Subject: Ethnic and Regional Cuisines

• Anyone Can Cook

  March 19, 2009

• The Next Big Thing

  At Pho Fusion, one good turn deserves another.

  September 15, 2005

• The Mexican is always packing heat

  June 4, 2009

• Sparrow

  June 7, 2007

• Arada

  August 16, 2007

• Cafe Jordano

  August 23, 2007

• Fish Out of Water

  September 13, 2007

• Riki-Sha Martini

  October 25, 2007

• Frank Bonanno's new restaurant will bowl you over

  March 19, 2009

• The dim sum shines at Star Kitchen

  March 5, 2009

• When not in Rome, you can still eat great Italian food at Locanda del Borgo

  February 5, 2009

• Il Posto proves worth the wait

  August 14, 2008

• Sushi Katsuya

  May 22, 2008

• Gemelli's

  May 15, 2008

• XO is finally a go at the Jet Hotel

  June 4, 2009

• Gennaro’s Lounge

  May 31, 2007

• US Thai

  February 15, 2007

• Pho Saigon

  January 4, 2007

• From Moment to Moment

  October 26, 2006

• To Market, To Market

  Head for Whole Foods.

  September 22, 2005

• Second Helping

  J's Noodles New Thai

  September 15, 2005

• Heavy Metal

  Tin Star breaks all the rules and comes out shining.

  September 1, 2005

• Chef Matt Franklin trades fusion for Farro, his wonderfully weird take on strip-mall Italian

  April 30, 2009

• Dining blind at Cracovia

  Lester and Maria Rodzen offer a taste of Poland at Cracovia.Bigos. Flaki. Czerwony barszcz, with or without uszka. Kapusniak. Pyzy, placek and kiszka. I'm pretty good with languages, particularly on my favorite conversational topics of food, kitchens and cooks. My pronunciation might be embarrassingly bad, but I can say "please," ask after individual ingredients, order, appreciate and offer thanks with a modicum of confidence in German, Russian, French and Vietnamese. In Spanish, I can do a

  May 5, 2009

• Cracovia is no small potatoes when it comes to Polish food

  May 7, 2009

• The Gelato Spot: One more reason to visit 13th Avenue

  Lori MidsonGelato alert: While cruising around Cap Hill last night in search of food -- which I got in the form of a real deal slice of New York-style pizza from the excruciatingly surly crew at Benny Blanco's Slice of the Bronx, at 616 East 13th Avenue -- I saw a sign for a new gelateria called the Gelato Spot, located at 607 East 13th. The space recently housed Confections, an ice cream, gelato and pastry shop. Because I'm a gelato slut, I darted across the street for a fix, only to find that

  May 12, 2009

• The "gastropub" label aside, Jonesy's EatBar is great

  May 14, 2009

• Finally, a perfect plate at Rioja - followed by a second one

  June 11, 2009

• Maggiano's wants to buy you tomorrow's dinner

  Maggiano's Little Italy introduced an amazing deal today. From now through July 8, if you dine at a Maggiano's -- and there are two in Denver, one in the Pavilions and one in the Tech Center -- and order a chef's $12.95 speciality dish, you'll get your next night's dinner free. Here's the deal, as described on the Maggiano's website: "Choose from a selection of our Chef's favorite Pastas & Baked Specialties, and we'll send you home with another selection to enjoy tomorrow. Your second selectio

  June 10, 2009

• Pad Thai on the go...

  This just in from observant reader Jason Marsell: There's a somewhat new cart on the 16th Street Mall (at Stout) that's a one-woman Thai food operation, and it's fantastic. I consider myself a Thai food fanatic and her pad thai gai is some of the best in town. I know, I can't believe I'm saying it either. She cooks every dish one-by-one, and the line typically takes five to seen minutes per person. Yet everyday, her line rivals Biker Jim's. Anyway, just wanted to tip you to some great (cart mad

  June 18, 2009

• Update: Pad Thai on the go ...

