When many non-smokers drink, they suddenly turn into smokers. Most of my friends are supposedly non-smokers, but after a few cocktails about half of them become “social” smokers — an ironic oxymoron, because I never feel particularly social toward someone blowing smoke in my face. Since I’m a solid non-smoker,…
The telltale signs are back: big, formal envelopes in mailboxes and big, blank stares on women carrying bridal magazines that have more pages than War and Peace. As every guy in a relationship more than two hours old can tell you, these signs indicate that the 2005 wedding season is…
Adega is many things: a hip, fine-dining mecca; a LoDo anchor that helps keep the neighborhood from degenerating into nothing but club nights and drunken Let-Out brawls; a showcase for some of the best, smartest New American cuisine on offer in the Mile High City (or anywhere else); and a…
For the past month or so, National Public Radio has been featuring a project called “This I Believe,” airing essays from listeners — famous people, regular joes, politicians, pipe-fitters and everyone in between — willing to rise to the challenge of condensing and codifying their personal beliefs. The final product…
I sometimes regret that I was born a Yankee. Truly, I think a part of me (some piece of my insides mysteriously wedged between gut and gullet) was misplaced at conception — put into a Rust Belt boy, but meant for a creature acclimated to gentler Southern latitudes. It’s like…
Everyone knows about the drunk guy at the party who ends up with a lamp shade on his head. At the newly remodeled 1515 Restaurant, there’s already a fetching woman with a lamp shade on her head, as well as two absolutely perfect breasts just below — captured in a…
America took a step past the point of no return in 1968, when it began airing personal-hygiene product commercials on TV. Suddenly we were bombarded with televised cures for hemorrhoids, explosive diarrhea, feminine odor, infections of various etiologies, PMS (although I understand this is not a real phenomenon, and in…
Hanson’s has always been one of the easy ones — a restaurant I can’t help but like. It’s the sort of place you find one night when every other table in the neighborhood is booked, then return to whenever you have an open Friday night and no reservations. For families,…
I’d finished my last meal at Rioja — my last official meal, that is — and I couldn’t leave. My party and I were done, had been done for maybe twenty minutes already. We had to-go boxes sitting on our table, our jackets in our laps, credit cards and fistfuls…
Let me tell you something about chefs that doesn’t get a lot of play on the Food Network: They’re survivors. In their climb up the ladder from wherever they began to wherever they top out, they’ve probably stepped on a lot of necks, taken on a certain mercenary mindset and,…
I scream, you scream. Gelato and alcohol are two of my top-five foods, so I was thrilled when Gelazzi, a bar and gelato shop, opened in Larimer Square last November. The bright space, filled with modern Italian decor in vibrant colors, is delightful — almost as delightful as the Gelazzi…
From the thirteenth through the sixteenth century, the monarchs of England and Scotland held sway over their respective lands — but in the hill country between, the Border Reivers ruled. These tribal landlords shifted allegiances among a whirlwind of blackmail, robbery, kidnapping and murder. Perhaps cooler heads would have prevailed…
I’ve never quite known what it is about Mel’s that makes me feel so at home. More than any other spot in the city, Mel’s just feels like a restaurant — the kind of place where you know you’re going to be well cared for and well fed, then leave…
Indo-Hawaiian fusion. A French restaurant-slash-sushi bar that opens at nine o’clock at night and cooks through to the morning. I’ve heard a lot of bad ideas in my time, have seen a lot of suicidal business plans and even been involved in a couple (an Irish farmhouse restaurant in central…
Like Thomas Roberts of Frisco’s Deli and Market (see review), another fine-dining veteran is about to retreat into bistro cuisine. Manhattan Grill (231 Milwaukee Street), a venerable meat palace and Creeker watering hole, has been tottering lately — not helped at all by Elway’s opening and the overwhelming profusion of…
I’m not a pot smoker, but as I entered Dulcinea’s, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to light up a fatty, tie-dye my clothing and start doing the Woodstock flower-child dance. As I deeply inhaled the hippie atmosphere, the guy next to me said, “I’ll be 25 in May, and…
Renewal is sweeping Cherry Creek, and I highly recommend that you check it out. Of course, you may not be able to do so, because the wait for valet parking clogs up traffic for a mile around. If you do actually make it to the corner of Second Avenue and…
For two decades, Racines was the meeting spot of first and last resort in Denver. Neighbors and power brokers, college kids and yuppies — it didn’t matter who you were or where you were coming from (or even what time you wanted to meet), there was always room for you…
When Jeremiah Tower (Mr. California Cuisine, chef at Stars and Chez Panisse, and author of the foodie confessional California Dish) was a young man, he ate everywhere. He traveled around the world — usually in style — and consumed. James Villas, food editor at Town and Country for something like…
After my secondhand trip to Lebanon (see review), I headed south of the border. Jack Martinez, owner of Jack-n-Grill (2524 Federal Boulevard) has some new menu items he’s very excited about, and when Martinez gets excited, I get excited. I love Jack-n-Grill; there’s no other place in town that does…
Fanta? Don’t you wanta? As a kid, I loved Fanta Orange soda. As an adult, though, I hadn’t found a compelling reason to seek it out — until the 9th Door, a new tapas bar and lounge, gave me fresh reason to Fanta-size. When the exceedingly knowledgeable and vivacious waitress…
Families are odd things. You grow up together, then once you develop judgment, you realize that you hate these people because they tortured you by running away while you were stuck on crutches and couldn’t catch them — when they were the parties responsible for putting you on crutches in…
