“Is this the shithole?” our cabbie — whose name I won’t use because I’m pretty sure he’s driving without the proper licensing — asks as we pull into the parking lot of Music Bar (4586 Tennyson Street). We’re packed four deep in the back seat (with another one in front),…
Every time I walk into Sputnik, I’m reminded of one of my favorite jokes. “Hey, have you heard that joke about hipsters?” “No, what is it?” “Well, of course, you haven’t heard it!” It’s beyond cliche to say that Sputnik is ground zero for hipsters. I’m surprised that instead of…
I was out at Park Meadows, and I was hungry. Absolutely unwilling to eat anything from the food court (and already suffering from my mistake in ordering a grainy, chalky cafe au lait and a cookie that tasted like chocolate-covered balsa wood from the little cafe attached to Nordstrom), I…
My cell phone rang around one in the morning. For most people, this would be a harbinger of bad news — kid in jail, someone in the hospital. For me, it almost always means work: a debriefing, confession, eleventh-hour emergency like a restaurant on fire or, worse, dead cold on…
I don’t think that Kelly Clarkson can be considered hard rock. Neither can Sugar Ray vintage 1998 when Mark McGrath got down on his knees to deepthroat VH1. But that’s just my opinion. Obviously it should be left up to the experts, and when the Hard Rock Café decides to…
I love the Brown Palace. I’ve never spent a night there, never seen the inside of one of the rooms, never even gotten off the ground floor, but something about the place just moves me. Which is odd, because normally I don’t care a whit for architecture, have no particular…
Ask me how I ended up at the Brown Palace four times in the past two weeks. Go ahead. Ask me. The answer? Because I am one lucky sonofabitch, that’s how. Because somehow, out of the tattered, twitchy, gin-soaked, uneducated, ass-backward mess I made out of my so-called career over…
“Black eyes don’t count,” Mike tells me from three stools over — by which he means, “Black eyes aren’t a big deal.” But from where I’m sitting, the golf-ball-sized swelling surrounding his bloodshot eyes and extending well onto his cheekbones sure looks like a big deal. Combined with his lacerated…
I would have liked living in the 1930s. Big bands headed by Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie were in their heyday, playing at famous clubs like the Savoy and the Cotton Club. And it was the golden age of luxurious ocean liners:…
Everyone should have a restaurant that is saved for special occasions — not for birthdays or anniversaries or celebrations of life’s small victories, but for dinners that are themselves the occasion. For me, the Palace Arms is that place, a restaurant that always makes a meal worth remembering. When I…
The Brown Palace comes close to what I’ve occasionally imagined heaven might look like: big and wide open, with a huge stained-glass skylight capping some distant ceiling, a well-connected concierge standing by, several restaurants to choose from and a nearby bar that not only stocks a fine collection of bottled…
To get a good meal in Northfield, first find yourself a child. If you’ve got a rug monkey of your own, fantastic. If not, acquire one. Far be it from me to suggest something as gauche as kidnapping, but the little creatures are often running rampant through the carefully designed…
There was a time when I would have raged and mounted the barricades to do battle with any chain restaurant. Back when I was younger, dumber and somewhat more deluded than I am now, I made no distinction between behemoths like Applebee’s and the Olive Garden (true villains) and operations…
I have every intention of drinking on my first trip to Barricuda’s (1078 Ogden Street), but it doesn’t happen. I glance longingly at the beer taps — Swithwicks? No. Guinness? Huh-uh — but can’t talk myself into a cold one. I make eyes at a Bloody Mary two tables over…
Some people (and you know who you are) seem to think that I do not love the food being done at Luciano’s Pizza and Wings. Yes, I have compared the pizzas there with the pizzas I remember from “Pizza Thursday” back in high school. Yes, I have stated that the…
Ling & Louie’s is a place aimed squarely at families, at young, quote-unquote adventurous eaters with a taste for Asian flavors who want something better than Happy Meals and cheeseburgers when they go out to eat. A restaurant with a kids menu and a liquor license? I’ve got to think…
The tablecloths at Cora Faye’s Cafe — heavy, almost like oilcloth but patterned with flowers — are a little sticky. And so is the air. It’s close and warm in the cluttered front dining room, the atmosphere rich with smells that are both food smells and the smells of people…
Last year, I did a three-minute radio piece on my deep and abiding love for barbecue. I’d been asked to do it by Jay Allison, who was producing a show for NPR called This I Believe — a resurrection of a project originally started by Edward R. Murrow in the…
Ms. B.J. mumbles an apology to no one in particular because the beer’s not chilled enough, but Sean and I don’t mind. It’s already started to cool off outside, and we’re at B.J.’s Port, 2801 Welton Street, to enjoy ourselves, not complain. So we pour the contents of our first…
Take your best shot. A couple of Saturdays ago, a friend and I headed to the Kiowa Creek Sporting Club in Bennett, site of the Independence Institute’s ATF party, which celebrates alcohol, tobacco and firearms. But not necessarily in that order: Even though I wasn’t driving, I’d been given strict…
I’m fairly sure that if you were to make a list of all the songs least likely to be heard in a Deep South barbecue shack, “Dead Man’s Party,” by Oingo Boingo, would be damn close to the top of the list. And yet that’s just what was playing over…
A sit down at Cora Faye’s Cafe. The tablecloths at Cora Faye’s Cafe — heavy, almost like oilcloth but patterned with flowers — are a little sticky. And so is the air. It is close and warm in the cluttered front dining room, the atmosphere rich with smells that are…
