I have yet to become acclimated to the vastness of the American West. It’s been almost five years since I left New York (the state), longer since I spent any significant amount of time in New York (the city), and still, my internal cartography remains keyed to East Coast measures…
Welcome to the first round of what will soon be America’s all-time favorite question-and-answer game: Ask the Critic. The mailroom here at Bite Me HQ is always deluged with questions about the Denver dining scene and food in general. And while my faithful research staff does its level best to…
John Jewsbury’s list of America’s best corned-beef cities is short: New York, Chicago, Denver. What? “When I first started here,” Jewsbury says, “people always said, ‘Ah, you can’t get good corned beef in Denver.’ I’ve had to prove them wrong.” A Missouri native with a family background in beef and…
Prepare for an out-of-this-universe experience at Sputnik, a Broadway lounge named for the world’s first artificial satellite, which was launched by Russia in 1957. To fuel your flight, down several sweet Lenin Martinis ($7), made with vodka, Grand Marnier, fresh lemon juice, a splash of grenadine and Tang — the…
You know it’s going to be a good night when less than an hour into the proceedings, the Head of Research says, “I’m not even hungry anymore.” Since this came after not a seven-course meal, but two hot wings, two Coors Lights and three shots of something called “Tuaca” (Spanish…
It was a beautiful piece of fish. Generously cut from mid-body with a gentle, mathematically pleasing slope from the thick flank to the thinner, slightly more tough back quarter. The lovely white flesh was shiny with oil, golden-brown on the top and bottom from a pristine pan-sear and a broil…
Chef Jun Makino’s resumé may boast a connection to Jean-Louis Palladin (see review, page 65), but he’s not the only hometown boy who’s made good outside of the Rocky Mountain West. Denver’s kitchen community is chock-full of chefs who’ve done time with some of the food world’s serious heavy-hitters. Even…
With the resounding thwack! of wooden bats, baseball joyfully returned to downtown Denver this week. And while I don’t particularly enjoy watching the slow-paced game, I truly love the spring-summer drinking season that accompanies it. When I want to tie one on before diving for fly balls at Coors Field,…
I’m a hopeless romantic. There’s simply no other explanation for why I took my girlfriend to Hooter’s (1390 South Colorado Boulevard) the other night. Some guys try to compartmentalize their relationships, but I feel it’s important to include my girlfriend whenever it’s practical. That way, if and when we inexplicably…
This is important, so pay attention. I’m going to tell you the secret of eternal happiness — and it won’t cost you a dime. You’re getting it in a free paper and from a restaurant critic, which just goes to show that you never can tell where or when enlightenment…
Believe it or not, I did exhaustive research to arrive at the secret of eternal happiness that I reveal in this week’s review of the Walnut Cafe (see review). Like the theory of relativity, it seems deceptively simple when seen for the first time. I mean, duh: a nice long…
Spring has definitely sprung in Denver, and that means one thing: Warm evenings will find me drinking cool beers on the magical urban patio behind My Brother’s Bar. The bar has eighteen brews on tap, with everything from Boddington’s to Left Hand Jackman’s Pale Ale, but my favorite spring sipper…
I firmly believe that if I were in charge, this world would be a much better place — for me, at least. I wouldn’t get chest pains over lousy drivers, idiots who take more than five minutes to order coffee, Average Joe, not having four NFL games on every Sunday…
John has a British accent — cultured, smooth, well-practiced, but fake. It keeps dropping off mid-sentence and goes out entirely when he has to raise his voice to be heard over the Saturday-night crowd of beautiful people and liars at Mao Asian Bistro and Sushi Lounge, hereafter to be known…
Ten days ago, my faithful staff here at Bite Me HQ and I were giving the Best of Denver 2004 its final tuneup, a last polish before sending it out into the world. There were still eleventh-hour additions and subtractions being made — awards sneaking in under the wire, awards…
Just when you thought you’d tried every possible mind-bending beverage, along comes Dan Benavidez. An international trade consultant and former Longmont city councilman, Benavidez has spent the past five years importing pulque. “How do you compare it to anything else?” Benavidez asks as he opens a can of Nectar del…
I was pleasantly surprised when I strolled into Brix — a tiny, hip bistro in Cherry Creek North opened earlier this year by Charles Master, whose parents own Mel’s Restaurant and Bar — and saw that it was serving cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in brown paper bags as a…
On a sunny Sunday, it’s hard to remember all of the literary brilliance rolling around in my head and spewing from my mouth the night before at Old Chicago (1280 South Colorado Boulevard, and about a zillion other locations on the planet). Here’s what I can remember: I’ve been a…
It was the steak knives at the Capital Grille that really got to me. They were beautiful, utilitarian works of art with gleaming, sharp blades laser-etched with the restaurant’s logo near the forte, perfect balance, full-tang handles and black grips cold-riveted with bright steel. On the table, they had the…
Long ago, in a column far, far away — July 18, 2002, to be exact, when Bite Me debuted — I had pretty strong things to say on the topic of restaurant decor, service and all that pomp and stagecraft that goes along with the execution of a fine meal…
When your co-workers are bees, you’d better be industrious. And Mark Beran — engineer, inventor, snowboarder and beekeeper — lives up to the standards of his hardworking colleagues. In his tiny, 350-square-foot shop in Niwot, he produces world-class mead. “Somewhere out in the universe, there can be a non-linear event…
The hot new Zengo wants to fire up Denver’s restaurant scene — and exotically named cocktails that combine Latin and Asian influences are just the right fuel. My favorite is the cool yellow Huetzi ($8), made with Bacardi and mango rums along with fresh mango, ginger and lime juices; it’s…
