Vina Pho & Grill enters the pho wars

This week’s dose of new restaurant news brings us the arrival of Vina Pho & Grill, a pho, bún chả and cóm joint that recently opened at 2045 Sheridan Boulevard, just a noodle’s toss from the second GB Fish and chips, which opened today at 2175 Sheridan. Vina Pho &…

Vail’s Terra Bistro is so 17 years ago

Terra Bistro, the restaurant inside Vail Mountain Resort & Spa, is celebrating its 17-year anniversary through Wednesday, December 16 with a special menu that features dishes from the past 17 years, including a “drunken” pork chop and sweet potato ravioli salad with crumbled blue cheese, walnuts, sage and thyme in…

Ask the Critic: No reservations

One of the great things about living, eating and working in this city has always been that there are virtually no restaurants in the entire city that can’t take me as a walk-in any time I feel like putting on the feedbag. Sure, there are exceptions. Friday and Saturday nights…

Top five most shocking food facts from Food, Inc.

Following a recent birthday barbecue feast, I woke up before the sun with a wretched bellyache and proceeded to hurl my guts out. Nothing reminds you that you aren’t 21 anymore like puking bacon cheeseburgers and red wine and going up against a hangover that feels like a jackhammer trying…

GB Fish and Chips opens in Edgewater

Directly across the street from Sloans Lake, home to alligators bobbing carp, coy, perch, catfish and other maligned bottom feeders, sits the second outpost of GB Fish and Chips, which opens today at 2175 Sheridan Boulevard. And just like the original location at 1311 South Broadway, this GB’s will turn…

Wall Street Journal highlights “Rocky Mountain Haute Cuisine”

“Truffles and saffron edge out Red Zinger tea and granola in Boulder,” reads the start of Raymond Sokolov’s piece in the weekend Wall Street Journal. But what “used to be the “hippiest, dippiest town around” is now the site of a major “gastro-boom.” Sokolov proceeds to prove that theory with…

Guess where I’m eating?

If the thought of some sweet breakfast offering leaves you feeling flat as a pancake, wake up and smell the chicken-fried steak. And the homemade hash browns and tomato gravy… Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Every Friday, anyone who gave the first correct answer to any of…

Cafe Society: Week in review

What you may have missed this week on Cafe Society while you were buried in gravy, a slave to stuffing or checking out Sheehan’s roundup of Denver’s best pub grub, which is exactly what you want after too much tryptophan: Saul Hudson learned that Chipotle Mexican Grill is entering the…

Corner Office gets some new blood

Just got off the phone with manager Michael Torres of the Corner Office, talking about the new man behind the burners at that most Mad Men-y of restaurants at the Curtis. Carlos Ruiz (most recently ex of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, making him well-versed in both hotel cookery…

Sugar House expanding into the hotel business

Looks like Sugar House, at 1395 West Alameda Avenue, is making its long-promised push into the rooms-for-rent business. According to a new post on Craigslist, the place is expanding, and one of the job openings includes “night auditor/hotel customer service,” graveyard shift, when responsibilities will include: “Greet, register, and assign…

Lovely Confections hits the big time (sorta)

Leave it to those trend sniffers at the New York Times to jump on a fad that had already begun to get stale a year ago and now declare it the next big thing. Leave it to the NYT to somehow insult every city that isn’t New York or L.A…

Sugar High: Novo peppermint mocha

Black Friday is upon us. Whether you’re nuts and arrived at stores pre-dawn to snag the deals, or you’re a stay-away-from-the-malls-at-all-costs type, everyone can benefit from a little caffeine boost after a day of carb-loading. If you’re near downtown, where better to fuel up than at Novo Coffee? The Denver-based…

Guess where I’m eating?

My server leaned toward me intently, as if she was either going to make out with me or tell me her darkest secret. “It’s the best thing on the menu, hands down,” she said. I hadn’t eaten in days. At least, that’s what it felt like. I needed a huge…

Top five gadget infomercials that cluttered your kitchen

It’s late. You’ve had a few. Or ten. And even though there’s nothing on the tube, you crack another beer and keep on channel surfing. A week later, the mailman arrives bearing mysterious packages and the next thing you know, you’re sweatin’ to the oldies in your Snuggie and cutting…

Chef and Tell part two: James Rugile of Venue

This is part two of my interview with James Rugile, executive chef of Venue. To read part one of this interview, click here. Culinary inspirations: Thomas Keller of the French Laundry for his pursuit of perfection and emphasis on technique, and Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns for…

Guess where I’m drinking?

The night before Thanksgiving is always a busy night for bars. After all, when your biggest mental challenge the next day will be choosing between pumpkin or apple pie, a hangover doesn’t seem like a big deal. So my friend decided shotgunning beers and dancing till closing sounded like a…

SkyBox is open at SouthGlenn, and it’s no gastropub

Originally, Hollywood Theaters was boasting that SkyBox Lounge, the restaurant that’s part of the new Southglenn Stadium 14 in Centennial, would be a “gastropub.” But now that the place has opened, that label has been dumped in favor of “a creative twist on American cuisine.” Although it’s unlikely that any…

After my first bite at Argyll, I was ready to eat my words

It worried me that Argyll, the new restaurant from Robert Thompson, called itself a “gastropub,” a word I hate with a rare and white-hot passion that only a true word geek can muster for the hating of a bunch of letters. It worried me that the very first word on…

The good times keep rolling at Lucile’s

There are two things they do real well in New Orleans: drink and eat. New York might be a great town for chefs; San Francisco might be a Garden of Eden for foodies. But New Orleans is a town made for eaters — men and women for whom dinner isn’t…

Guess where I’m drinking?

I’ve lost track of all the cocktails I’ve drunk this week, but the one in the above pic stood out from among the usual suspects. This is very much a holiday slammer, complete with a housemade cinnamon-apple chip garnish. Question is, where’d I slam it? Special bonus: Every Friday, anyone…