In the early to mid-’90s, Carmine’s on Penn was the first restaurant to bring an updated take on family-style dining to Denver (“Love, Italian Style,” August 17, 1994). The concept was all about big flavors and big portions and, in Carmine’s case, some big egos. But now, six years later,…
As anyone who’s seen Demolition Man knows, the only eatery with the ability to survive the Apocalypse — a kind of culinary cockroach, you might say — is Taco Bell. And the way things are headed right now, it’s quite possible that, even though we’ve survived Y2K (so far), at…
A recent, and harried, visit to the newly renovated King Soopers at 13th Avenue and Speer Boulevard quickly turned into a time-warped version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Because all of the Whos in Whoville could not have found the canning supplies needed to make a last-minute gift of…
Is heaven located on tatty West Colfax? Well, maybe. To find out for yourself, try this: Seated at your sun-drenched window table at the cozy, two-year-old Los Reyes, beneath a lovely watercolor depicting a hacienda kitchen, order a plate of sopitos. A specialty of west central Mexico’s state of Michoacán,…
The Denver dining scene in 1999 continued to be as confused as a salmon filet swimming in blueberry sauce. Exactly what are we going for here — and where do we think we’re going? Ingredients from around the world are arriving faster than chefs can look them up in a…
Before the year ended, it was name change number three for what was initially Zuma, then Z-Teca, and now…Qdoba. The locally grown big-burrito chain, which today comprises 49 corporate-owned and franchised sites across the country (remember when it was just three locations in Denver a few years back?), decided to…
It’s been a long year for Kevin Taylor — and he has only himself to blame. The chef who earned his national reputation with just one Denver restaurant is now juggling five establishments in the metro area. And while Dandelion in Boulder and Palettes at the Denver Art Museum are…
Those sushi guys sure know how to make waves. My November 18 Mouthing Off included some comments from Chris Selby, chef/manager of Restaurant Japon (1028 South Gaylord Street), whose eatery I had critiqued in my October 21 Second Helping. But a remark Selby made about Sushi Den (1487 South Pearl…
Romantic lighting, live jazz, cozy seats, adult food: This is my kind of club Med, an eatertainment concept I can live with…maybe even grow to love. The four-month-old Sambuca Jazz Café features Mediterranean-themed fare and jazz, jazz, jazz. This is the fifth such supper club, all named for the Italian…
Once upon a time, the dimly lit Punchbowl, at 20th and Stout streets, was a perfectly good place to get an honest glass of whiskey, tell lies to your companions in highly atmospheric surroundings and, if the urge should strike, order a hefty bacon cheeseburger with plenty of good old-fashioned…
Although you won’t find a Sambuca Jazz Café — yet — there are plenty of other chain options after you work up an appetite while Christmas shopping at Park Meadows. And some of those chains are even homegrown, which makes them real gifts to the Denver dining scene. For example,…
For good Indian food, the nose knows. The right spices are critical to Indian cuisine; in fact, the meats, vegetables and breads coming out of the kitchen primarily serve as delivery vehicles for all those heady flavors and aromas. So if you don’t get a whiff of something wonderful the…
Business was going swimmingly at Starfish in the months after busy restaurateurs Mel and Jane Master opened their second Cherry Creek place (Mel’s was the first) back in 1996 (“Fishing for Compliments,” May 30, 1996). But in the wake of Starfish’s sale to John Richard two years ago, rumors kept…
On Thanksgiving Day, I was in the middle of moving and couldn’t find the refrigerator, let alone a roasting pan and baster. But I did manage to locate a decent breakfast — at Chef Zorba, 2630 East 12th Avenue. Other than a sign announcing that the Greek eatery would be…
When autumn is unseasonably warm, ski areas can at least make enough snow to satisfy hardcore skiers, and retailers counting on Christmas sales know that the holiday spirit has to hit sooner or later. But how do you get people to eat a steaming-hot bowl of chicken noodle soup in…
Half a block away, you catch the scent of garlic on the wind, powerful and ancient. Good news. There will be no duck on the pizza tonight, and no sleek escapee from culinary school will drop by in the candlelight trying to sell you a tablespoon of designer grappa for…
I’m not ashamed to admit it. During a particularly cash-poor period in college, I squeezed a packet of ketchup into a bowl of instant ramen and pretended it was minestrone. Tell me you didn’t do the same thing. Ask most Americans what commercially available soup they’ve consumed the most of,…
Dealing with the press isn’t part of the curriculum at the Culinary Institute of America, where leeks take precedence over leaks. So CIA grad Daniel Block had to learn his lesson the hard way. Block, now the executive chef for The Swan at the Inverness Hotel, was nineteen when he…
The calls are coming in fast and furious about Lori Midson, the latest restaurant critic for 5280 magazine, who seems to have pushed a few buttons in the October/ November issue. Callers in the restaurant biz take issue with the fact that Midson, once the public-relations person for the Colorado…
The raspberry sauce was the icing on the rice cake. For two decades, Mori Japanese Restaurant held down the fort on the very edge of the urban frontier, in an actual veterans’ outpost at 20th and Market streets. And until just a few months ago, to step into Nisei Post…
The first time I reviewed Brook’s Steak House (“Prime and Punishment,” September 9, 1996), I was with Barry Fey, who spent much of the meal cursing, mainly because the meal was not very good — with one notable exception: his porterhouse, which was so heavenly, so richly flavored and textured,…
So, are sake lounges the next century’s martini bars? Judging from my experience with the Mori-garita, maybe not. But Mori Japanese Restaurant (reviewed this week) isn’t the city’s first Japanese eatery to add a sake lounge. Domo, a country-style Japanese place at 1365 Osage Street, turned its lobby into a…