  Yesterday, I got a very nice note from loyal reader Jason Marsell, hipping me to some killer street food in one of the most unlikely of places.Pad Thai on the 16th Street Mall.I was both intrigued and highly skeptical -- my first blush of overwhelming enthusiasm giving way to some more sober and restrained thinking. I mean, hot dogs from a cart?  Sure.  Everyone knows that the hot dog's natural environment is a pit filled with hot, murky water, and that the highest honor any tubesteak

  June 19, 2009

• San Lorenzo Ristorante goes dark

  The dishes at San Lorenzo could stun you to silence.Here's a little bit of what I wrote about San Lorenzo Ristorante two years ago: "Carpaccio di bue dressed in lemon and oil, whole peppers stuffed with cheese and prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella with fresh tomatoes and roasted peppers draped with marinated Italian anchovies, grilled salmon with roasted potatoes, garretto d'agnello -- spring lamb braised in red wine, served with grilled eggplant and potato purée. Laura touched a finger to the lis

  June 23, 2009

• Pho and Yo, together again

  June 18, 2009

• More on Ondo's, coming this fall

  This is me jumping up and down in excitement.  This is me rubbing my hands with glee. Yeah, sure, 250 Steele Street has a serious curse on it. Like a Curse of the Mummy-style curse. Abandon hope all ye who open a restaurant here. This space has swallowed more restaurants than I have chicken wings (well, almost...), but that doesn't stop Denver's brave restaurateurs from trying and trying again. Ondo's is just going to be the newest incarnation.  But the reason I'm so excited?  It'

  July 2, 2009

• Mikuni Sushi: Raw fish for amateurs

  Not surprisingly, just as there were no authentic Mexican restaurants in Rochester when I was young, there were no sushi bars, either. And definitely no sushi drive-thrus, even though sushi started out as fast food. Long before Ray Kroc came squalling into this world, preserved fish and balls of rice were being sold to weary travelers outside the walls of the fortified city of Edo (what Tokyo was before it was Tokyo).  But sushi took an unusual detour when it came to the United States. Rat

  July 7, 2009

• Hapa Sushi

  July 9, 2009

• This week: Seven days of Yelp Eats! on the cheap

  Yelp.com Yelp, a well-known website where opinionated voices discuss and review restaurants, bars and other local businesses, is kicking off Yelp Eats!, a seven-day dining celebration, which begins today and continues through Sunday, July 26 with fifteen metro area restaurants offering multi-course dinner menus for $25 per person, exclusive of tax and tip. Reservations aren't required, but if you want to cash in on the deal, you'll need to ask for a "Yelp Eats" menu. Participating restaurants a

  July 20, 2009

• Raw data on Sushi Den's new Den Deli

  Lori MidsonThe future home of the Den Deli and Seafood MarketAs reported here last week, Toshi and Yazu Kizaki are expanding their empire on South Pearl Street. The brothers who own Sushi Den and Izakaya Den just slapped down over seven figures to buy the building at 1501 South Pearl, and plan to transform the longtime Seams Like Olde Times costume shop (and then, briefly, Footprints of Asia) into the Den Deli and Seafood Market. To get a taste of things to come, I talked to Chris Dunphy, GM at

  July 22, 2009

• Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill plans fifth Denver location

   Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill, a Centennial fast-casual concept restaurant with four stores, plans to open a fifth location at the Cherry Creek Hotel, 600 South Colorado Boulevard, according to a sign hanging on a fence in front of the hotel, which is being completely renovated. A Panera Bread outlet will also open there. Created in 2007 by Alon Mor, Garbanzo's serves pitas, shwarma, falafel hummus and other mixed Mediterranean specialties with a healthy (no trans fat, no preservatives) be

  July 24, 2009

• Guess where I'm eating?

