You want it Thai hot?” the server asked when I ordered my kana moo krob. Incredulous, he repeated the question, practically begging me to reconsider. But I didn’t want to reconsider. I wanted my crispy pork with Chinese broccoli amped up to its maximum sweat-inducing capacity. At Thai Monkey Club,…
I celebrated a birthday yesterday, not at a fancy restaurant with Champagne and shavings of foie (or nibbling on scones and crumpets at the Brown Palace), but at a Mexican restaurant, a deliberate choice just to keep the “Midson is obsessed with Mexican food” sentiment going strong. The joint was…
This fall, when I chatted with Amerigo chef-owner Iain Chisholm for my weekly Chef and Tell interview, he described Amerigo, a craft-Italian restaurant on Upper Larimer, as “my stepping stone to set up the prototype for other concepts in the same vein — small, neighborhood restaurants that I can build…
Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with a spacious kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s best ingredients home with them and cook up a feast, and when they’re not…
Months ago, I had the pleasure of spending the day butchering a pig with Kate Kavanaugh and her fiance, Josh Curtiss, the two of whom have spent the last few years conceptualizing, cultivating and building Western Daughters Butcher Shoppe, a new-school, artisanal chop shop of saws, hatchets and butcher blocks,…
Darren Pusateri Gallo Di Nero 1135 Bannock Street 303-825-1995 gallodinero.com This is part one of my interview with Darren Pusateri, exec chef of Gallo Di Nero; part two of our chat will run tomorrow. Darren Pusateri, clad in a heavy coat with an ebony scarf swaddled around his neck, shakes…
In A Federal Case, I’ll be eating my way up Federal Boulevard – south to north – within Denver city limits. I’ll be skipping the national chains and per-scoop Chinese joints, but otherwise I’ll report from every vinyl booth, walk-up window and bar stool where food is served. Here’s the…
In Denver, breakfast burritos are the breakfast of champions — and just about everyone else, with drive-thru joints selling them on almost every corner, and vendors delivering them door-to-door in downtown office buildings. Still, some Denverites don’t appreciate breakfast burritos — or having to guess their origins. See also: Guess…
Arapahoe Basin is reopening what it calls its “nineteenth hole” — 6th Alley Bar & Grill, the perfect place to get down at A-Basin, one of Colorado’s last down-home mountains. And the new/old look of 6th Alley pays homage to that reputation, as well as A-Basin’s long history as one…
Memo to Mother Nature: Don’t think, even for a minute, that just because you’re trying to give us all frostbite with your insanely cold temperatures, that I’m going to stay holed up inside with a blow dryer shooting hot air on my face. In fact, I walked a whole block…
The holidays tend to bring out the very best — and sometimes the dead worst — in culinary acumen. In this age of gourmet foods and luxury drinks, it almost surpassed belief that there are still stale, tasteless and terrible tidbits adorning X-mas tables and sideboards in the misguided name…
Between the very cold snap and Gretchen Kurtz’s discussion of hot, hot spices in her review of Namaste India, we were about ready to book a passage to India last week. Instead, Cafe Society came up with a list of the ten best Indian restaurants in Denver. It inspired much…
Earlier today, in the kitchen of Lower 48, the all-male squadron of cooks and chefs were prepping for tonight’s blast of bodies that will undoubtedly want a first glimpse — and taste — of one of the most anticipated restaurant openings of year. And considering it’s the crew’s first night…
Cafe Society dished up four Guess Where contests last week, ranging from a pumpkin beer poured behind the bar of Udi’s at City Set to a Thai green curry from Wild Ginger to a plate of crisp-fried pickles from a quirky restaurant in Highland…
Foodies tend to get the shaft during the holidays, because every year there is an increasing number of useless, gimmicky, and downright bizarre food-related gadgets available for purchase everywhere — and non-food nerd friends and family just lo-o-o-ve to buy them. While it would be nice for non-foodies to cease…
And then there were three. In November of last year, Bill Freeman and Patxi Azpiroz opened the city’s first Patxi’s Pizza in Englewood, a pie palace that takes its inspiration from Chicago-style stuffed pizza: thick, heavy, deep-dish rounds with crusted bottoms festooned with toppings, cheese and a generous smear of…
The Abbey Tavern, a new Irish pub, opened its doors at 5151 East Colfax Avenue late last month. And unlike some of Denver’s other “Irish” pubs, this one’s actually owned and operated by an Irishman. See also: The Abbey Tavern will give East Colfax a family-friendly Irish pub…
It’s tough to find the time to cook much of anything during the busy holiday season, but you don’t have to sacrifice a sit-down dinner for drive-through. This jerk seitan sloppy joe recipe takes less than half an hour to throw together — including the creamed spinach that tops off…
On Friday, a judge determined that Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips was wrong to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple because same-sex marriage would “be displeasing God.” But refusing the couple service was displeasing to civil rights laws. Colorado state law prohibits “a place of public…
It’s been a year since Gloria Nunez and her grandson, David Lopez, closed the original El Chingon, a tiny Mexican restaurant that resided in an Arvada strip mall. And months ago, they signed a lease to open a new El Chingon in the former My Sweet Bakery space on Tennyson…
A judge has ordered that Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood stop discriminating against gay couples seeking wedding cakes. The judge’s ruling (on view below) is in response to a complaint filed by same-sex couple Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig, who said that Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips refused to bake them a…
This week, Gretchen Kurtz reviewed that longtime comfort-hood haven in Highland, bang!. Ian Clark, chef at BRU handbuilt ales & eats, spoke with Lori Midson for Chef and Tell about how his career plans changed when he met a certain girl and settled in Boulder. And Mark Antonation’s trek up…
