We’ve all had those days when we just really want — and borderline physically need — a beer. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s been a bad day — although the beer-wanting feeling is very common after a day when your co-workers and/or boss make you want to stick a…
Four years ago, I had one of the greatest, strangest, most affecting meals of my life at Ocean City. It was during the Chinese lunar festival, and the party went on for hours with more courses than I can remember. I ate cold pig’s-ear salad, whole abalone in oyster gravy,…
Two weeks ago in Bite Me, I wrote about Kyoto, the new-old restaurant being reopened by Duy Pham and partner James Lee at 7301 South Santa Fe Drive in Littleton. Now it’s official: The place will close on Sunday, October 15, and then, after a five-day whirlwind of cleaning, repair…
As an achievement in design, Steuben’s is unparalleled. No hackneyed, cliched or sardonic architectural detail was spared in the construction of this physical love letter to a time not too long gone when wood-veneer paneling and vinyl-covered steel-tube chairs were the height of de mode fashion. Every angle in the…
What are your first three food and drink related visits when you head to your childhood hometown? What do you order? Fried Clams from Kelly’s? Supreme Sauce from Raynor’s? A slice from Joe’s? A take out order of a green-chili cheeseburger from The Owl Cafe? Maybe it’s that hot dog…
As I drove up, I was blown away by the recent changes along 32nd Avenue east of Zuni Street. While I’d been aware of all the gentrification further west, I couldn’t believe that this stretch — which a politically correct person would have described as “urban” three years ago –…
Waiting in line for tickets was one of the most worthwhile pastimes of my underage drinking years. But great seats (and drunks) weren’t the only objective: Camping out overnight was a social event. The culmination of this activity came in 1987, when we joined a couple hundred people outside of…
While Steuben’s (see review) has that whole American regional thing going, scores of other restaurants focus on foods of even more precise regional specificity. Corn Belt picnic cuisine? Done. Japanese mountain peasant food and North Vietnamese party grub? Done and done. And when Frasca first opened, it swore by the…
As we pull into the parking lot, I see the sign for live entertainment, Saturdays from nine until one in the morning. I find live music in a restaurant distracting, and say so as if after the years we’ve spent together — nearly all of them described by the arcs…
As I left Vietnam House (see review), I was briefly sexually assaulted in the parking lot by a small pockmarked fellow who — overcome by the beat pounding out into the cool night air — grabbed me and rubbed up against my junk. Stunned and a little drunk, still wired…
Bring out the Irish Spring! As my date and I sat down at the bar at the Irish Snug, a guy next to me gave me a dirty look. “I’m sorry, was this seat taken?” I asked, and he mumbled something inaudible and walked to the door. That’s when his…
The Institute had decided to close out the summer with a showing of Old School at Red Rocks. Unfortunately, to get to the Morrison Inn (301 Bear Creek Avenue in Morrison) in time to sufficiently prepare ourselves for one of the greatest movies of all time, we had to head…
I miss Mee Yee Lin — the old Mee Yee Lin on West Alameda Avenue, the little dim sum place where I first ate crispy fried intestine, where I could linger over a late lunch in a homey American cafe as envisioned by a transplanted Chinese family. But that Mee…
After dark, this stretch of 22nd Street can be rough. The sidewalks are unlit, every open space is a parking lot, and the storefronts are shattered, boarded up. On the walls, the tags run together like tribal voodoo — less artistic than furtive, a secret language spelled out in whispers…
I’ve got Chris Golub from Swimclub32 on the phone, just back from a trip to Spain with his partner, Grant Gingerich. Chris is in fine form, talking a mile a minute, excited by just about everything under the sun. “So we’re talking to the guy, and we’re like, ‘Man, can…
During college, I studied in Spain for a semester and then backpacked through Europe for a month with a ragtag group of ramblers from the university I’d attended. The trip included a lot of walking, train riding, museum/church exploring and experiencing the different cultures of Europe (e.g., drinking wine in…
It’s that most beautiful time of year when guys can disappear for up to 72 hours without too much questioning from the women in our lives. It’s that beautiful time when we can go to skin clubs or Hooters without even a bachelor party as an excuse. That time when…
The worst thing about barbecue is waiting for it. I hit Sam Taylor’s Bar-B-Q during a shift change last week, and I had to wait fifteen whole minutes — which is about fourteen whole minutes longer than I’m comfortable waiting for anything. I have what you might call an impulse-control…
There’s one thing you’ll never want for at Ocean: service. On a Thursday night, dozens of bodies are on the floor — servers and bussers and runners in pale-blue chambray and black, captains in shirts and silk ties, managers of every description. Three tenders and a barback in the pit…
Chef Troy Guard is holding forth on his restaurant philosophy. It’s pretty simple. “The way I look at it,” he says, “you do the same amount of work doing twenty dinners a night as you do doing 250 dinners a night. So why not do the place that does 250…
You’re not in Kansas anymore, honey. In a tourist town like Vail, how can service people who rely on tips afford to be rude? Not all of them are, of course, but when I asked the Tap Room’s bartender to add a shot to my drink (because the original pour…
The Blue Bonnet (457 South Broadway) and I have shared a few life-defining moments. The bar here was the scene of several early dates and setups, with results ranging from “Thank God guys don’t really need women” to “Where the hell are my pants?” And at other times, a loud…
