OUT OF AFRICA

The French use the term “la casbah” as slang for “party.” It’s fitting, then, that La Casbah is the name of a festive new North African restaurant. La Casbah is only the second restaurant to bring the foods of the Arabian west–Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, with a heavy emphasis on…

MOUTHING OFF

The group that lambasted Chinese food last year has now spent still more money (purportedly in the “public interest”) to learn that fettuccine Alfredo is like “a heart attack on a plate” and that spaghetti with tomato sauce is low in fat. I’m so surprised. You mean a dish made…

WINNER TAKE GAUL

We never made it to Jim Morrison’s grave, but that was because we were determined to find an authentic Parisian bistro during our trip to France several years ago. After wandering for almost an hour in Montmartre–past all of the places that suck up most tourists–we stumbled up a side…

MOUTHING OFF

A phone call from an eager real estate agent sent me on this month’s wild goose chase–to find out if the venerable Mary and Lou’s Cafe could be closing. The answer? No–at least, not over owner Lou Pobojeski’s very live body. He and his wife, Mary Lou, are looking to…

Tandoor Mercies

As a kid I did not trust the cuisine of India. Hey, there could have been anything in there–monkey brains, for all I knew, or even worse: green peppers. Because ethnic food had not yet reached our little pocket of suburbia (pizza was as exotic as it got), we had…

Mouthing Off

Living proof that decent food can be had at a good price, the Brick Oven Beanery at 1007 East Colfax served me up a heapin’ helping of its Original Brick Oven Chicken ($5.95) the other day. Half a chicken had been swathed in what I discerned as lemon and orange…

A Pizza the Action

If you thought Lower Downtown didn’t need another hangout, stop by Wazoos on Wazee some Friday night and watch as hundreds of people jostle for elbow room. Where were they before this cavernous beer/pool/music hall opened in October? The answer can’t be that they were frequenting another LoDo hot spot,…

Mouthing Off

A Littleton cook faces criminal charges for allegedly spitting on a policeman’s chicken sandwich. Whatever your feelings toward the boys in blue, that’s just plain gross. The civilian riding with the officer thought so, too, which upped the ante to two counts of disorderly conduct. The accused, one Peter Hatfield,…

Bite Me

You’d think it was the Second Coming.First, people began calling to ask if I’d heard rumors that LaMar’s Donuts was moving its headquarters to Denver and that we’d be getting our very own LaMar’s Donuts store! Then the ads started. Then the dailies began publishing stories about how bagels are…

Cafe

The first step in dealing with an addiction to Thai food is admitting that you have a problem. The second is accepting that there are no more steps — because who can contemplate a cure that bans curry?Chile peppers can be physically addicting, according to recent medical evidence. The reasons…

2nd Helping

‘ve eaten at Le Central many times over the past six years, and I’ve always encountered some kind of problem. Often they’ve been production-oriented glitches, ranging from tardy courses to overcooked seafood (“Waiting for Gateau,” October 17, 1996); sometimes servers have failed to refill water glasses or replace silverwear. Out…