I’m now at the point where I let food magazines–Saveur, Food & Wine, Gourmet–pile up in the corner, unopened. Because if I grab one and start digesting those stories about fabulous food in other cities, I bawl like a baby. Read it and weep: In New York, Jean Georges is…
Chicken feed: One of my favorite dishes at Pagliacci’s was the chicken cacciatore. Alla cacciatora means “cooked in the hunter’s style”; in the Italy of old, the dish was most often made with rabbit and whatever proportions of tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and onions the family’s nonna favored. No matter…
More than fifty years ago, Sicilian immigrant Frank Grandinetti opened Pagliacci’s in what was then an Italian neighborhood in northwest Denver. “The restaurant was born out of this love between Frank and his wife, Thelma,” says Rose Ann Langston, the Grandinettis’ niece and Pagliacci’s current owner and manager. “In fact,…
The food chain that matters is not about who’s eating whom, but who’s cooking what–and where. The right chef, one with training and firsthand knowledge of the country where the cuisine originated, can make all the difference at a restaurant. So, of course, can the wrong chef. At Samurai, once…
Pan-fried Asian: Getting a recipe from Isamu “Sam” Furuichi, who has taken over the kitchen at Samurai (see review above), turned out to be a tough task. Not only does Furuichi speak little English, but Samurai refused to share its recipes, and Furuichi’s co-workers said they were too busy to…
What’s cooking: The best cooking schools don’t just teach you how to cook; they teach you what to cook. They expose you to new recipes–recipes you might have missed in a cookbook or passed over because you thought they were too difficult. If you take a workshop on shrimp, for…
It was a little like a triple-bypass operation performed by third-graders using foot-long scissors. But teaching a knife-skills class to a group of adults who’d obviously been using dull steak knives for slicing and dicing all their lives didn’t faze chef Conni Gallo, not even when a blade slipped through…
Chile weather: Since the Wynkoop Brewing Co. opened at 1634 18th Street ten years ago this month, Colorado’s microbrewery business has boomed to the point that the state now has more brewpubs per capita than any other. Wynkoop, which led the way, should be pouring its Tin Pig Anniversary Ale…
I’m still in a daze over Heavenly Daze, Denver’s latest brewpub, and it’s not because my meals there were a slice of heaven. No, I’m dazed and confused as to why an eatery would spend so much money filling a massive warehouse with a mass-production brewery and an eating area…
Noodling around: If the only carbonara you’ve tried has involved ham and peas, Theo Roe’s Dazzle recipe is sure to do just that. One indisputable ingredient for good carbonara is concentration, and for that, the instructions of Patricia Wells in Patricia Wells at Home in Provence remain a constant: “Despite…
I first encountered Theo Roe’s cooking at Pinots, a restaurant that seemed to have everything going for it, not the least of which was a talented chef. Still, the place closed down in August 1997 at the ripe old age of nine months. “It was just a combination of things…
When the kitchen cooperates, 29 Mile Cantina (reviewed above) puts out some tasty fare, especially the Santa Monica chicken, which co-owner Laura Brody named after the last stop on Route 66 before you hit the Pacific. When I made this dish at home, I pounded the chicken breasts a bit…
So I was all, where’s my food? And the server was all, it’s totally coming soon, and I was all, well, it had better get here or I’m walking out, and the server was all, I’m so sorry, but there’s, like, a problem in the kitchen. These days, it seems…
Since Japan has been infested with American fast-food chains since the late Sixties, it’s only fair that we’d get a few Japanese fast-food outlets three decades later. Certainly, things could be worse: The modest spots serving quick, cheap Japanese fare that have popped up in Denver are individually owned, unlike…
Soy to the world: If you believe the hype, soybeans could be the next Prozac. This versatile little legume–which is available as a fresh bean, coagulated into tofu, fermented into tempeh and miso, pressed into milk and salted into sauce–reportedly may help in preventing cancer, lowering cholesterol, reducing heart disease,…
When Viagra sauce recently appeared on the menu of a hotel restaurant in France, not only did it give new meaning to the phrase bon appetit, but it also further blurred the already fuzzy lines between food and sex–especially where French cuisine is concerned. Jean-Louise Galland, the chef responsible for…
Sweetbreads of life: Organ meats aren’t for everyone, but those who’ve discovered the seductive charms of sweetbreads know that this delicacy ranks among the most hedonistic foods around. Leave it to the French to be its most ardent consumers: Not only are sweetbreads incredibly high in cholesterol, but French recipes…
Asia like it: The Pacific Rim influence isn’t new to Denver–chefs here have been fusing East and West for nearly a decade now, with mixed results. Generally, the restaurants that were successful got there by giving traditional American and European dishes an Asian accent, gently applying Pacific Rim cooking concepts…
It’s dinner time on a Friday night, and the LoDo streets are packed with people in cars looking for places to park and people on foot looking for places to eat. At some restaurants, there’s an hour wait for a table; at every restaurant within a six-block radius, the wait’s…
Kansas City smells of barbecue, especially on road trips when cash is short and hunger’s high, and the aroma just intensifies until there’s nothing you can do but stop at a roadside stand and get a bag of bones that will last you through Nebraska. But Kansas City has another…
Take a dip: Every decade has its dip. Clam dip in the Fifties. Lipton Onion Soup dip in the Sixties. Yogurt in the swinging Seventies. Hummus in the international Eighties. And the Nineties? During the past decade, assorted artichoke dips–sometimes with spinach, sometimes with chiles, and always heavy on the…
Into the mouths of babes: You’d be surprised at how many places around here welcome your kids with a smile. While Joe’s Crab Shack (see above review) is one of the better ones, my kids have other favorites–spots that not only greet them with open arms, but also serve food…
