It’s not as American as apple pie, but barbecue is firmly entrenched in this country’s culinary heritage. Although some food historians suggest that “barbecue” was derived from the French barbe à queue, which means “beard to tail,” the majority of reference works agree that it really came from the Haitian…
Q:I used to go to Johnnie’s Market to buy chile powder. Some recipes call for several different types, and he had the greatest selection. With Johnnie’s gone, where can I get my chile powder? A:When Ed Maestas died in 1998, the city lost not only its unofficial mayor of the…
Have a restaurant for sale? You just might get a call from Ruth Chiffon von Seeburg-Schausten Prager, better known in these parts as Chiffon. Now fresh out of the joint, Chiffon made a name for herself in Denver — make that many names, since she had quite a few aliases…
WaterCourse Foods serves great vegetarian food. But it serves that food very, very slowly. Chef/owner Dan Landes opened his flesh-free restaurant almost three years ago, and it was a fast hit with vegans, carnivores, macro heads and lackadaisical chicken-and-fish-eating vegetarians alike (“Go With the Flow,” May 21, 1998). To please…
Start small and keep it simple — that’s the advice I’d offer anyone wondering how to open a successful restaurant. A restaurant doesn’t need to feature a hip gimmick, or offer an enormous menu of enormously portioned dishes, or have a thousand wine bottles in its collection, or bear a…
Q:I have been searching for a pho restaurant that serves a tasty soup like the one that used to be available at Viet Huong. As the weather turns cooler, I look forward to a large bowl of combination pho to kill the chill. I have tried several of the restaurants…
The pizza oven survived. When the Saucy Noodle, 727 South University Boulevard, burned this past March, the only truly salvageable item inside the storefront eatery was the pizza oven — which makes sense. “It’s designed to operate at 700 degrees on the inside,” explains Nathan Markham, who owns the restaurant…
Late last year, when Sam Kraydie opened Sinbad on South Colorado Boulevard, he knew he had something, and he let everyone else know it, too, by placing a sign in the front window that boasted, “The best there ever was. The best there is. The best there will ever be.”…
It’s a typical workday, and you have thousands of tasks ahead. You’ve just come out of a meeting, dozens of clients are waiting for you, and before you can take care of anything, your co-workers are signaling that it’s time for you to do that special part of your job,…
Q: I’ve been on the lookout for an Italian restaurant with a decent atmosphere (as in dimly lit) and reasonable prices (entrees $10 or less). It must have fresh pasta and bold-flavored sauces. Does such a spot exist in the metro area? A:We were doing okay until you requested “bold-flavored…
When restaurateurs can’t stand the heat, they get out of the kitchen — often by closing it altogether. And in the past month, the competition for Denver’s diners has left several entrepreneurs feeling burned. After just over three months in business, the ambitious Chloe’s (1201 East Colfax Avenue) recently bit…
It may be time to bring back the vomitorium. For those who forget their history — don’t worry, we’re all condemned at this point to repeating it — Rome was just an anno Domini teenager when excessive feasts were all the rage, with the average banquet involving five or six…
Q: I am looking for a “wild” restaurant. I heard that there was a Greek place where you could dance on the tables and smash plates (the traditional way!). Ever hear of anything like that? A: Well, you wild thing, the closest I could find was the monthly Greek Night…
Is blood thicker than red sauce? Arvada has its Amici’s Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria (see review), and Westminster has the fifteen-year-old Amici’s Italian Ristorante. But both spots are very quick to disavow any connection — now. The fact is, the Westminster Amici’s was opened fifteen years ago by one of…
When the host of a popular national cooking show on bread devotes a segment to some of the country’s best pizzas, you don’t expect a Denver area pizzeria to rate a starring role. As anyone who’s tried to find decent pizza in this town knows, you’re better off showcasing kosher…
Q: I’m originally from New York and have been searching in vain for any place that sells bialys. No one here has ever heard of them, and they are so much better than a heavy bagel. I also miss tofu-scallion cream cheese, but that would be pushing it for Denver…
It was like barging into a party where everyone else knows each other, and you weren’t invited. As I walked in, 40,000 pairs of eyes turned in my direction, and I could almost hear the scornful comments. “Nice sweater,” they were saying. “For a poly-synthetic.” But whenever I tried to…
Americans will eat cheese that’s been pasteurized, emulsified and homogenized so much that it can be sprayed through a nozzle. We’ll ingest worm-shaped snacks made from nothing but sugar, water and enough preservatives to embalm a hippo, and happily munch on deep-fried pieces of skin that once covered a farm…
Q: Where’s a good place to take my child for pizza? A: Since I have two little girls who have eaten in just about every pizza joint in town, I asked for their input. One named Ilios (1201 Broadway, 303-623-3663) as her favorite, because the Mediterranean-themed eatery lets kids make…
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…
An Applebee’s is an Applebee’s is an Applebee’s. In fact, one of the primary reasons people frequent chain restaurants is their predictability: The Applebee’s doesn’t fall far from the tree. Those absurd riblets you love at the outlet back home will taste just the same, look just the same and…
Q: I’m new to Denver and am on a quest for the town’s best mole. So far I’ve sampled one mole that tasted like it came from a bottle; another restaurant offered mole that had an almost Oriental flavor. ¡Ay, caramba! Can you help? A: The word mole (pronounced mo-lay)…
