Food & Drink

On our first night in town, Laura, the kid and I had only one overwhelming concern: where to get a little dinner.  And rather than drive down into Avon, we decided to take our chances in the minor utopia that is Beaver Creek Village. It was beautiful (as was only…

Whereas a weekly hamburger fix is the norm for some of you, at my house, it’s the street taco or the hot dog — the latter because my kid is extremely picky about where he’ll eat a burger (Old School Burgers is about the only place that doesn’t make him…

Cheba Hut, the pot-themed sub-shop chain, could open its first Denver location as early as Monday, August 10, says franchisee and store co-owner Matt Clark-Johnson, who’s at the store at 1531 Champa Street making some final preparations this morning. Although Clark-Johnson, who also owns a Cheba Hut in Boulder, had…

See that picture above? Yeah, that’s exactly what you think it is: a toaster with a pre-determined Pop Tart setting. And that is just about the coolest thing in the world. Or in the world of toasters, at least. The toaster pictured is the one that came with my room…

In our families, grandma usually does all the holiday candy-making to create our yearly dose of buttery toffee, peanut clusters and peanut brittle. But grandma never made peanut brittle like this. The Fluffy Gourmet Peanut Brittle made locally by “Grampa” Michael Apodaca at Grampas Candy is “injected with air to…

If you didn’t snag a ticket to tonight’s shochu-tasting dinner at Elway’s, don’t weep in your Wheaties. You have other other culinary options this evening, including a grape-stomping and -grilling dinner at Strings (1700 Humboldt Street) that sounds like a perfect prelude to the weekend. The Strings dinner, prepared by…

The Arizona-based Martini Ranch USA, which owns Martini Ranch clubs in Scottsdale and San Diego, abruptly closed its Denver space at 1317 14th Street at the end of July. “Right now it’s in negotiations with the chain ownership and a remodel,” Jason Witkes, the venue’s marketing coordinator, told Jon Solomon,…

For weeks, ever since Frank Bruni announced that he was going to be packing it in and leaving his gig as restaurant critic for the New York Times, speculation has been running high as to who Dining section editor Pete Wells and the NYT brain trust would name to succeed…

By the time 5 p.m. rolls around on a work day in Japan, patrons have made their way into the nearest izakaya to knock back shochu (pronounced ‘show-chew’), a clear distilled spirit, similar to vodka (sans the hangover), that can be made from rice, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, barley or buckwheat…

I have no use for fusion cuisine, for the deliberate fuckery that comes of trying to jam two or three or five culinary traditions together on one plate, for the dumb manhandling of food — torturing it and forcing it into unnatural configurations of time or flavor or place. Of…

Restaurants carry a lot of history. Some of it is the centuries-old history of the culinary traditions that inspired that restaurant. And some of the history is much more recent. This week I review Karma, Peter Hsing’s Asian fusion restaurant built on a solid foundation of well-prepared and interestingly executed…

Every week in Chef and Tell, Lori Midson features a Denver chef. During the Taste of the Nation, the July 19 charity event that Matt Selby chef-chaired, he turned to me and uttered one word: “Wow.” He was awestruck by the size of the crowd, but also by something else:…

Today is National Waffle Day, so I did what any self-respecting waffler would do: I ate pancakes. Not just any pancakes, mind you, but a trifecta of flapjacks at the new Snooze, which opened its second location last Friday at 700 Colorado Boulevard. The new space, just like the original,…

Yesterday, Jack in the Box was giving away two free tacos with no strings attached; today, Taco Hell Bell is giving away four tacos for one buck, with the attached string being that you’ve got to purchase a drink (the cheapest one is $1.72, including tax, at the Taco Bell…