How many people have taken a life-altering inner journey of self-exploration and undergone a paradigm shift of both attitude and career transformation — all while dressed in a giant bird suit and passing out free onion-ring coupons at a movie theater? It was a Friday night at a Red Robin,…

China has a new crop: exploding watermelons. Apparently Chinese farmers trying to fill an increased market demand for watermelons — it’s backyard barbecue season, after all — hosed down 115 acres of melons with the growth accelerator forchlorfenuron, causing the fruits to randomly combust. The chemical isn’t illegal, and it’s…

A distinctive smell assaults your nostrils as you pass through the front doors at most Asian markets. It’s a distinctive aroma of old durian fruit, fish sauce, musty vegetables and dusty shelves, with subtle hints of international commerce. This smell is unpleasant compared to whiffing a fresh-cut pineapple, but after…

T.G.I. Friday’s would be so much cooler if the chain would just embrace and enjoy the fact that it’s a punchline. Being a joke isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Charlie Sheen, Tom Tancredo and the entire cast of Jersey Shore get it and make it work for them, and are…

Not all festivals are as interesting as the Colorado Chocolate Festival, a Dana Cain creation that started out with chocolate-covered Twinkies, wine slushes, a guy dressed up like a box of Swiss Miss cocoa, some fine local chocolate makers kicking ass and winning awards — and ended with an introduction…

Shopping at Whole Foods is an experience. Part of the experience is having your wallet sucked drier than a cornbread fart, but the more pleasant aspect is finding strange new foods to try. This week’s expensive but foodie-brain-nourishing treat was a handful of “sea beans.” These bright-green, exotic little stalks…

Severely pissing off a shload of soap-opera viewers is probably not the most strategic career move that chef Mario Batali has ever made, but then, again neither was his alleged Food Network blackmail attempt — and he’s still sitting on a fat pile of cash. But will his latest television…

Is the concept of students bringing lunch from home dying a hideous death — just like live social interaction and Gilbert Gottfried’s career? At Little Village Academy on Chicago’s west side, students are not allowed to bring lunches from home unless they have a medical excuse, so they have two…

As long as there are pigs and people alive on the earth, bacon will never be over. Food trends have come, gone, lingered past their usefulness and then been recycled every week on the Food Network, but bacon remains an emotive staple, and a timeless culinary reality. Bacon has been…

Bacon can be used as a weapon. I visited the Denny’s at 900 West Alameda Avenue last evening, and was promptly greeted, not by a hostess or server (c’mon, that would be expecting way too much), but by a gigantic sign perched by the ubiquitous claw machine full of poorly-sewn…

Eating oysters on the half-shell in public is normally prim and proper, with the beautiful, icy tray placed in front of you with its tiny fork and diminutive ramekins of horseradish and wedges of lemon. You garnish the oysters, one by one, with nibs of hot sauce, and then sigh…

Members of the Yelp “Elite Squad” in New York City recently received a chiding e-mail asking them, among other things, to stop acting like greedy trolls; to stop freeloading the grub; to quit auctioning off their event RSVPs to the highest bidders; and to quit bringing their entire families to…

Welcome to In the Weeds. Kyle deserves a day off — so he’ll be back to blow off some steam. I’ve been in the food service industry for eighteen years, back and front of the house. Waiting tables is one of those jobs that make you want to gnaw on…

With Denver’s first IKEA opening in Centennial in the fall, it’s pretty much guaranteed that for the first few months the place will be crammed like a herring barrel with gawking newbies and affordable Swedish furniture fanatics, everyone newly converted from “WTF is IKEA?” to “Holy Jesus! Have you been…

Restaurants owned and managed by smart people know that diners are interested in the main attraction: the steaks, the chickens, the fish, the enchiladas, even the sandwiches. But although customers don’t necessarily get up and do the hustle when they think about what sides come with their meals, they are…

As Sartre wrote, “Hell is other people.” While you vegans and carnivores have been making plenty of noise, there is a population of omnivores silently creeping among you, ducking behind buildings and mailboxes, getting shot at by meat-mongers for ordering tofu on our noodles, and getting gently but firmly chided…

A week after Virgilio’s Pizzeria & Wine Bar caught some dine-and-ditchers on video, the town is still buzzing about how these ditch-bitches managed to get away with hogging and jogging. But while the now-notorious YouTubed “meatball gang” from Virgilio’s may have scored some free eats, they’re paying for them with…

If you hear it from the Food Channel, then it must be true. Every week, the network serves up another list, hoping that bloggers and other publications will bite. Which we did last week — right before we gagged over the Food Channel’s top ten breakfast trends. As Food Channel…

Charlie Sheen, our favorite “total friggin’ rock star from Mars,” has done lost his mind and is hitting the talk-show circuit harder than a bottle and a line of coke right now. His tirades are amusing, to be sure, because when was the last time you actually heard of a…

With Valentine’s Day upon us once again, love is in the air. Birds are tweeting, butterflies are floating on the gentle breeze, and Internet connections are blinking away as the lovelorn hit up their hard-working little modems and wireless routers to locate a date. Finding that date can be as…

Taco Bell’s beef tacos are mostly filled with meat…mostly. Or maybe not so much. That’s the meaty claim in yet another fast-food lawsuit — but this time, it’s not about supersized asses or a coffee-seared crotch. And strangely enough, so far no one’s asking for any punitive damages, just for…