When I wrote my original review of 3 Sons (“Same Old, Same Old,” September 11, 2003), people called me an assassin. They called me a thug and an asshole and a brainless, potty-mouthed jerkoff who didn’t know nothin’ from nothin’. What I didn’t get was a single letter sympathizing with…
After visiting Carmine’s on Penn (see review), I decided to check in with Carmine’s original owner, Larry Herz. I hadn’t talked to him since he announced he was closing his Go Fish Grille, at 250 Josephine Street (which had replaced his Indigo at the same address), and going to work…
Once upon a time, in a land not so very far away, there was a restaurant ruled by a king named Larry. Now, King Larry wasn’t an evil king. He wasn’t cruel or ruthless, as kings so often are. He didn’t abuse the peasantry of Hotcakesland, didn’t cut off peoples’…
The problem wasn’t so much that we were drinking, but that neither of us had really stopped in a couple of days. When my little brother and I get together back home — as annually as we can manage — drinking is just what we do. It’s not to excess…
It’s not often that a fellow like myself — a dedicated carnivore, shameless bacon addict, fan of all things larded, bloody and fat-spackled — goes looking for health food. Ten cups of coffee a day, taken as preventative medicine against potential lifestyle complications like sleep; ice cream for breakfast, Cuban…
Mama T is leaving. She’s moving to Cincinnati, where her husband is working a factory job now, where there’s another apartment waiting, another community expecting her. She’s going with her son Rafael, and she’s taking her pots and pans. She’s taking her living-room set with the white lace doilies. She’s…
I consider it one of the great fortunes of my life that, for as long as I have been my own man, I have never had a normal year — one that could be anticipated, seen through end to end, navigated on an even keel. All of my years have…
Unlike Aquarium — the fish restaurant at the Downtown Aquarium (see review) — Eat Street at the Denver Children’s Museum is not serving any of its less successful exhibits for lunch. Nor did operators Jay and Emily Solomon (who also own the nearby Jay’s Patio Cafe on 15th Street) feel…
Okay, so it’s not very often that I come down on the same side intellectually and ideologically as the folks from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. As a matter of fact, it’s not very often that I can stand to be in the same room with any of…
I have not always been a good guy, and I have not always lived a good life. I have committed sins venial, carnal and culinary, have knowingly done wrong and sometimes enjoyed it quite a bit. I have vices, secret shames, public hatreds, a checkered past — and remain, in…
This is a good week. Why? Because Second Helping is finally getting to do what I’d always hoped it would do: give a second shot to a restaurant savaged in a previous review, a place that’s now worthy of being welcomed into the fold. Although many of the good spots…
I don’t spill a lot of ink writing about chefs and restaurants doing charity events. A lot of you probably think that’s because I’m a miserable, Scrooge-ish crank full of spite and humbuggery. And while I certainly am, the real reason I don’t keep track of every bake-off, giveaway, beneficent…
Planned communities creep me out. It’s something about their zero-down homogeneity, the Stepford-ness of their razor-straight streets and perfectly manicured medians, their covenant controls and faux-utopian doubleplusgood Orwellian weirdness. It’s the way they build their own parks, schools and churches on the same templates that govern the placement of their…
Bonnie Brae Tavern has no windows, which may explain why few modern influences have slipped in over the past seventy-odd years to mess up the place. Instead, four generations of the Dire family — which opened the onetime roadhouse right across the street from the headquarters of the Denver Temperance…
Buenos Aires,” says Francis Carrera, owner of Buenos Aires Pizzeria (see review), rolling the name of his native city off his tongue like he’s savoring it, as if every letter were spun out of sugar. “It’s all about women and the food, you know? It’s a dangerous place.” Though he…
Up to this point, I had given about as much thought to the foods of Argentina as I had to the high peaks of Cincinnati or the beaches of Kansas. And I had given about as much thought to Argentina in general as I had to Victorian haberdashery or the…
With Cajun on the brain this week, I made a run down to Littleton for NoNo’s Cafe, long a local favorite among a certain clientele despite its decidedly Cracker Barrel-lite style of decor and inauspicious strip-mall location. Who, exactly, is this certain clientele? Beats the hell out of me, but…
Whenever I eat at Lucile’s (see review, page 48), I always order more than I can possibly eat. Order more than two of me could eat, in fact, loading the table to the breaking point and then stuffing myself until I can’t see straight. It’s a matter of logistics, really,…
Here’s what I like best about Lucile’s, the insanely popular, quarter-century-old Creole restaurant: It’s in a house. Just a plain, not very large two-story house with an enclosed porch. The place is comfy, tattered, worn smooth by thousands of days of service. There are specials every day, but the core…
Last week I dropped by the new Japon space (right next door to the old Japon space), sat down in the hip, bright, dining room, ordered up a nice, cold plate of chirashi sashimi (assorted raw sea creatures over ginger and rice)…and couldn’t finish it. The components were all top-shelf…
arly next year, Lola will leave its current home at 1469 South Pearl Street and move to 1575 Boulder Street in the Highland neighborhood — but that doesn’t mean its name is up for grabs. Still, a Lola European Cafe just opened at 820 15th Street, in the space right…
ayne Conwell has an eye for detail. His work, his career, everything he is and everything he does depends on detail, on seeing the things that no one else can. He’s a fifteen-year veteran of the sushi game, in which detail — a single grain of rice, a single slip…
