Fruition, reviewed in this week’s paper, was the restaurant I picked as the Best New Restaurant in this year’s Best of Denver edition. When I made that choice, I knew that Fruition wasn’t yet the best restaurant it could be, just the best there was at the time. And it’s…
“On my second night at Fruition, I lit my menu on fire. It wasn’t a big fire—just the sort one gets from an unfortunate proximity of a heavy-bond paper menu to a small candle on the dinner table. I put the fire out with the palm of my hand—thankful, in…
Never heard of a Violet Crumble? Don’t worry, because neither has most of the rest of the world outside of Australia, Hawaii and parts of the U.K. But personally, I’m somewhat obsessed with the stranger extremes of the confectionery arts and have spent many an evening wandering around the dry-stock…
Okay, so after the totally less-than-smashing success of my last attempt at getting all you grubniks more involved in the day-to-day business of this blog thingamajig (my ill-fated “What’s your favorite taste of Colorado” question, posed just ahead of this year’s Best of Denver issue in a thinly-veiled and desperate…
Laura was downstairs watching TV. “There’s that Indian place by the thing — that place with the fish,” she yelled. I was upstairs in front of the computer. “No.” “What about the Japanese restaurant?” “No.” “Seriously?” “Yeah, no. Not this time.” Quiet for a moment. “I don’t want Italian.” “Neither…
I called Limón chef/owner Alex Gurevich last week, and as a measure of just how frazzled the man was, for the first few minutes of our conversation, he thought I was a contractor calling to tell him that things weren’t going to be ready for his restaurant expansion’s launch this…
A guy hugged me recently, then looked shocked. “After living on the West Coast,” he confessed, “hugging someone with real breasts feels funny.” Chain restaurants are the cultural equivalent of fake boobs. They used to be few and far between, but now, like breast implants, chain restaurants are everywhere. And…
I sometimes wonder how long pleasant memories are good for. What’s the shelf life on one really good night? On one brief afternoon, three strong margaritas and a smile across a crowded table? In my sweeter moments, I want to think that memories last forever — that they never sour,…
It was the first seriously hot day of the year, maybe the second. Outside, the whole world smelled like cherry blossoms and living earth. I had the speakers on the computer turned down low and Tom Waits was singing You Can Never Hold Back Spring. It was that kind of…
I was having dinner with two friends — one who was attempting a wise quasi-diet by never cleaning a plate, the other who, like me, ate every scrap of everything she liked and burned the excess calories by viciously mocking anything she didn’t. Together, the three of us had worked…
By the time this issue hits the stands, Mel’s — that Cherry Creek institution and stronghold of ever-changing American cookery — will have served its final meals, poured its final glasses of wine and turned out the lights for the final time. And you know what? I’m glad to see…
I don’t know if it’s the wasabi, the gallons of alcohol consumed or simply the social act of gathering over raw fish, but something about our sushi runs makes the Institute of Drinking Studies wax poetic. We should videotape the proceedings so that we can later review them and figure…
While enjoying an economical Jim Beam and Coke ($2 all day, every day) at the Stadium Inn, my friend Terri told me that she’d enjoyed her first legal cocktail at that very bar in 1975, as she celebrated her 21st birthday. But the Stadium was around long before that. In…
There are many voices at the restaurant-reviewing table these days, not all of them professional. And Tula, perhaps more than any other place in town, has both profited and suffered from this new blog/message board/MySpace world, where everyone believes they get a say. Right now, the three top reviews for…
As promised in this week’s Bite Me, here’s the full text of Lili Bjorklund’s review of La Sandia from the student newspaper at Graland. Bear in mind that though she may come from a restaurant family (her parents are Adde Bjorklund and Halleh Hessami, who used to own Bistro Adde…
Not everyone is comforted by mashed potatoes and big bowls of pasta. Some people like pad thai. Some people like sushi. Some people (though not me) are comforted by piles of truffle-scented shoestring fries. This board is comfort food for the well-traveled, the very well-fed, the occasionally heartbroken. It’s a…
La Sandía is an absolutely beautiful restaurant. It hits that magic balance between light and dark, design and open space, and it seems to glow. In the middle of Stapleton, where everything is new and aloof and distant — all hard surfaces, right angles, mercilessly focus-grouped corporate logos, and clean…
Remember The Restaurant, the reality show that crashed Rocco DiSpirito’s career? Remember all the pissing and moaning about how Rocco seemed to spend all his time zipping around on his Vespa and tongue-kissing B-list celebs while his restaurant fell to pieces? Yeah, well, as anyone who’s had any dealings with…
This week’s lesson is ethics, which are very important if human society is to progress. Without ethics, you end up with such horrors as insider trading, Enron, the United Nations and Ralph Nacchio. Luckily, most people are ethical; the problem is that ethical behavior is often in the eye of…
Loud motorcycle, muffled manhood. Recently a group of my friends decided to meet for brunch, ideally in a spot with a great outdoor patio where we could enjoy the glorious weather. Tired of our normal routine, we hit on El Noa Noa, a Mexican mainstay that dates back to long…
Zengo has always been the weird cousin in the Richard Sandoval restaurant family, the guy with his shirt unbuttoned a little too low, his breath smelling of sweet wine and peppermints, the relative who — if you had to pick someone — would be the relative most likely to have…
Because Richard Sandoval has so many restaurants to keep track of, because he is one of those multi-unit chefs who seems driven to collect addresses the way some kids collect baseball cards, he has no day-to-day control over his properties. He sets a concept, writes a menu, staffs up with…
