Food & Drink

Chef Michael Degenhart has clearly mastered the art of French cooking, as evidenced at his own restaurant, Rue Cler. While much of the menu consists of what Degenhart describes as “American with a world view,” the sides have the spirit of French cuisine, in which every detail counts. And so Rue Cler offers Yukon gold mashed potatoes, feather-light and buttery; or soy-and-garlic-glazed shiitakes, rich and earthy; or grilled asparagus with a sweet-and-sour balsamic syrup enriched with sun-dried tomatoes; or a Gorgonzola risotto that’s as thick and rich as the veal chop it sits beside. Even the classic haricot verts, sautéed with almonds and brown butter, are in a class of their own. When it comes to accompaniments, we’ll side with Degenhart.

This warm, upscale but casual eatery may be a link in a California-based chain, but it knows a thing or two about Italian food. The pastas come covered with well-executed sauces; the wine list focuses on vino from the boot and is well-priced, to boot. But it’s the Caesar that we truly hail. This salad is precisely, perfectly made, with every ingredient working in delicious harmony. The romaine hearts are fresh and coldly crisp, the shredded Pecorino-Romano cheese plentiful, the croutons made from polenta cut into little cubes and fried buttery golden. But the dressing is the real topper: slightly salty, creamy, anchovy-kissed, garlic-hugged. Lettuce never had it so good — and neither have we.

Yes, with a name like California Pizza Kitchen, the pizza is one good reason to go to this popular new eatery in Cherry Creek. But there are so many more things to love than just the unique barbecued-chicken ‘za. There’s the fast service (which makes up for the long wait). And then there’s the Oriental chicken salad: Fresh, ice-cold shredded lettuce is tossed with crispy angel hair, carrots, scallions, fresh basil and cilantro, and beautifully charred grilled chicken, and then everything’s lightly coated in a sesame dressing that’s sweet, sour and nutty all at once. The balance of both sweet and sour tastes and crunchy and soft textures is what makes this salad so special; a mix this competent and courageous is what makes salad-eating fun. You can get the Oriental chicken salad as an entree or a half-size, but since the flavors only get better with time, we recommend going for the big one and then stretching your salad days into tomorrow.

Tom Unterwagner strives to make food that tastes just as good as Mom’s used to — and since these days Mom is as likely to be turning on the computer as she is the stove, that’s a laudable goal. And Tom’s Home Cookin’ delivers (although not in the strict sense of the word, since you have to pick up the food yourself). This fare is as close to down-home as the gourmet takeout business gets, with well-executed dishes that the average family will enjoy. Unterwagner cooks up meatball stroganoff, roast turkey, meaty spaghetti and chicken pot pies, and he does so for a price so low that you can visit his establishment quite often. Every day, just $5.95 nets one entree and two sides, plus a piece of cheese bread or cornbread. The side dishes are as varied as the main courses — candied yams, red beans and rice, creamed corn, Brussels sprouts in butter — and just as delicious. For a few more bucks, you can throw in a couple of Tom’s terrific desserts; we highly recommend the Coca-Cola cake and the sweet-potato pie. Just think: One day your kids will long for food like Tom used to make.

If you left it up to your children, their entire college savings plan would fund a dozen outings to Elitch’s. And once inside, they’d feel no remorse about begging — no, demanding — that you devote your retirement nest egg to purchasing an endless parade of toxic snacks. Don’t despair: A thriftier but still fun alternative does exist. Pizza Alley, of Highland Square fame, delivers family-sized pies right up to the amusement park’s gate. The picnic area adjoining the park along the South Platte River may not be as nice as the old grounds at the original Elitch’s, but it’s still a good spot to take a break on your whip-and-spin outing, down some decent pizza, watch the kids cavort and dream of ways to spend your retirement — and that retirement money.

Avid gardeners will tell you that the average garden requires at least three years to take hold, and even more if the plan is elaborate. Well, it’s been about five years since Pat and Chuck Perry planted a garden outside their lovely Highlands Garden Cafe, and in that time, their restaurant has not only taken hold as one of Denver’s best places to eat, but also one of its most beautiful. In the garden around the side and back of the Victorian structure, rosebushes and ivy grow in abundance, filling the air with their sweet fragrance and fluttering song when the wind blows; it makes for some enchanting evening when you’re dining on the cafe’s extended decks. At night it’s an ideal — and romantic — setting for Pat’s amazing food, an ever-changing roster of New American dishes based on what’s fresh at the market that day and what she has growing in her own backyard (including most of the herbs she uses in her kitchen). How does this garden grow? Deliciously.

At the foot of the Boulder Flatirons sits a restaurant with a lot of room and a view. The Chautauqua Dining Hall occupies a historic 1898 building that once was open only in the summer but now serves breakfast, lunch and dinner year-round. And in the kitchen of that building is Bradford Heap, a James Beard Foundation nominee as one of America’s best chefs in the Southwest region (he’s owned Boulder’s Full Moon Grill with partner Richard Stein since 1995). Heap added Chautauqua to his roster more than a year ago, and the results are stunning. He cooks New American dishes with flair, using lots of local produce; the best place to sample that fare is on the gorgeous wraparound porch that offers a drop-dead view of the Flatirons, especially at sunset.

When Schlomo Ravid opened the first Falafel King on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall in 1981, he couldn’t have known that subsequent owners Avner and Amon Gilady would turn it into a food-court staple across town. Now Falafel King offers four ways to get good food fast: at the original Boulder site, in the Tabor Center and Republic Plaza on the 16th Street Mall, and in a strip mall on Colorado Boulevard. The food-court outlets are particularly welcome: In a land of Sbarros and Chik-Fil-A, Falafel King looks like a desert oasis. Not only is falafel’s primary component, the garbanzo bean, healthy — it’s high in protein, low in fat and cholesterol-free — but it’s also tasty when fried in little balls and jammed inside a fresh pita along with tomatoes and cucumber. One of those basic beauties runs about $3.50, and you can side it with one of the $1.50 options: tabbouli, baba ghanouj or a small salad. Every ingredient is absolutely fresh, and the whole package comes out faster than you can say “half-hour for lunch.” Among food court vendors, Falafel King reigns supreme.

Readers’ choice: Falafel King

Although baker/owner Gerald Shorey has been making a name for himself as a pastry chef for several restaurants around town, his true talents are on display at Devil’s Food, his little bake shop on South Gaylord. In the wrong hands, the humble scone can be a hockey puck from hell; when Shorey’s doing the baking, it’s carbs from heaven. Shorey’s scones are thick but light disks of flaky dough that melt in your mouth, bundles of goodness that make for a filling breakfast, a quick lunch or an ideal midday snack. Shorey varies the flavors — some days it’s hazelnut or raisin, others it’s blueberry or cranberry — but always offers scone-buyers their choice of butter, homemade jam (the blueberry is divine) or his lemon curd, a custardy substance made from butter, sugar and eggs that’s always found on the finest tables at high tea. Which is exactly where Shorey’s scones belong. Let he who is without dietary guilt cast the first scone.

Vendors come and go quickly on the 16th Street Mall as they discover that rents outweigh earnings. Sure, there’s a hot dog stand every other block, two popcorn purveyors, a baked-goods venue and a bento-box spot — but the pickings often seem very slim. That’s when it’s time to head over to the Philadelphia Filly, where Sally Rock and Dale Goin, who used to own the Philadelphia Filly on South Pearl Street, have taken it to the streets. In summer they serve up cheese-gooey, steak-packed cheesesteaks; in winter, steamy, flavorful soups. While Goin expedites — “I need a dubba dubba and a du jour,” he barks, calling for a cheesesteak with double meat and double cheese and one with mushroom and green pepper — Rock rocks on the grill and out of the crock, with all of the food coming quick and fast. Just look for the old-fashioned quilted-metal diner-looking cart, and be prepared to eat your filly for about five bucks.

Readers’ choice: Tristan the hotdog guy

Craving oysters in Denver is like needing a tomato in Siberia. Although the freshness will always be suspect, sometimes there’s nothing you can do about an oyster urge but take a chance and eat one — or a dozen. As LoDo has grown, plenty of oyster eateries have sprung up, but none offers the deal that Willie G’s does. From 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, you can slurp your fill of cold, raw oysters for just 50 cents each. Although the price is good, the quality is better: These are some of the freshest, plumpest viscous vittles in town.

Work has just ended, and your energy is flagging: A quick bite and a beer should help you regroup. Between 5 and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, Anita’s Crab Company delivers a half-pound of fresh shrimp and a zingy cocktail sauce, which comes with a dollop of horseradish in the center, to your table for just $3. Peeling the shell off of shrimp has a way of soothing even the most savage computer technician, and the combination of sweetly marinated crustaceans and tangy, snappy sauce staves off some hunger without making dinner an impossibility. Enjoy the shrimp inside Anita’s cool, casual dining room, or head to the uber-urban patio surrounded by lofts and parking garages. Then it won’t matter so much if you drop a shell or two in your attempt to forget the day.

Andrews’ Pub, which took over the space once occupied by City Spirit, has been making a name for itself as a good happy-hour stop and a hoppin’ weekend joint. Our favorite time to visit Andrews’ is on Sunday afternoons, when the normally raucous crowd is home nursing a hangover. It’s the ideal time to get going on one of your own, since the brews — including Guinness, all well drinks and the house wine — are $2.50 all day. Settle into one of Andrews’s comfy booths, watch the big game, eat a mountainous order of killer nachos absolutely smothered with cheeses, or just stew over how your Saturday night went so wrong. At $2.50 a pop, you’ll be feeling better within ten bucks.

Although Hemingway’s Key West Grille serves up crab legs every day of the week, on Sundays it really gives you a leg up — offering Alaskan king crab legs that normally run $31.95 for a pound and a half at $29.95 for all you can eat. And it’s not just all you can eat of the succulent crabmeat, either: The special also nets you thick-cut fries and bread. Enjoy this feast fit for a king crab in an atmosphere that’s appropriately nautical. Papa, don’t preach — just pass us another load of legs.

The D.C. Deli specializes in good food for a reasonable price, but their Saturday night special comes loaded: It’s a spaghetti dinner for two — and we’re talking a huge pile of perfectly cooked pasta, topped by a thick, meaty sauce filled with fresh herbs — that also includes a hefty salad of mixed greens coated with homemade dressing and a basket of spongy, chewy-crusted bread, all for $16.95. Enjoy your meal out on D.C.’s spacious patio, and it really hits the spot.

When this popular South American restaurant moved from its longtime location on West 32nd Avenue to West 35th, it also improved its wine list and expanded its menu. Most important, it instituted paella nights on Friday and Saturday. On those days, $44.95 buys you a bottle of Chilean wine plus paella for two. And not just any old paella, either: Sabor Latino starts with a base of moist but not sticky saffron rice, then adds layers of chicken, orange roughy, shrimp, mussels, scallops, a spicy imported Spanish sausage, red bell peppers and a touch of lemon. It all combines for a wonderfully romantic meal shared by two people who really care for each other — or really care about paella.

Although Wazoos offers specials every weekday night, the taco-and-a-marg deal really puts a wahoo! in our Thursdays. The margaritas are $2.50 — that’s for Cuervo and fresh lime juice in a good-sized glass — and the tacos are only a buck apiece. On their own, the tacos are something special: crispy shells generously filled with seasoned beef and lots of shredded cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. Eat your fill, and you’ll still exit just five bucks lighter.

The Swanky Spank Me, a lethal combination of Everclear, triple sec, blue Curaçao, pineapple and orange juices, and margarita mix, is something special any night of the week; its sole reason for existence appears to be offering the server a chance to ask, “Do you wanna Spank Me?” On Wednesday night, though, Swanky’s has a less liquid special that hurts so good: a crawfish boil. The kitchen sends out a steaming bucket filled with lots of little crawdads, boiled potatoes, corn on the cob and a big, greasy sausage — everything liberally seasoned with Old Bay seasonings — for just $11.25, which buys more than enough food to feed two. Suck out the innards of those mini crustaceans, sip on a couple of Coronas, and watch folks spanked by that drink begin acting like crawfish just about to hit boiling water.

Since good food goes great with fine wine, how do you think it might go with a fine car? The Fourth Story gives folks an enticement to dine upscale with its “Tuesday Night Taste Drive.” In order to get in gear, all you have to do is book a table, throw away the menu, describe how much you’d like to spend in automobile terms, and let the kitchen invent something for you — from a workman-like Volkswagen (maybe a duck spring-roll appetizer and an elaborate pasta, both paired with the appropriate wines, for 25 bucks a head?) to a seven-course Rolls (oysters, Argentinean ribeye steaks with roasted tomatillo sauce, caramelized peach tarts and whatever). This is the town’s best meal on wheels, fun for the staff and fun for you. Honk if you love to eat.

A popular breakfast, lunch and dinner spot, Racines has long been known for its baked goods, especially the brownies. But lately we’ve become addicted to its big, fluffy cinnamon rolls, a quintessential version of the old favorite: light, soft, swirled with cinnamon, and with just the right number of raisins to ensure that you get a plump, sweet one every few mouthfuls. And then there’s the icing on the cake, a super-sweet slick that turns into a sugary crust around the edges and pushes an ooze of butter over the top. Grab a cup of coffee and one of these babies, and you’re starting the day on a roll.

Nothing at Rodney’s, one of the last fern-bar holdouts, is ever expensive, but on Monday nights, its spaghetti special is as cheap as cheap gets. A bottomless plate of pasta covered with Rodney’s heavy marinara and sided by a fat Italian sausage costs just $4.95 — and that includes a nonstop supply of buttery garlic bread. Adding to the bargain is the fact that the people-watching, which includes chubby businessmen and their mistresses along with plenty of cocktail-swigging singles, is free.

How apropos that a restaurant that has chic customers swarming around it like, well, like bees around a hive, is actually named The Beehive. And the place is always buzzing, with well-dressed, disposable-income types jostling for position inside a tightly packed dining room that offers an ideal setup for people-watching. Because the space is long and narrow, no one gets in the door without calling attention to himself, and the folks waiting for a table — the Beehive doesn’t take reservations — sit on display at the windows, their every move captured in the flickering reflection of the lights. Meanwhile, diners lucky enough to have found a seat are enjoying the attentions of Tim Elenteny, who runs the front of the house, while his wife and partner, Janice Henning, cooks up such New American-meets-Old-World dishes as a sour-cherry-kissed roast quail or a Moroccan-influenced duck confit. An order of the stunning panna cotta for dessert ends an evening just right. For both gazing and grazing, this place is a real honey.

Any meal is wonderful at Mel’s Bar and Grill, but the appetizer menu alone is enough to make you get down on one hoof and start grazing. Risotto, a blue-crab cake, seared foie gras, an ahi tuna Napoleon and house-smoked salmon are some of the dozen-plus possibilities, with every starter wildly flavorful, artfully arranged and garnished, and generously portioned — no itsy-bitsy nouvelle stinginess here. If you aren’t counting calories or cholesterol, try the lobster “macaroni and cheese,” surely one of the most decadent dishes ever, with velvety chunks of Maine lobster lovingly tossed with macaroni and mascarpone. You can make appetizers part of your dinner, of course, or sit at Mel’s bar and order off the appetizer menu until 10 p.m. on weekdays and 10:30 p.m. on weekends. The sharp staff will treat you as well as if you were running up a big tab in the dining room — and you’ll also be in a better position to take a gander at the forty-plus crowd and their mating rituals. While you’re there, also check out Mel’s special wine picks for the evening: They’re usually fabulous wines you won’t see anywhere else, priced at about $5 a glass.

