I was surprised this week to get an email from DISCUS, the national trade group for distilled spirits producers and marketers, about a pro-Sunday sales press conference to be held at Argonaut Wine and Liquor — of all places. Two years ago, when I was reporting on a campaign to…
Originally, my review of Agave Grill was supposed to be a two-fer — a kind of culinary Entebbe Raid whereby Laura and I would roll in fast on slow nights to the King Soopers plaza at Orchard and Holly, where both Agave and Mel’s Greenwood Village incarnation are located, have…
About three weeks ago, Chad Clevenger put Agave Grill through a mid-season menu overhaul, altering or outright dumping about two-thirds of the opening board. While the result could have been a return to the mixed Chihuahua-meets-Lyon Old World/New World fusion of the Cherry Creek Mel’s during Clevenger’s days there, he…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
I wanted cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers and beer, a shot of whiskey. Laura wanted Mexican food — chips and salsa, top-shelf mezcal and tamales. New Mexican would’ve been all right with her. A bowl of pozole, a plate of tacos and thee. She was chasing after some memory of our destitution and…
Sometimes it seems like Bite Me World HQ is all about the esoteric discussion of cassoulet, coq au vin and the perils of foie gras production (those ducks and geese can get pissed, and they stand just about crotch-high). I’ve written about crepes (see my review of Crepes ‘n Crepes),…
Is “après ski” little more than a contrived, unnecessary name for an overpriced happy hour? Yes. Conceptually, is getting drunk in long underwear, snow pants and horrifically uncomfortable ski boots (assuming said drunkard is not a snowboarder) absurd, especially considering the skis and sticks that still must be hauled home…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
Crepes ‘n Crepes is uncompromisingly, unabashedly and unstintingly French. The cooks are French. Owners Kathy Knight and Alain Veratti have imported all their iron crepe griddles from France. The ingredients and preparations — the Camembert and Chambord, ratatouille and sauce aux champignons — are French. And the space itself –…
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m now old enough to remember when a pizza was just a pizza, a round crust (though the occasional square-crust party pizza was okay, too) that was always thin, but not too thin (certainly no cracker crusts, and outside of the high-school cafeteria,…
Potato pizza. Barbecued-chicken pizza. Organic spinach and wood-ear-mushroom pizza on a hand-tossed artisan crust. The occasional sushi pizza or nightmare of salmon, caper and crème fraîche notwithstanding, the World of Pie has benefited from such innovations — from the brave (and occasionally terribly misguided) adventuring of American pizza-makers unwilling to…
I’ve always been an Olde English (OE) guy. At the ripe age of eighteen, I popped my malt-liquor cherry while sitting with a high-school buddy on the stained shag carpet of my first, still furniture-less college apartment. We had just driven a borrowed Suburban the four hours from our home…
Anthony’s Pizza and Pasta (or, as it’s known around my house, “Ant-anees”) has long been my reliable Denver standby for New York-style pizza in a hurry. Do the locations do slices? Yes. Do they offer the triumvirate of New York styles? Absolutely: a thin-crust cheese and pepperoni, a thin-crust double-cheese,…
As reported in Off Limits this week, absinthe is now legal in the United States! And I don’t mean that phony shit that’s like anisette dyed green or that Eastern European stuff that tastes like cough syrup or that legally gray gunk shipped under cover and marketed specifically for its…
I remember the first time I saw someone eating a pizza with pineapple on it. My friend Nick was sitting in his living room in Buffalo with a sixer of Molson Export and Beverly Hills 90210 on the TV, eating a Hawaiian pizza from La Nova covered with thin-sliced ham…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
There are some foods that become sacred through nothing more than fierce love and attachment. Your mother’s meatloaf, Sunday-morning pancake breakfasts, the roasted chicken your wife made the first time she cooked for you, pressed with the indents of her thumbs and speckled with fresh thyme. And there are entire…
I have mixed feelings over the recent closure of Sparrow at 410 East Seventh Avenue. On the one hand, I was never a big fan of the place — having beaten it down once in a review (“Cry Fowl,” March 17, 2005) and then returning for a Second Helping last…
There are some nights that you just know are going to suck, and then others that sneak up on you. I had great hopes for my night at the Buffalo Rose. It was a beautiful drive to Golden: The air was crisp and clean, with a sky full of stars…
It’s 11:59 on a Saturday night, and Blackjack Pizza won’t take my call. I dial and hit send, dial and hit send. Finally someone picks up. “BlackjackPizzawe’reclosed.” “Really?” “Yeah.” “At midnight?” “Yeah.” “On a Saturday?” “Yeah.” “Really?” Click. After six rings and a three-minute hold, Papa John’s agrees to speak…
Tokyoya Bowl & Bowl had every chance to be a restaurant I would love. It’s a small, stand-alone operation about the size and shape of a Taco Bell, stuck back in the corner of a commercial plot, and offering rice bowls and udon, gyoza, yakitori and tonkatsu — the classic…
A few months ago, I got an e-mail from Sean — one of my original commandoes, a hired gun whose long and noble service to the cause dated back to my first days here. An ex-chef and patissier, Sean was one of the first guys to eat with me professionally…
