It begins with a cheese plate. One large cube of Point Reyes blue cheese, well marbled with veins of blue-green mold, nicely cut. A small bunch of grapes. A single breadstick dusted with sea salt and black Tasmanian pepper. A little balsamic vinegar. The elements are laid out in a…
Hotel work, for some chefs, is like a retreat. Because of the size of the staff, the hours are generally more kind (not shorter, necessarily, but allowing for actual vacations and days off). The kitchens are enormous — single departments (pastry, garde-manger) taking up as much space as is sometimes…
Never mind that I’ve spent the last three hours in the kitchen with Ian, O’s chef de cuisine and the mad scientist responsible for this cheese plate. Never mind that I’ve followed every step in its construction, been in on the testing and tasting, watched him make caviar out of…
I drink champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it — unless I’m thirsty. — Lilly…
When people talk about Steuben’s, they usually talk about the place rather than the food. Sure, the kitchen does some dishes well (big plates of hand-cut fries drowning in gravy and topped with perfectly browned and melted white cheese) and some dishes wrong (fried chicken that, every time I try…
In my best moments, I like to think of myself sitting alone at the bar with a fine, fluted glass, like James Bond just ten seconds before the girl walks in. In my worst, I fear I’m more like one of Candace Bushnell’s cosmo-skanks, getting giggly and paralytic after too…
It was Anthony Bourdain who first warned diners against eating fish on Mondays. He issued the warning in a New Yorker article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” and then again in the book Kitchen Confidential, which sprang from that magazine piece. And he’s been issuing it ever since, because the…
There are many things that should be part of a restaurant critic’s working kit. Credit cards, first and foremost, or a large wad of cash. A healthy appetite and a willingness to eat (almost) anything put before you. One of those noise-o-meters would be cool, so that you could determine…
In the October 4 Bite Me, I asked for suggestions for a new, true Denver omelet. The best recipe so far comes from my friend Stephen Crout, a champion gastronaut of the first order, who’s clearly given the matter some thought. He also reminded me that the prep and service…
Like me, you could just say fuck it and eat the pound of bacon guilt-free, figuring there’s also a chance that you’ll get hit by a bus out in front of the new Oceanaire Seafood Room and, if you do, you’ll at least die with a sated smile of your…
On a Saturday night, Cherry Crest Seafood is all business. The menu for this small strip-mall restaurant and fish market lists twenty entrees, not counting pastas or salads, as well as a spread of house specialties and a long board of apps; the chalkboards and dry-erase boards are full of…
One of these nights I’m going to blindfold myself, have my wife drive me to some random point along South Federal Boulevard, then get out of the car and start walking. Why? To prove a point, of course. To put paid to my long-held belief that there’s such a profusion…
On a Saturday night, Cherry Crest Restaurant & Seafood Market is all business. There are twenty entrees on the menu, not counting pastas or salads; the chalkboards and dry-erase boards are full of daily specials; and the kitchen — an open hot-line arranged in a tight, cramped square — is…
I feel the same way about pig roasts that I do my morning run: I like the idea of it, but the execution is rarely so satisfying. My first pig roast happened when I was a senior in high school. As student body vice president, I was charged with turning…
A few things that are good early in the morning: breakfast burritos, blow jobs, strong coffee, forgiveness for last night’s sins, that first cigarette of the day and banana lumpia from Tropical Grill. I’m not going to say which of these is my favorite, which I cannot live without. But…
I’d forgotten just how much I liked Isle of Singapore. It had been years since I’d been there, years since I’d given the place much more than a passing thought. And yet, stepping back inside after a long absence, Laura and I immediately recalled every detail of our meals there…
A few things that are good early in the morning: breakfast burritos, blow jobs, strong coffee, forgiveness for last night’s sins, that first cigarette of the day and banana lumpia from Tropical Grill… I love banana lumpia. Love, love, love. And in particular, I love banana lumpia when it’s made…
In the food world, a war has long been waged over what, exactly, it is that cooks and chefs produce. In the galleys and the prep kitchens, on the hot lines and in the bars after work, there have been discussions, arguments, names called, the occasional punch thrown; outside this…
Kevin Taylor has a big restaurant empire that has occasionally shrunk to a smaller restaurant empire, with closures both temporary (Palettes, the restaurant that reopened last year in the Denver Art Museum; see review) and permanent, but he’s now back in an expansionist mode. Jim Sullivan knows all about boom-and-bust…
I’ve always had trouble with holidays. I don’t like the pressure, the expectations; I’m just bad at them. One of the many reasons I took such comfort in the restaurant business was because holidays really didn’t exist within its cloisters. Cooks cook while the rest of the world celebrates —…
Some days I want to eat chicken feet. I want tripe and trotters, crispy fried intestine and all the assorted culinary weirdness that makes the world go ’round. I would be just as bored with cheeseburgers every day as someone living in, say, Addis Ababa would be with nothing but…
I’ve never gotten over my instinctive dislike of traditional holidays, and instead make up my own — personal, private mileposts on the calendar with their own rituals and rites of observation, celebrated mostly alone. One such holiday landed on the Thursday right before Labor Day weekend: New Phone Book Day…