At this point, your stomach — and probably your soul — needs some soothing. How about an open-faced roast beef sandwich on white bread with real mashed potatoes and enough rich, dark-brown gravy to float a boat? Or a plate of hash browns smothered in a mellow gringo green? When it comes to 24-hour dining, this decades-old spot — heck, there’s a waitress who’s been here for 24 years — is king. Slink into Breakfast King with the rest of the night crawlers and just try to focus your bloodshot eyes on the menu, a barrage of nearly a hundred choices, all of them seemingly involving some kind of gravy, all in portions big enough to feed two, and most under $6. The smoking section is twice the size of the non-, and since many of the patrons just got off the late shift and are looking for beer and some conversation, you’ll snap wide awake as you listen to a harrowing emergency-room tale from a nurse, or, just as likely, a sad story from a guy whose wife just threw him out of the house as he shares with a trucker from Texas. Get one of the joint’s fabulous milkshakes and settle in for the duration. After all, breakfast is just a few hours away, and the King rules then, too.

Readers’ choice: Pete’s Kitchen

When the beautiful people want to eat beautiful food, they head to Sacre Bleu. This new see-and-be-scene restaurant initially served dinner until 11 p.m. But the demand for late-night dining was so high that it’s since extended its kitchen hours beyond midnight. At any time of the evening, chef Don Gragg offers up French delights in the nouvelle spirit, using local ingredients and bringing his own flair to the flavor combinations. The exquisite dishes that result will grab your attention. And so will Sacre Bleu’s other amenities: a cool bar with low lighting, a snappy staff and a good wine list, with a variety of champagnes for wee-hours celebrating. If you’re not quite up to a full meal at this hour, Sacre Bleu is happy to let you order a bunch of appetizers and dessert, which means you can end your night with pan-seared scallops with coral butter and early truffles and a chocolate mousse. Or maybe that’ll just get the evening started.

Billy Lam has been cooking up great, inexpensive food at his Chef’s Noodle House in Aurora for six years now, and a few months ago, he decided to use his noodle on the other side of town. The result is Yan-Kee Noodle, which turns out killer noodle and rice bowls, many of which sell for under five bucks but contain enough food to feed two at lunch or stuff one at dinner. The soups, each $3, are also big enough for a meal. Everything is made to order by Lam in the big, hot wok behind the counter, and most of the dishes feature wonderful sauces, including a powerful ginger-soy or a creamy curry peanut. Another couple of bucks buys you a pair of Lam’s crispy-shelled egg rolls filled with chicken and scallions. This Yan-Kee Noodle’s a dandy.

Why are some of the country’s most influential business types hanging out in Broomfield? They’re wining and dining at the Omni Interlocken, one of Colorado’s newest and swankiest hotels, which boasts not only a swell (read: powerful and majestic) view of the mountains, but also a big-deal golf course (John Elway doesn’t hold his Celebrity Classic on just any old piece of sod, you know). Housed within the Omni’s impressive confines is the Meritage, a classy restaurant with a massive stone fireplace and a patio that allows diners to appreciate that swell view. The food’s pretty good, too, since chef Thomas Ryan, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, spent time at a few Ritz-Carltons before he was made master of this kitchen catering to masters of the universe. Everyone who’s anyone seems to be gathering here to golf and then ink the deal — while putting away a fair amount of man-food, such as venison loin and portabellos with polenta. As a server overheard a big-biz guy say to a dining companion at the end of one dinner, “Hey, I’d suck out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you like in that movie, but I’m too full.”

Readers’ choice: Morton’s of Chicago

Luanne and Joe Margotte, proprietors of the Chicago sandwich shop on West Colfax, are displaced Chicagoans in thought, word and deed. As such, they serve up the authentic comfort food of their hometown –Vienna beef hot dogs piled with yellow mustard, relish, chopped onions, tomatoes, pickles and sport peppers; overstuffed Italian beef and sausage sandwiches dripping with juice; pork chops Maxwell Street-style, topped with brown mustard, grilled onions and more sport peppers; even Salerno butter cookies. They also pipe in WGN radio broadcasts of Cubs and White Sox games via the Internet. The place is like a miniature Second City, right down to a pride of place bordering on comic hostility.

Tired of the typical Asian lunch deal, where a buck a scoop nets you nothing but dried-out rice and sesame chicken that tastes like candy-coated cardboard? Then head over to Santino’s, where chef/owner Sonny Rando puts out an Italian spread that gives new meaning to the word abbondanza. For $9.95 a person, diners can tuck into soups, salads, breads, mini calzones, meatballs, pizzas, pepper poppers and mozzarella sticks, along with a choice of five or six entrees each day — including some of Rando’s well-known specialties such as chicken cacciatore and vodka ravioli — as well as fruit salad and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. Business types will appreciate the quiet repose of the place, sports fans will enjoy their favorites’ autographs on the regular menu, and chow hounds will marvel at so much meal for the money.

Lunch doesn’t have to be the time to fill your moaning stomach with mediocre, artery-clogging food designed to fortify you for the horrors ahead (or kill you before you return to the boardroom). It can be a time to retreat, to return to simpler times and simpler pleasures. After all, that’s what chef Kevin O’Brien did when he closed his restaurant in Heritage Square and turned a wagon-shaped lunch cart dating from the 1930s — all he and his wife could afford at the time — into O’Brien’s Wings & Things. The Things include such down-home delights as chicken-fried chicken sandwiches, plus hamburgers packaged as singles, doubles or triples and served with white-wine-marinated mushrooms or green olives. But the tasty wings are really the thing here, and O’Brien’s homemade dressings and sauces — everything from ranch to raspberry to sesame — really make them fly.

What goes round comes round. “Quality Donuts Since 1948,” the sign promises, and Chuck’s Do-Nuts delivers. Each and every day, Chuck’s bakers cook up two dozen kinds of doughnuts, and then charismatic owner Dan Imo presides over the day’s purchases. He gets a little help from his peanut gallery of regulars who perch at the low counter and drink coffee — the regular kind, of course, not some newfangled flavored swill. Since the day the storefront opened over fifty years ago, Chuck’s most popular doughnut has been the raised glazed, and with good reason: It’s raised high and light, with a soft, spongy texture and little pockets of air for fluffiness, and it’s glazed with a sugar mixture done right. But that doughnut only scratches the surface of Chuck’s delights. The glazed chocolate cake doughnut is like a breakfast brownie; the custard-filled Bismarck tastes like a Boston cream pie; and the chocolate icing on the plain cake is better than some of them fancy French ganaches. Doughnuts may be all the rage these days, but Chuck’s proves that with age comes wisdom — and the best doughnuts in town.

Dinner at Sambuca Jazz Café is sexy enough, but there’s something about the low-lit dining rooms filled with faux-leopard cushions and soft, pillowy ceiling fabrics that makes us want to be here when we shouldn’t be — and with someone we shouldn’t be with. Say, at lunch, with the boss’s significant other. He or she is bound to appreciate the sensuous zebra pasta pocket filled with creamy lobster; or the carnal steak frit, a hefty grilled hangar steak that comes on a bed of fried potatoes, all drenched in a strong peppercorn sauce. And then there’s that thick, whipped-cream-consistency tiramisu to really whip things into a frenzy. Spring for a bottle of Italian sparkling, and put the Palm Pilot on autopilot. The order of the day may be business, but from here on out, it’s all monkey business.

Those truly in the know realize that there’s no supper at La Fiesta. The place is open for weekday lunch only — but that’s okay, because most diners will have made their dime before the close of the business day. For decades, the town’s true power brokers — everyone from lawyers to cops to insurance brokers to journalists — have flocked to the cavernous confines of La Fiesta, where they dig into baskets of chips accompanied by a sense-singeing salsa, plates covered with crispy chiles rellenos filled with molten cheese, and such daily specials as chile Caribe. The talk is fast, the service faster. Like the green chile, this place is hot.

If you’re on a power trip, chances are you’ve found your way to Bistro Adde Brewster. But be warned: You’d better plan on doing your business in person, because if that cell phone rings, owner Adde Bjorklund may take it away from you. (“Behave and you’ll get it back at the end of lunch,” he often admonishes.) Apparently the in crowd likes to be spanked, because lunch at this Cherry Creek institution often looks like a crowd scene from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Folks from all walks of affluent life gather to check out each other’s dining companions, outfits and expense accounts. And the food coming out of the kitchen is just right for this trendy but tough crowd: no sissy salads or ladies’ lunch petit fours here. Instead, the lettuce comes topped with soy-seared tuna or grilled chicken, and entrees like calf’s liver or Wiener schnitzel will put hair on your chest. But since big deals will be going down while you’re deep in your tuna tartar, remember to talk softly and carry your big shtick in your pocket — or Bjorklund will take that away from you, too.

Readers’ choice: The Palm

Remember, time is money — and the truly powerful don’t like to waste either. They don’t have time to dawdle at some chi-chi breakfast place, and even though they’ve got plenty of cash, they don’t want to waste it on a frou-frou repast. That’s why the smart money is on the Village Inn in Cherry Creek as the most powerful breakfast spot in town. It’s centrally located, the staff is discreet and diplomatic, and the food is darn good. On any given morning, you’ll spot dozens of Denver’s most influential folks interrupting their important a.m. meetings for even more important cell-phone calls, inking contracts over plates of pancakes and bacon and eggs, and washing down deals with lots of coffee. Want the story? Follow the money — and if it takes you to Village Inn, don’t be surprised.

Readers’ choice: Racines

If you don’t haul the morning to the mat, it leg-whips you. McCoys helps you grapple with each new day by keeping the steak and eggs an eternal special. Just $4.89 buys you two eggs, an ample slab of quality beef, decent hash browns and toast, prepared just the way you want it and served by friendly, sassy waitresses in denim miniskirts. And you can enjoy this great breakfast deal anytime, since McCoys is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Special bonus: If you like to feel safe and secure while eating your meal, check out the squads of cops who frequent the place. They appreciate good food; you appreciate their presence.

On weekend mornings, the three chefs at Trattoria Stella, a groovy little bistro in northwest Denver, take a look at what’s fresh in the fruit market that day, then stir up some highly desirable crêpe combinations. First they pour fresh egg batter into a crêpe pan and fry it golden, then fill the crêpe with such delights as locally grown blueberries and blackberries, or nectarines and raspberries, or just-picked strawberries — each filling gently cooked in a simple syrup so that the fruit’s natural sugars come out and play. And if all of this isn’t enough to make you rise and shine, consider the fresh whipped cream, enormous blobs of it, melting all over the thin, fluffy crêpe and oozing into the fruity syrup. Stel-la!

There’s no better way to start a downtown workday than with breakfast at jou jou, the more casual but still classy Kevin Taylor eatery in the Teatro (the higher-priced spread, Restaurant Kevin Taylor, is but a doorway away). The lighting is soft, but the classic breakfast menu is a real eye-opener. For starters, just feast your eyes — and then your mouth — on the super-sweet French toast. The kitchen takes a dense, spongy brioche, slices it thick, batters each piece with a custardy egg mixture, and then fries everything in butter; the pile of golden goodness that results is decorated with caramelized sliced bananas and sided by a top-grade maple syrup. Toss in some of jou jou’s melt-in-your-mouth maple-cured bacon, and you’re ready to greet the day.

The dining areas are bright and cheerful and so is the staff, which makes for a happy way to start off a leisurely Saturday. For brunch, Strings keeps it simple — a pasta dish or two, a half-dozen egg items and a smartly assembled smoked-salmon salad — but it’s all simply delicious. The shrimp hash over potato pancakes comes topped by a poached egg and smothered with hollandaise; the prosciutto-and-chive potato terrine is so hefty you won’t have to eat again for the rest of the day (especially if you start out with the gazpacho, garnished by a ball of tomato sorbet). And your standard lox and bagel will never look as good once you’ve sampled that smoked-salmon plate, a flavor frenzy of sweet, rich, peppery and tart: oily, supple, good-quality slices of smoked salmon; creamy, chive-scrambled eggs, arugula, tomato slices, fresh basil, fresh strawberries and Belgian endive. Throw in a few of Strings’s super Bloody Marys, and you may be able to face the fact that the weekend’s just about over.

Other places may do it bigger, and some may even offer a few better individual dishes, but for price and quality, no Sunday brunch beats the blowout at Garden Terrace. At $21.95 for adults and $10.95 for kids (those under four eat free), this could be the deal of a lifetime. In addition to the usual roster of breakfast items — Belgian waffles, omelette station, eggs Benedict, bacon, sausage, baked goodies — Garden Terrace also offers smoked fish, pâtés, terrines, oysters on the half-shell, peel-and-eat shrimp, a dozen cold salads, two dozen hot dishes (such as chicken marsala and pasta primavera), a cheese board, carved-to-order meats, and a plethora of decadent dessert options, including a chocolate fondue station. The atmosphere is lively and casual, upscale but not so fancy that kids are frowned upon, and the overall quality of the food is unbeatable. Spread the word.

The waitresses wear Sturgis T-shirts, the customers are gossiping about who owes whom money at Broadway’s dirtier businesses, and no one takes any crap. We’d be willing to pay extra for such atmosphere, but Breakfast Palace serves it up free, along with the cheapest, heartiest breakfasts in town. For a measly $2.99, you get gritty realism as well as two eggs your way, tasty hash browns, toast and your choice of ham (thick slab), bacon or sausage (three each). The meaty items are quality, maple-cured pig; the eggs are perfectly prepared (they’ll even poach them for you); and the hash browns are the fluffy, half-mashed, half-hashed kind that wear a crunchy, fat-flavored crust courtesy of their time on the grill. Ante up a little extra for a glass of O.J. that tastes like the actual fruit, and know that it doesn’t get any cheaper — or better — than this.

Readers’ choice: Pete’s Kitchen

World Buffet won’t go belly up as long as it keeps putting out a spread like this one. For $5.49 at lunch and $7.99 at dinner, diners can stuff themselves with no fewer than a hundred items. There’s a staggering collection of Asian dishes — everything from egg rolls to sweet-and-sour pork, sesame chicken and orange beef, fried rice and lo mein, and even sushi rolls — as well as barbecued spareribs, snow crab legs, carved-to-order ham and roast beef, spaghetti, a full salad bar, an ice cream station and, if you must, fresh fruit. Amazingly, not only is all this stuff edible, it’s downright tasty. Knock yourself out.

What’s a coffeehouse doing making such a great cup o’ tea? That’s what we wanted to know, and here’s the answer: Mary and Lisa Rogers, the owners of the two Common Grounds coffeeshops, are tea lovers at heart. After doing some research on the origins of chai, an Indian and Middle Eastern drink made from spiced tea and steamed milk, they decided that the only way to do it was the right way. And so Common Grounds’s barristas don’t reheat bottled chai syrup as they would at most places, but instead custom-make each cup. That way, tea lovers can order their tea cardamom-sweetened or cinnamon-spiced, made with whole, skim or soy milk, flavored with honey or apple cider, served hot, cold or even frozen. If at first you don’t succeed, chai, chai again.

Along with cards, ceramic figures, earrings and ornaments, the Gift Box has always boasted several shelves lined with English jams, biscuits, chocolates, condiments and even cleaning supplies, along with a freezer crammed with crumpets, sausage rolls, pasties and bangers; homesick Britishers have been known to visit just to smell the Dettol. But owners David and Carole Scribner always envisioned something more: a genuine English tearoom. So this year, when they moved into a larger location a few doors down from their original shop, they added tables, chairs and china and placed lacy curtains over the windows. And in April, the Gift Box began serving tea — a real English tea. The scones here are nothing like the huge, sweet, triangular pastries familiar to most Americans; they’re small, warm ovals, waiting to be slathered with butter or jam and Devonshire cream. The assortment of crustless finger sandwiches includes cucumber on brown bread, of course. There are woolly tea cozies on all the teapots, inside of which the tea is properly brewed, fine and strong. And should you have any question about which goes into the cup first, the tea or the milk, Carole will be happy to enlighten you. This isn’t the ineffably elegant tea served by big hotels and accompanied by harp music and obsequious servers, nor the display of mimsy tidbits favored by certain society hostesses. It’s just what tea is supposed to be: a nice mid-afternoon pick-me-up; a proper cuppa with a bit of something savory, a bit of something sweet.

