Food porn from ChoLon’s Celebrity Chef tour dinner

Top Chef Angelo Sosa and Lon Symensma didn’t make good on their promise to come out in Speedos for dessert at Wednesday night’s Celebrity Chef Tour dinner benefiting the James Beard Foundation at ChoLon Modern Asian Bistro Wednesday night, but that was the only disappointment at a very delicious event…

Second Helping: Patsy’s

No question, I ate awesome sandwiches during my trips to Carbone’s Italian Sausage Deli for this week’s review. But the flavor of those sausage, meatball and salami subs was also enhanced by the place making them, a relic of the kind of Italian market that once stood on just about…

Guess where I’m eating?

It was a little too early to dive into the vats of margaritas that this new Mexican joint mixes every day, but it’s never too early to dive into a bowl of green chile, especially one that’s pungent with Pueblo chiles. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone…

Happy Friday: Here’s a good place to find a date

In the Best of Denver 2011, we named Common Grounds the Best Coffeehouse for Finding a Date, thanks to the constant crowd of young professionals who mingle there over cappuccinos. And because we’re big proponents of ditching online dating and blind set-ups every now and then in favor of meeting…

Photos: Hot Rocks Griller Challenge, 6/15/11

The original Elway’s hosted the annual Hot Rocks Griller Challenge last night, when sixteen of Denver’s top chefs competed to make the best slider. The winner? Troy Guard of TAG and TAG | RAW Bar, for his kangaroo slider with piquillo pepper remoulade, spinach and pickled cipollini onions (with a…

Tonight: Denver Yard Harvest kick-off event at Fuel Cafe

Denver Yard Harvest, a new urban farming initiative, is kicking off its cause at a fundraiser from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. tonight at Fuel Cafe. The non-profit group’s goal is to harvest surplus fruits and vegetables from residential properties throughout town and distribute them to daycare facilities, homes for the…

Guess where I’m eating?

WTF? There’s nothing I loathe more than a bona fide taqueria that goes gringo on me. But that’s exactly what’s happened at this Mexican outpost that’s suddenly tainting its gorditas with yellow cheese, watering down its salsas to appease a shy palate and serving barbacoa that tastes as though it’s…

Round two with Jared Brant, exec chef of Satchel’s on 6th

Jared Brant Satchel’s on 6th 1710 East Sixth Avenue 303-399-2560 www.satchelson6th.com This is part two of my interview with Jared Brant, executive chef of Satchel’s on 6th. Part one of that interview ran in this space yesterday. Favorite restaurant in America: That’s a very hard question to answer. There are…

Frasca chef’s favorite Colorado food? The Comida truck, he tells Travel + Leisure

Chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Frasca Food and Wine chose Comida, the Boulder-based Mexican food truck, as his favorite restaurant in Colorado for Travel + Leisure’s feature on chef’s darlings around the country. He especially likes the bistec tacos, costillas de res tacos and “truck-made” guacamole and chips, Mackinnon-Patterson told the…

Reader: It’s Highlands to realtors, the North Side to old-timers

For this week’s reviews, Laura Shunk visited two old standbys in Denver’s hottest new restaurant neighborhood: Carbone’s Italian Sausage Deli and Lechuga’s. The description of the area prompted this from Steve065: You called it northwest Denver instead of Highlands! For those of us who grew up here, it was always…

Carbone’s Italian Sausage Deli makes nearly perfect sandwiches

Young man, you’re very tall. Would you mind switching on the air-conditioning for me?” My boyfriend and I had been standing in Carbone’s Italian Sausage Deli for a couple of minutes, and we’d already scanned the grubby shelves packed with food imports from Italy, including cannoli shells, canned San Marzano…

Guess where I’m eating?

I’ve worked my way through just about everything on the menu at this buzzy food temple that’s turning out first-rate dishes, including the mussels in the above pic. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I drinking/eating…

Reader: If you don’t like bars…move to the suburbs

While East Washington Park is in a tizzy over the Brown Dog Pizza liquor-license application (the very long, very big hearing was Tuesday night; the city has not yet made its decision), West Washington Park is debating what Gary Lee’s Motor Club and Grub might do to that bucolic stretch…

Review preview: Carbone’s Italian Sausage Deli

Northwest Denver may be turning over, swallowing up the old Italian institutions that once held down just about every corner of the ‘hood, but there are still a few old places where you can find a taste of what this particular part of our city once held. One is Carbone’s…

Ototo Food and Wine Bar opens for Sunday brunch

Ototo Food and Wine Bar, the not-so-Japanese sibling of Sushi Den and Izakaya Den, is now serving Sunday brunch. The menu features such standard brunch fare as bagels with lox and steak and eggs, as well as more innovative offerings, including duck confit. And whenever possible, every dish features ingredients…

Now open: The Kitchen [Next Door]

At 11 a.m. today, after months of redesign and a last-minute delay due to construction, the Kitchen [Next Door] opened its doors, and welcomed a line of Boulder residents eager to try the pub-inspired addition to a Pearl Street family of eateries…

Cuba Cuba Sandwicheria opens in Boulder

“Opening Cuba Cuba as a 23-year-old punk and creating something that, even after ten years, people still enjoy, is my biggest accomplishment,” said Enrique Socarras, the executive chef of Cuba Cuba, when I interviewed him earlier this year. Socarras and his sister, Kristy, opened Cuba Cuba in 2001, and while…