After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Communists officially renamed Vietnam’s largest city Ho Chi Minh City–but that didn’t prevent millions of Vietnamese people from continuing to call it Saigon. The natives were so persistent, in fact, that officials finally compromised and decided to allow the center of Ho…
Critic’s choice: Restaurant roulette continues as Bill St. John, the food guru for Microsoft’s Denver Sidewalk (www.denver.sidewalk.com), gets a second home at 5280, the almost-monthly magazine that’s had a hole to fill since perpetually cheerful Channel 4 reporter Greg Moody moved to the Rocky Mountain News to fill the spot…
This spud’s for you: What’s a good bacon-and-eggs breakfast without hash browns? The word “hash” means to chop into small pieces (not grate), and although it’s time-consuming, hash browns are better when they’re hand-hashed (as they are at Sunnyside Up Cafe, reviewed above). Take a large pile of the irregular-sized…
The guy at the table behind me had the waitress right where he wanted her. “Ha! You’re not going to believe this,” he said to his two buddies. “I asked that girl if this O.J. was fresh-squeezed, and she says it is. The hell it is! I been coming here…
What Planet are they on?: While 16th Street Mall restaurants try to get their act together in anticipation of Denver Pavilions, that other big downtown project, Stadium Walk in LoDo, is still supposed to contain a Planet Hollywood. A minor PR flack for the company says it’s a go, despite…
Sixteenth Street has come a long way, baby, since the Rialto Theater opened in 1916. Today the street is a pedestrian mall, where souvenir shops outnumber other retail options, national-chain eateries outgun locally owned restaurants (see “Mall Flounders,” August 6), and all the movie palaces closed decades ago. But when…
Rymer reason: Last week Gary Rymer won his case in Denver County Court’s small claims division against Budapest Bistro (1585 South Pearl Street) and its owners, Rudi and Anna Hellvig. In June, Rymer had filed suit against the Hellvigs, claiming they’d been taking from 20 to 30 percent of his…
When Denver Pavilions opens early next year, there won’t be any room on the 16th Street Mall for sloppy local restaurants–if there’s room for locals at all. A half-dozen blocks away from the Pavilions site between Tremont Place and Welton Street, we’ve already seen that people are willing to wait…
Bested of Denver: The calls continue to come in regarding this year’s Best of Denver. Not surprisingly, the three main topics callers want to discuss concern the three biggest upsets: Mori (2019 Market Street) losing Best Japanese to Domo (1365 Osage Street), Damascus (2276 South Colorado Boulevard) taking Best Middle…
Like the stones in a tennis bracelet, little ethnic eateries stud strip malls throughout suburbia. Some are genuine treasures, some are fakes–but most are flawed. Innocuously named–New Jade Garden Dragon, Happy Saigon Palace Bowlarama–and sporting hand-lettered signs proclaiming cheap lunch buffets, “No MSG” and authentic food, these spots usually change…
Personal bests: This town isn’t exactly overflowing with places that cook up Southern-style eats–see the review of Hugo’s above for one nice option–so it hurts when a good one goes down. And you can say goodbye to So-Fully Kosha Res-runt, which had been making some mean soul food in a…
After biting into Lanelle Young’s sweet-potato French fries–such caramelized confections they should be served in a candy dish–you’d swear she was born and bred in a part of the country where the humidity is thicker than split-pea soup and the unrelenting sun makes a body feel as Southern-fried as a…
Striking out: So if Denver’s such a major-league city, why was much of LoDo closed up tighter than a drum by 1 a.m. after the All-Star Game? As the clock struck twelve, we left Above the Dove, the roof of the Soiled Dove (1949 Market Street), which not only had…
Although Middle Eastern communities fight over everything from politics to religion, the similarity of their cuisines shows they at least agree on something. Yoghurt is yaourti is madzoon is yurt; parsley is bakdounis is azadegh is jafari is maydanoz–the names differ, but it’s the same ingredient whether you’re from Armenia,…
You say tomato, I say to-mah-to: Sure, everyone snickered when Ronald Reagan’s administration tried to declare school-kitchen ketchup a vegetable back in 1981. But now the Agriculture Department has decreed that salsa has nutritional value, and no one’s laughing. Maybe that’s because they realize salsa is the country’s leading condiment…
In this town, Cuban food is rarer than a humid day. That’s why, on Thursday nights, I make a break for El Azteca Grill & Cantina. Sergio Hernandez, a Cuban immigrant, and his family have already proven themselves proficient with Mexican food–in fact, they serve some of the best in…
Submitted for your consideration: two fairly similar restaurants, at least as far as food quality, efficiency and atmosphere go. But while one keeps packing them in, the other waits for the phone to ring. The busy restaurant, Il Fornaio, is like that girl who moved from New York to your…
The rest of the best: Every year as we approach the Best of Denver finish line, some hot contender suddenly comes up short. This time around we lost our early favorites for Best Cheap Breakfast (although Speedy Gourmet, at 1430 Arapahoe Street, still has great fast lunches, it’s dropped its…
There’s such a thing as being treated a little too much like family in a family-owned restaurant–such as when the server’s son sits himself down at your table and for two hours proceeds to pelt you with verbal bullets the way only a six-year-old can. That was our fate recently…
School’s in: Suddenly, Colorado has a lot of cooking schools. This spring, New York’s French Culinary Institute decided to open a national recruiting office in Colorado: L’Ecole des Chefs is an international program that calls for students to tail the chefs of three-star and four-star Michelin-rated restaurants in France for…
Best place to spend half a day doing lunch: In my never-ending Best of Denver quest, last week a friend and I stopped by Willie G’s Seafood Restaurant, at 1585 Lawrence Street. We’d eaten Willie’s excellent clam chowder on a previous visit, and I wanted to know if it was…
I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan–but not on a day when I’ve got two sick kids, no clean clothes to wear to work, a deadline to meet and nothing in the refrigerator to go with that bacon but a stale piece of string…