Tea-drinking turns over a new leaf at Gemini Tea Emporium. Owners Brad Cavender and Abdulkadir Omar get extra credit for opening their ultra-hip shop in the heart of Five Points on Welton Street. Gemini is a sign of faith in the neighborhood’s capacity for revival, but this shop would be equally welcome in any other part of town. The chic, airy interior is full of plants and richly colored in purple, yellow, lime and red; the atmosphere is as conducive to conversation as it is to contemplation. Or poetry: On Friday nights, Gemini hosts Cafe Nuba, a poetry and spoken-word set from 9 p.m. to midnight. And then, of course, there’s the tea — more than 160 varieties from spots around the world, including China, Japan, Brazil and India. Drink a cup here, or take some leaves to go; either way, Gemini has tea-drinking in the bag.

Once upon a time, the coffeehouse was where you went to drink your fill of an authentic, big-city experience. You might be served by someone sporting a nose ring and tattoos, and you could eavesdrop on the couple with matching purple hair sitting near you or brood in the corner and write poetry for hours. Then came the corporate cloning of the coffee experience, and suddenly even Rotarians in Littleton were slurping cappuccinos on their way to the mall. Thankfully, St. Mark’s — both the LoDo original and its slightly less big-city sibling — keeps serving up true coffeehouse flavor. The staff is reliably eccentric but always manages to put the right amount of foam into the lattes. The work of local artists adorns the walls, and at the Market Street spot, many of the tables and chairs are themselves works of art. The 17th Avenue location has huge picture windows that open onto a sidewalk patio, and the outdoor action never disappoints. (Your cup will soon be even fuller on 17th, since this St. Mark’s is expanding into the space next door, adding a bar and more food choices.) All of which goes to show that when it comes to character, locally owned places like St. Mark’s will always trump chains run by corporate coffee-bean counters.

Just two blocks from the State Capitol, Penn Street Perk is the perfect place to get the inside scoop on upcoming legislation. It’s where Democratic representative Tom Plant goes to read bills when he wants to escape the bustle of the Statehouse, and it’s across the street from Hays Hays & Wilson, the biggest lobbying firm in town. But it’s also a great neighborhood hangout. The style is eclectic living room (plush couch, comfy chairs, exposed brick walls, Christmas lights in the shapes of gingerbread men, horses, cows, chili peppers and cacti, and Titanic posters, in honor of the nearby Molly Brown house), and the coffee is more powerful than a lobbyist’s checkbook. You can also order off of a list of cold drinks that includes the granita, an orange-flavored slushy; the icebergaccino (a fancy name for a cold cappuccino); and the orange dream, basically an orange julius without the egg. For all this and more, Penn Street Perk gets our vote.

After a long, hard day on the slopes — or an even harder day hitting the Silverthorne outlet shops — the Inxpot is the perfect place to relax. Located in the middle of Keystone’s River Run “neighborhood” at the base of the gondola, the coffee shop is filled with cushy couches and other invitations to relax over that cup of warm cocoa (or something harder). There are also shelves of books, tables topped with board games, and the endless amusement provided by people-watching: first-time skiers tripping over their boots; women in school-bus-yellow ski ensembles; boarders who you pray are never above you on the hill.

For nearly two decades, the Omonoia Bakery has been a Sunday must-stop for the area’s Greek Orthodox practitioners, who pick up a traditional church cake to share with other members after services. And who are we to argue with tradition? But once a week is not enough for enjoying all of Omonoia’s other specialties: sticky, honey-saturated baklava; kourambiedes, rosewater-sprinkled butter cookies similar to Mexican wedding cookies; or a few dozen other Greek pastries. Owner/baker Dino Karas also makes six or seven different breads — including a wonderful French baguette and fruit-filled loaves that resemble huge hot cross buns — as well as moist cakes, which he’ll custom-bake. But since Omonoia is also a coffee shop, you don’t have to get everything to go. You can also linger, savoring all this goodness over a cup of joe.

“Let them eat cake!” says pastry chef Barkley Eberline. In truth, though, his custom, one-of-a-kind cakes aren’t just cakes: They’re certified works of edible art, from a topsy-turvy, four-story Alice in Wonderland model to a traditional bell-topped tower festooned with frosting leaves and grapes so fluffy they look like a chenille bedspread. And then it’s what’s inside that really counts: Eberline’s fillings go by names like Godiva Temptation, Tiramisu, Death by Chocolate, Lemon Raspberry and Grand Marnier Crème Brûlée. This is true love at first bite.

Once an Italian bakery, El Alamo still features a few Italian specialties, such as cookies, rum cakes and an excellent Italian bread. But it’s the Mexican baked goods that really grab us: The raspberry-filled flautas are crunchy tubes of delight, and the polvorones wedding cookies are the best in town. El Alamo also makes a wicked cheesecake, as well as bolillos, the semi-sweet Mexican bread, and conchas, horn-shaped pastries that crumble when you bite into them and then melt in your mouth. But don’t be so distracted by all this sweetness that you forget the spice of life, too: El Alamo also stocks a wide variety of Mexican seasonings, most cheaper than you’ll find in a grocery store.

Tired of waiting for gâteaux? Check out the display cases at La Pâtisserie Française. This little spot tucked into an Arvada shopping center does big things with butter, sugar, flour and chocolate. From tarte Tatin to langues du chat, or cat’s tongues (long, narrow cookies made into little dessert sandwiches stuffed with ganache and buttercream), La Patisserie makes the most beautiful, delicate pastries around, as well as meringue pies, exquisite fruit tarts, housemade chocolates and a fabulous French baguette.

Since gourmet meal plans were developed for the revolutionary! groundbreaking! Sugar Busters! diet by twelve of New Orleans’s top restaurants, Denverites looking to “determine which glycemic levels work for them” and “discover which foods to eat at what time of the day” should head straight to the town’s best New Orleans-style eatery — where they’ll immediately bust any and all dietary restrictions. At Petra’s, every meal is a Mardi Gras party in the making. The decor puts whimsy on parade with cutouts of musicians and vibrant murals depicting New Orleans scenes, the cheerful service lets the good times roll, and the food is a lagniappe of luxurious flavors. The gumbo (including a killer smoked-duck-and-wild-mushroom version) has a real bite; the crawfish cakes are all about the succulent little suckers, not filler; the sweet-potato fries are as sweet a side as you’ll find; the po’ boys overflow with batter-dipped crawfish and oysters; and the blackened chicken would make Paul Prudhomme purple, gold and green with envy. Finish off your dinner with a slice of toothsome pecan pie — it’ll put so much sugar into your system, you’ll be busted for a month.

In general, Asian cuisines aren’t known for their desserts — and when they do go the sweet route, most of their creations tend to avoid the usual Western trappings of chocolate and refined sugar. As a result, the toothsome tidbits at Vinh Xuong, where no one speaks much English but everyone knows the language of food, are usually more refreshing than cloying. This tiny bakery in the Far East Center, along with its sister store on West Alameda, makes cute little cookies and cupcakes, most flavored with coconut, almonds and lemon, as well as interesting Asian-style dumplings that involve bean curd and sesame seeds. Point to your selections and the staff will bag them up with a big smile — which should be matched by your own grin after your first taste of these unusual goodies.

If you’ve eaten in any of the better restaurants around town, chances are you’ve already had Bluepoint’s desserts, pastries and breads. For nearly a decade, the husband-and-wife team of Mary Clark and Fred Bramhall has been supplying Denver’s finest with some of their own finery: luscious cakes, perfect pies and crusty rolls. Although the cooking couple used to have a retail operation, they closed it a few years back in order to concentrate on producing as many baked goods as possible, all distributed daily throughout the metro area. We’d call that a fair trade.

When the Palmetto Grille closed, chef Michael Bortz — a noted chocolatier — turned his talents toward making some dough. After a stint at the Corner Bakery, he hooked up with Tasteez owner Scott Wagner, who challenged Bortz to come up with artisan breads that would complement the market/deli’s daily roster of gourmet takeout foods and carved-to-order eat-in items. And Bortz more than complied, assembling an impressive roster of boules, baguettes, brioche and ciabatta, each sporting the ideal texture and flavor for its type. The brioche, for example, boasts a classic brioche à tête shape, sweet and studded with golden raisins, with a thin, chewy crust and an egg-enriched interior. The hearty, thick-skinned boules come in olive, rosemary and roasted garlic flavors (on Sunday, the special is chocolate cherry); the crispy, crackly exteriors of the baguettes contain a light, smooth center that’s particularly good in the sourdough model. Need an excuse for loafing? You won’t do better than Tasteez’s bakery.

Sure, anyone with a few million or a bunch of sports figures as backers can open a fancy-schmancy restaurant that’s the guaranteed Hot Spot — until the next Hot Spot comes along, and business quickly cools. Denver’s seen dozens of such restaurants come and go over the past two decades. But it takes real chutzpah for a big-time chef to quietly open a little place that serves only breakfast and lunch, a place that does just a few things but does them very, very well, a place that’s more about the warm, thriving lifeblood of a city than the throbbing pulse of the moment. So a round of applause for Aubergine Cafe chef/owner Sean Kelly, who along with partners Hillary Gallagher Webster, a former Aubergine baker, and Luna coffee owner Chuck Rojo has opened The Biscuit. A small, unassuming spot that offers a couple of poached-egg dishes, a smattering of sandwiches, several salads and a lot of yummy baked goods, The Biscuit gives you a real taste of Denver. It’s a spot for newspaper-reading, thought-gathering, conversation-rousing, coffee-quaffing and, of course, eating, eating, eating, from the snacking plate of Provençal olives and the flavor-packed pan bagnat sandwich to the pungent Caesar salad and the comforting chocolate pudding. Enjoy a cup of joe in the light-bathed dining area that’s sided by a mahogany bar from a Minneapolis tavern, or head out to the umbrella-covered tables on the patio, where you can listen to the gentle hum of cars whizzing by and the low murmuring of folks relaxing over a game of checkers. In a city increasingly cluttered with cookie-cutter chains that have no connection to our past, the Biscuit is worth holding on to.

Readers’ choice: Seorita’s Cantina

When Brasserie Z failed to live up to its potential, owner Kevin Taylor made a smart move: He resurrected longtime favorite Zenith, which had introduced Denver to the joys of Southwestern cooking in the late ’80s and finally closed in 1997. Since that time, many savvy diners had clamored for its return, and Taylor finally answered their call. This time, culinary cohort Sean Yontz does the top-toque duties (he’s also a managing partner), reprising quite a few Zenith oldies — the smoked sweet-corn chowder and the ancho-sparked chocolate cake among them. But he’s also added some real goodies, a lineup of New American-style specialties such as an ultra-rich lobster ravioli with fried leeks in a decadent champagne butter sauce and a smoked buffalo ribeye with green-tomato salsa. The wine list features some fun choices by the glass, the staff is as efficient as always, and the vibrantly flavored food fits well in Brasserie Z’s lusty old interior, which now includes carpeting to muffle the sounds of ecstatic diners welcoming Zenith back.

The Penrose, inside the eighty-year-old Broadmoor hotel, exemplifies old-fashioned, romantic dining. The glittery, chandelier-lit space harks back to a more refined, less harried time, with gorgeous views of Colorado Springs and the outline of Cheyenne Mountain at night (the dining room sits in the penthouse of the Broadmoor’s South Tower), along with velvety chairs and exquisite china and silverware. Like your surroundings, the warm but snappy service is also designed to pamper you. And since the French have always had a thing or two to say about love, cheri, it’s perfect that the menu here is a collection of rich, sensual cuisine française: veal sweetbreads and foie gras, lobster bisque and consommé, chateaubriand, turbot pot au feu. Dinner-dance music plays throughout the meal, so if you really want to make her swoon, fox-trot her around the dance floor a few times to get ready for the rest of the evening — which could start but a few floors away, since the Broadmoor is a beautiful place to spend the night.

It’s not so much that Papillon is an outrageously priced restaurant — in fact, the entree portion of the menu is broken down into some manageable payment plans that range from $14 to $26 — as it is that we want to try all of the courses. We’d like to start with the decadent foie gras and the creamy potage du jour, linger through a Roquefort-drenched salade de maison, then move on to a seafood dish or perhaps the sweetbreads, until a stunning light-as-air cheesecake finally drops us to our knees — that is, if we’ve finished sucking down one of the well-chosen bottles of wine from the extensive, and sometimes expensive, wine list. Trying as many things as possible at Papillon is an idea that’s apparently taken off, because proprietor Radek Cerny and his chef de cuisine, Frank Kerstetter, have initiated a tasting menu that changes nightly but always costs $59 per person and includes six courses that are chosen by the chef and flawlessly executed by a snip-snap waitstaff. If the person who’s paying is a suit or a date, so much the better — Papillon is one of those rare spots that manages to mix business with pleasure, in a dining room that’s comfortable for both. Tell ’em they’d better bring the platinum card. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bean counter.

Readers’ choice: Morton’s of Chicago

Tante Louise is romantic, it’s charming, and the food is a francophile’s dream. What more could you want from a French restaurant? Everyone’s favorite aunt is about to turn thirty, and while she hasn’t aged a bit, her experience shows. Duy Pham has more than filled former chef Michael Degenhart’s shoes, and he’s beginning to inject some of his own style into the menu. And so the classics come with a twist: duck seasoned with Chinese five-spice, roasted-red-pepper oil on pan-seared John Dory in a lobster demi-glace, mushroom leek custard with rack of venison. The wine list is wonderful, and owner/host extraordinaire Corky Douglass couldn’t be more inviting. Do we still love Tante Louise? Mais oui.

Readers’ choice: Le Central

We’ve got an offer — and a restaurant — you can’t refuse. After six years and a few management changes, Carmine’s on Penn has finally hit its stride. Not only is this one of the best family-style eateries around, it’s also the best Italian, any style. The atmosphere is welcoming, the servers efficient, the wine list impressive, and the food incredible. These dishes are all about vibrant flavors, well-cooked pastas, tender, tasty meats and huge portions that are suitable for sharing like a big Italian family in the middle of the hustle-bustle dining room or out on the spacious, inviting patio. This is upscale Italian at low-scale prices. Start with a platter of bruschetta and anything the blackboard lists as having balsamic on it, because Carmine’s is one place that knows to use a well-aged version. And then it’s off to find a new belt, because not even loosening yours a few notches could prepare you for such a feast: ravioli alla vodka, rich and filling; or a thick, ragoût-like bolognese; or veal alla Carmine’s, fork-tender medallions covered with cappacola and mozzarella and then baked until it becomes as one; or gooey baked ziti; or the spicy seafood fra diavolo. Mangia, mangia.

Readers’ choice: Carmine’s on Penn

Now that bread puddings have become as ubiquitous on dessert menus as crème brûlée and cheesecake, it’s tough to find one that stands out — but Radex’s does. Not surprisingly, the pastry chef at this hip spot offers a hip variation on the standard, taking a sour cream-enriched cornbread and turning it into a cross between old-fashioned spoonbread and fruit-filled polenta, a bundle of warm goodness bearing the flavors of pears, blueberries and raisins. It’s sort of sweet, a little tart, very rich and, topped with vanilla ice cream, downright sinful. Bread alert!

