Beard House Blues: One Colorado finalist

It was a rough year for Colorado chefs (and writers) in this year’s James Beard awards.  The finalists were announced this morning — and our white jackets just got spanked. A handful of Coloradans had made the semi-finalists list. Frank Bonanno (above) got tapped for Best Restaurateur. Yasmin Lozada-Hissom from…

Pizza Patron has the best logo ever

While I was waiting in the parking lot of a strip mall off Alameda and Sheridan — Westside! — this weekend, I spotted the most awesome pizza-shop logo I’ve ever seen, for a place called Pizza Patron.The type font looks like Pizza Hut lettering, but the sign has a Latino…

Slow Food Denver opens its doors

Want a quick course in Slow Food, the anti-fast-food movement started in Italy years ago by Carlo Petrini? Attend an informational open house from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. tonight at the home of a member in central Denver. According to  Slow Food Denver president Krista Roberts, the discussion will…

Best of Denver 2009: Bread alert

The 25th annual Best of Denver issue officially hits the streets (and this site) on March 26, and now that the hundred-plus food awards have been decided, I’m revisiting some of my favorite tales from this year’s always-weird awards process.  Kinda like encounter therapy, and cheaper than going to a…

Milking It: Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch

Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch Quaker Oats Rating: Three-and-a-half spoons out of four Cereal description: An amalgam of corn, oat and rice flour baked into roughly shaped orbs whose surface is a symphony in brown: specs and swirls of varying intensity, pocked with the occasional dark blobs. The look doesn’t…

Alba Osteria explores Emilia-Romagna

Alba Osteria, the upscale Italian restaurant at 2480 Canyon Boulevard in Boulder, will host a wine dinner on March 25. At first glance, the menu looks like a run-of-the-mill prix fixe dinner, one that happens to focus on the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. But since this region is arguably the…

Cafe Star fades, Trattoria Stella burns bright

Yup.  You read that right.  I just got off the phone with owner Tom Sumners, who, along with his wife, Marna, owns and operates Cafe Star, a restaurant I loved when Rebecca Weitzman was in the kitchen, and liked well enough when I had a long lunch on the patio…

Larkburger alert in Boulder

Shortly after returning home from lunch today at El Taco de Mexico (Friday afternoon habit), I got an email from a friend alerting me to good news on the restaurant front, namely that earth muffins Boulderites have a new burger barn to fry them to the moon. Only it’s not…

Three homegrown Mexican chains get new siblings

After spending the past week biting off more than I could chew at a bunch of new restaurants with “sustainable,” “organic” and “seasonal” jargon littering their menus, I was ready for my Mexican food fix.I get a yearning at least once a week, and if it’s not fulfilled, I turn…

Our Weekly Bread: Sausage and peppers at Carbone’s

The sandwich: Italian sausage with peppers What’s on it: Italian sausage, peppers, provolone and marinara sauce on a hoagie roll Where to get it: Carbone’s Italian Sausage Market and Deli (1221 West 38th Avenue, 303-455-2893) How much: $6.49 The sausage-and-pepper sandwich should be our state meal. It speaks to our…

Tosh’s makes a comeback in Marina Square

After months of delays, Tosh’s Cantina has finally opened in Marina Square, at 8101 East Belleview Avenue. I called the restaurant this morning, and reached Ruben Macintosh — the family patriarch who presided over the original (and much loved) restaurant at 3090 Downing Street for decades, before the family business…

Candy Girls: Rocky Road Candy Bar

Rocky Road bar is one of those candies you might often see on the shelf, but never think to pick up. With its shiny red wrapper and straightforward name, it’s easy to think you’ve got this bar all figured out, but the Candy Girls know that appearances can be deceiving…

Say so long to the Blue Spruce Market

For three years, the Blue Spruce Market at 1552 Bergen Parkway has been a regular stop for Evergreen residents and other fans of folksy service and fresh produce, meat and fish. But the market owned by Carol and Seth Miller will shut its doors for good at the end of…

South Pearl Report: No more Nosh

Got word today from one of my South Pearl neighborhood spies that things are looking bad for Nosh. This space at 1439 South Pearl Street, originally opened by John Hinman as the Gelato Spot back in 2005 only to become Nosh a couple of years later, was well-known in the…

Excuse me while I get corny

I just stumbled upon what could be the most American thing on earth: National Corn Dog Day, the culmination of 233 years of freedom, justice and liberty. And it coincides (on purpose) every year with the first Saturday of the NCAA men’s basketball tourney. National Corn Dog Day was started…

Veggie Girl: Saigon Bowl

It was early Sunday evening when my husband and I arrived at Saigon Bowl, 333 South Federal Boulevard, and I was surprised to see the place already packed. Some large parties were gathering, and a few massive dinner parties were under way. Unsure if we’d even get a spot, we…

Up Close: Bones

In this week’s Westword, Jason Sheehan reviews Bones, Frank Bonanno’s popular Capitol Hill noodle bar. See photos of the restaurant at westword.com/slideshow…

Satchel’s Market bags some special meals

I wanted to ask our server why Satchel’s Market — which isn’t a market and has never been a market — was ever called a market in the first place. But it was a Sunday morning, my head was reeling from the night before, and I was too hungry, too…

Frank Bonanno’s new restaurant will bowl you over

See more photos of Bones at westword.com/slideshow. The first time I set foot inside Bones, I was drunk. I went there to meet a friend, eat some noodles and sober up before driving home. Nancy had beaten me there by a good twenty minutes, found a couple of seats at…

From Japan, with love: a true noodle house

Bones (reviewed on page 33) is an ultra-modern incarnation of a noodle bar: Asian flavors and French technique mixed on a menu that doesn’t require the following of any rote classical canon. But for almost a decade now (at least according to the cartoon moose/blob mascot on the menu), Denver…

A Drunkard’s Lament: Fallout from St. Paddy’s Day at the Goat

As anyone who was keeping up with the live blog of the St. Patrick’s Day/Jonathan Shikes fortieth birthday celebrations at the Fainting Goat yesterday is well aware, there came a point after several hours of Bud Light, Guinness and Irish car bombs when the acquisition of McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes became…

Highland getting its own farmers’ market

Highland residents are about to get their own farmers’ market. Starting on June 6, and running perhaps as late as October 31, a farmers’ market will take over the 1500 block of Boulder Street from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday. That’s the stretch of street right outside Lola…