Sweet Basil Martini

Tim Harris — or Timmy, as I like to call him, shouting it out like they do on South Park — has a passion for creating delicious things for his customers at Jax. But he isn’t a chef in the traditional sense. His creations are liquid, because he’s a “bar…

Mori Sushi Bar

When Jäger Bombs first became popular, bars served them Irish Car-Bomb style, with four to six ounces of Red Bull arriving in a pint glass or lowball and the Jäger showing up in a shot glass. After all, half the fun was dropping the shot into the pint, making a…

Hats Off to Encore

No sooner had Jason Sheehan’s review of Encore and its crooked tables hit the streets than those tables disappeared. The timing was pure coincidence, Sheehan reports in the current Bite Me. But the new hats on the chefs — replacing their Strawberry Shortcake: The Musical toques — was no coincidence,…

Batter Up!

GB Fish & Chips used to be a computer store before owner Alex Stokeld got his hands on it last year. But the place really looks more like the kind of place where computers might’ve been operated in secret, like maybe during the run-up to a nuclear war. It is…

Canning the Coors Tour

It has been a Colorado rite of passage for decades. Turn 21, then head to Golden for a guided tour of the Coors brewery and, most importantly, the three free beers that come with it. But that changed on Friday when Coors, now called Molson Coors, unveiled its shorter, self-guided…

Burrito Bombshell

We are gathered here today to mark the passing of one of the oldest Chipotle restaurants in Denver, the location at 13th and Pennsylvania streets. One of the original, 15-20 pre-McDonald’s Chipotles, the store opened in 1998, back before the big-burrito chain — founded in Denver five years earlier –…

Neighborhood Flix Cafe & Cinema

Neighborhood Flix Cinema & Cafe, which opened in November in the Lowenstein project, is a combination movie theater and cafe with a menu gleefully designed by gallivanting knife-for-hire James Mazzio and a full bar, a place where a man willing to lay down the coin can drink his way through…

Soul Survivor

While doing some last-second research on the Best of Denver 2008, I discovered that Slayton & Corine’s, a strange little lunch-only carry-out soul-food restaurant that had opened in the McKinley Mansion, at 950 Logan Street (Bite Me, July 7, 2007), was no more. This sucked, because Slayton and Corine Evans…

Añejo Manhattan

I’ve got a secret — and I’m not even the governor of New York. I use Elway’s in Cherry Creek like a prostitute. Truth is, Elway’s is dependable, gives good service, and I know what I’m going to get there. Yes, the bar crowd may be a little long in…

Whiskey Bar

My sister once had a moody boyfriend who, once he had a few drinks in him, would transform like a true alcoholic into a ray of smarmy sunshine and say, “Just needed to put a little primer in the tank.” Minus the bit about being a manic, sycophantic inebriate, this…

Movie Tavern

If Neighborhood Flix is an independent, high-end exemplar of the dinner-and-a-movie concept, then Movie Tavern — part of a multi-unit, food-and-movies chain out of Texas — is the McDonald’s, Olive Garden and T.G.I. Friday’s of the industry all rolled into one. While the basic idea of combining food and film…

There Will Be Boredom

They say that everyone — even the guy with the best gig in the world — dreams occasionally of doing something else with his labors. I know chefs who dream of being musicians, musicians who’d love to be chefs, real estate brokers who spend their nights writing strange novels, and…

There Will be Grub

I’d been looking forward to seeing There Will Be Blood. It had been nominated for about a hundred Academy Awards, and my more serious film-nerd friends talked about it like it was a singular work of staggering genius that would shape the way Hollywood made movies for decades — the…

The Rest of Denver

Last week, I received this e-mail (reprinted verbatim) from a Mr. Jason Mason: Sheehan (Mr Anthony Bourdain wannabe) Can you or will you ever give a true review w/stars, forks, diamonds, pokadots, liquor bottles, etc? I’ve been in the business a long time and have never seen anyone like you…

Sign Language

Absinthe, that naughty green elixir that was banned in the United States for 96 years, is back on the shelves in Denver — as reported by Westword here and here. Supposedly hallucinogenic, the wormwood-laced alcohol was a favorite of Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway and Vincent van Gogh — who some…

Beer Today, Here Tomorrow

Here’s my favorite story about the Mexico City Lounge — a great neighborhood joint that was in the ballpark neighborhood long before Coors Field ever entered the picture. Back in the days when Denver having a Major League Team was just a pipe dream, Pete Coors was having lunch with…

Liquid Amber

Back in October, I called local beer man Marty Jones of Oskar Blues fame (left) to talk about the Great American Beer Festival. When Jones asked me what kind of beer I preferred, I felt slightly ashamed to admit that, actually, I don’t like beer. He was beside himself. “We’re…

License to Swill

Some neighbors were confused last year when Café Caliente, a Highland Square coffee shop, began serving wine: The business, they knew, didn’t have a liquor license. But the issue was sorted out when Paul Bonacquisti, owner of Denver vintner Bonacquisti Wine Company, 4640 Pecos Street, told them he’d pulled a…

Encore Restaurant

It was my dining companion who noticed the weird thing about the tables at Encore. “Look at that,” she said, pointing to the round four-top next to us, noting how uneven the table was, how crooked. It was warped so badly that the flat outside edge had cracked and split…

The Rest of Denver

Encore, was the last restaurant I visited before last week’s Best of Denver 2008 issue went out the door. I’d already picked Encore for Best French Fries — after Fruition, my first choice, quit making them — and was relieved to find that the fries were just as delicious last…