Sean Kelly knows his way around the Mediterranean, and his Aubergine Cafe navigates a delicious course through the region’s varied cuisines. Aubergine’s menu not only hits on all of the major cooking styles found in that part of the world, but it does so using local ingredients — a philosophy that captures the Mediterranean spirit just as much as the recipes do. Although most of the dishes are classics, Kelly updates them with style, and so the grilled Moroccan free-range chicken breast over saffron couscous is sided with a roasted-fennel-and-eggplant-tomato chutney, and pan-roasted halibut sits on a soft bed of crab “gumbo” with housemade, Old Bay-seasoned potato chips and a textbook rouille. All of these delights are served in a dining room that is at once romantic and casual, a bistro in every sense, with the colors of Provence and Tuscany mixing with the smells of the sea. And with a staff as accommodating as a Greek family at their daughter’s wedding, this is one club Med we should all join.

Although the sign out front promises “Aegean Dining in the Venus Room,” there’s nothing about this dark, divey eatery that indicates the dining inside is going to be anything but mediocre. But get ready to take the plunge, because South Central II serves the best gyros, the best avgolemono soup, the best souvlaki and the best moussaka in town. Before you get to eat those treats, though, you’ll have to make your way through the smoky bar, with its blaring TV and Bud-downing regulars, to the Venus Room, a dimly lit, foliage-filled space that holds about a half-dozen tables and about as many little Greek statues and tattered-edged posters of the Mediterranean. But one bite of the gyros, with its greasy juice and moist meat, and those sides of fat French fries and a thicker-than-usual tsatsiki sauce, should convince you that you’ve gone authentically Greek. A few slurps of the avgolemono should seal the deal: This chicken-based, lemon and egg soup with rice is Venus in liquid form, a beautiful yellow elixir that will have you using a piece of pita to sop up the last drops. Every entree comes with that soup and a salad, a Greek assemblage that includes lettuce, tomatoes, olives and feta, all drizzled with a yogurt-based, black-pepper-laced dressing. Finish off your meal with a triangle of honey-drenched baklava, and thank the Greek gods for the Venus Room.

Since taking over the Phoenicia Grill, a small but cheerful Middle Eastern eatery, earlier this year, owner Jim Kher has done nothing but improve upon what was already a distinctive spot. In the hip, streamlined space, Kher’s chef, Mustafa Awada, displays his extensive culinary-school background and extensive experience at Middle Eastern restaurants with some finely prepared fare. For instance, both the hummus and the baba ghanouj are stellar examples; they each display a creamy texture and sharpness of flavor rarely found around here. The crunchy balls of soft-as-bread falafel are homemade, as are the nakanek, small finger sausages cooked with cilantro and red-wine vinegar and garnished with pine nuts. Other traditional dishes also shine: A thick, hearty moussaka comes covered with a tangy, chunky tomato sauce, and the shawarma features strips of meat that have been grilled until just done so the meat stays moist and tender. If you had to pick just one thing that proves Phoenicia’s prowess, though, it would be anything involving kabobs — lean, well-marinated meats cooked on skewers with mixed vegetables. But then you’d be missing some of Phoenicia’s real surprises, such as the flu-shot chicken vegetable soup made with Lebanese spices, and the deep-fried kibbeh — cracked wheat and beef finely chopped with pine nuts, walnuts and onions — that few Middle Eastern restaurants take the time to prepare.

Readers’ choice: Jerusalem

What makes an Indian restaurant good isn’t just the quality of the spices it uses or the touch of its tandoori — although those things are very, very important indeed — but also the way the proprietors welcome diners, treating them as if they were a significant part of the transaction. That attitude is very much in evidence at the simple but elegant Star of India, an amiable Indian eatery in an Aurora strip mall that not only serves beautifully prepared and luscious Indian food, but does so with a friendliness that makes dining there a pleasure. Owners Paul Gill and his parents, mom Kapoor and dad Gurmukh, worked with chef Balwant Singh on the menu, so the recipes are a collaboration that benefits from Singh’s culinary background and the family’s down-home Indian sensibilities. The resulting dishes pair meats so tender they seem almost unreal with pungent, deeply layered sauces that rely on tranditional Indian spicing methods. The lamb korma and shrimp vindaloo are knockouts, and Star of India’s tandoori wings put Buffalo’s versions to shame. The restaurant’s naan sense is sound, too, because the flatbreads are the best in town, especially the sweet, raisin-studded kabli. All in all, this Star’s future looks bright.

Readers’ choice: Little India

Denver has a number of decent Vietnamese restaurants, but New Saigon outshines them all. Although service remains a crapshoot and the tidy, simply adorned place isn’t going to win any awards for innovative decor, the Vietnamese dishes that come out of the kitchen are unsurpassed. Choose from hundreds of entrees –many variations on a theme, with the kind of meat making the difference — and then expect to get nothing but the best, from the egg and spring rolls to the garlic-kissed frogs’ legs and marinated meats so sweet and tender they’re almost like flesh candy. The noodle bowls are inexpensive but generous and packed with good ingredients; the garnishes are plentiful and fresh; and the dipping sauces could not be more authentic. New Saigon is an oldie that’s still a goodie.

Readers’ choice: New Saigon

If at first you don’t succeed at finding a great Thai restaurant, Thai, Thai again — until you stumble upon Thai Bistro. This is a humble, unassuming space, located in a strip mall with no fanfare, but what savvy chef/owner Noi Phromthong cooks up deserves to be billboarded around town. Once diners have settled into this this sparsely decorated, yet somehow stylish, eatery, the service is attentive and graceful, and the food comes out looking like art. Phromthong combines curries and coconut milk, chiles and fresh herbs in ways that show his keen insight into the importance of balance and proportion. A rich, sweet pad Thai arrives with each noodle carefully laid across the plate, shrimp delicately placed to one side and garnishes galore; an extra-hot panang curry brings a huge helping of supple chicken wok-tossed with bell peppers and fresh basil held together with a coconut sauce enhanced with fennel and coriander. The curries are sweat-inducing, and the appetizers are the kind of addictive tidbits that really make a Thai meal: crunchy spring rolls, soft, steamed dumplings, and creamy-centered, deep-fried tofu, each with its own distinctive sauce and plethora of attractive — and edible — garnishes.

Readers’ choice: Tommy’s Thai

As anyone who’s seen the movie Tampopo knows, properly cooked ramen involves more than just dropping the dried noodle square into two cups of water and adding the flavor packet three minutes later. The noodle house is religiously revered in Japan, and noodle chefs take care to make sure their final product is the Zen equivalent of a cup of tea. Japanese native Keiji Oshima, who has a string of successful noodle houses in Tokyo, left his country when a friend, Todd Imamura, asked him to come to Colorado and open a ramen house. Imamura is now co-owner and manager of Oshima Ramen, Oshima’s the cook, and together the buddies are doing their best to educate Colorado to just how top ramen can be. And so at Oshima you’ll find beautiful, clear, deeply flavored broths teeming with fresh vegetables and carefully sliced meats, all adding more flavor to already potent brews that have simmered for hours. Three base types — shoyu, tonkotsu and miso — are available, and each comes in a bowl big enough to feed a small family. The eatery is so clean and well-lit it sparkles, and there are few shows as entertaining as a noodle chef doing his thing.

From the gracious service and elegant, flower-filled setting to the sea scallops in a spicy garlic sauce and honey-glazed apples, La Chine is everything Chinese dining should be. No gloppy sauces or made-in-Taiwan knickknacks here — the dining room is as classy and evocative of Asian hospitality as the food. And what food: seafood in your choice of sauces, including ginger, spicy black bean and traditional Szechuan; sweet-and-sour orange roughy fish balls; an Oriental version of gumbo; true kung pao beef complete with ginger, garlic, whole dried chiles and fried peanuts; the house specialty of succulent tea-smoked duck; and lamb in a chile sauce. Call a day ahead and beg for the beggar’s chicken, a whole bird that’s stuffed with sweetened rice and rubbed with Chinese five-spice powder before being baked in clay, or try the bargain (for those with a big appetite) gourmet $22.50 prix fixe dinner, which includes a platter of five appetizers (check out the pickled jellyfish), La Chine’s popular chicken with pine nuts in a lettuce leaf, soup, one of four entrees (go for the Peking duck), and banana fritters or lychees in syrup for dessert. You’ll never want to touch a tired old pu pu platter again.

Readers’ choice: P.F. Chang’s

Yoshi Yoshida, who runs Sushi Wave with his wife, Cindy, is a veteran of some of Denver’s best sushi bars, and his experience shows. Careful attention to detail, well-crafted sushi, expertly prepared cooked dishes and a warm welcome make this snazzy spot the best overall Japanese restaurant in town. Of course, most folks come looking for sushi, and they’ll find it here, brand-spanking-new fresh and beautifully carved; the crunchy-centered, rich salmon-skin roll is one of the best in town. But chef Hiddo Mizouchi also knows what to do in the kitchen, and that’s turn out exemplary gyoza, calamari, soft-shell crab and all the classics, including perfect miso soup, with just the right amount of tofu and scallions; supple pieces of filet mignon done teriyaki-style; flavorful grilled calamari steak; steamed fish and udon with the most concentrated broth imaginable. The clean, wavy lines of the decor give the place an upscale look without turning it snooty, and the staff is efficient and friendly. Catch the Sushi Wave.

Readers’ choice: Domo

Banzai offers many types of sushi, all of good quality, all expertly prepared, but it really gets on a roll when it contemplates sushi-roll possibilities. The restaurant offers more than a hundred types, divided into nine categories: no fish on the outside; seaweed outside (traditional roll style); crunchy tempura batter on the outside; fish on the outside; eel on the outside; NITRO (those would be the spicy ones); avocado on the outside; whole roll deep-fried; and, when available, harder-to-get sea urchin and bonito. Pick a combination of ingredients — say, shrimp, asparagus, avocado, gourd and mayo — and a style (do you want that deep-fried, the shrimp wrapped around it all, or the avocado on the outside?), then let the good times, and the good tastes, roll.

Got three milks? Then you have the makings of pastel con tres leches, a three-milk cake popular in Mexico that’s a cross between a rustic custard and a sopping wet bread pudding, only so much sweeter and better. Fortunately, Seorita’s Cantina, an up-and-coming Tex-Mex cafe in LoDo, has imported this worthy dish across the border. Although it’s traditionally made with goat’s milk, many chefs these days are going with whole milk or heavy cream instead; the other two leches are usually evaporated and sweetened condensed. We don’t know what combination Seorita’s uses, but the result is undeniable: a super-sweet, creamy, curdy delight that will make a convert out of the most staunch dessert naysayer. Seorita’s should milk this one for all it’s worth.

Now you have a friend in the diving business. Make that several friends. As Sushi Den shows, it’s not enough to have fresh, exotic fish — although this longtime winner has that in abundance — you also need a staff that knows what to do with it. This jazzy, cool, see-and-be-seen scene has the best sushi staff in town. As a result, nowhere else is the sashimi better cut, the rice better flavored and molded, the tray more beautifully assembled. Sushi Den knows its raw materials inside and out, and those materials get more exotic every day, now that the restaurant is also a fish distributor, importing directly from Japan and even serving as middleman for restaurants on the West Coast. Although you can enjoy your sushi in the dining room, it’s much more fun to sit at the bar and be part of the cutting-edge action.

Readers’ choice: Sushi Den

Be here. Aloha. When Denver netted a link in a first-rate restaurant chain out of Hawaii, we knew the fish was bound to be good. But this good? Roy’s Cherry Creek, the sixth in chef Roy Yamaguchi’s group, made a big splash when it opened this year inside the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, and it continues to make waves by offering service and food so good that few other restaurants in town can match either. And then there’s the food Roy’s offers, including such unusual catches as wahoo (also known as ono, it’s a saltwater mackerel that’s used in sushi) and monchong (also called a pomfret, it’s a Pacific Ocean fish with a mellow flavor and oily texture). The kitchen even takes special care with more standard seafood, doing it in ways no one else does. The sea scallops, for example, are soy-charred, which leaves the centers soft and squishy and the flavor heightened. Tiger shrimp are sesame-encrusted and placed atop a ginger-infused plum-lime vinaigrette; swordfish are virtually steamed inside a package of nori until just cooked; and blue nose snapper gets a very light steaming and a delicate Thai-style mushroom broth. There’s plenty fishy about the appetizers, too: parmesan-crispy calamari, rare ahi gently blackened around the edges, ceviche made with the freshest of white fish and scallops and enhanced with freshly diced tomatillos. Roy’s is a keeper.

Readers’ choice: Jax Fish House

Fans of the vibrant cuisine of the Caribbean finally have reason to jump up and dance. Rhumba is a fun, noisy restaurant, popular not just for its rum-soaked drinks — the wicked mojito, a blend of rum, mint, lime, powdered sugar and soda, will put a spring in your step — but also for its colorful, flavorful dishes. Owner Dave Query and partner/chef Joe Schneider have assembled a roster that reads like a history of the islands: Spanish-influenced stews, African-spiced chutneys and Indian-style curries all vie for a diner’s attention like beach vendors purveying the colorful blankets of the West Indies. Athough it’s all good, the fish is particularly special. And don’t go so wild on the lively appetizers — coconut-basil sauce on dumplings, yam-filled tamales — that you can’t make it to dessert, which sometimes includes the to-die-for passion fruit meringue pie. ¡Arriba!

Since Tony and Marla Zarlenga opened Café Brazil a decade ago, a few other South American eateries have appeared in the Denver area. But none have come close to duplicating the intense flavors that Marla cooks up in the kitchen or the warm hospitality that emanates from your host, Tony. Step into this tiny, colorful storefront and prepare to have your tastebuds danced on by some of the most vivacious cooking in town: chile-fired, coconut-sweetened fish dishes, smoked meats in citrusy stews, perfectly fried, greaseless calamari rings with a zippy marinara, even a zesty mango dressing on the salads. The entrees all come ringed with herb-infused rice and steamed and sautéed vegetables; sweet tortes made from mangoes and the lulo, a hairy Colombian fruit similar to a kiwi, make for exotic finishes. Don’t miss the concentrated black-bean soup or the moist banana bread, either. In fact, the important thing is not to miss out on Café Brazil at all.

At his ultra-funky, relaxing bistro, chef/owner Hugh O’Neill has always been committed to locally grown produce and regionally raised meats. But in the last year, O’Neill has upped his efforts to secure all-organic ingredients from the major growers in the north Boulder area. He then takes those ingredients and treats them with respect, dousing the baby spinach with grapefruit vinaigrette and combining the season’s first tomatoes with eggplant and onions in a well-melded ratatouille. The wine list makes sense, and the servers moving around the intoxicatingly colored dining areas know their stuff. This is New American meets Colorado, and it works.

Sam’s No. 3 is the American dream come true. Just ask Sam, Alex and Patrick Armatas, who own the place. The three brothers are the grandsons of Sam Armatas, who started the town’s infamous — and now long-gone — Coney Island eateries in the 1920s; Sam’s son, Spero, still runs the thirty-year-old Newbarry’s. And now this next generation is carrying on the tradition at their friendly family-style diner, where they offer an ambitous mix of Greek, Mexican and American food. Not only does Sam’s serve breakfast any time — good breakfasts, too, like hefty omelettes and thick, fluffy pancakes — but it also offers such Mexican favorites as smothered burritos and chicken enchiladas, as well as Greek specialties like gyros and souvlaki, and domestic dishes, including fried chicken and meatloaf. And then there are creations unique to the Armatas family, like the Haystack, a Coney Island tradition that involves chili, jalapeos, pinto beans and heaven knows what else poured over a bowl filled with Fritos and layered with cheese, lettuce and tomato. Wash that down — if you can — with one of Sam’s thick, frothy milkshakes, and if you can still move, nail down a bowl of the best rice pudding on the planet. Sam’s makes us proud to be American.

