Mexican Empanadas opening in Aurora

After having lunch recently at Masalaa, the excellent vegetarian Indian restaurant in Aurora, which has recently undergone a spiffy facelift, I spotted a sign around the corner of the strip mall that simply reads “Mexican Empanadas: Coming Soon.” The space, located at 3140 South Parker Road, is undergoing construction, and…

Guess where I’m eating a salad with prosciutto?

I’d rather have a burger (or a sausage) with my brew, but a salad with swine will suffice. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into a pool — and every Monday, we select…

Five reasons why the foie gras ban in California is super-stupid

Starting July 1, California will enforce a ban on foie gras — delicious, delicious, fatty goose/duck liver — and while PETA is thrilled, chefs are pissed. Why the ban on these tasty liver-lobes? Gavage, or forced tube-feeding off the animals, is seen as cruel and inhumane. But neither side in…

Torta Grill opens on East Colfax…to a cluster of habitual addicts

You’re back!” booms Steve Clifton, diverting his eyes away from the flattop just long enough to greet a customer who’s on his third day straight of tortas. “It’s been like that ever since we opened,” says Clifton, who, along with his wife, Ardeni, took over the former Pineapple Grill at…

Krispy Kreme’s new doughnuts — lemony, limey and a bit old-timey

Cake batter fried in oil, then smeared with sugar icing. Sometimes I wonder how the human race managed to survive the advent of doughnuts, and then the materialization of chains like Krispy Kreme. Krispy’s has been very, very successful at tapping into the fat-and-sugar lust that people inherited from their…

Guess where I’m eating a burger that I wouldn’t eat again?

Why is it so difficult for restaurants, especially restaurants that ballyhoo their burgers, to properly season their beef? The burger in the above snap, which had never been introduced to salt or pepper, is a perfect example of my gripe, plus it was way overcooked: Can you guess where I’m…

Round two with Randy Balch, chef of Wazee Supper Club

Randy Balch Wazee Supper Club 1600 15th Street 303-623-9518 www.wazeesupperclub.com This is part two of my interview with Randy Balch, chef of Wazee Supper Club. Read part one of my chef and tell interview with Balch. Favorite dish on your menu: The meat-over pizza, with Canadian bacon, pepperoni, Italian sausage…

Tavern Hospitality Group will put Taverns in LoHi, Platt Park

The Tavern could be coming to a neighborhood near you. Tavern Hospitality Group, the Colorado-born and -bred company headed by Frank Schultz and his mother and stepfather, Terry and Al Papay, has enough projects on its plate to stay busy well into 2014. And that’s the very earliest that construction…

Bloom will close in FlatIron Crossing this Saturday

Bloom Restaurant, at 1 West Flatiron Circle in Broomfield, will shutter this Saturday after dinner service. The new American restaurant — which is owned by Fox Restaurant Concepts, headquartered in Scottsdale — has been something of a culinary oasis in FlatIron Crossing since the mall opened over a decade ago…

Guess where I’m eating lasagna?

The new menu has moved far, far away from the decades-old menu of the past at this long-standing Italian restaurant, but you can still get the lasagna…for now. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is…

Contest: Win two seats to the Celebrity Chef Tour at Linger

Next Wednesday night at Linger, local chefs Frank Bonanno (Mizuna, Luca d’Italia, Osteria Marco, Bones, Green Russell, Lou’s Food Bar and Russell’s Smokehouse), Eric Skokan (Black Cat Bistro and Bramble and Hare), Ann Cooper (the Renegade Lunch Lady), Daniel Asher, Samm Sherman and Justin Cucci (Root Down and Linger) will…

Makan Malaysian Cafe opens on South Pearl Street

Pearl Street Harbor, as one chef deemed it when South Pearl Street, once a destination restaurant row, had lost Pearl Street Grill, OTOTO and India’s Pearl within days of each other, has a new dining den, and after having dinner there on Monday night, I’m inclined to move in…

Photos: Civic Center Eats rolls into the heart of Denver

The seventh annual Civic Center Eats — a moveable feast in the heart of Denver — kicked off yesterday, with an assortment of Denver dignitaries, a record number of trucks…and no urban campers in sight. “We know we’ve had some challenges in the park,” said Lauri Dannemiller, head of the…

Atmosphere goes a long way at the Gold Hill Inn

My mom has only commanded a classroom since I was a teenager, but she’s always been a teacher at heart, and when I was a kid growing up in the southern suburbs of Denver, she’d devise elaborate lessons for my brother and me to carry out over summer break, packing…