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Since when did black beans become "higher class"?

By Gustavo Arellano
Jun 12, 2012

Dear Mexican: I'm in this country illegally, but I have a current passport from the country I am from, and I have an international driver's license. I could not renew my California driver's license after my travel visa expired. Occasionally, I fly commercially within the U.S., and these docs are...
Taste the Language

By Jef Otte
Aug 26, 2010

If the closest thing you know to a foreign language is “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto” and the last ethnic food you had was at Taco Bell, maybe it’s time for a refresher course. Get both in one place tonight at University College’s A Taste of Languages, annual modern languages gala...
Das Racist

Thursday, August 12, The Church, coclubs.com.

By Kiernan Maletsky
Aug 12, 2010

Das Racist got famous by recording a song called "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell," which is basically made up of the line "I'm at the Pizza Hut/I'm at the Taco Bell/I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell." There's also something in the middle there about "pizza butt,"...
Is Taco Bell really Mexican food?

By Gustavo Arellano
Jan 28, 2010

Dear Mexican: Why do so many Mexicans work for Taco Bell and El Pollo Loco? Don't they know they only add a false credence to the belief that this is Mexican cuisine? The bastardizing of the truly great and diverse food of Mexico by the money-hungry corporations of the U.S.,...
Mikuni makes sushi for the masses

By Jason Sheehan
Jul 9, 2009

For completely selfish reasons, I have spent years pushing for the fast-food-ification of sushi, firmly of the belief that the way people (non-foodie people, the droves who nightly flock to the Olive Gardens and Burger Kings of our bloated republic) discover and become comfortable with new foods is by first...
The Mexican is always packing heat

By Gustavo Arellano
Jun 4, 2009

Dear Mexican: I am a Chicano in Connecticut. I moved from Arizona to the East Coast for my dream job. I have to admit that I'm still homesick. Connecticut is a completely different world. To sum it up in one phrase, vale madre. It took a while for me to...
Shead's BBQ & Fish Hut gets back in the swim

May 21, 2009

I love recycling. Not the go-green, be-nice-to-the-planet kind, or the separating-your-trash kind. Those are all well and good, but what I really love is restaurant recycling. Whole restaurant recycling. Like when some owner without much money takes on a hastily abandoned space and sets up shop without bothering to do...
Eat Right

Denver Restaurant Week offers all you can eat and then some.

By Amber Taufen
Feb 19, 2009

Food is one area of my life where I very rarely cut corners to fit a budget. Sure, I could poke through the discounted-produce bin at the supermarket — but why would I bring home an almost-wilted head of romaine lettuce when, for a few extra cents, I could have...
Taco Bell Giveaway a Dinger

When the Rockies score seven runs, you can score four tacos for a buck. So make a run for the border.

By Adam Cayton-Holland
May 15, 2008

I wanted to get above thirty. Thirty sounded respectable: the number of days in June, the number of minutes it's safe to stare at Rachael Ray before your head explodes. Thirty would be an accomplishment, something I could brag to people about and they'd stare back at me, impressed, and...
Tokyoya Bowl & Bowl

Bad to the bowl.

By Jason Sheehan
Feb 14, 2008

Tokyoya Bowl & Bowl had every chance to be a restaurant I would love. It's a small, stand-alone operation about the size and shape of a Taco Bell, stuck back in the corner of a commercial plot, and offering rice bowls and udon, gyoza, yakitori and tonkatsu -- the classic...
Dog the Bounty Hunter

He might be a cracked-out racist, but at least he's not a rapist.

By Adam Cayton-Holland
Jun 21, 2007

Friday was going to be one pill of a day for meth-sucking Hawaiians living in the city of Denver. Because Duane Chapman, better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, was coming back to the city where he got his start for a "speaking engagement" that day. And Dog eats meth-sucking...
Tacos D.F.

The truck stops here.

By Jason Sheehan
Apr 12, 2007

Where I grew up, in upstate New York, there was no Mexican food. No tacos. No burritos. Just a Taco Bell down on Ridge Road (which did not count at all) and a few square feet of shelf space at Wegman's dedicated to Latino foods: a couple bags of stale...
Dark Angels

In good times, Mexicans are Latin lovers and spicy seoritas; in bad, were greasers and spicy seoritas.

By Gustavo Arellano
Jan 11, 2007

Dear Mexican: Why do non-Mexicans consider it a compliment when they tell Mexicans they don't look Mexican? I am 100 percent Mexican (5'7", with black hair, brown eyes and olive skin) and ever since I left my home town of El Paso, I've been subjected to this backhanded compliment. No...
A Night to Remember

The ChopHouse brews a perfect mix.

By Patrick Osborn
Feb 2, 2006

You'd think that all sorts of things would go with beer -- and you'd be right. But even the discerning beer connoisseur who swills Keystone Light recognizes that while a plethora of items and activities complement a brew, there's still a right and a wrong way to consume the stuff...
Margarita de la Casa

Señor Rita’s

By Nancy Levine
Jan 19, 2006

One recent blustery night, suffering from my second cold of the season but feeling like I was coughing up bird feathers and had become the first North American victim of the bird-flu pandemic, I grabbed a few friends to test out this new proverb: "Drink a cold, feed a fever."...
Roo Bar

Don't drive, he said.

By Patrick Osborn
Dec 1, 2005

Have you ever seen the look on someone's face the first time he rides a roller coaster? It's a mixture of abject fear, exhilaration and satisfaction that he has a foolproof plan for killing you in your sleep because you assured him that the roller coaster wasn't in the least...
Wyman's #5

Don't forget to call.

By Patrick Osborn
Sep 22, 2005

When the planets align, Institute members answer that primal call to go out and get overserved -- no matter what else may be going on, and no matter who drops the organizational ball. On this particular evening, it was JP and me -- but our group somehow still convened at...
Drunk of the Week

By Patrick Osborn
Jul 28, 2005

You should never have to wait for some things: for sex in a pornographic film claiming to have a plot and "acting"; for beer in a bar; for red lights; for people to move out of the left lane on the highway; for delivered pizza; for the football season to...
Drunk of the Week

Mel's Restaurant and Bar

By Patrick Osborn
Jul 1, 2004

Whatever happened to customer service? Bars don't have Guinness on tap. I get soggy fries at McDonald's. If I'm out eating with five other people, the restaurant assumes that group-think has ruined our math skills and tacks a 15 percent tip on the tab even though we probably would have...
Another Roadside Attraction

Let Jalapeño Mexican Grill transport you to Juárez.

By Jason Sheehan
Jul 31, 2003

Christ, it's hot. A zillion degrees hot, and this is the thing about Colorado that they never put in the tourist brochures. It's all mountains and deep powder in the winter ads, young ski bunnies with wind-pinked cheeks. In the summer, it's sun-dappled forest glades, cool streams, the variegated shade...
Backwash

Colfax cowers before a full-fledged yuppie insurrection.

By Laura Bond
Jul 18, 2002

There's a handwritten notice taped to the window of the Squire Lounge, a not-necessarily clean, well-lighted (with fluorescent bulbs) place on Colfax at Williams, just across the street from one of the city's few 24-hour Taco Bells. In a Magic Marker scrawl, the sign advises patrons that, owing to a...
The Bite

Chain Links

By Kyle Wagner
Oct 12, 2000

Denver is home base for a number of chains specializing in Mexican food, most of them resembling Felipe Duran's modest empire in size (see review). Certainly, the most successful is Chipotle, which now has more than thirty locations in Colorado, beating also homegrown Qdoba by at least a dozen outlets...