Best Fried Dessert 2005 | Table 6 | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Fried Dessert

Table 6

Chefs get credit for lots of things. They get props for inventing a cuisine, for refining a cuisine, occasionally for ruining a cuisine. But at Table 6, Aaron Whitcomb gets the nod for stealing. Okay, maybe not stealing, exactly. To be more polite, let's say he gets credit for introducing Denver diners to an addictive taste of the Gulf Coast with his wonderful, chocolate-filled beignets. Since all the food at Table 6 is so good, it's sometimes easy to fill up and forget about dessert -- but don't make that mistake. Fried dough, dusted with sugar, magically injected with a smooth chocolate filling as hot as lava? It doesn't get any better than that.

Best White-Trash Weiner

Brix

"A rather special hot dog" -- that's what owner Charlie Master calls Brix's straight-up, gourmet-meets-white-trash weiner. It's a Hebrew National all-beef frank, set on a good bun and topped with the kitchen's sauerkraut, then served with homemade red-cabbage-and-red-onion coleslaw on the side. If one of these dogs, along with a couple of cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, isn't the best picnic-style dinner you've had in years, then, friend, you don't know good eatin'.

Best White-Trash Weiner

Brix

"A rather special hot dog" -- that's what owner Charlie Master calls Brix's straight-up, gourmet-meets-white-trash weiner. It's a Hebrew National all-beef frank, set on a good bun and topped with the kitchen's sauerkraut, then served with homemade red-cabbage-and-red-onion coleslaw on the side. If one of these dogs, along with a couple of cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, isn't the best picnic-style dinner you've had in years, then, friend, you don't know good eatin'.

Best Hot Dog

Saray

Saray, right number. Qwest isn't having an easy time of it these days, but employees need only step outside their downtown headquarters building and walk over to a cart on the corner to find quick comfort. The Saray cart peddles a great 75-cent hot dog; double that, and you can get a lightly grilled Sabrett weiner that hangs off the bun at both ends. Polish sausage and a jumbo dog each run $1.50, and for just two bucks, you can get a BBQ brisket sandwich or a bratwurst that's so big it's embarrassing.

Best Hot Dog

Saray

Saray, right number. Qwest isn't having an easy time of it these days, but employees need only step outside their downtown headquarters building and walk over to a cart on the corner to find quick comfort. The Saray cart peddles a great 75-cent hot dog; double that, and you can get a lightly grilled Sabrett weiner that hangs off the bun at both ends. Polish sausage and a jumbo dog each run $1.50, and for just two bucks, you can get a BBQ brisket sandwich or a bratwurst that's so big it's embarrassing.

Best Burger

Bud's Bar

Molly Martin
Hamburgers are like a religion. There's pomp and ritual in their construction and delivery, a sacred compact between burger eater and burger maker that revolves around mutual respect and attention to a set of rules. And once a seeker of burger perfection has found a patty that speaks to him, nothing short of fanatical conversion can change his mind or sway him from his faith. So it's only right that Bud's Bar makes the area's best burger. After all, for more than fifty years, this place has devoted itself to bringing glory to the humble beef sandwich. There's nothing on Bud's menu but burgers -- singles and doubles, with cheese and without. Every burger comes with pickles and a bag of potato chips, to augment the bottles of ketchup and mustard set out on every table. There's not much in the way of ambience, and service can be downright nasty when things get busy (and it's almost always busy). Yet year after year, from across the state and around the country, the faithful keep coming back to Bud's.

Best Burger

Bud's Bar

Hamburgers are like a religion. There's pomp and ritual in their construction and delivery, a sacred compact between burger eater and burger maker that revolves around mutual respect and attention to a set of rules. And once a seeker of burger perfection has found a patty that speaks to him, nothing short of fanatical conversion can change his mind or sway him from his faith. So it's only right that Bud's Bar makes the area's best burger. After all, for more than fifty years, this place has devoted itself to bringing glory to the humble beef sandwich. There's nothing on Bud's menu but burgers -- singles and doubles, with cheese and without. Every burger comes with pickles and a bag of potato chips, to augment the bottles of ketchup and mustard set out on every table. There's not much in the way of ambience, and service can be downright nasty when things get busy (and it's almost always busy). Yet year after year, from across the state and around the country, the faithful keep coming back to Bud's.

Best New American Burger

Mirepoix

Buffalo burgers, turkey burgers with sweet-potato purée, Maryland crab-boil burgers -- Mirepoix offers them all. The kitchen makes no claims of authenticity or traditionalism, but instead takes the idea of the classic American burger and turns it back on itself, giving it a real regional flair. By using the best ingredients in an array of inspired fixings, mounting everything on great breads and turning all the skills of a fine dining crew toward the creation of the best burgers possible, Mirepoix successfully challenges the notion that any new take on an old American classic has to be fussy or fancy. In truth, all it has to be is good, and Mirepoix goes one step further by making its burgers great.

Best New American Burger

Mirepoix

Buffalo burgers, turkey burgers with sweet-potato purée, Maryland crab-boil burgers -- Mirepoix offers them all. The kitchen makes no claims of authenticity or traditionalism, but instead takes the idea of the classic American burger and turns it back on itself, giving it a real regional flair. By using the best ingredients in an array of inspired fixings, mounting everything on great breads and turning all the skills of a fine dining crew toward the creation of the best burgers possible, Mirepoix successfully challenges the notion that any new take on an old American classic has to be fussy or fancy. In truth, all it has to be is good, and Mirepoix goes one step further by making its burgers great.

Best Old American Burger

Jim's Burger Haven

Courtesy Jim's Burger Haven Facebook
Sometimes you just want a burger. Not a buffalo burger, not some coddled Kobe-beef monstrosity with butter lettuce, aioli and heirloom tomatoes. Just a burger: dead cow on bread. That's when you head right for Jim's Burger Haven, a car-cult joint whose origins can be traced to the glory days of ten-cent milkshakes and miniskirted carhops. The burgers date from that era, too. The kitchen makes big, thin patties of loose-packed meat, cooks them to order on the flat grill until they're well-done and crispy around the edges, then serves them on big, squishy buns totally inadequate for maintaining the structural integrity of anything larger than a small single, the cheapskate burger that costs 89 cents. All burgers come loaded unless you ask for them otherwise, the meat becoming just another stratum of flavor and texture as the bun, burger, gooey cheese, mustard, ketchup, bright onion, sweet tomato, lettuce and pickle brine merge into a single, over-arching burger gestalt. In other words, this is a classic, old-fashioned burger.

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