Spies like us: The New York Times travel section gave Denver the full-page treatment on July 20. But in case you missed it, here’s a twenty-word recap: Denver is no longer a cowtown; man, they make a lot of beer here; and don’t call the new mayor “Hick.” (Why not?)…
For me, summertime means lazy afternoons lying on the dock or sailing the Great Lakes. So when my craving for liquid refreshment overflowed one recent evening, I gathered a few fellow Midwesterners and headed to the back patio at Hemingway’s Key West Grille for some waterfront atmosphere and lots of…
If you’re going to stick with the maxim “Liquor then beer, never fear,” there are few better places to get stuck than at Las Margaritas. First, the restaurant serves up good, greasy Mexican food that helps reduce the number of free radicals that destroy your brain while you drink. And…
I approached Sunflower like a nervous hunting dog: my nose in the air, all my hair on end. From half a block away, I tried to suss out the vibe of the joint, watching the crowds milling around the doors and patio, sniffing the breeze for any hint of patchouli,…
Let’s get something straight: It’s not vegetarians that I hate (I was one for a while), or even the idea of vegetarian cooking. It’s vegetarianism — like Catholicism or Republicanism — that gets my blood up. It’s the big, heaping portion of politicized dogma that comes on the side of…
Blue Raspberry Limeade Recovery Room 819 Colorado Boulevard 303-333-0569 Suffering from heatstroke? Although Denver is a full-on inferno these days, relief is as close as the Recovery Room, where a Blue Raspberry Limeade is just the drink to cool you off. Made with UV Blue Vodka, sour mix and a…
Jeff Cleary is in the house. Seen through the swinging doors leading into the kitchen, the chef-owner of Intrigue appears calm and entirely collected. There are seated tables — a few two- and four-tops waiting for dinner — but Cleary seems strangely unmoved. He’s not smiling, he’s not frowning, and…
Everyone seems to be up in arms these days over the health and safety of genetically tinkered-with food — GMOs, as they’ve been labeled by the euphemism-happy public, for “genetically modified organisms.” Or “Franken-food,” as they’ve been dubbed by slightly more creative Luddites. Apparently people are convinced that Evil Mega-Agri-Corporations…
Pioneers relied on the covered wagon to help them start new lives in the West. A century and a half later, Randy and Rita Sorenson identify with those early settlers. The couple used a covered wagon — and an equally vintage method of cooking meat over mesquite wood — to…
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir? I still remember the giggly shock that struck me in middle-school French lab when I learned the true meaning of that erotic song. It seemed so titillatingly romantic, which is probably why I stuck with the language and ended up living in Paris at…
If you serve prime and it’s not bone-in, you may as well be a fucking Sizzler.” That’s Barry talking. Mister Fey, to some. Concert promoter and ticket broker, the guy who’s rumored to have once pulled a gun on a recalcitrant Axl Rose when the kilt-wearing prima donna dared to…
A couple dozen Denver chefs, total, have been asked to visit since the James Beard House began hosting dinners by the nation’s culinary elite back in 1987. Only eleven local boys have made good since 1997, arguably the beginning of modern American gastronomy: the chef as celebrity and cooking as…
I have a confession: I hate tequila. Ever since a spring-break trip to Cancun went bad during my freshman year of college, I can barely stand the smell of the wretched stuff. But I love all other things south of the border, so I couldn’t resist the lure of Lola,…
When I moved to Denver almost a year ago, I knew next to nothing about the local restaurant scene. There were a few places along the Front Range with which I had a passing acquaintance. I knew Johnson’s Corner outside of Loveland, because it’s the second-best diner in the United…
Before I moved to Denver a year ago, I’d taken a few turns through Colorado while satisfying my interstate lust. Many of my travels took me through Boulder, and every time I hit that city, Juanita’s (see review) was the first place I stopped. But until December 31, 1997, I…
This is the July Fourth weekend — time to bust out that crazy star-spangled bow-tie, light the sparklers and wish our country a happy 227th birthday. And what better way to show your patriotism this year than by drinking at one of the fine establishments owned by Denver’s mayor-elect? I…
I ran out of books on Father’s Day. I read fast, so this happens a lot, but like a drunk who always keeps a fresh bottle on hand for when his current one runs low, I like to have another book in the pipeline before I hit the last chapter…
I’ve put some strange things in my mouth — rats and worms and hooves and eyeballs — but there’s other stuff, purely pedestrian by comparison, that I won’t touch. Not even for money. Brussels sprouts, for example. Blech. Brussels sprouts are nothing but foul little cabbages with none of a…
On a recent girls’ night out, we snagged a table on Tommy Tsunami’s street-side patio, the perfect spot for an evening of sushi, people-watching and gossiping up a storm. Tsunamis — those giant Japanese tidal waves — have long been feared by seaside villagers and fantasized about by extreme surfers,…
There are two items on the menu at Zaidy’s Deli: potatoes and everything else. Zaidy’s does great things with potatoes — truly phenomenal things for which it deserves a medal. Now if only those bastards at the American Farm Council’s tuber division would get off their asses and start planning…
We’re coming down to the wire. Before old-guard members of the Denver City Council surrender those big, comfy chairs to ten incoming freshmen, they’ll almost certainly vote on a proposed smoking ban for this city. Mayor Wellington Webb has made such a ban his top priority before he leaves office…
A camping trip without fire is as pointless as non-alcohol beer and Boca burgers. Howard Oliver learned that hard lesson back in 1996, when a fire ban at a Colorado campground extinguished his family’s plans for campfire cooking. To ensure that no one else finds such a damper put on…
