Craig D’Alessandro of San Lorenzo Ristorante (see review) is not the only guy to come out of the Il Fornaio restaurant family and make a name for himself in the suburbs. Before he opened Venice in LoDo, before he opened the other Venice (which is just walking distance from San…
Carpaccio di bue dressed in lemon and oil, whole peppers stuffed with cheese and prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella with fresh tomatoes and roasted peppers draped with marinated Italian anchovies, grilled salmon with roasted potatoes and garretto d’agnello—spring lamb braised in red wine, served with grilled eggplant and potato puree. Laura touched…
Halfway up the mountain, it occurred to Laura and me that neither of us wanted jägerschnitzel. And it wasn’t just that we didn’t want German food. We really weren’t too crazy about each other at the moment. We’d been arguing all morning about this and that — a marital brushfire…
Everyone has annual traditions. There are the big ones, like Thanksgiving dinner with the family, opening presents on Christmas morning, falling asleep during the Super Bowl and getting smashed on New Year’s Eve. And then there are the smaller, more personal traditions. I have a lot of those. I try…
When I stepped back outside, the wind had picked up. The fuzz from the cottonwood trees was blowing so thick down the street it looked like a freak summer snow storm, but the rain wasn’t far behind. I walked back down the boardwalk and crossed towards the water, looking for…
For those of you who just can’t get your fill of talking shit right here in town, there’s quite a lively discussion on the Food Media and News forum here at chowhound.com . The focus appears to be primarily about how much I suck, how crooked / deluded / psychotic…
Cold Kumomoto oysters from the bays of British Columbia, Malpeques from Prince Edward Island, gulf prawns from Mexico and littleneck clams from wherever littleneck clams call home. Negi-tuna sashimi, octopus and red-snapper ceviche, P.E.I. mussels by the pound juiced with ponzu and aioli. Whole king crabs, lobster tails, shrimp cocktails…
After visiting Aqua (see review), I decided to stop by Sparrow, a nearby restaurant I’d reviewed two years ago (“Cry Fowl,” March 17, 2005). At the time, I counted Sparrow among the worst restaurants in the city — the sort of place that was so ridiculously bad on so many…
There is only one true Italian restaurant — back East, in that charmed province that runs along the coast, north into New England, south as far as Baltimore. Upstate, downstate, in the barrens and on the shore, just one restaurant with 10,000 names that has grown the way mushrooms grow,…
For 88 years, residents of Louisville have been coming to the Blue Parrot for spaghetti and meatballs, for ravioli and sausage sandwiches, for lunch and dinner, because that’s the kind of respect historic joints in small towns get — and also because for a long time there just wasn’t much…
There is only one true Italian restaurant — back east, in that charmed province that runs along the coast, north into New England, south as far as Baltimore. Upstate, downstate, in the barrens and on the shore, just one restaurant with 10,000 names that has grown the way mushrooms grow,…
There are many strange delights to be discovered in Aurora’s Asian triangle, behind the doors of karaoke bars, noodle shops, Chinese bakeries, tea shops and stores selling herbal back-pain remedies, manga, car insurance and brain tonics. From strip mall to strip mall, the sensory landscape changes mile by mile, sometimes…
Oshima Ramen is like a clock set to run very, very slowly. But rather than having minute and second hands tick off its story, it has walls covered with graffiti. Over the years, people have added signatures, declarations of love, crudely reproduced anime characters, pictures of stick figures doing unmentionable…
“I’ve been thrown out of some of these bars. Chased out. Ignored. I don’t do karaoke, but I know a place where one might indulge their proclivities for singing half-drunk versions of Mandy or Forever in Blue Jeans until late in the night or early in the morning. I know…
On my first night at Fruition, I splashed an entire glass of water onto my date before I’d even said hello. I was late to table and had stuck out my hand to shake hers just as the steward (for lack of a better term) was trying to set a…
Fruition, reviewed in this week’s paper, was the restaurant I picked as the Best New Restaurant in this year’s Best of Denver edition. When I made that choice, I knew that Fruition wasn’t yet the best restaurant it could be, just the best there was at the time. And it’s…
“On my second night at Fruition, I lit my menu on fire. It wasn’t a big fire—just the sort one gets from an unfortunate proximity of a heavy-bond paper menu to a small candle on the dinner table. I put the fire out with the palm of my hand—thankful, in…
Never heard of a Violet Crumble? Don’t worry, because neither has most of the rest of the world outside of Australia, Hawaii and parts of the U.K. But personally, I’m somewhat obsessed with the stranger extremes of the confectionery arts and have spent many an evening wandering around the dry-stock…
Okay, so after the totally less-than-smashing success of my last attempt at getting all you grubniks more involved in the day-to-day business of this blog thingamajig (my ill-fated “What’s your favorite taste of Colorado” question, posed just ahead of this year’s Best of Denver issue in a thinly-veiled and desperate…
Laura was downstairs watching TV. “There’s that Indian place by the thing — that place with the fish,” she yelled. I was upstairs in front of the computer. “No.” “What about the Japanese restaurant?” “No.” “Seriously?” “Yeah, no. Not this time.” Quiet for a moment. “I don’t want Italian.” “Neither…
I sometimes wonder how long pleasant memories are good for. What’s the shelf life on one really good night? On one brief afternoon, three strong margaritas and a smile across a crowded table? In my sweeter moments, I want to think that memories last forever — that they never sour,…
It was the first seriously hot day of the year, maybe the second. Outside, the whole world smelled like cherry blossoms and living earth. I had the speakers on the computer turned down low and Tom Waits was singing You Can Never Hold Back Spring. It was that kind of…
