When I stepped back outside, the wind had picked up. The fuzz from the cottonwood trees was blowing so thick down the street it looked like a freak summer snow storm, but the rain wasn’t far behind. I walked back down the boardwalk and crossed towards the water, looking for…
For those of you who just can’t get your fill of talking shit right here in town, there’s quite a lively discussion on the Food Media and News forum here at chowhound.com . The focus appears to be primarily about how much I suck, how crooked / deluded / psychotic…
Cold Kumomoto oysters from the bays of British Columbia, Malpeques from Prince Edward Island, gulf prawns from Mexico and littleneck clams from wherever littleneck clams call home. Negi-tuna sashimi, octopus and red-snapper ceviche, P.E.I. mussels by the pound juiced with ponzu and aioli. Whole king crabs, lobster tails, shrimp cocktails…
I would make a terrible private investigator. This is a hard thing for me to admit, because as a kid, I was somewhat obsessed with the old Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson noir detective novels. I watched the black-and-white movies made from the best of them (Maltese Falcon…
It isn’t often that I have no desire to go out (though it seems to happen more and more as I “mature”), and the other night was one of those rare occasions when I just wanted to park my butt on the couch, crack open a beer and contemplate religion…
After visiting Aqua (see review), I decided to stop by Sparrow, a nearby restaurant I’d reviewed two years ago (“Cry Fowl,” March 17, 2005). At the time, I counted Sparrow among the worst restaurants in the city — the sort of place that was so ridiculously bad on so many…
There is only one true Italian restaurant — back East, in that charmed province that runs along the coast, north into New England, south as far as Baltimore. Upstate, downstate, in the barrens and on the shore, just one restaurant with 10,000 names that has grown the way mushrooms grow,…
Last month, I was all giddy about Colterra, the Niwot restaurant that chef Bradford Heap and his wife, Carol, were planning to open in place of Le Chantecler, which Heap had bought after he’d sold his interest in Chautauqua Dining Hall and Full Moon Grill (“All the Way,” April 12)…
I’m pretty sure it was Albert Einstein who said that matter cannot be created or destroyed — or maybe it was Bill Nye the Science Guy. Either way, at some point in our academic careers, we all learned that this was true sometime, just as we learned that heavier things…
Run, Forrest, run! The only time I run is when someone is chasing me (if then), and perhaps because of my unwillingness to run, I’m fascinated by people who do — particularly the freakish marathon runners. So when my friends suggested that we meet at Mezcal at 6:30 a.m. to…
For 88 years, residents of Louisville have been coming to the Blue Parrot for spaghetti and meatballs, for ravioli and sausage sandwiches, for lunch and dinner, because that’s the kind of respect historic joints in small towns get — and also because for a long time there just wasn’t much…
There is only one true Italian restaurant — back east, in that charmed province that runs along the coast, north into New England, south as far as Baltimore. Upstate, downstate, in the barrens and on the shore, just one restaurant with 10,000 names that has grown the way mushrooms grow,…
There are many strange delights to be discovered in Aurora’s Asian triangle, behind the doors of karaoke bars, noodle shops, Chinese bakeries, tea shops and stores selling herbal back-pain remedies, manga, car insurance and brain tonics. From strip mall to strip mall, the sensory landscape changes mile by mile, sometimes…
Jason? Hey, this is Duy. Man, I just read your column about JJ Chinese closing and I just had to tell you…” Over the years, Duy Pham, currently chef/owner at Kyoto at 7301 South Santa Fe Drive in Littleton and ex of just about everywhere, has told me a lot…
I imagine that a true baseball fan would be blissful at meeting Babe Ruth’s great-grandson. Politicos probably panic when they’re introduced to a Kennedy scion. Brits blatantly blanch when they see that little convict Prince Harry. So when I met Frederick Booker Noe III, I was speechless. Freddy, as I…
My computer’s dictionary defines a “tavern” as a place that sells beer and other drinks and sometimes serves food. I would agree with this for a start, but a real tavern is so much more. A real tavern is in the upper Midwest. A real tavern serves Tombstone pizza cooked…
Oshima Ramen is like a clock set to run very, very slowly. But rather than having minute and second hands tick off its story, it has walls covered with graffiti. Over the years, people have added signatures, declarations of love, crudely reproduced anime characters, pictures of stick figures doing unmentionable…
“I’ve been thrown out of some of these bars. Chased out. Ignored. I don’t do karaoke, but I know a place where one might indulge their proclivities for singing half-drunk versions of Mandy or Forever in Blue Jeans until late in the night or early in the morning. I know…
On my first night at Fruition, I splashed an entire glass of water onto my date before I’d even said hello. I was late to table and had stuck out my hand to shake hers just as the steward (for lack of a better term) was trying to set a…
It’s crazy,” Alex Seidel says. “Every night. I tell you, man, it’s Tetris all the time in here.” He’s talking about his kitchen at Fruition , that tiny, one-man, Lord Jim foxhole that Sean Kelly once worked alone, like Kurtz at the end of the Nung River, and which Seidel…
Although I’ve tried to systematize my life, the truth is that I’m organizationally handicapped. So when I saw the pricing sign behind the bar at the Bulldog, I was astounded by the brilliance of the concept. Kelly-green dots on bottles meant they were $6, Day-Glo orange meant $5, and so…
Relations between men and women have many unresolved issues. There’s constant bitching about the quantity and quality of sex. Also, no couple on earth can agree on a reasonable definition of “clean.” Guys know something is “clean” if they’ve sprayed a liquid on it, then wiped it up with a…