If any one place in town captures the essence of New American cooking, it’s Potager. Chef/owner Teri Rippeto shops local farms, puts the ingredients together in interesting and often daring ways, and when they don’t work, she moves on. If that isn’t the American way, new or old, what is? Try her innovative cooking in the funky dining room that’s at once chaotic and urban-smooth — dining here is sometimes like being in the eye of a hurricane — or head out to the delightful backyard patio filled with lush foliage (potager means “kitchen garden”). Rippeto’s menu changes frequently, but you can always count on it matching up with both the weather and what’s fresh that day. In the summer, expect cool salads, such as the arugula with hazelnuts and pecorino in a lemon vinaigrette, and light fish dishes; in the winter, it’s cassoulet and hearty soups. No matter what time of year, go for the chocolate pudding, the most tummy-soothing, palate-pleasing chocolate dessert around.

The tastes of the Southwest have become such a caricature of themselves that it’s hard to know what’s really Southwestern anymore. But a stop at the Table Mountain Inn, a quaintly decorated getaway that’s eye-catching without being kitschy, will quickly help clarify things. The restaurant is a casual spot that feels upscale but remains comfortable, filled with well-chosen art and appealing upholstery that evokes the Southwest without satirizing it. The food follows suit. The menu is a carefully chosen array of gourmet dishes and Old West favorites with a twist — in the spirit of true Southwestern cuisine — and the cooking is done with flair. Try the deep-fried tortilla shells filled with lobster and minced vegetables, or the heady wild-mushroom “tamales,” or a house-cured, tequila-spiked trout that sports a nice citrus tang. Then head straight for the chiles rellenos, pepper-Jack-packed Anaheims covered with a crispy shell and smothered in a sweet green chile. Just be sure to leave room for the killer chocolate taco. Or simply decide to stay the night and start eating all over again at brunch, when all of the classic Southwestern ingredients — chiles, avocado, cheese, onions, spicy meats — often land in one dish.

When harvest season hits and you start craving roasted pine nuts, Hatch extra-hot chile and abuse from the vendors along Federal Boulevard, head straight for the tent of Roger Sanchez. From August through October, this prince of pods has one thing in mind: “Move it out.” And move it he does. With daily price specials, free bottles of Mexican soda pop and the guarantee “If you don’t like it, bring it back,” Sanchez moves truckload after truckload of chile from his stand labeled “Hatch New Mexico Chile.” And to prove you’re getting the real thing, he provides packing slips straight from the Land of Enchantment. If it’s Pueblo chile that lights your fire, he’s got that, too, along with beans, red-chile ristras and kitchen supplies from south of the border. But once his roasters start rumbling, you’d better hurry. Some days the only chitchat the surly Sanchez has time for is: “Next!”

It’s only fitting that one of the town’s friendliest Mexican eateries also serves its most mellow chile. Fauso and Armida Corral own Armida’s, a cute, unassuming spot with an upstairs for pool players, a dining room for diners and a patio for those who just want to enjoy the view and a few beers. No matter what you’re there for, the Corrals zip around like ambassadors from Mazatlan, intent on seeing that you’re treated right. And what treats you’re treated to: everything from a zippy salsa to top-quality grilled sirloin. But we go on red alert for the red chile, gently spiced, made without meat but not lacking in flavor. A little smoky, with a hint of onion, a touch of garlic and lots of sweet tomato, the purée is as smooth as paint and only slightly thicker. Like everything else at Armida’s, the red always tastes freshly made, and it’s especially good on the fat, cheese-oozy enchiladas.

Satisfy that sweet tooth before you get too long in the tooth. Cafe Cero, which is open until 2 a.m. every night but Monday, is just the spot for curbing post-theater munchies or relaxing after a tough night of bar-hopping, full of fun, groovy spaces that invite kicking back and grabbing a snack. The dessert menu, which is served until 1 a.m., changes frequently but usually features a decadent cheesecake as well as several varieties of heavenly moist cakes (the hazelnut is one of the best) and a superb crème brûlée. Get another drink (if you dare) or sip on some coffee, listen to whatever live act is playing — sometimes it’s comedy, sometimes it’s music — and enjoy your last insulin rush of the night.

Ah, the nineteenth hole. It comes on like a refreshing oasis after four hours of frustration spent hitting, then chasing, a little white ball. From the final tee box, the nineteenth hole rises in the distance like an ice-cold beer in the desert — or, in the case of the public City Park Golf Course, a Corona in the desert. El Curso Viejo, to be specific. If your appetite hasn’t been battered down by a day’s worth of futility, stop in at this cozy cantina and gobble down one or two tasty breakfast burritos smothered in green chile. If your intelligence is still in order, go for an entire bowl of the vegetarian green. “We use three different kinds on chiles,” says part-owner Marie Martinez, a New Mexico native who is unwilling to say much more about the secret trio, “one of which makes it hot and spicy and gives it a kick.” After a day of golfing, a kick is sometimes just what you need.

If there’s one thing that Colorado lobbyists, legislators and lawyers alike can agree on, it’s the mean green at CityGrille. Last year former Bay Wolf owner Richard Salturelli and his partner/chef, onetime Beacon Grill chef David Minty, took over the old home of J. Beatty’s, turning it into not just a watering hole for the town’s movers and shakers, but also a respectable restaurant. CityGrille does grill up one of the town’s best burgers; it also combines jalapeos, tomatoes and pork in a way few Mexican places have been able to muster, let alone master. This glorious, gravylike green chile has perfect smothering qualities, plus a fair number of soft, tender — not gristly, not fatty — pork chunks that make it ideal for eating with a couple of torts, too. A firm but not overwhelming chile kick adds extra interest, and the lack of greasiness means it’s easy to wipe any accidental drips off those important court papers. But don’t scrape the bottom of your empty plate too loudly; you’ll want to hear the conversation of those around you. They’re talking green — and we don’t mean chile.

It’s not easy being green. When Manuel Silva was forced to close down his original Casa de Manuel at 2010 Larimer — an address he’d occupied for forty years — the town worried that we’d never see his green chile again. But then he found another spot eleven blocks to the north, and while it’s not nearly as cool as the original location, the green here is just as hot. Not too thin, not too thick, with plenty of pork and enough heat to keep things interesting, it’s best ordered by the bowl or smothering a “wet” burrito. Manuel’s green chile could be Denver’s greatest liquid asset; here’s to forty more years in the new spot.

Readers’ choice: Brewery Bar

For proof that beauty is more than chile-skin deep, stop by Chelo’s, a teeny little bakery that’s open only until 6 p.m. each day. But that’s plenty of time to score a plate of chiles rellenos, gooey, greasy and oh-so-good, served in a gritty setting that only enhances their flavor. Order your meal at a bakery display case crammed with fruit-filled empanadas and

cookies, and while you wait the six minutes for them to whip up the rellenos, munch on the tortilla chips and hot, cilantro-dotted salsa that come with your meal — which costs a whopping $4.50. But you’d normally pay twice as much for the two poblanos that come stuffed with that requisite, fabulously nebulous white cheese; they’ve been coated in a loose, eggy batter that soaks up the grease and then cloaked in a chunky, tomato-heavy green chile. There’s no point in wasting your time on the refrieds that come with the chiles, but the rice is good, and you get two flour tortillas to sop up the juices. Prepare to leave stuffed —

but first, grab a sugar-dusted blueberry empanada for the road and take a gander at the impressive selection of dried goods, including purple posole and salted corn.

Readers’ choice: Benny’s

At the Painted Bench, chef Steve Rohs’s duck tamales are such a marvel, with tender

duck meat playing off the sweetness of the corn, that you immediately wonder why someone didn’t think of the combination before. But then, you also wonder why it took so long for Denver to get a restaurant as groovy as the Painted Bench. This at once divey and chic eatery boasts a mishmash of decorating styles that offer a little something for everyone. Much like the duck tamale appetizer, in fact, whose smooth, creamy tamal is paired with a relish of roasted corn and black beans and a chipotle-kissed chile sauce. Start with this appetizer, and you’ll be in the swim.

Alamos Verdes, a big, charmingly decorated Mexican eatery, has been serving up combo plates and big burritos for decades. But there’s another menu item, a relative newcomer to the Tex-mix-and-Mex standards, that’s the real standout here: fajitas. Alamos Verdes sends out a heaping helping of them, a platter loaded with juicy strips of charred-tip beef and tender, smoky chicken, along with green peppers and onions that have been caramelized on the grill. Everything’s so warm that after you jam your tortilla with meat, veggies, lemony, hand-mashed guacamole, sour cream, freshly diced tomatoes and shredded lettuce, you can throw in some grated good-quality cheese and watch everything melt deliciously together. After you’ve tried the fajitas, you’ll remember the Alamos.

Chipotle got its start in Colorado, and although this homegrown chain is now running with the big dogs, it still serves up one massive puppy of a barbacoa burrito. To create the classic, Chipotle braises beef in a liquid rife with chipotles, cumin, cloves and garlic until it softens and shreds and absorbs every bit of flavor. The meat is then wrapped in a jumbo flour tortilla along with pintos, Chipotle’s signature cilantro-lime rice and much-needed sour cream to cool the heat. If your stomach can take it, throw in the fiery tomatillo salsa. The winner and still the chomp.

To hell with rice cakes. Dr. Atkins says: Pass the pork. Which means you won’t want to pass up La Popular, which fries curly bits of hog fat into zero-carb, unadulterated artery-clogging bliss. Although the freeze-dried pork pellets hail from Chicago, the cooks in this Mexican kitchen work magic with chile powder and 350-degree canola oil. The result is a thick, crackling bit of hog heaven only a few hairs short of the backyard matanza. They’re perfect for guacamole or the ever-popular pork-rind cheese ball. And with no preservatives and the good doctor’s blessing, what could be better — or better for you? Get ’em while they’re hot.

There’s not much charm at Bandido’s, which looks like your basic Mexican dive, but the kitchen more than makes up for the lack of ambience with an abundance of good food. The taquitos are fine, the tacos al carbon better, and the chicharrones burritos best of all. Deep-fried pork skins — big, fat, hefty nuggets with some weight to them — come stuffed inside a jumbo tortilla and smothered with Bandido’s fiery green chile, a thin, gravylike version that sticks with you. The great thing about these chicharrones is that they aren’t too greasy, so you can eat a lot of them without getting bogged down. Still, a few cervezas won’t hurt.

At most burrito places, the meat-filled versions are preferable because they keep the package from turning into a bean-and-rice blowout — and you know what we mean. But Wahoo’s keeps its vegetarian friends in mind, offering up the Banzai Fajita Burrito, a massive mound of food wrapped in a fresh tortilla. There’s rice and beans in there, all right, but the rice is made with Peruvian Ahi salsa for extra flavor and a little kick, and the beans are black, soft and moist, made vegetarian-style, with no meat. And then there are the vegetables: grilled zucchini, carrots, onions and tomatoes, with their charred edges, a slightly oily grilled texture and lots of flavor. Add more salsa and some non-fat sour cream, and at just under five bucks, you’ve got yourself a meatless meal.

A haven for ladies who lunch, lawyers who linger (and drive up that billing) and bohemian types with lots of Daddy’s money, Palettes makes a fine art of fancy food — as well it should, since it’s connected to the Denver Art Museum. But nothing on exhibit next door is more elaborate than Palette’s desserts, each one a masterpiece featuring its own distinct palette of flavors. Both the light lemon-curd tart and the warm apple and marzipan tartlet with caramel ice cream pack plenty of fruit punch into their striking crusts. Then there’s the peanut butter and chocolate terrine — it beats Reese’s to pieces — with crème anglaise for added richness, and a bittersweet chocolate cupcake that makes life worth living. Our favorite Palette finale, though, is the pistachio profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce: creampuff balls made from choux pastry and filled with homemade pistachio ice cream. Color us stuffed.

If you can eat the whole thing at Piney Creek, a vaguely cantina-like eatery and bar, they’ll take a Polaroid shot of you and stick it on their Wall of Fame. But be warned: Although nearly a thousand have tried, fewer than a hundred have been able to eat an entire Piney Creek Burrito Majestic. Two jumbo tortillas are required to hold this monster together, and even that’s a losing battle, since the kitchen has stuffed them full — very full — of beef, chicken or beans (your choice), as well as the usual fixings. Ladled over all of this is Piney Creek’s sweet green, a medium-thick concoction whose many chunks of pork add still more meat to the burrito. Although your burrito runs between $10 and $14, depending on the filling, if you’re really hungry, it’s money well spent. Uuurrrrp.

There are some Mexican meals you’d never want to see in bright lights. But at Chez José, you can see clearly — and everything’s clearly good. Best is the gourmet fajita burrito, an appealing combination of charbroiled steak, cheese, guac and fresh salsa cruda. The beef is moist and tender, with a grill-bitten meaty flavor that mixes well with the salsa; in turn, that mildly spicy tomato-based sauce plays off the creamy guacamole. Add a few more of Chez José’s made-fresh-daily salsas, such as the fiery tomatillo or the smoky red, to the mix, and you have one big, fat tasty burrito. Can we help it if it’s one big, fat tasty burrito that’s actually good for you, since Chez José uses heart-healthy canola oil and no lard?

Readers’ choice: Chipotle

Have it your way at the Hornet, one of Denver’s favorite neighborhood eateries and a buzzing happy-hour spot. One of the tastiest ways to claim yours is the make-your-own soft tacos, a plate packed with all the items necessary to create the taco of your dreams. There are four main-component possibilities, including roasted veggies, Yucatan chicken and tender steak, but our favorite is the cochinita pibil, pork that’s been marinated in South American spices (think jerk) and then shredded before getting wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. The plate also comes with a mound of rice, a pile of cilantro-flecked black beans, plenty of shredded cheese and lettuce, a good guacamole, medium-hot salsa and sour cream, with plenty of warm flour tortillas to hold things together. Wash your taco down with a Madras margarita, a smooth blend of orange and cranberry juices with Cuervo and triple sec. That’s a wrap.

It’s 3 a.m., and you have enough beer sloshing around inside you to throw a kegger out of your belly. You need food, and not just any old diner food, but something greasy and filling, preferably cheap. Taco Express to the rescue! Swing by this little drive-thru spot — you can eat in, too, but why bother? — and yell in your request for a couple of adobada tacos. In minutes, your order is shoved out the window and you’re on your way home, trying to keep the well-marinated meats from spilling all over your nightclubbing clothes. Taco Express offers eight folded tacos and two rolled, as well as tostadas, enchiladas, burritos and tortas, all good and available fast. But take the time to check out the specials, which often include such deals as five rolled tacos and a garlicky guacamole for $2.75.

Felipe Duran, who moved to Denver from Chihuahua when he was thirteen, brought the secret to great tacos along with him: It’s the meat of the matter. At his three restaurants — two Seor Sols and one Villa Del Sol — the tacos all feature top-quality cuts of meat. Instead of fatty steak or dry pork, you’ll find tacos al carbon stuffed with chopped ribeye grilled with tomatoes and onions, and tacos de carne adobada filled with tender shreds of pork that have been marinated in a chile-fired sauce. Even the crunchy tacos, with their spicy, seasoned ground beef, and the fish tacos, bearing a boatload of lightly floured and golden-fried halibut, are made special by their fillings. Each order comes with three soft corn tortillas and enough fixings — fresh lettuce, tomatoes, sliced avocado, cilantro and a sharp, fresh pico de gallo — to make some pretty big toppings. Shine on, Sol.

