When most Americans think of Russian food, they think of frozen gray latitudes, trudging babushkas clutching bags of turnips and beet roots, and giant cauldrons whose sour-colored contents are glopped out onto chipped plates in cramped, dark apartments. They picture borscht — that most recognizable of old Soviet cuisine –…
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. — Henry Hill, GoodFellas And as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to find the perfect Italian restaurant: the kind of place where goodfellas would go for linguini and clams, some sausage and…
So here’s Laura and me, handling the logistics of dinner: I call; the phone rings; she picks it up. Me: “Okay, sweets. How’s dinner tomorrow at Tante Louise?” She: “On a Friday night?” Me: “Yeah, tomorrow. Nice romantic dinner on a Friday night.” She: “French food….” She sounds…unenthused. Me: “Denver’s…
Never draw to an inside straight. Never pet a burning dog. Never use margarine if there’s butter in the house. And never, ever call your restaurant a New York deli unless: a) It’s actually within the boundaries of New York City; or b) You’re from New York City yourself, as…
Two things you should know about Opal right from the start. One, it’s expensive. Not quite once-in-a-lifetime, mortgage-the-condo expensive, but to do it right — to really kick out the jams with appetizers, flights of sushi, wine, entrees and dessert — it’s gonna cost you. And two, it’s worth every…
Lunch at Roy’s Cherry Creek was fantastic — comfortable, cheery, leisurely, and deeply, profoundly satisfying. Over my long history of long lunches, rarely have I had a better one. It helped that Roy’s space, just to the right of the valet stand at Cherry Creek Shopping Center, was made for…
Just go ahead and sit anywhere, guys. We’ll find you.” Happy hour at the Stout Pub. Cheap drafts and well drinks at recession-friendly prices, soggy blue corn nachos and an appetizer lineup borrowing heavily from the Midwestern “Everybody loves fried cheese!” school of menu design. Behind the bar, bottles lined…
One of the best reasons to eat at an ethnic restaurant is to sample another culture relatively risk-free, without the expense, hassle and occasional danger associated with actually traveling to far-flung corners of the globe in search of pigeon pie or the perfect shark taco. You don’t have to pack…
The wine room at Adega Restaurant + Wine Bar is made of glass and green light. It’s a powerful presence, beautiful in the way that cubist art can be, or a ’50s-era Hugo Gernsback-inspired Greyhound bus station. There’s an undeniably weird majesty in the geometric arrangement of its towering shelves,…
All through the run-up to this holiday season, people were asking what I’d be doing for dinner: on Christmas Eve, on Christmas Day, on New Year’s Eve and the day after. They asked expectantly, assuming that I’d be doing something fabulous. Maybe they thought that, as a restaurant critic, I…
Brunch is almost always a bad idea. For consumers, it spans the dullest, most grinding hours of the day — that weird, timeless space between a leisurely late breakfast and the early start of happy hour — and brings to the table nothing but the worst of two meals that…
Kim’s is not the kind of place where anyone goes on purpose the first time. It’s the kind of place you almost always find by accident. A happy accident, as it turns out. Maybe you discovered it through that annoying vegetarian ex-girlfriend, who always seemed to have a takeout box…
On a perfect mild afternoon before the last cold snap, I found myself perched on a stool before the small, half-moon bar at Bistro Adde Brewster, contemplating a late-day snack. I’d been poking around Cherry Creek looking for something interesting to do in the neighborhood, with a vague notion of…
I watched her walk away. I watched her come back again, smudging the glass on the display case with perfectly manicured fingers. I watched her walk away again, high heels clicking on the tiles, her basket empty but for one lonely glass jar of Stonewall Kitchen raspberry-peach champagne jam. For…
Sean Kelly is no celebrity chef. His hands give him away. They’re big, strong, the wrists thick from handling sauté pans, fingertips mauled, palms rough as untreated leather. Cooks know cooks from the feel of each others’ hands, and they can gauge how long someone’s been in the business from…
There are moments in a chef’s life that forever define him. The first taste of foie gras; the oily reek of anchovies; the crisp, celery-stalk snap of a rabbit’s neck being broken; the explosion on the back of the tongue set off by the full, huge, deep-brown flavor of a…
It was Saturday night in Littleton, and the wife and I were arguing. She was upset because she couldn’t find her favorite pair of black strappy heels, so she’d fallen back on the black Doc Martens that dated from her days as a Philly punk-rock girl, and one of our…
The name is not Cue-ba Cue-ba. It’s sexier than that, smoother. Say Koo-ba Koo-ba, and the words should slide off your tongue like you’re sucking on silk. The sound should make you feel like putting on a white Panama hat and growing a pencil-thin moustache. That goes for you ladies,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
