Bolder in Boulder

And soon there could be another to add to the list: Bimbamboo, a fast-casual Asian concept being brought to town by veteran "entertainment guy" (regional aquariums, East Coast entertainment venues and restaurant chain operations) David Wechsler, which is scheduled to open December 20 at 1710 Pearl Street.

By his own admission, Wechsler is not a chef. Front of the house, architecture, service and design are his specialties. So he brought in Ed Schmidt from the Range in Aspen as his exec, and together they've put together a menu "focused on simple food with complex flavors," Wechsler says. This culinary bon mot translates to what is essentially a Southeast Asian soup, salad and sandwich menu — a combination of Vietnamese banh mi and pho, Indonesian roti, Thai salads and noodles, East Indian spices and Japanese sake.

Yes, Wechsler acknowledges, there are other Asian fast-casual concepts already out there, but they're "becoming rather homogenized," he says. "I wanted to bring some fun and raise the bar on the level of cuisine." Which means fresh herbs, all-natural meats, homemade ginger ale and Vietnamese basil lemonade rather than fountain drinks, and a fancy chef like Eric Skokan (from Boulder's Black Cat Bistro, another in the list of restaurants I wanted to mention to those would-be food writers), brought on board just to make ice cream.

Of course, Wechsler isn't looking at Bimbamboo as an end, but just a beginning. "I couldn't have afforded to do all this, bring these kinds of guys on board, if I was just looking at one restaurant," he explains. "We're gonna build."

Leftovers: There's action down south, too. The Falcon (as in Millennium) is now open at 3295 South Broadway in Englewood, and has got to be the coolest (read: only) restaurant-slash-bowling-alley-cum-pinball-parlor-and-live-music-venue started by a Star Wars geek so seriously into his geekery that he named his joint after the fastest Corellian YT-1300 light freighter in the galaxy. And in Greenwood Village, Mel "Presto-Change-o" Master has renamed yet another joint. Last month, he turned his two Montecito restaurants into reincarnations of Mel's, the Cherry Creek mainstay that closed in April. And after just a handful of months as Annabel's, that former steakhouse is now Mel's Agave Grill — a high-tone Southwestern joint re-concepted to play to the strengths of returning executive chef Chad Clevenger (ex of the Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe).

The original home of Mel's, at 235 Fillmore Street, is now Iron Mountain Winery. But that transition hasn't been smooth, either. Chef Eric Laslow (ex of both Corridor 44 and Restaurant 4580 in Boulder) had talked the owners into making Iron Mountain not just a wine shop, but a proper fine-dining restaurant with a "fresh and light" American/Mediterranean/Spanish menu. A couple of weeks ago, he told me that the new gig would allow him "to get back in the kitchen, which is what I really want to do."

But that didn't last long, because I got word late last week that Laslow is no longer at the just-opened Iron Mountain. Marcus Carmean, whom Laslow had originally brought on as his sous, has now stepped into the exec chef's position. This is the second time this year that Carmean has received such a battlefield brevet: His first exec's gig was at the doomed Euro, where he took over after the departure of chef Olav Peterson.