Readers’ choice: Taco Bell

In the cold, gray light of dawn, when it seems nothing could make the cruel world look better, remember your friends. The Amigos Cafe cooks up wonderful breakfast burritos that are guaranteed to make you rise and shine. Well, rise and get the hell out of the house, anyway. Owners Laura and Santiago Cardenas came to Denver from Chihuahua, Mexico, and that country’s loss is our gain. Santiago does the cooking in this cheerful little sidewalk space, making everything from scratch — from the fiery salsa to the gorgeous green, a pork-studded gravy rife with jalapeos and tomatoes. That green is perfect for smothering a breakfast burrito, the best version of which includes a housemade chorizo, soft-scrambled eggs and skillfully hashed potatoes, chopped on the grill first to crisp up the edges. This is your wake-up call.

The innovative, jauntily decorated La Fabula has many things going for it, first and foremost a basket of warm, freshly fried, tri-color corn tortilla chips that comes with a trio of salsas, each interesting and addictive in its own right. There’s the crunchy, cilantro-speckled salsa fresca, which starts out light but gets more appealing with each bite; the salsa roja, a potent, well-puréed blend of roasted tomatoes and peppers; and finally, the salsa verde, a tomatillo-based brew that contains a variety of chiles, including one that adds a nice touch of smoke without overpowering. This is the ideal starter to whet your appetite for some ambitious La Fabula dishes, so ideal that we’d gladly pay for it. But in a town where you’re increasingly nickled and dimed for stale chips, what’s truly remarkable about La Fabula’s chips and salsa offering is that it’s on the house. Yes, many of the best things in life are still free.

Readers’ choice: Benny’s

All three of the eponymously named joints owned variously by partners Lee Goodfriend, David Racine and Dixon Staples serve marvelous margs, elixirs that make it worth holding out until the end of the day. You’ll start enjoying the night as you nip into a margarita, twelve ounces of a well-melded drink served in a martini glass with a shaker of the leftovers standing ready. Choose from the classics, such as the house, made from Sauza Gold blue agave tequila that’s been hand-shaken with lime and triple sec, or the 1800 Grand, Cuervo 1800 with lime and Grand Marnier. But the unusual versions are worth checking out, too, because they’re not the typical cutesy overkill. The jalapeo jelly version has a bite, and the ol’ greyhound has its bark, too, courtesy of grapefruit juice. The drinks are ideal for pairing with Dixons savvy Southwestern fare, and at Goodfriends and Racines, there’s no better way to pass some time at the bar than to sip a marg with a few friends.

Readers’ choice: Rio Grande

A few months ago, a skinny Texan walked into the Skylark Lounge and ordered a round of Make-Me-Overs. “Make me wha’?” the bartender replied. Since the newly transplanted Longhorn lived just a penny-tossin’ distance away from the watering hole, he figured he’d better teach the bartenders how to make his favorite party shot. The Texan told the story of the drink: It was created one night several years ago by a barman named Jeff at Emo’s in Houston — not to be confused with the bar’s more famous location in Austin. Anyhoo, the Texan whistled, let’s get down to business: two parts Crown Royal, two parts Seagram’s 7, two parts Amaretto. Top it with a squirt of pineapple juice and shake it in a chilled mixer. Then serve it straight up. Then shoot it straight back. “Ooooweeee!” cried the Texan, expressing his approval. Ever since, the Skylark has been serving up round upon round of the tastiest shooters this side of the Bayou City. Ooooweeee!

You might see triple dragons if you imbibe too many drinks at this longtime Denver institution, but the next time you have a hankering for Chinese, what’s the harm of washing down that lo mein with a Zombie or two? Since 1976, Twin Dragon — an otherwise tasteful place — has been trotting out exotic drinks in the most hilarious vessels. The Zombie, a combination of two kinds of rum, triple sec and fruit juices, comes in a skull; the Scorpion, a deadly mix of Amaretto, orgeat, triple sec, brandy, gold rum and “special fruit juices,” arrives nearly spilling over the sides of a bowl held up by three fat little cranky-faced boys. Long gone are the days when the back room was set aside as a place where people could basically pass out on the floor after drinking too much, but the Twin Dragon will help you call a cab if things get fuzzy. Until then, though, grab your honey and a Love Potion, and ask to see the restaurant’s selection of fortune cookies with dirty sayings.

Boo! Sam Arnold, culinary cutup and owner of The Fort, has been scaring diners for several years now with his annual Awful Offal dinner, a Halloween feast whose multiple courses feature many of the byproducts of butchering an animal. Talk about frightening: The lineup includes buffalo tongue, Rocky Mountain oysters (that’s bull’s balls to you), lamb brains, sweetbreads (the thymus gland), broiled kidneys and calf’s liver. You’d think they’d have to pay you to eat this stuff, but the $50 per person event always sells out. Cat got your tongue? Arnold might serve it to you next October.

The original bar at Nisei Post 185 was a dark, smoky lounge, a room frequented by artists and working men and craggy-bearded World War II veterans back in the days when the post catered to downtown’s burgeoning Japanese population and the term “LoDo” would have been laughed at. But now there’s a valet outside to park your car, and inside, the once-dingy bar has been turned into a groovy sake lounge complete with vivid lighting and a waiting area for folks who want to dine in the restaurant. But that restaurant, Mori, is largely unchanged, and when it took over the bar operation, it added several classic Mori features. The dining-room menu, for example, is a takeoff on the Tokyo subway system, with a dizzying array of possibilities — and so the bar’s sake list is enormous, too, the largest in town, with 36 sakes, as well as sake-based cocktails, to choose from. Although it all tastes like so much lighter fluid to the uninitiated, true sake aficionados — a population that appears to be growing — will appreciate the selection. While not totally representative of the 1,800 sake breweries in Japan, this roster still manages to offer some highlights from the very sweet to the very dry. If you know what the phrase ginjo-shu means, Mori is your man.

Every corner of janleone, a Mediterranean eatery located in an old East Colfax mansion, is warm and inviting — from the charming garden patio to the lovely main dining room. But there’s something about the cozy Col-Mar bar area — named after the intersection of Colfax and Marion, where the restaurant sits — with its baby grand flanked by comfy rounded chairs and tables, that makes this a very special spot. The pianist changes, but it’s often Steven Johnson or Chris Veltry, and no matter who’s tickling the ivories, they have us feelin’ all right each Friday and Saturday night. That’s when you can also nosh from the Col-Mar Bar menu, which features some of chef/owner Jan Leone’s specialties, including crispy calamari and a half-pound lamb burger slathered with cucumber yogurt sauce and sided by addictive French fries. Play it again, Jan.

Rough day at the office? The Avenue Grill’s martinis will shake it right out of you. The bar offers about a dozen ways to stir things up, each one a well-balanced concoction that’s sure to please. Gin or vodka, vermouth or not, two olives or six — whatever your poison, the Avenue’s got the antidote to a bad mood. Sidle up to the smooth, classic-looking bar and have the bartender — who’ll remember you next time, we bet — mix one up while you decide whether you need one of the Grill’s superb burgers to go with it. If your day has been really rough, go for the wicked Crown Royal Manhattan, which won’t just put hair on your chest — it’ll put hair on the hair on your chest. We can see-through clearly now.

Readers’ choice: Purple Martini

Talk about a return to the scene of the crime. Bartender Doug Hollaran, who has the fastest hands and the quickest wit in the business, held forth in the ’80s and early ’90s at such infamous Cherry Creek boîtes as Rodney’s and the late, lamented Bay Wolf. Now he’s back on familiar ground — behind the mahogany at the upscale Manhattan Grill. (Those who have lived here longer than eight minutes — and you know who you are –realize, of course, that the Manhattan Grill is the former Bay Wolf.) Old friends will be delighted to find Hollaran back where he belongs, and new ones will delight in meeting him. The big Irishman has lost none of his charm; he remains one of the city’s most valuable citizens — and certainly one of its most congenial companions.

Readers’ choice: Jeremy at the Park Tavern

After a shaky start, the railway-themed Great Northern Tavern has arrived. Not only has the kitchen gotten its act together — it now puts out such inspired fare as seared sea scallops in a lemon-Riesling sauce with fennel mashed potatoes and wild-rice-dusted walleye in a port beurre rouge — but the pub makes excellent beers. Down a pint of the hoppy Cascadian Pale Ale, with its malt bottom line and sweet scent, or the creamy, chocolate-heavy Empire Builder Stout, or the sharp, almost chewy Western Star Wheat, an American-style wheat that’s delicious on its own or accompanying Great Northern’s hearty chicken pot pie. All aboard!

Readers’ choice: Wynkoop Brewing Company

Not only is this a bar where everyone knows your name, but the bar itself is so secure in its identity that it doesn’t bother to announce its name outside. You don’t need a sign to find your way to My Brother’s Bar, however; anyone and everyone who appreciates a good drink — with or without good company — knows the way there. The brother is Jim Karagas, who’s presided over this spot for almost three decades; his late brother, Angelo, used to run the Wazee Lounge and Supper Club eight blocks down 15th Street. For the record, My Brother’s is at the corner of 15th and Platte streets, where it once stood out as an oasis of civilization in the deserted Platte Valley; today it’s an oasis of neighborliness in an area that’s increasingly highbrow (million-dollar “lofts” will soon rise just a block away). But inside My Brother’s Bar, time stands still: A letter from Neal Cassady still hangs in the phone booth, classical music is still piped over the dark-wood booths, Girl Scout cookies are still sold through much of the year, and those great bar burgers (the Johnny burger is our favorite) are still served well into the early hours of the morning. The place has made a few concessions to progress, however: It added a great urban patio ten years back, and the menu has slowly expanded (gazpacho is this summer’s special). My Brother’s: Everyone should know this joint’s name.

Readers’ choice: My Brother’s Bar

Mon dieu! The moment this hip, French-inspired restaurant opened, the beautiful people started flocking to the dining room. From there, though, they got a good look at the bar, a cozy yet chic enclave that sports six-foot-high chairs covered in plush fabric with a tilt to the seat, offering extra padding for delicate tushies that have been out clubbing all night; overstuffed lounge chairs and booths for large groups that like to mingle; and a long bar with stools for perching in case you must hop off and hobnob now. Just two months after Sacre Bleu’s debut, you can hardly get into the lounge area, which seats fifty and is standing room only on the weekends. But true bar-hoppers will persevere, and their efforts will be rewarded with a varied appetizer menu — try the scallops and anything with truffles — as well as an extensive wine and champagne list, drinks prepared by bartenders who look at mixology as both an art and a science, and the best beautiful-people-watching in town.

Readers’ choice: Blue 67

Blair Taylor spends so much time in Italy, we’re surprised he hasn’t been made an honorary Italian — or at least had his estimable Barolo Grill given embassy status. Every summer Taylor takes Barolo staffers to Italy so they can taste the food and wine, and he can check out trends that might be worth incorporating into his restaurant. While he’s there, Taylor also spends time honing his wine list, a carefully chosen roster of some of the best vintages Italy has to offer, many of them on the rare side, and all of them interesting — from the barbarescos and the Piemontese to the Tuscan chiantis and an impressive collection of barolos. They go wonderfully with the finely tuned Italian fare put out by chefs Brian Laird and Jeff Vedovelli — and the staff, thanks to its Italian summer-school lessons, is full of educated opinions about what works with what.

Not only is Le Central’s impressive selection of French wines the best in town — filled with interesting bottles from across France that you won’t find elsewhere — it’s also one of the best-priced, with remarkably low markups and most bottles coming in at the $20-to-$30 range. This affordable French bistro is just the place to try a 1997 chablis from Domaine de Varoux, or the 1995 Clos du Roy Fronsac, or something elegant from the Bourgogne. And if you’re in the mood to splurge, you’re in luck: The 1995 Volnay, say, or that year’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Domaine des Relagnes. If somehow nothing on the regular roster grabs you, then check out the month’s featured wines or one of the excellent house wines, which you can buy by the bottle, the glass, the half-glass, the taste or, most intriguing, the percentage of the bottle that’s been consumed. We’ll drink to that.

When Sabor Latino moved, it expanded not just its dining space but also its wine list. As a result, there are now more than two dozen wines from Chile and Argentina to choose from; not surprisingly, they all go well with the racy, spicy flavors coming out of the kitchen. The Concha y Toro “Don Melchor” cab has a syrupy black-currant taste; the herby Navarro Correas malbec goes well with Sabor Latino’s sweet and salty Caribbean plate. The prices are reasonable, and the selection more than explains why wines from this part of the world are getting so much attention.

At Bruno’s, we rarely take our eyes off the plates filled with marvelous, reasonably priced Italian food. But then one day we ventured into the men’s room, and there on the walls were some of the sexiest shots of Sophia Loren ever taken — old Saturday Evening Post covers and Life magazine photos — all poses that invite men to hang out in the facilities for a while, if you know what we mean. Mama mia! Owner Tom Mirabito’s mother-in-law knew of his obsession with Loren, and when she found this collection at a flea market, she snatched it up, in the process giving Bruno’s the best-dressed men’s room in town. So far, though, the ladies haven’t gotten equal time. “We’ve been talking over the past three years about who to put in there,” says Mirabito. “Some of the younger ones want Leonardo DiCaprio, but the older ones like Dean Martin. Maybe Marcello Mastroianni?” Meanwhile, hostess Janet Heritage has been using the space to show her artwork, a collection of watercolors and wax-and-caustic pieces that hang on the walls — and in the stalls. “I’ve actually sold a few,” Heritage says. “I guess we have kind of a captive audience in there.”

The California Cafe is a link in a chain out of — you guessed it — California, but each outlet can tailor its menu and wine list to the area. The California Cafe at Park Meadows draws its inspiration regionally, with daily specials that highlight the area’s indigenous ingredients and fresh produce. Working with company headquarters, general manager Linda Kuhns has assembled a list of all-California wines that complement the food perfectly. Look for a Stonestreet merlot that goes beautifully with lamb sirloin, or a glass of Grgich Hills sauvignon blanc for a post-shopping lunch of ostrich burger and grilled tomatoes. The list is 200 vintages strong and includes some of the best wines our domestic vineyards have to offer, including a particularly delightful Cabernet Sauvignon Page.

We raise a glass to the Fourth Story, whose excellent roster of by-the-glass wines just keeps getting better. This chic, comfortable restaurant atop the Tattered Cover boasts a cozy bar for tasting and nearly forty opportunities to try a vino you’ve never sampled before. The selection changes almost weekly, and it’s always a well-thought-out list that includes some old favorites as well as more off-the-beaten-path choices. A half-dozen bubblies are always offered, as well as a non-alcoholic wine. The staff also endeavors to come up with interesting samplers, such as three rosés or chardonnays with something in common, so sippers can get a sense of the differences in vintage, style or vineyard. Perhaps most important, the bartenders are careful to pour 5 1/2 ounces into each oversized Schott crystal glass. Salut!

If you can’t find a wine among the thousands offered by the Flagstaff House, then it’s time to start growing your own grapes. Consistently voted one of the nation’s best wine lists, the vino roster at Flagstaff is 30,000 bottles strong, with something for every palate and price range. The staff is as knowledgeable as anyone can be about 2,000 types of wine, and eager to turn you on to something new. Add to the vintage experience by sipping at a window-side table and gazing out into the twinkle-lit, tree-lined Foothills.

Most of the wines at 240 Union come in between $20 and $30, and many cost even less, making this comfortably chic eatery even more of a good thing. The savvy cooking of chef/part-owner Matthew Franklin is fine on its own, but it’s even better paired with fine wines. Select from such interesting compilations as “Cutting Edge” or “Nothing Boring,” play it safe with a “Comfort Zone” red, or just pick at whim. Your glass is bound to be more than half full — and at a fair price.

