Food & Drink

You can get great Chinese food in this town, but you have to know where to look — especially if you’re on the hunt for real Szechuan food, not the dumbed-down American version of the cooking of Southern China that’s a mainstay of dollar-a-scoop joints and many strip-mall spots…

One of the biggest challenges I face in life is making my girlfriend happy. We’ve been together almost four years, and I still haven’t a clue as to how to bring a smile to her face. It’s a beautiful smile, though, rare as it is, lighting up both the room…

Since he opened the first Pasquini’s on South Broadway in 1986, Tony Pasquini has grown his Italian restaurant into a family of five, expanding (in some cases via franchise) into the Highland neighborhood as well as Uptown, Lone Tree and the Tech Center. Now the owner is about to add…

Justin Cucci, owner of Root Down and Linger, has been gardening near Root Down since it opened three years ago. But he’ll be the first to deny credit for what grows there. “I’m a city person,” he says. “I have no green thumb in me. We have some great people…

The rooftop patio at Ale House at Amato’s is gorgeous — and even though snow is forecast for tomorrow, given typical Colorado weather, it won’t be long before diners can bask in the sun while enjoying skyline views of the city. And although the menu tends toward the meat-heavy, there…

There are nearly a half-dozen pizzerias slated to pop up all over Denver within the next several months, including Wazee Wood-Fired Pizza, a new joint from celebrated New York chef and restaurateur Charlie Palmer that’s taking over a portion of the former Big Game space. In addition, Slices will open…

Margaritas are a dime a dozen in this city, but a margarita shaken with an avocado? You’ll find that in only one restaurant in Denver. Even weirder than the margarita itself is the fact that I really liked it — and wouldn’t think twice about ordering it again. Can you…

I was about 25 wings into the Wing King Challenge at the West End Tavern — fifty wings in thirty minutes — when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to finish the second half of the bucket of wings in the ten minutes that remained. I was starting…

Hot sauces? Steak knives? Wallpaper? Yesterday, Lori Midson dished the dirt on “Dining thieves: Weird and crazy stuff people steal”. And while Cafe Society’s readers aren’t quite the scofflaws described on seattle.eater, her post still collected a few interesting admissions…as well as this from GFTW: This is all small beans…

So, have you been to China?” I was sitting at the small bar in Chef Liu’s Authentic Chinese Cuisine on a slow Sunday evening, waiting for the feast that Vincent — my inquisitor, and also Chef Liu’s waiter, bartender and host — had ordered for me from the Chinese dinner…

Miami, the city that hosted Tim Tebow’s high-school championship game, his national championship game and, only yesterday, the Tim Tebow Revival Hour, is just the starting point on the Tebow Man of the People tour. Tebow is now tasked with winning on Sundays. In that, umm, spirit, here are the…

Six years ago, Japanese restaurateur Nao-san took the sliver of space next to his raucous Boulder sushi joint, Sushi Zanmai, and built the tea-garden-like Amu Sake Bar and Restaurant, an authentic izakaya that serves an array of Japanese dishes — but no sushi — to the few patrons able to…

Russell’s Smoke House, Frank Bonanno’s new shrine to smoked meats, opened softly on Friday, but on Saturday, the staff was gearing up for a busy night, But first, there was a fantastic food tasting orgy that I was lucky enough to attend, stomaching my way through tender prime rib, sweet…

Kelly Whitaker, chef-owner of Boulder’s Pizzeria Basta, spent every summer of his childhood on a farm — and he hated it. “My grandfather was a farmer, and I spent every single summer on his farm, but I hated vegetables, and my family was the kind that said, ‘You’re going to…

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve skulked out of a restaurant with my handbag stashed with menus, and, on one occasion, back when I was the restaurant critic at the Rocky Mountain News, a chef — who’s no longer in Denver — caught me red-handed and went ballistic…

Earlier this year, Jeff Bauman and his brother, Marc, signed a lease on a small storefront at 2009 West 32nd Avenue with the intent of opening a charcuterie and butcher shop. But after a myriad of construction and electrical issues stonewalled the process, the brothers, who are the grandsons of…

There’s never a night that this incredibly popular restaurant isn’t perpetually packed, but on Friday night, it was nothing short of a madhouse, thanks to scores of visiting parents in town for a yearly event and a gaggle of women celebrating a fiftieth birthday party. Can you guess where I’m…

​​No one’s saying you have to go meatless just because it’s Monday — but as an incentive to join the growing Meatless Monday movement, we’re featuring an animal-free recipe each week. Appetizers and small plates tend to be meat-and-cheese heavy, but this tapenade is completely plant-based; serve it on top…