office, lunch is easy enough — a good menu (chicken and waffles!) in an interesting room, with excellent service. But lunch is even easier at McCormick’s Fish House & Bar, a place where you can stop…
There’s news in Cherry Creek, where Eric Laslow, formerly of Corridor 44 and Restaurant 4580, has just been named chef for the Iron Mountain Winery that will be opening in the space at 235 Fillmore Street, home to the original Mel’s. Although Iron Mountain’s owners announced that they would be…
On Friday at five-thirty, six, seven at night, The Corner Office is less a restaurant than a three-ring circus filled with liquored-up yuppies doing all their best tricks, elephantine captains of industry getting hot under the collar, fierce and beautiful female executives stalking the bar like lionesses in heels, and…
Using liquid nitrogen, chef Ian Kleinman makes magical sorbets at O’s Steak & Seafood (“Mr. Wizard,” October 25). But the magical ice cream served at O’s comes from Peter Arendsen, the owner and only ice cream-maker at Ice Cream Alchemy up in Boulder — a guy who’d done everything from…
I have this dream of going to France. Paris, sure, but also (and mostly) Lyon. In my dream, I have a small, upper-story room in one of those old hotels, and every morning, invisible elves deliver café au lait, piping hot, the Times international edition and magical crepes that cure…
Back in the day (June 2004, to be specific), I hated Julia Blackbird’s with a rare and fiery passion. I hated it for its knock-off New Mexican cuisine, for its terrible earth-tone decor, for its cheap, up-from-frozen appetizers and the people who ordered them — smiling blissfully as they shoveled…
Tom’s Diner holds a special spot in the pantheon of Denver’s 24-hour dives, a special spot in the hearts and bellies of the cops who police it, the night creatures who haunt it, the off-duty strippers, cabbies, hookers and bartenders who frequent it. It’s not every place that can get…
Chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson has won a lot of awards, most of them for Frasca, the restaurant he owns in Boulder with partner Bobby Stuckey. The one honor he doesn’t yet have? An Emmy. And maybe that’s what he was working toward when I caught him on my TV at three…
Morning at Mama’s Cafe is all business. Eggs and more eggs, pancakes and waffles, toast and toast and toast. The kitchen is tiny, a steel box full of line cooks and fire, with room for one guy to work comfortably, two if they’re close as ballet partners. Put three in…
For this week’s review of Culver’s and Smashburger (see review), I ate a lot of cheeseburgers, the foundation of the American fast-food comfort canon. And then I headed to Sushi Den, where I ate a lot of sushi — the foundation of the Japanese fast-food comfort canon. Sushi is simplicity…
Last week, Osteria Marco opened for a party of friends anxious to see what Frank Bonanno had done with the old Del Mar Crab House space at 1453 Larimer Street and, specifically, whether he’d gotten the dead fish smell out of the place. The good news is, yes, he did…
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying unto them, speak unto the Children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that…
Hotel work, for some chefs, is like a retreat. Because of the size of the staff, the hours are generally more kind (not shorter, necessarily, but allowing for actual vacations and days off). The kitchens are enormous — single departments (pastry, garde-manger) taking up as much space as is sometimes…
It begins with a cheese plate. One large cube of Point Reyes blue cheese, well marbled with veins of blue-green mold, nicely cut. A small bunch of grapes. A single breadstick dusted with sea salt and black Tasmanian pepper. A little balsamic vinegar. The elements are laid out in a…