Colorado’s once-obscure Western Slope vineyards are gaining quality and stature with each new vintage. Witness the sublime Cabernet Sauvignon made by Canyon Wind, a young winery owned by Norman and Ellen Christianson and overseen by the well-respected Napa Valley winemaker Robert Pepi. Intense and complex, the 1996 cab is deep purple, well-balanced and bursting with mature fruit. At $20 a bottle, the stuff is not inexpensive, but it’s exactly the right accompaniment to a slab of rare prime beef or herb-crusted lamb chops.

One Friday every month, Cook Street, a culinary college, opens its doors to downtrodden commuters for an after-work sampling of fine wines. Not only is the party reasonably priced at $25 per person, but it comes with various hors d’oeuvre prepared on the premises by a master chef. Best of all, this beat-the-traffic happy hour unfolds in LoDo, so you can stroll right from the haute tidbits and the audacious nose of that beaujolais to a swank, overpriced bistro to make a few comparisons. Glass dismissed.

It’s 1 a.m. on Saturday, and after all that Friday night drinking, you’re hankering for a slice. Time to head to Two-Fisted Mario’s for a one-two punch of pizza. Run by two guys, John Skogstad and Kevin Delk, who feel your pain, Mario’s is the kind of place that truly wants to be there for you until 2 a.m. Monday through Sunday and 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. The hours when you can grab a slice aren’t this pizza’s only assets, either: It’s a well-crafted, thin-crust pie slicked with a sweet tomato sauce and topped with plenty of cheese. A slice will run you $1.45, and an entire plain sixteen-inch pie is still under ten bucks. Plan to go the whole way: Just think what a great hangover breakfast that leftover pizza will provide.

Want the real thing? Go to the source. Or as close as we get in Denver, which is the restaurant run by Florence native Simone Parisi and his wife, Christine, who’s originally from Boulder. Christine met Simone in Italy, they fell in love, and she convinced him that Denver needed a really good pizzeria. She was right. Their love Italian-style is evidenced in Parisi’s offerings: More than just a pizzeria, this is an Italian market where Parisi makes his own mozzarella-like fior di latte. He smokes some of it into scarmorza, the cheese that he puts on his medium-thick, crackly-crunchy-edged crust, then tops with Parisi’s sauce, which isn’t really a sauce at all — it’s more like a bunch of tomatoes melted down with garlic. Not content to offer just traditional pizzeria pies such as rustica and vegetariana, Parisi also takes advantage of the current abundance of white truffles by piling them on a sinfully delicious, oil-drizzled pizza, which fills the shop with musky perfume for days. Now, that’s amore.

Readers’ choice: Beau Jo’s

Any Italian restaurant that offers more than the standard spaghetti, linguine and fettuccine is using its noodle — but Cucina Colóre, a casual Cherry Creek joint, really displays some smarts. Not only does it serve up fusilli, tagliatelle and conchiglie, but it does so in the best way possible: by coating the properly cooked, awesomely al dente pasta in skillfully crafted, classically themed sauces. The white bean and roasted red pepper raviolis, for example, come slicked with a sweet, heady combination of browned butter, sage and balsamic syrup; the penne comes “al arrabbiata,” with chile peppers, kalamatas and ricotta salata all angrily fighting for attention; and the conchiglie, or “little ears,” arrive napped by a light but rich cream sauce sparked with roasted garlic. Even the veal bolognese on the tagliatelle is noteworthy — thick and chunky, but still possessing a tomato-rich flavor. One bite, and you’ll be pasta point of no return.

Some of the Cherry Tomato’s neighbors put up a fight when the restaurant wanted to open in Park Hill; now no one can imagine the neighborhood without this adorable, welcoming spot. Pasta is the specialty here, and the lasagne is truly something special. This is one of the densest, heartiest versions you’ll find, a meat-filled, cheese-packed wedge smothered in a smooth, tomatoey marinara that’s a little bit sweet and walks the thin red line between runny and too thick; one order easily serves two. In a restaurant overflowing with abundant humor and good tastes, this dish is a real cherry.

Sometimes a plain doughnut just won’t do — and that’s when Henderson’s Long Johns go a long way toward filling any craving. Instead of forcing sugar fiends to dig through two inches of dough before they get to the creamy center, Henderson’s makes all of its Johns plain. After you order one — chocolate-coated, sugar-powdered or glazed — they’ll take it to the back counter, slice it lengthwise, and then slather in your choice of fluffy whipped cream or Bavarian custard. With that sinful two-inch-thick mortar in place and the lid back on, these confections look more like hoagies than doughnuts, and the first bite can send a load of creamy filling shooting out the back. But, oh, what a glorious mess.

Tired of living off the fat of the land? Need more meat in your diet? Get yer sloppy carcass over to the Denver Buffalo Company, which has been hooking hungry cowpokes up with buffalo for eleven years now. The Western-themed eatery has seventeen ways to eat the ornery creature at high noon, and that many more through happy hour and dinner; a recently added bar menu features a few favorites, such as the buffalo stroganoff and the club steak, for cheap. The DBC even sells uncooked buffalo so you can satisfy the good doctor’s meaty requirements in the privacy of your own home. Since buffalo’s been around since before the concept of ketosis was even created, you can bet this ultra-lean meat will treat your body right. And if it just so happens you have a hankering to cheat on Dr. Atkins, there’s no better way to get a carbo load than a side of hearty hand-mashed potatoes.

The Mercury Cafe is the ultimate Zone zone — not just because it offers nutritious dishes that pull from all of the food groups in ways you can easily regroup to fit your ideal zone, but because after you eat, you’ll likely be pulled into some swing dancing that will take you straight to your ideal heart-rate target area. For 25 years now, the Merc has been a hip-hoppy, snap-happy spot that serves great food for carnivores and vegetarians (vegans, lacto-ovo, macro-micro, you name it) alike, in a fun atmosphere filled with dancing, music theater, poetry and any kind of art you can think of (and then some). Ponder life’s possibilities as you put away an order of Susan Jane’s tofu chop with rice and veggies, or a Santa Fe breakfast of beans, rice, corn, cheese and green chile, or shrimp fettuccine tossed with hot peppers and olive oil. Naturally, everything’s homemade from whole grains, natural sweeteners and cold-pressed oils; owner Marilyn Megenity even makes her own soda pop. Get with the program at Denver’s zone away from home.

The Saucy Noodle may be down — this spring a fire gutted its storefront location along with the space next door, where the Noodle had just expanded — but don’t count it out yet. When owners Erin and Nathan Markham (who’ve been running the place since before Sam Badis, the original owner and Erin’s dad, passed away four years ago) start sautéeing garlic again sometime around the end of the summer, it will go into the best red sauce in town, the same thick, sweet elixir the joint’s been serving since it opened back in 1964. The best way to sample it is over a plate of homemade spaghetti noodles, with huge, tasty meatballs on the side; plenty of homemade Italian bread and a salad draped in a rich, creamy, herb-packed blue-cheese dressing complete the picture. That’s as Italian as it gets.

In Kansas City, the smoky tips of brisket that can’t be sliced off and sold are called burnt ends or brownies. Some KC eateries have made a name for themselves with these tidbits, and with good reason: The extra smoke makes for concentrated barbecue flavor. And after trying for some time to get their brownies right, We’re Smokin’ has the ends in sight. These fatty hunks are intense and still juicy, certain to kill you if you eat too many — but what a way to go. Dip them into We’re Smokin’s well-melded, smoky, spicy sauce, and you’ll agree that these ends justify the means.

When third-generation rancher George Harral and his wife, Georgia, left Texas behind, they knew they wanted to set up a smoke shop somewhere. Lucky for us, they picked a great site: Lookout Mountain, in a hundred-year-old building that reeks of history. The Harrals then set out to smoke everything imaginable — and even a few things that weren’t — from pork ribs to chicken to brisket to salmon. But our favorite is the buffalo. The Harrals lightly smoke those massive bones until the meat starts to release its juices, then slather them with their Texas-style slop, a sweet, tangy barbecue sauce that perks up the buffalo’s mild meat. The buffalo ribs are available only in the summer, so buy some bison now.

When Pastor Gene Washington got the call to take his family to an old soda fountain in Littleton and start serving up great barbecue, he answered — and as a result, we’re blessed with Blest Bar-B-Que of the Rockies. From Grandma Sharon down to granddaughter Jasmine, everyone puts their hands in, and their work pays off with such rib-stickin’ sides as an eggy, pickle-packed potato salad, pork-filled baked beans, sweet potato pie so sugary it’ll make you weep, and genuine Coke floats. But Blest’s true blessing is the sloooooowww-smoked brisket — soft as velvet, so tender you could scare the pieces apart with your fork, and slathered with sauce. And not just any sauce, but a concoction of the reverend’s that takes a little from Kansas, a little from Memphis, and a little more from here and there; the sauce soaks right into the brisket until every shred screams with flavor. Washington calls it “a Southern taste in the West”; we simply call it the best.

Oh, brother! We have no bones to pick with the O’Sullivans, who continue to turn out the best ribs in town at their Brothers BBQ. They came to Denver from England via the South, working on their barbecue along the way. For example, they took the peppery, vinegary Memphis sauce and refined it until the vinegar is nothing but a faint tartness; they enchanced the sweet Kansas City sauce with more smoke to deepen the flavor. But they haven’t changed anything about the way they dry-rub and slow-smoke the St. Louis-cut ribs, because that’s what makes the meat so juicy and intense, so addictive you want to tear at it until every last shred is gone. Their baked beans are the best in town, too. Extra points to the brothers for making everyone feel like barbecue pits are native to Britain — no small feat.

Readers’ choice: Brothers BBQ

In the space once occupied by Pour La France! sits Seven 30 South, a revamped concept from PLF’s owners that shifts the focus away from breakfast and lunch and toward a more sophisticated dining experience. Chef Kip Wotanowicz has created a menu that matches the tony new interior, one that features a number of innovative offerings. Tops on the list is the fried calamari: squid steak cut into French-fry-like strips, then lightly coated with fine breadcrumbs and fried into crunchy-edged, creamy-centered snack stix. Two sauces — a roasted-garlic aioli and a spicy marinara — are provided for dipping, and they’re just the thing to spark the mild calamari meat. After you’ve sunk your teeth into these babies, you’ll kiss off the competition’s rubbery rings forever.

The Denver Dry Tea Room is just a memory, the top-floor space where for decades businessmen chewed each other up while ladies serenely lunched now a hip, $1.5 million loft. Assuming that its new owner, Rutt Bridges, doesn’t plan to throw a citywide open house anytime soon, though, it’s still possible to get a taste of the old place. That’s because the Blue House, a quaint, weekday lunch-only spot, features the tearoom’s famous chicken a la king — a perfect puff pastry filled with chunks of chicken swimming in a rich cream sauce — as a frequent special. Who wants to eat like a millionaire?

The elegant, aptly named Little India does many things well, including a goodies-packed $5.95 lunch buffet and the saag paneer, a sophisticated take on creamed spinach. But the tandoori Cornish game hen is really something to crow about. Each little hen is marinated in yogurt that’s been infused with garlic and ginger, then placed in the clay oven for a mesquite smoking that soaks into the meat; the high heat of the tandoor proves ideal for sealing in the juices. The sky may not be falling, but your inhibitions will the second you rip through the bird’s skin to get at that juicy, flavorful meat.

The folks at Calypso are pulling their fun Caribbean nightclub/jerk joint together on a wing and a prayer — but what a wing! Four bucks buys ten of the flash-fried little appendages, which come plain or slicked with your choice of jerk seasonings or hot sauce, or a combination of the three. The jerk coating is our favorite, a sweet, fiery mixture that soaks into the meat — but the hot’s a hot number, too, with enough buttery richness to keep it from being all about pepper sauce. (Celery sticks and ranch or blue-cheese dressing come on the side, in case you need to cool off.) Beneath the sauce, the skin on these wings is crisp and chewy, while the meat below that is moist and flavorful. And if you’re in the mood to take a flyer on something new, the “Bahamas curry tuna splash” appetizer will knock you straight to Jamaica. Chef Desmond French, a native of Kingston, makes the dip from curried tuna (not the canned kind, either), raisins, sugar and celery, and provides celery sticks and carrots for getting the mess into your mouth. Good stuff, mon.

You wouldn’t think a sports bar would have a sporting chance of serving the town’s best fried chicken — but Caldonia’s scores with one high-flying bird. And this kitchen does more than chicken right; it’s been serving up respectable, Oklahoma-style barbecue for over two decades. The fried chicken carries the flavor of the deep South — its wet and juicy meat is covered by a crispy, crunchy shell that glows golden with just the right amount of grease. An order brings you a half-bird’s worth of parts along with steamed broccoli, a fat mound of skin-on, country-style mashed potatoes smothered in peppery gravy and a sugar-kissed cornbread muffin. After downing all that, you’ll need to join one of Caldonia’s pick-up volleyball games — but unlike the other players, you might want to keep most of your clothes on.

After a stop at the Butterhorn Bakery, it’s all downhill. This Frisco cafe is always packed with people fueling up for the slopes on everything from the Frisco skillet to biscuits and gravy to the best baked goods that side of the Continental Divide. In defiance of high-altitude cooking hazards, the Butterhorn keeps bringing out trays covered with huge cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, fluffy croissants, cream-oozing eclairs and unbelievably tasty blackberry/strawberry/blueberry/kiwi fruit tarts. Grab some to go — or forget about the snow, sit yourself down, and eat your way through the day’s offerings.

The Mountain View Cafe may look like an unlikely spot — it’s a bright-white, houselike structure tucked into a yard filled with statuary and lush foliage — but its roast chicken is downright unbelievable. This bird is big, both in taste and portion. For $6.95, you get soup or salad (if you’re a fan of feta, go with the Greek), massive sides of mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables, and half a chicken that’s almost as big as a standard fowl, flecked with fresh herbs and redolent of lemon juice, with a crispy, salty skin holding in firm, moist meat. But good as this is, Mountain View also does right by other Greek, Mexican and American offerings, delivering huge portions for small prices — with a nice view of the Front Range thrown in for free.

Cooking duck isn’t all it’s quacked up to be: Keeping the flesh moist and the skin non-greasy takes some know-how, and complementing the duck’s sweet, faintly gamey flavor without overpowering it or turning the bird into a meaty dessert is trickier still. But at Vesta Dipping Grill, chef Matt Selby makes it all look easy. His brown-sugar-smoked roast duck is something to behold — although you won’t gaze at it too long, because you’ll be ripping into the tender duck meat. Although the brown sugar is definitely a factor, it serves as an extension of the duck’s own natural sweetness. Augment it with one of Vesta’s three dozen dipping sauces (the dried berry chutney and honey soy are our faves), and this dish really flies.

Although El Rancho opened fifty years and several owners ago, it’s still in its prime. And so is the beef, a well-marbled rib roast dry-aged three weeks and cut off the bone in pieces ranging from eight ounces ($18.95) to sixteen ($30.95), tender as a baby’s butt and served au jus. Every time you stick your fork in this prime rib, more juice runs out — which works just fine with El Rancho’s chunky, buttery mashed potatoes. The regular entrees come with the spuds and a salad — and that’s after a signature relish tray loaded with crudites and dip. Good any night, the prime rib is a real deal on Wednesday nights, when it’s all-you-can-eat (and that includes the sides) for $21.95. See you back at El Rancho for that one, pardner.