  Lori MidsonNoodling around​Took the kid out for dinner last night to his first Vietnamese restaurant. Originally, we were hot on the trail of sushi, until Elliott (the kid) reminded me (his mother) that he would not eat rice, and since his weekly allowance is way less than two pieces of sashimi, we tabled that idea. Oh...I forgot to mention the part about how I make my fourth-grader buy his own food every week. Your kid gets a new Wii game; mine has to buy his own toro.So, anyhow, Elliott is c

  July 29, 2009

• Mouth by south of the border at the new Fresko

  Lori Midson​Fresko is Mexican casual cuisine, a unique place, an experience, and a taste only known in Mexico. Fresko is honored to be in Colorado. Fresko is genuine, culture, quality, passion, freshness, ambiance, with a staff that loves to share. Experience metropolitan Mexican dining for a fast lunch, or a comfortable dinner with friends and family.Sounds like something William Shatner should recite as poetry on The Tonight Show. I kid, I kid...kind of. The verbiage cited above is what's wr

  July 30, 2009

• Chef and Tell: John Broening

  John Broening​"We'll have head cheese at OlivĂ©a on Friday -- I expect to see you there," summoned the e-mail. The note - short and to the point -- was from John Broening, the executive chef at Duo and OlivĂ©a: the former a restaurant in Highland with a field-to-plate, seasonal approach to food; the latter a three-month-old restaurant in Uptown that embraces the same elemental philosophies, but pushes the culinary envelope by serving, among other things, head cheese, a gelatinous loaf comp

  August 12, 2009

• A conversation with John Broening, of Duo and Olivea

  August 13, 2009

• Tonight: Mastering the art of French cooking at the Kitchen Table Cooking School

  Actress Meryl Streep as "Julia Child" in the new film, Julie and Julia​To celebrate the release of Julie & Julia, the new flick about beloved American chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, the tenacious food blogger who conquered all the recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the Kitchen Table Cooking School (5375 Landmark Place in Greenwood Village) is hosting a classic French cooking class from 6:30 to 9 p.m. tonight. The $75 demonstration, in which the cooking instructor

  August 14, 2009

• La Cueva remains a culinary oasis on Colfax

  August 20, 2009

• At Olivea, John Broening shows that he has all the right tools -- and knows how to use them

  October 8, 2009

• Want soup? Try the new miso ramen at Kokoro

  Kokoro ad featuring its new miso ramen​Kokoro, voted Denver's Best Not-So-Traditional Japanese Restaurant in Westword's 2009 best of issue, is leaning a little more toward old school. The quick-casual, homegrown Japanese mini-chain has added miso ramen to its menu, which already features udon bowls and the more contemporary sobaghetti (yakisoba with vegetables and sauce). The miso ramen is accompanied with the traditional meat, egg and sprouts. What's not so traditional is the corn that c

  October 26, 2009

• Recession (and belly) friendly lunch: Vietnamese steamed bun

  Pork Pork Egg = Banh bao = Yummy​If there was such a thing as a Vietnamese Whopper, the banh bao would be it. Banh bao, a steamed rice dumpling, is like its Chinese cousin, the char siu bao. But instead of harboring BBQ pork, banh bao contains two types of pork mixed together: salty ground pork with green onions and sweet, greasy Chinese sausage. What puts a banh bao over the top is that it also contains a hard-boiled egg. Some bakeries make their dumplings with halved chicken eggs,

  October 28, 2009

• Egg-ceptional egg dishes in Denver

  ​ "With an egg on top." Ooh. You just stepped up your food game. You uttered those five words to the server, and suddenly everyone at your table perks up. It's not just a sign that you're starving. It shows you're a risk-taker. Someone who has had enough of diets and eating healthy. Someone who -- for a lack of a better term -- wants to break the shell. "Screw my waistline; just bring me what I want." While Homer Simpson's Good Morning Burger hasn't made its debut (yet), you can still

  November 3, 2009

• Red alert! Why do older Mexican women cut and dye their hair?

  November 19, 2009