Hamburger Mary’s (700 East 17th Avenue) has won the race to open the first new patio of the season. Its spacious back deck, with both a bar area (including heaters!) and seating for diners, made its debut on Tuesday, May 6. That beat Encore (2250 East Colfax Avenue), by three…
I forgot to mention this interesting little side note in my blog about Tazo’s sneak-preview, media-only dinner on Monday night (which also happened to be Cinco de Mayo)… We arrived a little early and were sipping some tea-infused cocktails when Chef “Goose” Sorensen of Solera appeared suddenly behind the bar,…
Tyler Wiard, chef at Elway’s at 3000 East First Avenue, is bringing home the bacon after taking down all comers at the Taste of Elegance — a national pig cookin’ competition organized by the National Pork Board out in California. Wiard bested twenty other chefs from around the country, and…
“Is that going to be okay with you?” challenged the barman at Pint’s Pub, located at 221 West 13th Avenue. He wasn’t so much asking if we would be amenable to drinking their “real ales,” as much as he was curtly warning us that others hadn’t been okay with drinking…
Funny thing about the way this job goes sometimes: I often don’t know exactly what I’m going to be writing about a restaurant until the minute I sit down and actually start writing about the restaurant. For example, this week’s review of Spice China? I hadn’t originally intended on talking…
One of the great things about being a gastronaut — one of the great things about living a food-obsessed life — is that you can engage in quests. And while you may not get to slay any dragons while you search out foie gras or Chinese soup dumplings in the…
I last talked with chef Chris Cina back in August 2006, after I stumbled across a corporate website that listed him as chief of Roundstone Restaurants LLC. Here’s part of what I wrote after that conversation: “Chef Chris Cina (ex of Tuscany, the Fourth Story, Beckett’s Table and the kitchens…
What’s with cash-only establishments and their insincere apologies? “We don’t take credit cards,” read the signs. “Sorry for any inconvenience.” But is anyone on the other end of the cash register or profit-and-loss statement really sorry? If these places were more honest, wouldn’t their signs read: “Welcome to (Name), where…
Most restaurants in town serve both lunch and dinner. And while at most of those places, the difference between the two meals is minor (the lunch menu missing only the most high-end steaks and chops, the most complicated entrees, the dinner menu slightly less cluttered with salads and sandwiches), at…
SAME Café at 2023 East Colfax Avenue is closed through May 9 for spring-cleaning – and the installation of some new kitchen equipment. When SAME reopens on May 10, co-owner (with wife Libby) Brad Birky will be devoting all his time to the restaurant, which allows diners to pay what…
Here is how you make a proper Peking duck. First, invent a time machine, go back to the mid-nineteenth century, grab yourself a plot of land in one of the booming cities of mainland China and enlist the help of a bricklayer to build you an oven. Then practice. For…
Try the tea-infused duck at Solera. Photo by Matthew Staver. Dining in the dark and tea-infused dishes are two recent trends in restaurants; on Monday, May 5, I got to experience both at Solera Restaurant and Wine Bar (5410 East Colfax Avenue, 303-388-8429, www.solerarestaurant.com). Chef Christian “Goose” Sorensen created a…
While researching Georgetown weirdness, I learned that one of the places I wrote about in my April 24 Bite Me column — the Silver Queen bar and restaurant—once had none other than Roseanne Barr on staff in the kitchen, either as a prep cook or a sous chef. To quote…
“Pickles! Pickles! Hey, man, you want one of these pickles? One dollar.” I open my mouth to speak. “Uhhh . . .” I had just walked out of the cramped convenience store on the northeast corner of East Bruce Randolph Avenue and York Street, an intersection that I call the…
Chocolate Chex General Mills Rating: Three spoons out of four Cereal description: The typical Chex construction: square grids with a puff in the middle, like a pillow that would leave a tic-tac-toe pattern on your cheek. Approximately half the cereal, which represents a fusion of rice, corn meal and (the…
Earlier this week, Jason Sheehan rhapsodized about his dinner at Le Bernardin. His musings did not escape attention on the East Coast, where New York magazine’s food blog weighed in with this. All in all, quite a tasty read. But for the record: The paper is Westword. And Sheehan’s piece…
When the stretch Hummer limo emblazoned with a Hornitos sign — commandeered by a tequila-loving pal — pulled up in front of my house, I knew I was in for an unusual evening, one that would take a few twists and turns, not unlike that limo trying to maneuver the…
What are you doing tomorrow? If the answer to that question is “nothing” and you happen to love cooking challenge shows like I do, then you should check out tomorrow’s taping of The Next Great Chef. The show will be taped for the Food Network between 10 a.m. and 4:30…
Barbie Multi-grain Cereal with Marshmallows Kellogg’s Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four Cereal description: The cereal pieces consist of hearts evenly split between red and purple – the latter apparently a tribute to men and women of the Armed Services who’ve been wounded in combat. There are also five different…
I’ve quit a lot of things in my life. Sometimes it seems as though my entire adult life has been just one long bout of giving things up. Often, I feel like I can split my life cleanly down the middle: on one side of the division, the years I…
Welcome to the inaugural edition of Milking It: Cereal Killers & Thrillers, a blog dedicated to that most beloved culinary delight, breakfast cereal. And not just any cereal. These pages will review a specific sort – the sugary kind, typically featuring a cartoony character on the box. The stuff that…
I’m supposed to be anonymous in this job, and while I don’t always perform with perfect super-spy cool and élan in the dining rooms and back alleys of this city (my own private Berlin, the secret agent’s Valhalla), I do recognize a few hard and fast rules. First, never do…
