Guess where I’m eating?

I love fresh peas immensely, but I’m definitely not a fan of frozen peas in a Panang curry. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I drinking/eating posts is entered into a pool — and every Monday,…

Contest alert: Win dinner for two at Trillium on New Year’s Eve

When Trillium, Ryan Leinonen’s highly anticipated Scandinavian restaurant, opened a few weeks ago in the Ballpark neighborhood, the accolades began almost immediately, which was good news for Leinonen. “I want to have one of the top five restaurants in Denver,” he told me during a pre-opening interview. We recently spotted…

Part two: Denver chefs dish on what they wish would disappear in 2012

As we’ve discovered in our weekly Chef and Tell interviews, Denver’s kitchen commanders are, if nothing else, unapologetically opinionated. We pepper them with dozens of questions, and sometimes their answers are salty — especially their responses to what they’d like to see less of in Denver from a culinary perspective…

Denver’s ten best new restaurants of 2011

By our count, nearly 300 restaurants have opened in the metro area since January 1 — a big increase over 2010, when just over 200 concepts (many of them food trucks) joined the scene. This past year, we saw many of those food-truck entrepreneurs also pick up leases to brick-and-mortar…

Reader: The gang’s all beer in Colorado

A river of alcohol was running through Cafe Society yesterday, with Laura Shunk offering her list of neighborhood liquor stores, Swirl Girl suggesting five bottles of bubbly for New Year’s Eve, and Colorado Beer Man Jonathan Shikes serving up his “ten best Colorado beers of 2011.”…

Free wine tasting at Sip tonight

Celebrate the final days of 2011 tonight at Sip Fine Wine & Spirits, 1920 Market Street, where you can enjoy free wine tastings from 4 to 7 p.m. For more info, call 303-298-9463. For information on dozens of culinary events around town, visit our online Food & Drink listings –…

St. Kilian’s Cheese Shop: a new year with new owners

St. Kilian’s Cheese Shop is a boutique-style gem within walking distance of Mondo Vino and The Denver Bread Company — making Highland Square a convenient stop for gathering party supplies — and it specializes in French, Spanish and Italian cheeses, with a few select Swiss and Dutch wheels, and cheddars…

Frank’s Kitchen offers up a hangover cure for New Year’s Day

When Frank and Dina Berta opened Frank’s Kitchen earlier this year, it quickly became part of the neighborhood, integrating into the community and picking up a crowd of regulars that use it as a go-to spot. Frank’s won’t be joining the festivities with its neighbors on New Year’s Eve –…

The ten best Colorado beers of 2011

Colorado breweries released dozens of amazing beers this year, further expanding their range and making once-exotic beers easy to find and enjoy. A few stood out above the rest, though. To make this list, the beers needed to have been new year-round offerings, seasonals that will return, old beers that…

Reader: Is $9 too much to pay for a cocktail?

On the Thursday before Christmas, Laura Shunk highlighted five festive cocktails that don’t include hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, including the Figgy’s Manhattan at Steuben’s, which is made by combining Wild Turkey 81, Carpano Antica vermouth and Navan vanilla liqueur and infusing the whole thing with figs for five days…

Guess where I’m drinking?

I couldn’t wait to get to the mountains to try out this new, big-name restaurant. While I enjoyed my cocktail at the bar, I’m looking forward to some apres ski action next to the fire outside. Can you guess where I’m drinking? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct…

Spirits tasting at Ignite!

Get a jump on your New Year’s celebrating at the brand-new Ignite!, 2124 Larimer Street, which will host a complimentary spirits tasting today through Friday, December 30, from 5 to 6 p.m. For more information, call 303-296-2600 or visit www.ignite-denver.com. For information on dozens of culinary events around town, visit…

Thai Gold opens in Golden

Jim Abajian and his wife, Patsorn, made their first connection over Thai food: they met at the Thai restaurant she ran in Washington, D.C. where Jim was a frequent customer. So when they moved to Golden, it didn’t take long for them to spot a gap in the market. “We…

The ten best (vegetarian!) meals I ate all year

The year started off lovingly for this Veggie Girl, and throughout weeks and weeks of eating somewhere different, there were lots of great dishes that stood out. Here, in chronological order, are the ten best meals I ate this year…