Legend has it that sake, the Japanese wine made from fermented rice, was originally called kuchikami no sake, which means “chewing in the mouth sake.” An entire village would gather to chew up nuts, rice and other tasty grains and then spit the result into a tub, where the enzymes…
Chefs love fire. Food may be their medium, but fire is their element. In the pan, fire is magic — binding, breaking and bringing out the hidden life in everything it touches. Emulsion, reduction, a blanc and a point — when you learn how to play with fire, you have…
Adega Restaurant & Wine Bar (1700 Wynkoop Street), whose May opening was the talk of the town, just got a big boost to its reputation as the defining restaurant in Denver’s up-and-coming food scene with its inclusion in Esquire’s 21st-annual “Best New Restaurants” survey. Food and travel writer John Mariani…
When Joe Scherber tells you his pumpkin patch produced just three pumpkins this year, it sounds like his crop was a bust. But together those three pumpkins weigh over 2,220 pounds, making the Wheat Ridge dentist one of the most fruitful pumpkin growers in the nation. Scherber raises massive pumpkins…
Cool, dark and smoothly sexy — that description applies to both Sambuca Jazz Cafe and its Chocolate Mint Martini. Made with Fris Vodka, DeKuyper Peppermint Schnapps and Godiva Dark Chocolate Liqueur and garnished with a cherry, this black martini ($8) is served straight-up with a thin layer of ice on…
Stepping off the crowded Pearl Street Mall and into Triana is like burying your face in a flamenco dancer’s best dress or jumping into a pile of autumn leaves. Fiery reds and oranges explode in this small space. The ceiling is painted black, a dark sky but for the exposed…
Blurry, at best: That’s how I remember my one-night stagger through the Great American Beer Festival, the 21st incarnation of this beer-sodden extravaganza. But it was my first encounter with the GABF, and being the responsible young reporter that I am, I felt it my duty to taste and record…
No bar in Denver celebrates the good life like the elegant art-deco Cruise Room, located off the lobby of the 111-year-old Oxford Hotel. Opened with much celebration on the day that Prohibition was repealed, this long, narrow lounge is still unmatched for its glowing atmosphere, polished service, comfy leather booths…
The strip mall looked half-dead. There was a scruffy guy dressed Unabomber style in a hooded sweatshirt and cheap, wraparound mirrored sunglasses loitering outside the liquor store, and a bunch of contractors in hard hats standing at the squat little complex’s far corner, as if sizing up the place for…
The restaurant space at 250 Josephine Street, former home of Papillon Cafe, has been the focus of much speculation lately. Since Radek Cerny suddenly closed Papillon’s doors a few months ago, there have been hunches on top of rumors frosted with out-and-out lies about what was going to happen to…
Start saving your pesos: A night at Tamayo, Larimer Square’s upscale, modern Mexican cantina, could wind up costing you a pretty penny. Or leave work early, because hora feliz, Tamayo’s version of happy hour, is one of the town’s best bargains. From 5 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, Tamayo…
Do you remember your first Chinese meal? Think back to your introduction to egg rolls and the virgin sting of soy sauce on your tongue. Did they feel like foreign foods to you then? Did the words wonton, chow mein and moo goo gai pan feel as strange in your…
After a little snooping, I found a few places besides Ocean City Restaurant (see review, page 69) where the adventurous chow hound can go for an authentic taste of China. Pavilion (3333 South Tamarac Drive) has a secret, second menu that features Chinese vegetables, squid, pork butt and all those…
This weekend, over 20,000 beer nuts will invade the Colorado Convention Center for the Great American Beer Festival, raising toasts to the brewing artisans who craft their precious drink. But the tippling throng should be hoisting a glass to the unsung hero that most deserves beer-making recognition: yeast. Yeast –…
With ceiling fans spinning lazily over the old wooden bar, sexy bartenders, and Gloria Gaynor blasting from the speakers, JR.’s is the perfect place to spend a naughty night. This is definitely one of Denver’s most happening gay bars, and the Blow Job shot ($5) is one reason why. Made…
So where’d you go for lunch?” I asked. “We ended up at El Taco de México — it’s got real Mexican Mexican food. You been there yet?” I shook my head. I’ve been eating like a pig since I came to town a few months ago, and despite the fact…
I talked with Frank Bonanno of Mizuna (225 East Seventh Avenue) last week about…well, about just about everything, really. Sushi, restaurant design, the economy, why people eat foie gras, how to keep and feed your waitstaff. Most important, we had a chat about the place that Bonanno and partner Doug…
Gutsy, that’s what it is. Opening any restaurant in any location on any day takes guts, but opening a small Mexican joint (of which there are already roughly 17 million in the Denver area) in the middle of a recession that has seen restaurants large and small dying off like…
The Cosmopolitan, a cocktail made famous by the sassy, serially unattached women on HBO’s Sex and the City, is the ultimate single woman’s drink — and there’s no better place to down one than the Cool River Cafe, suburban Denver’s ultimate pickup joint. At any given happy hour on any…
Not too long ago, going out to eat meant just that: leaving your house and going someplace where someone unrelated to you would do the cooking. It was a simple process, requiring nothing of the diner except an appetite and a wallet. You didn’t need to buy a new wardrobe,…
Is nothing Sacre? As promised, rumored, alleged and speculated about at length, Sacre Bleu is coming back — although not as Sacre Bleu. The space, at 410 East Seventh Avenue, will be reincarnated as Vega, a joint venture of Marco Colantonio, former floor man at Denver’s Tamayo (and director of…
While the players prepare to hit the ice for the 2002-’03 Colorado Avalanche season, Brauns Bar and Grill offers Le Puck, a martini created especially for Avs fans. If you love licorice, this dark cocktail ($7) made with Pearl Vodka and Romana Black Sambuca and garnished with two red licorice…
