Quick! Name a Peruvian food. Chances are you named ceviche — raw, citrus-marinated fish. But Bob Van Diest is hoping that will soon change. A year and a half ago, Van Diest and his family opened La Polleria, a small restaurant in Centennial serving another type of authentic Peruvian fare:…
It’s been a good year for the cabbage family. First crispy Brussels sprouts elbowed their way onto menus, and now kale is following in its cousin’s footsteps. At True Food Kitchen, which I review this week, this leafy green is used in many ways: as a drink, with apple, cucumber,…
It wasn’t until dessert that the server cracked a grin. Not a polished smile, because the young man in TOMS and a relaxed white shirt had been giving those all night as he answered questions, delivered plates and filled glasses. Grins are different, involving not just a curve of the…
When the Center for Science in the Public Interest handed out its Xtreme Eating Awards last month for the least-nutritious dishes in the nation, people yawned. Except PR people, that is: They went into overdrive. The list was as shocking as ever, but the truth simply doesn’t hurt as much…
Whenever we have people over, it seems there’s always someone who doesn’t eat meat. I’m sympathetic to the cause; after all, I grew up in a house with a vegetarian. To complicate matters, guests often aren’t fond of soy, so I’m always on the lookout for riffs on rice and…
If Denver were lucky enough to get a nor’easter — one of those storms that dumps rain for so many hours, you’re sure the sky has never been anything other than dishwater gray — I know just what I’d do. Not stay inside, though I gave away my long raincoat…
If Denver were lucky enough to get a nor’easter — one of those storms that dumps rain for so many hours, you’re sure the sky has never been anything other than dishwater gray — I know just what I’d do. Not stay inside, though I gave away my long raincoat…
Despite what we learned as kids, meatballs don’t always come on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese. Sometimes they come with greens and hot chicken stock in Italian wedding soup, or slathered with gravy alongside lingonberry jam in Swedish meatballs. They can be dropped in beef stock, along with…
The ramen dishes at Uncle, which I review this week, are so good that it’s worth braving the wait to get a seat at Tommy Lee’s restaurant in Highland. But Lee’s first foray into noodles wasn’t Japanese, but Italian. “The first cookbook I got into was Mario Batali’s,” shares Lee,…
Tofu isn’t as esoteric as it once was. Even if you’re not vegetarian or vegan, you’ve probably had it a few times — perhaps with berries in a protein smoothie or cubed and fried in lettuce wraps. But even card-carrying bean-curd fans might overlook the chilled tofu at Uncle, Tommy…
Tofu isn’t as esoteric as it once was. Even if you’re not vegetarian or vegan, you’ve probably had it a few times — perhaps with berries in a protein smoothie or cubed and fried in lettuce wraps. But even card-carrying bean-curd fans might overlook the chilled tofu at Uncle, Tommy…
If somebody asked you what restaurateurs do for a living, you’d probably say “feed people.” And you’d be right. Sort of. What they really do is please people, because if people aren’t happy, sooner or later they won’t show up to be fed. This is why restaurants, new ones in…
Maybe it’s time to go back to school — cooking school, that is. Several friends have taken classes recently, and even the kitchen-savvy veterans who have been cooking for decades have come away with new recipes and refined techniques. And when I reviewed Il Posto this week, I learned that…
Are Brussels sprouts the new beets? For years, chefs delighted in turning the slippery red vegetable that nobody liked as a kid into one we couldn’t wait to eat, glass of white in hand, with dollops of goat cheese and a light douse of vinaigrette. Now chefs have taken on…
Hours before a restaurant’s doors open, cooks are already at their stations, chopping onions, simmering stocks, breaking down chickens, and so on. As much as possible is done in advance — which is good, because long waits make for cranky guests. Efficiency and quality, however, don’t always go hand in…
As an omnivore, I’m happy with pretty much anything you can shelter inside a bun. But as I wrote in this week’s review of TAG Burger Bar, Troy Guard’s vegetarian patty, a springy mash-up of soybeans, chickpeas and herbs, left me a few inches short of satisfied. So earlier this…
There’s a debate raging in food circles about tasting menus and whether chefs have become tyrants by forcing multi-hour parades of plates on unwitting guests. For now, Troy Guard’s name doesn’t factor into that discussion, but I wouldn’t put forty courses past him. After all, this is a chef who…
Mark MangerDuck-fat fries at TAG Burger Bar.The poor French. All they’ve done for cooking — those fancy techniques and complicated sauces and such — and how do we repay them? By sticking their name onto skinny, deep-fried potatoes. See also: – First look: Madison Street becomes TAG Burger Bar -…
In a recent interview on Esquire.com, Wolfgang Puck commented on chefs’ well-roundedness — or surprising lack thereof. “You have many anxious chefs who know how to cook twenty recipes really well, but they don’t have a good foundation for other things,” he said. Kristen Cofrades, who, along with her husband…
After watching Top Chef this season, I have a new theory on why chefs don’t like brunch. Maybe it’s not, as many restaurateurs suggest, because the meal is a disruption to the kitchen’s regular routine. Instead, could it be that they’re secretly afraid of cranking out omelets as brown and…
After watching Top Chef this season, I have a new theory on why chefs don’t like brunch. Maybe it’s not, as many restaurateurs suggest, because the meal is a disruption to the kitchen’s regular routine. Instead, could it be that they’re secretly afraid of cranking out omelets as brown and…
The term “celebrity chef” is as ubiquitous as pork belly, but I bet that if I asked ten people for a definition, I’d get ten different answers. To some, it means a nationally known chef with a mug you’d recognize from appearances on TV. Denver has a few of these,…
