The Hangar Bar is still flying high

It’s not easy to belly up to the bar at the Hangar Bar (8001 East Colfax Avenue). The bolted-down stools are positioned so close to the wooden elbow rest/ledge that extends from the chipped, Formica-surfaced bar that you leave with bruises on your sternum and knees if you settle in…

La Torta is the king of tortas

Had Steve Ells found his inspiration for Chipotle in Guadalajara rather than San Francisco’s Mission District, the result would have been Las Tortas. Instead, this spot inside a weird little strip mall/roadside plaza space that was once home to Les Delices de Paris (now at 600 South Holly Street) is…

SAME Cafe: The restaurant where you pay what you can

To find out what recent customers paid for meals at the SAME Cafe, go to westword.com/slideshow. The first thing Brad Birky does is hand me an apron. “Would you mind starting on soup duty?” he asks, guiding me toward two large industrial cookers near the front counter. “This is tomato…

Colicchio goes a-whorin’ for Diet Coke?

On Oscar night, the entire food world was abuzz. Not because of anything that happened during the Academy Awards ceremony, but because of one of the (million and one) commercials that showed during the proceedings: namely, the Tom Colicchio Diet Coke spot that appeared to show the Top Chef judge and…

In anticipation of the Top Chef finale

I swore a few weeks ago that I wasn’t going to write another word about Bravo’s Top Chef until it stopped sucking. Until they stopped breaking the action every thirty seconds with completely inappropriate product placements (Diet Dr. Pepper cookoff!), until Fabio and Stefan stopped giving the mafia kiss of…

Auld Dubliner now Marmalade Bar & Cafe

The Auld Dubliner, at 2796 South Broadway, closed just five weeks ago. Now owners Phillip and Lorri Donaghy, who also owned the Squealing Pig in Cherry Creek (which closed last month, too), have reopened the place as Marmalade Bar & Cafe. It’s open daily for breakfast at 7 a.m. and…

Get some Sweet Action on Broadway

Do you long for baklava, adzuki red bean or garam masala ice cream? Your wait will end one week from Friday when Sweet Action Ice Cream opens at 52 Broadway. The space, formerly occupied by Fahrenheit Books, will be shared with Twisted Sol, the tattoo shop moving down from Capitol…

Our Weekly Bread: Cheesesteak Connection

The sandwich: Hoagie Philly Where to get it: Cheesesteak Connection What’s on it: Chopped steak, melted American cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo (with sauteed onions and mushrooms added) How much: $5.49 There are few foods that I don’t like, few styles that I can’t develop an appreciation for on some…

Two Spoons to bring soup and gelato to the masses

Two Spoons opened this month in the former location of Gelato Bacio, at 1021 Pearl Street in Boulder, and owner David Cohen, who for seventeen years has owned Spruce Confections, at 767 Pearl Street, is now serving up more joy by the gelato and soup spoon. “We make everything from…

Turn on the TV: Top Chef finale tonight

Hosea Rosenberg, chef at Jax Fish House in Boulder, has made it to the final round of Bravo’s Top Chef; the winner will be revealed tonight on the season finale. Cheer the hometown favorite at West End Tavern, 926 Pearl Street in Boulder, where Rosenberg will be holding court alongside…

Getting in on the conversation at Bistro One

“Talk to me about your fish.””The monkfish?””Yeah…”I’m writing about Bistro One this week — and this review’s a little different.  For a change, it’s all about the food.  More to the point, it’s all about chef Olav Peterson and his menu and the things that go right and wrong between…

Organixx is greener than a Prius — let’s hope the food tastes good

The website of Organixx, the new restaurant at 1520 Blake Street, offers this on its home page: “Sustainable, eco-friendly, reusable, recyclable, fair trade, natural, energy efficient, organic, local, green, low-impact, fresh. These are words that inspire us at Organixx.” Amazing: In a single sentence, there’s every possible key word used…

Manischewitz! Denverite competes in national cook-off

When I last talked with Deborah Leebove, daughter of Joyce Foster (the former city councilwoman who is now a state senator), she’d just reached the finals of the third annual Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off.And now Leebove, pictured here with her entry, elaborates on the experience: “I desperately wanted a new kitchen,” she…

AJ’s Super Bowl Run Through LoDo

Things can get downright neighborly in the LoDo neighborhood, but never more so than on Super Bowl Sunday, when restaurant workers at Dixons, Wazee Lounge and Supper Club and McCormick’s Fish House made some big bets. The loser? AJ Oscarson, a waiter at Dixons, who had to make good on…

The List: Eating good in the neighborhood

  Venue, which I reviewed last week, was a tough restaurant to define.  It wasn’t exactly American, certainly wasn’t French, wasn’t really Continental…  If it’d opened five years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to call it a New American bistro, but these days, the phrase “New American” seems to define…

Cafe Bites bites into Mardi Gras

CarniVail, Vail’s annual Mardi Gras festival, kicked off on Sunday, but the festivities continue through February 27. Today from 3-6 p.m., the Bud Light Street Party will feature the Tony G All Stars, with a Fat Tuesday Parade in Vail Village from 4-5 p.m. For details, go to www.CarniVail.net. There…

Another round at Katie Mullen’s

I dropped by Katie Mullen’s on Friday night to get a look at the finished place — and to see whether the numbers quoted to me regarding its first few days of business (800 covers one day, pushing 900 the next) were within hollering distance of the truth.And you know…

Beerdrinker of the Year: A judge’s tale

It’s good to be the judge, and I should know since I spent Saturday afternoon dressed in a black robe and a wig, drinking beer and making history — beer-drinking history. The event was the thirteenth annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, and I’d been…

Sexy Pizza’s sexy facelift

Back in October, I wrote about Sexy Pizza, a new pizza joint at 1018 East 11th Avenue that was enjoying good word-of-mouth for both its name and its pizzas. At the time, partner Kayvan Khalatbari told me that Sexy’s owners were planning some renovations that would make the name seem…

It’s Denver Cupcake Week for Lovely Confections Bakery

When the going gets tough, the tough sell cupcakes. Lovely Confections Bakery, located at 1489 Steele Street Unit C, started celebrating Denver Cupcake Week on February 21; it will run through this Friday. The bakery is marking its first anniversary by offering two cupcakes for $5.280 and one cupcake for…