When people talk about Steuben’s, they usually talk about the place rather than the food. Sure, the kitchen does some dishes well (big plates of hand-cut fries drowning in gravy and topped with perfectly browned and melted white cheese) and some dishes wrong (fried chicken that, every time I try…
Brian Sifferman has had a rough couple of years. Brought in for the opening of Corridor 44 (see review), he’s the last member of the original team left, the one who’s survived every cull, every shift in direction, every bad night, week and month. Now he’s not only the manager,…
I drink champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it — unless I’m thirsty. — Lilly…
There are many things that should be part of a restaurant critic’s working kit. Credit cards, first and foremost, or a large wad of cash. A healthy appetite and a willingness to eat (almost) anything put before you. One of those noise-o-meters would be cool, so that you could determine…
I know what you’re thinking: Why did I write about two seafood places in a row? Specifically, last week’s love letter to Cherry Crest Seafood (“A Fish Story,” October 4), with its brief harangue about selling two-ton SUVs to Mr. Magoo, and this week’s review of Oceanaire Seafood Room (see…
It was Anthony Bourdain who first warned diners against eating fish on Mondays. He issued the warning in a New Yorker article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” and then again in the book Kitchen Confidential, which sprang from that magazine piece. And he’s been issuing it ever since, because the…
One of these nights I’m going to blindfold myself, have my wife drive me to some random point along South Federal Boulevard, then get out of the car and start walking. Why? To prove a point, of course. To put paid to my long-held belief that there’s such a profusion…
I am sick of the Denver omelet. My folks were in town recently, and my dad — a willing gastronaut, but never the most adventurous eater when left to his own devices — ate a couple of these atrocities for breakfast at a couple of different places. “Well,” he said,…
On a Saturday night, Cherry Crest Seafood is all business. The menu for this small strip-mall restaurant and fish market lists twenty entrees, not counting pastas or salads, as well as a spread of house specialties and a long board of apps; the chalkboards and dry-erase boards are full of…
I’d forgotten just how much I liked Isle of Singapore. It had been years since I’d been there, years since I’d given the place much more than a passing thought. And yet, stepping back inside after a long absence, Laura and I immediately recalled every detail of our meals there…
A few things that are good early in the morning: breakfast burritos, blow jobs, strong coffee, forgiveness for last night’s sins, that first cigarette of the day and banana lumpia from Tropical Grill. I’m not going to say which of these is my favorite, which I cannot live without. But…
The end of August and beginning of September are pure murder in the restaurant industry. Diners are sick of summer and waiting for the first chill of autumn. Seasonal menus are growing stale, business is glacial when there’s any at all. In the kitchens, the end of summer is just…
Kevin Taylor has a big restaurant empire that has occasionally shrunk to a smaller restaurant empire, with closures both temporary (Palettes, the restaurant that reopened last year in the Denver Art Museum; see review) and permanent, but he’s now back in an expansionist mode. Jim Sullivan knows all about boom-and-bust…
In the food world, a war has long been waged over what, exactly, it is that cooks and chefs produce. In the galleys and the prep kitchens, on the hot lines and in the bars after work, there have been discussions, arguments, names called, the occasional punch thrown; outside this…
With the memory of that excellent roasted chicken at Palettes (see review) still fresh, what should I find waiting for me back at the office? The long overdue confirmation that Kevin Taylor will indeed be taking over the old Theatre Cafe space in the Denver Performing Arts Complex and turning…
Some days I want to eat chicken feet. I want tripe and trotters, crispy fried intestine and all the assorted culinary weirdness that makes the world go ’round. I would be just as bored with cheeseburgers every day as someone living in, say, Addis Ababa would be with nothing but…
Rebecca Weitzman, chef at the fantastic Cafe Star (3201 East Colfax Avenue) and supreme overseer of the fine-dining portion of Colfax’s restaurant revolution, has just announced that she’s quitting our little corner of paradise at the end of the month. She’s heading for New York City — still the hot…
I’ve always had trouble with holidays. I don’t like the pressure, the expectations; I’m just bad at them. One of the many reasons I took such comfort in the restaurant business was because holidays really didn’t exist within its cloisters. Cooks cook while the rest of the world celebrates —…
Since I just reviewed city-o-city, which opened early this year in the original home of WaterCourse Foods, it seemed an appropriate time to check out what the new WaterCourse has to offer. First things first: The restaurant, which took over the space formerly occupied by the New York on 17th…
It was real easy to find Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs. Even if I didn’t know where it was, even if I hadn’t been there plenty of times before, even if I hadn’t had the slightest clue, it would’ve been easy to find. All I had to do was look for…
An ode, a lament: That’s what it says on the menu, on the wall, on the chalkboards and on the website that City, O’ City shares with WaterCourse Foods, the restaurant that used to be in this Capitol Hill space. An ode, a lament — to Denver and its people,…
As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one truly great cheeseburger in the area, and that’s the double served at Bud’s Bar in Sedalia. Bud’s has done everything possible to make me dislike the place — from overcharging me to refusing takeout orders to being too full for me to…
