No matter how many bodies you pack inside, some restaurants are always going to be as cold and sterile as a surgical pre-op, where voices seem to evaporate into wisps of cold before they can travel across the length of a table, and even a surfeit of love won’t stop…
This bird is singing on the inside. Spicy Pickle 988 Lincoln Street 303.860.0730 Yard Bird Roasted chicken, bacon, fresh apples, spinach, bleu cheese crumbles and honey mustard. $6.95 Spicy Pickle started out as a single sandwich shop in Denver in 1999, making big subs and paninis with upscale, unusual ingredients…
Serving dinner for one is as important as doing the same for a multitude. Absent all considerations of circumstance, every single diner deserves the absolute best from everyone involved: This is the essence of professional service, of French service in particular, the core truth that makes being a servant a…
That’ll be nine dollars, please. Is it just me, or did prices go way up at A Taste of Colorado? The outdoor eatin’ extravaganza just held its 25th anniversary of offering Denver’s regular festival-goers a greater array of food options than turkey legs and corn dogs. But after checking it…
They’ve got a lot of crust… Of all the goofball promos tied to the Democratic National Convention, the goofiest may have been the massive outdoor billboard for Papa John’s: a six-acre crop circle in a wheat field near Denver International Airport that appeared in early August, promoting the company’s new,…
Froot Loops Marshmallow Kellogg’s Rating: Three and a half spoons out of four Cereal description: Yellow, green, orange, red, purple and blue circles of “multi-grain” cereal — meaning an amalgamation of corn, wheat and oat flour swirled together in a slather of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. (Bet fully hydrogenated vegetable…
Shotgun Willie’s
Poor Lala’s. If the history of the space at 410 East Seventh Avenue wasn’t enough to contend with, the new upscale pizzeria and wine bar also has to battle phonetics. I can hear the conversation now. “Hon, tonight should we eat at Lala’s?” “How about Lola?” “Actually I kind of…
Carl’s, please don’t change! Change can make a person hungry. And after standing in line in the sun for two and a half hours, watching speeches and bands for another five (Yes We Can!), hearing constantly about change, and then being funneled nearly a mile in the wrong direction by…
By this morning, most of the big names from the Democratic National Convention, Hollywood and the traveling press will have packed up their bags and headed for home (or the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention). But for those of you who just aren’t quite ready to let it…
The 16th Street Mall today was the same mess it’s been for a week: ugly T-shirts, people selling ugly T-shirts and bewildered delegates and staffers haggling over a final-day discount on said ugly T-shirts. I dropped in to see my buddy Biker Jim at Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs in Skyline…
This is not the first invasion Denver has suffered. There was a sci-fi geek incursion just a couple of weeks ago, that basketball thing a couple of years ago. We’ve had Baptist conventions and World Series games and a thousand smaller, less publicized wrenches thrown in our collective works. And…
Tacos Jalisco does a good job of blending the Mexican, New Mexican, Texan and Coloradan styles of Mexican food into one reasonably coherent whole, and even offers authentic side trips into Michoacán and norteño cuisine. But Benny’s doesn’t even try. This is wholly and completely a Colorado Mexican restaurant —…
Cindy Adams. The Democratic National Convention in Denver. Denver’s a cow town. Doesn’t mean what we’re going to see here is the milk of human kindness. Means like what’s coming is a large load of bull. Having covered these rah-rah sis-boom-bah hoo-has since Lincoln’s day, I tell you Denver’s a…
Bringing Philly to Denver. Taste of Philly 1116 Broadway 303-861-5222 Mushroom Philly $7.25 for a 12-inch I haven’t been to Philadelphia since I was around twelve years old, and I don’t recall whether or not I had a cheese steak. In fact, I don’t remember much about the city at…
Still haven’t managed to wrangle yourself a floor pass for the Pepsi Center? Then the next best place for celebrity spotting is turning out to be Jesse Morreale’s Rockbar, renamed Barackbar for the festivities. (It’s located at 3015 East Colfax Avnue, on the ground floor of the All-Inn Hotel). Last…
Denver does a lot of foods well. We do steaks and potatoes out of historic, autonomic reflex. We do burgers because a man can’t eat porterhouse every day and live long at it. We do sushi because we happened to be the settling place for a handful of sashimi savants,…
Who knows how to party? The Ohio delegation knows how to party. That’s right, the lucky Buckeyes got what I think is the best draw in the city with their delegates, staff, families, fixers, riggers, middlemen and hangers-on lodged in the Curtis Hotel at 14th and Curtis streets, right in…
Keebler Cookie Crunch Cereal Kellogg’s Rating: Two spoons out of four Cereal description: Cookie Crunch is built on two separate foundations. The majority of the pieces are rugged ovals made of corn and wheat flour and speckled white and brown. They’re supplemented by corn ovals that are meant to resemble…
Quick shout-out to Biker Jim Pittenger. who’ll be manning the hot dog cart down in Skyline Park during the inevitable clusterfuck of the DNC. Though he did put things off ‘til the last minute, even he has gotten in on the spirit of the thing and come up with a…
Whenever Liz’s parent’s head up to the mountains and pass through Empire, there’s one destination that’s a must-stop. Lewis Sweet Shop is a great little store that’s been selling homemade candy in one capacity or another since 1951. Though the original owner, Dwayne Lewis, no longer runs the store, according…
If you’re feeling patriotic, peckish and a teensy bit naughty, you might want to get yourself over to Le Bakery Sensual, 300 East Sixth Avenue, for a glimpse (and maybe a little nibble) of their Obama and McCain cupcakes. Which one would get your vote?…
