At the table behind me, two girls are talking about Jesus. In front of me is a plate of chicken-fried steak that could send me to meet him real soon. It’s the third chicken-fried steak I’ve eaten in less than 24 hours. I have the meat sweats. My heart is…
I met Ben Doerflinger and Shannon, his soon-to-be-ex-wife, last month at my favorite Village Inn in Aurora, where they were plotting a revolution in the soon-be-outlawed smoking section. They thought they had a shot at beating back the smoking ban due to go into effect July 1 — a new…
Blueberry “Martini” Chama 425 South Teller Street, Lakewood 303-935-5170 When I suggested that we go to Chama for cocktails, I heard audible gasps from my friends, followed by the typical urbanite questions: “Isn’t that far away?” “Isn’t that in Lakewood?” “Isn’t it all chain restaurants out there?” Somehow I managed…
I’d always thought it took three miracles to become a saint, but recent research determined that had I been martyred — say, by an Institute of Drinking Studies member for letting the Denver community at large in on his immature yet hilarious antics — I would need only one. And…
Emerald Isle Restaurant 4385 South Parker Road, Aurora 303-690-3722 Talking to Genessee Elinoff, owner of Rosie’s Diner (see review, page 54), I learned that Denver’s connection with diners dates back to 1888, when one of the first diners ever built — a simple lunch wagon, made for feeding mine workers…
Laura staggers as we step through the double doors and into the Royal Peacock. She doesn’t swoon, exactly, but there’s not much in this world that can make her swoon. She misses her footing a little, and then a huge smile spreads across her face, and her eyes go wide…
It should be enough that the Royal Peacock (see review, page 49) serves some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had. It should be enough that owner Shanti Awatramani is willing to ship that food to transplanted Coloradans in Washington and New York and California, to loyal fans so…
Oh! Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob SquarePants! Ocean, the reincarnation of Mao that opened earlier this month, may be the bluest place in Denver. Not sad blue, but true blue. And with a bubbling sign, blue-tinged everything and a very upscale yet tranquil feeling, this restaurant…
There is little doubt that the down-home, deep-fried goodness of the Cherry Creek Village Inn (222 Columbine Street) saved several members of the Institute of Drinking Studies the other night. The cholesterol shoved down our gullets at a rapid rate was the only reason any of us even had the…
From the outside, there’s not much to distinguish Namaste from the antique shops, sports-memorabilia stores and physical therapists’ offices that share this Lakewood strip mall. And inside, it’s just a room: tables, chairs, double-thick tablecloths, a grinning Buddha by the door, and waiters who seem surprisingly overdressed for the suburbs…
Thirty-two steps is all it takes to get from Vietnam to Italy, Saigon to Rome, New Orient to Viaggio Italian Trattoria. Thirty-two steps if you’ve got legs like mine, probably fewer if you’re in a hurry. And if it’s raining, you won’t even get wet. Strip-mall dining is one of…
As human beings, we are built for adaptation. On both a micro and macro scale, this knack for going with the flow, for finding solutions, for reading prevailing trends and riding them into the ground is what has elevated us above all the llamas and spore molds and ocelots and…
Jimbob always looked like a caged tiger behind the bar at the Denver ChopHouse. It was clear to everyone that while he was a good — no, a great — bartender, these were not his people. As polite and teddy-bearish as he was, you could tell that Jimbob was a…
Short of ice cream, Guinness and bourbon, there’s no better comfort food than pizza. A good pie will glisten with a sheen of grease over a thick layer of cheese and the meat of your choice (vegetables may be present for color and a hint of flavor, but they should…
Caribbean Cuisine is the quintessential strip-mall restaurant. It’s small, cheap, slightly alien, clean, well-run and — since its recent relocation from an invisible flank position at a big strip mall at 15445 East Iliff Avenue to a much more obvious (and larger) spot down the street at 17200 East Iliff…
No matter how good a server is, it’s tough to move the chef’s yak special. “I have two specials to tell you about tonight,” our waitress said, smiling, struggling to make eye contact as Barry — my go-to steakhouse guy — and I pored over the newsprint menu, looking for…
I was completing my list as the plane banked over lower Manhattan for its final descent into LaGuardia. It went like this. Fucked: Elvis; an Algerian in Paris; a future member of the British Parliament (unnamed); an architect and a poor artist; an Italian in Rome; an unkind college boy;…
Gas prices are over the top, but alternative-energy folks say we can save fossil fuels by harnessing energy from such sources as the sun and the wind. I recently set out to absorb some energy from both on the rooftop deck of the Tavern Downtown and wound up making my…
I love this time of year. The weather is completely unpredictable, and you can go from summer temps to blizzard conditions in the space of five seconds. But it’s totally worth suffering through an unexpected hailstorm that drives down new car prices, because ten minutes later you’ll be able to…
Every time I go to New York, I find myself liking it less and less. It’s not the people, the noise, the size — all that stuff used to bug me, but not so much anymore. Now, after six years and change spent west of the Mississippi, what bothers me…
The first time I went to Domo, I parked on the wrong side of the building, and I remember the annoying sound of my boots crunching on the gravel parking lot. Gravel anything — parking lots, roads, driveways — speaks to me of poverty, of not being able to afford…
One thing about restaurant people: They never sit still for long. Just last month, Kevin Taylor — who clearly didn’t learn his lesson about the difficulties of multi-unit ownership during his last round of closures in ’03 and ’04 — announced that he would be opening Rouge at the Teller…
