Reader: My advice to the new critic is don’t look at comments

We’ll publish our first review by our new Cafe critic, Gretchen Kurtz, next week, and in the meantime, you’ll have plenty of chew on when our point/counterpoint on tipping appears here tomorrow. But as commenters and critics alike know all too well, there’s never any shortage of material on Cafe…

Tonight: “Farm fresh” wine dinner at Mateo

Mateo, 1837 Pearl Street in Boulder, is hosting a farm-to-table wine dinner beginning at 6 p.m. this evening, and there area still a few seats open. The restaurant will pair a variety of wines with dishes inspired by such local ingredients as Colorado beef, striped bass and Palisade peaches…

Photos: Taita Peruvian Cuisine & Bar opens Friday

First things first: Ceviche, when prepared correctly, is, quite simply, my favorite thing to eat. My mother made it all the time when I was growing up, and my sole reason for going to the coastal cities of Mexico on spring break in college had nothing to do with beach…

The dishes of Dish: pies and knots from Sexy Pizza

Dish: Westword’s annual eating orgy is set for next Thursday evening, September 6, in the Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. And what’s a party without pizza? Sexy Pizza has accepted an exclusive invite from Cafe Society scribes to attend…

DipStik, a fondue food van, rolls out the cheese and chocolate

Your parents always warned you not to take candy from anyone in a van, but ordering fondue from a friendly couple in a lime-green, converted VW van is not only safe, it’s highly recommended. Taylor and Krystianne Vaughn have figured out a way to make gooey melted cheese and velvety…

Culinary Calendar: Take a bite out of Colorado and more this week

The 29th annual Taste of Colorado gets under way at Civic Center Park this Friday and runs through September 3. The end-of-summer festival is known for celebrating unusual foods — rattlesnake brats, wild-boar sandwiches, curried goat, beet burgers and chocolate-covered bacon, for instance — but the fair also features dozens…

Lucky’s Bakehouse and Creamery opening in Boulder

Earlier this year, when I interviewed James Van Dyk, the executive chef of Lucky’s Cafe, a breakfast and lunch joint in Boulder, he mentioned that in the year he’d been cooking at the long-standing cafe, an extension of Lucky’s Market, he’d significantly changed the menu, “transforming it,” he said, into…

Florida’s Cigar City Brewing will pour beers in Denver during #GABF

Cigar City Brewing, a small Florida beer maker with a huge following nationwide, will pour some of its highly-sought-after beers at a handful of Colorado taphouses for the first time this year during the Great American Beer Festival. The Tampa Bay brewery doesn’t normally distribute outside Florida, but like Michigan-based…

The winning Denver Burger Battle burger is now at a Larkburger near you

The crowning burger at Wednesday night’s Denver Burger Battle, at least according to the restaurant industry judges — Hosea Rosenberg, Jenna Johansen, Daniel Asher and Max MacKissock — was the meat candy from Larkburger, Thomas Salamunovich’s fast-casual empire of artisan burger joints that got its start in Edwards, just a…

Liks ice cream wasn’t enough to save the Bookery Nook

In March, we gave a Best of Denver award to Liks at the Bookery Nook, calling it the “Best Save of an Independent Bookstore.” But as it turns out, adding Liks ice cream to the offerings at the Bookery Nook wasn’t enough to save the shop. After three years, the…

Announcement: We have a winner of our Mateo burger contest

The Denver Burger Battle smoked up Sports Authority Field at Mile High on Wednesday night, and while Boulder-based Mateo, one of the participating combatants in the friendly feud, didn’t saunter off with a winning trophy, the French-inspired burger received very good word of mouth — and one of you, along…

Guess where I’m eating tacos…smothered in leafy lettuce

I was tempted to post the “before” photo, which shows absolutely nothing but lettuce, but then you’d think I was eating in a jungle. Actually, even with all that superfluous greenery dispersed across the plate, it still looks like a jungle. But the tacos — wholly average tacos — are…