A great steakhouse is about more than great steak — although that’s certainly the prime consideration. Second comes the service, which must be knowledgeable and a tad snooty for all the important people who want to eat big meat, but not so snooty that the common man feels out of place. Third is the setting, with extra points for manly opulence that isn’t so manly it offends gals; fourth are the side dishes, which should be rich overloads of gooey goodness, filled with butter and cream and salty enough that many drinks must be consumed. And so finally, of course, the drinks must be well-poured. There are a few more bonus items: People who like to smoke should feel welcome, and a good dessert never hurts. Del Frisco’s scores on all counts. The meat is literally prime — although that doesn’t get in the way of its full flavor — and the staff accommodating without being smothering, savvy without being condescending. The sides are superb: crispy-edged, soft-centered skillet potatoes with onions; unbelievably buttery sautéed mushrooms; a house salad that boasts a slice of incredible, crisp bacon. Martini and Manhattans are treated with equal respect here, and the wine list is excellent. Non-smokers may not be thrilled that an occasional whiff of Marlboro makes it into the dining room (although the ventilation system actually works pretty well), but that’s the price you pay for also having the best cigar room in town — the perfect place to toast to a steakhouse that’s very well done. Which is rare, indeed.

Readers’ choice: Morton’s of Chicago

We’ve never managed to find anyone at Yoko’s, a cute, mostly takeout place in Sakura Square, who can explain why a Spam roll is part of the bento repertoire — but some things are better left a mystery. It’s true that the pressed-pork product is popular in Japan — again, for reasons that remain unclear — but it’s unlikely that in that country Spam is featured in a roll with the name “Rocky.” Whatever the explanation for its existence, the Rocky roll is actually delicious, with the pig parts stuffed in the center and surrounded by rice, mayo and cucumbers. We’ve been Spammed!

It’s a big yes, yes to NoNo’s, a whimsically decorated eatery that focuses on Southern-style cooking, with a special emphasis on New Orleans dishes. The menu changes every two weeks, and we go hog wild whenever we hear that the ham steak is available. Pig out on a thick-cut slice of smoked pork, cooked until the fat around the edges turns translucent and starts to caramelize, then slicked with a super-sweet raisin sauce so good you’ll swear it was supposed to be dessert. For still more sugar, dig into the sweet-potato crunch that comes on the side, a brown-sugary goo that puts the comfort into food. Ham I am.

Since Ilios is a Mediterranean restaurant, it’s no surprise that it does lamb well; the surprise is that it does it well in so many ways. Start with the spicy barbecued lamb ribs, available as a tapas or an entree. The best way to eat these succulent, fat-dripping bones is with your hands, which means you’ll be able to lick that sweet sauce off of your fingers long after the meat is gone. The lamb kabobs are another baaa-gain at ten bucks, which buys a huge skewer of tender, lemon-marinated meat, jasmine rice and two sauces for dipping: one a tangy curry yogurt, the other a roasted-red-pepper purée. And while lamb accounts for only part of the gyros’s moist, meaty makeup (this rotisserie-cooked specialty also includes ground beef), it contributes most of the flavor. And finally, there’s the grilled rack of lamb, which drapes well-grilled chops with a fennel marsala sauce that plays well off the lemony lamb. Be still, our bleating heart.

Let the chips fall where they may, and they’re likely to land at Clancy’s Irish Pub. There’s nothing fishy about this honest-to-goodness pub in the heart of Wheat Ridge, which serves the best fish ‘n chips in town. Big planks of beer-battered cod are deep-fried until the crust bubbles and the fish steams inside; they’re delivered in a paper-lined basket that also holds a pile of Clancy’s thin, crispy fries and a cup of homemade tartar sauce. Throw back a few Guinnesses, keep your head over your food and out of the way of the darts, and you’ll know why Irish guys are smiling.

McDonald’s may think it invented the French fry as we know it, and the French are just snooty enough to claim pommes frites as their own, but the fact is that potatoes were grown in South America long before they ever made it to Europe. As a result, our friends south of the border know a thing or two about tubers, and Nicole and Rick Fierro ferreted out their secrets during a few fact-finding trips to come up with recipes for Piscos, the South American eatery they opened this year in the old home of Chives. Many of the Fierros’ discoveries adorn the appetizer sampler platter, which includes Brie-enriched empanadas and heavenly humitas, a fresh-corn version of tamales. But what really gets the fingers fighting are the papas fritas: thin, crunchy and faintly greasy fries that are sprinkled with the perfect amount of fine-textured salt and arrive steamy hot.

Readers’ choice: McDonald’s

A lot of folks go to Papa Frank’s religiously on Sundays for the $5.95 all-you-can-eat spaghetti-and-meatballs deal. But this casual storefront run by the Rizzi family is also the final destination on another spiritual quest: the search for the perfect homemade pie. Although the selection changes daily, there are always four or five choices — all of them delicious, and all encased in a flaky, shortening-rich crust. The peanut butter tastes more like creamy peanut butter than peanut butter itself; the coconut cream is enough to drive you cuckoo for coconuts. And not only does Papa Frank’s bake a mean apple pie, but it also turns out more exotic fruit varieties, including pear. And when the Palisades are in season, the peach is enough to make a grown man weep with joy. Ask nice, and the Rizzis might even sell you a whole pie to go.

If there’s anything better than a bloody good Wimpy burger, it’s a bloody good Wimpy for half the price. Monday through Thursday from 10 to 11 p.m., that’s exactly what Pint’s Pub, a veddy, veddy laid-back British brewpub, offers for just $2.50. To rate that price, though, you have to also shell out for one of Pint’s foamy, handcrafted beers — but you’ll need one to wash this burger down, anyway. It’s a half-pound of freshly ground, 80 percent lean chuck, topped with cheese and broiled until it’s ready to leak juice into a fresh-baked crusty roll. Chips (that’s fries to you Yanks) and a big, fat pickle round out one of the cheapest, most satisfying meals in town.

While this bustling north Denver joint continues to attract new customers drawn by its downhome cooking and refreshingly simple concept, a base of regulars comes for one thing, and one thing only: Bang!’s incredible hamburger. It’s hard to say which is more amazing, the roll or the meat, but both are given special treatment, resulting in a superlative burger. The kitchen bakes the soft, faintly sweet buns every day, using a Swedish oatmeal recipe that Bang! got from a Junior League cookbook; while the bun’s chewy shell holds everything together, the inside is just right for soaking up a burger’s juices. And what juices: The burger is a half-pound of Maverick Ranch ground sirloin that’s been seasoned just enough to bring out the flavor of the meat, then perfectly sautéed to a diner’s specifications. It comes with a sweet and tangy homemade ketchup, lettuce, tomato and onion, and potato chips. Get your buns to Bang!

Readers’ choice: Cherry Cricket

One of the last places you’d expect to get a stellar cup of soup would be a pizzeria, but last year Tony Velasquez, owner of Attivo Pizza and Italian Deli, and his kitchen manager, Jeff Carstens, decided to start experimenting with homemade soups. The result was fifteen flavor-packed soups, some impeccable versions of a classic (including an ultra-creamy cream of broccoli), others unique concoctions that have the regulars screaming for more. One soup is featured each day; if you’re lucky, you’ll drop by Attivo on the right day to try the lime soup with chicken and habaneros or the cream of tomato with fresh basil. Then again, you can’t go wrong with the black bean, punched up with cilantro and jalapeños, or the chicken escarole, with just-cooked chicken breast in a double-cooked chicken broth. A cup costs a mere $2.50, and a bowl is $3.95; if you’re lucky enough to live nearby, Attivo will deliver a quart to your door for $4.95. This soup’s on, all right.

Don’t worry if many of the dishes at Diane’s Good-to-Go seem half-baked — that’s by design, since these two gourmet-to-go outlets assume that you’ll get the goods, then take them home and reheat them in the oven or microwave. So Diane’s plans ahead, labeling each item with instructions for how to bring it to full flavor. The soups, though, are already there — and then some, with Diane’s wild-mushroom soup a delicious case in point. Packed with mushrooms and enriched with cream, this concoction is as earthy, rich and creamy as mushroom soup can be (Campbell’s doesn’t even come close). So thick it’s almost like condensed, this soup really is good food.

What’s in a name? For starters, this little spot just off the 16th Street Mall looks better than your average soup kitchen, although it’s not exactly the Taj Mahal: Little bits of information are handwritten on scraps of paper and stuck to the display cases, pots and pans; baker’s pallets are stacked everywhere; and the decor consists of dozens of bottles of hot sauce and other flavorings stacked like little soldiers on the makeshift counter along the front window. Even soup-maker/owner Richard Gamsen, a transplanted New Yorker, is usually wearing a grimy T-shirt and baseball cap. But don’t let appearances fool you, because inside those covered vats in front of Gamsen are some of the town’s most elaborate and tasty concoctions, including a chicken noodle whose broth is so chickeny, it’s like gnawing on a thigh. Gamsen uses the untraditional fettuccine as his noodle, but the thick strips are cooked until perfectly soggy so that they soak up the intense stock that’s been augmented with tender chicken chunks and soft pieces of carrot and celery. This is the soup that Gamsen runs out of most often, and we’re not surprised.

Comfort food never tasted this haute cuisine. The lowly tuna melt goes upscale at Ambrosia Cafe, the eatery created last year in the old Firefly Space by chef Mark Gordon and his partner, John Barocas. They’ve created a simple yet trendy neighborhood spot complete with landscaped patio and parking outside and Asian-influenced dishes inside. Gordon is reaching high here, and with the ahi tuna salad melt, he displays a particularly good grasp on which ingredients work together — and how. Ahi chunks mixed with celery and a homemade mayo come piled on a fluffy-centered, crackly-crusted kaiser roll, blanketed with slices of a creamy, nutty Swiss cheese; the cooking has been timed perfectly so that the ahi, which steams a little under the molten cheese, arrives dead-on medium-rare. The sandwich comes with your choice of Ambrosia’s fabulous fries or a side of steamed vegetables. Either way, your meal should go swimmingly.

Although every sandwich shop and cafe thinks it wants to offer panini, what they usually cook up is a far cry from the way these grilled Italian sandwiches are supposed to turn out. For panini done right, head to Panini Grill, a teeny Italian bistro that not only grills a mean panini, but boasts a welcoming attitude and makes good pastas, too. You can create your own panini combo from the list of ten meats, eight cheeses, three pesto spreads and ten other possible ingredients, ordering everything on traditional focaccia or rosemary focaccia (you can also get a non-grilled sandwich on a French roll — but why would you?). Once your sandwich is assembled, it gets a real grilling in the special panini maker, keeping the fillings moist and the bread chewy. If you’re not feeling particularly creative, you can’t go wrong with one of the house panini — the sliced meatballs with Mamma’s homemade sauce and provolone is the ultimate meatball sandwich — paired with a bowl of veggie-packed minestrone. Eat your meal inside, or at one of the tables on the sidewalk; either way, this is the grill of your dreams.

Although its sandwiches top any others in town, the TreeHouse Cafe — a repeat winner in this category — remains one of Denver’s best-kept secrets. Less than seven bucks buys you a sandwich big enough for two, a massive, jam-packed meal made of top-notch meats, cheeses and other fixin’s, all piled into your choice of focaccia or baguette, marble rye or wheat. You can assemble your sandwich from a lengthy list of ingredients, or go with one of the TreeHouse’s suggested combinations, such as the Cubano: organic eggs scrambled gently and layered with sweet slices of ham, turkey and provolone, with the result looking for all the world like an exploded suitcase. The pizza sandwich is as close as you’ll get to a four-inch-thick slice; the Vaggio’s Veloute, its breaded chicken topped by Danish ham and Swiss, all smothered in the mother of white gravies, makes the average diner-style open-faced turkey sandwich look like an hors d’oeuvre. Wash your sandwich down with a great milkshake or smoothie. Bonus: These babies are available until midnight every night, which makes the TreeHouse not only an ideal spot for late-night munchies, but also for some entertaining people-watching.

When a divorced parent decides to dine out with the kids, it’s important to do so in an atmosphere as comfortable for the little ones as it is for Mom or Dad. At Govnr’s Park, a longtime central Denver hangout, the scene is relaxed and casual (unless, that is, you met your future ex- over a big margarita here a decade or so ago), often studded with single-parent families taking advantage of the comfortable setting and good kids’ menu. While your children chow down on pasta, a burrito, grilled cheese, a quesadilla or sliders (each $3.25), you get to gnaw away those divorce-budget blues on a well-priced basket of wings, drowned with a beer or two. And if you’re looking for love, Brady Brunch-style, here’s the story: Slide that table over next to the single-parent family next to you, and let the kids fight for the fries while you talk 401K plans.

Tired of stuffing your kids with the same old hot dogs, chicken planks, pizza bites and mac and cheese? Not as tired as they are of being stuffed with the stuff. Treat them like big people and take them to Roy’s, where the kids’ meals are just as special as the adults’, and all ages are treated to some of the best service in town. For ten bucks, your child gets a four-course repast (drink included), starting with elegantly arranged cheese-filled quesadillas, followed by a plate of artfully carved apples, celery and carrot strings with ranch dressing for dipping, and then his choice of penne in a marinara or butter sauce, or Roy’s chicken wings coated with a sticky-sweet, Asian-inspired (but non-spicy) barbecue sauce. For dessert, tykes get a mini sundae, with the scoop of ice cream stuck to the plate by a big wad of ganache. And if your kids don’t know what ganache is, well, all the more reason to get them to Roy’s.

Man does not live by pizza alone, although he could give it a good try at Pasquini’s. In fact, the fat, cheese-blanketed pies are so good that most Pasquini’s diners don’t make it to dessert. And that’s a shame, because Pasquini’s serves the best chocolate cake in town — an enormous wedge that’s simultaneously dense and fluffy, fervently chocolate and stunningly rich. A chocolate-pumped whipped cream holds the layers together, with a decadent chocolate buttercream frosting topping things off. Any way you slice it — and whatever you slice up — Pasquini’s comes out a winner.

The ultra-polished, romantic and enchanting Tante Louise offers up a spectacular array of French-inspired dishes that are as artfully presented as they are drop-dead delicious. There’s so much to choose from that most diners never make it to the end of the menu’s roster, much less order the Degustation des Legumes — which, not quite literally, translates to Option for People Foolishly Willing to Miss Out on the Stunning Animal-Based Dishes We Offer. Of course, owner and consummate host Corky Douglass is far too polite to put it that way, but he’s also savvy enough to recognize that this town has plenty of vegetarians searching for fine-dining alternatives. And so every night, Tante Louise chef Duy Pham devises a different three-course meal centered on such tempting entrees as black-barley terrine with wild mushrooms and almonds on a corn purée; the other two courses are a choice of salad (warm goat cheese, maybe, or bleu on frisée) and dessert. That’s more than enough to keep the vegetarian at the table happy while his carnivorous companion sucks down a big plate of innocent-sounding, hazelnut-crusted sweetbreads — otherwise known as thymus glands.

By now, Denver diners — meat-eaters and veg-heads alike — accept as a matter of course that WaterCourse Foods serves the town’s best vegetarian meals (sadly, it’s still only open for breakfast and lunch). Not content to stick with the dry, lifeless ingredients that have become such a hallmark of vegetarian cooking, chef/owner Dan Landes is always expanding his repertoire of innovative creations. And so now, in addition to meatless Reuben sandwiches, baconless breakfasts (you won’t even miss the pig) and the best veggie burger going, WaterCourse also serves tempeh scallopini with mushrooms, a spicy Thai peanut stir-fry, a variety of super salads and a macro plate with packs in the flavor. Although there’s always a slew of bikes parked outside this casual space to remind you that a truly healthy lifestyle extends beyond the meal, WaterCourse never fails to lead us into tempeh-tion.

Readers’ choice: WaterCourse Foods