All this week, I’m featuring my favorite culinary stocking stuffers and presents for the fervent foodnik, cook and restaurant fiend in your life, including the indulgent hot chocolate and salted caramel marshmallows from Spuntino, and EatDenver’s gift that keeps on giving — the 2013 EatDenver dining deck. These are all…
No, I didn’t eat the gingerbread house, which is created from graham crackers by the chef, who spent more than forty hours on this project…but, like me, I betcha he was drinking margaritas and snacking on chips and salsa in between plastering his masterpiece with candy canes, icing and gumdrops…
Daniel Ramirez Gaetano’s 3760 Tejon Street 303-455-9852 www.gaetanositalian.com/ Part one of my interview with Daniel Ramirez, exec chef of Gaetano’s, ran yesterday; this is part two of our chat. Favorite food city in America: San Francisco is unrivaled when it comes to food diversity, and it’s also the home to…
This year has been an interesting and generally productive one for food trends, with global tastes well-established, house-made fruit and vegetable pickles all the rage, gourmet burgers and craft brews holding steady, and Peruvian and Thai fusion cuisine everywhere. But with the good comes the bad, and there are definitely…
Josh and Jen Wolkon and their talented crew put plenty of time and planning into Ace, the ping pong hall/bar/restaurant in a renovated 9,000 square foot garage next to Steuben’s, their second restaurant. (They opened the first, Vesta Dipping Grill, fifteen years ago.) And when Ace opened in August, it…
Cheers erupt from the back table. A thirty-something, slightly sweaty in dark jeans and collared shirt, pumps his fist, Tiger-style, celebrating a zinger that caught the corner and kept on going. High-fives are given, drinks are spilled — but in the rush of victory, no one cares, just as no…
Pottery and cuisine don’t have an obvious connection in American culture, but it’s common in Japan for people in the food business to also be interested in ceramics. It’s not as common for restaurant veterans to become fulltime artists — but that’s the course that Kazu Oba, a native of…
While restaurateurs in Denver are scrambling to open new spots before the end of the year — and the end of all that holiday business — the founders of 35-year-old Sweet Basil in Vail just opened Mountain Standard today. Mountain Standard — which is around the corner from Sweet Basil…
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 the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast. “People, people, people:…
I like green chile as much as the next person — probably more — but this burrito, ordered with steak (non-existent), was swamped with the stuff, wasteful inches of it, and for all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the green chile at this joint, it flat-out sucked, as did…
Daniel Ramirez Gaetano’s 3760 Tejon Street 303-455-9852 www.gaetanositalian.com/ This is part one of my interview with Daniel Ramirez, exec chef of Gaetano’s; part two of our chat will run tomorrow. Daniel Ramirez was just shy of twenty when he left Acapulco for Los Angeles to pursue a career in architecture…
Cost Plus World Market is usually a one-stop gift shop for foodies, but during the holiday season it becomes a wonderland of seasonal edibles, drinkables and everything to create and serve them, including winter-themed cookware and dishes that you’ll only use once a year. The prices are reasonable for imported…
The McRib has been resurrected for the holiday season, and Jenn Wohletz celebrated its reappearance yesterday in her Merry McRibness ode. But not everyone is celebrating its return (or another fast-food post on Cafe Society). See also: – Merry McRibness! A holiday poem -The McRib is back, and Denver’s got…
All this week, I’m featuring my favorite culinary stocking stuffers and presents for the fervent foodnik, cook and restaurant fiend in your life (yesterday’s pick was the indulgent hot chocolate and salted caramel marshmallows from Spuntino). These are all gifts that are available locally — and locally made or produced…
Never mind that the guy behind the bar, a self-described beer geek since 1995, had never heard of sour beers. Weird, but forgivable, particularly since he suggested I try The Abyss, an inky special reserve Imperial stout, from Deschutes, with hints of caramel and licorice. Get it now, before I…
It’s not that easy to find vegetarian-friendly (let alone vegan-friendly) Mexican food; between lard in the refried beans and chicken stock in the rice or green chile, there’s no telling what animal products might be lurking in the foods you order. That’s why we just love places like Tarasco’s New…
Back in September, we spilled the very good news that Paul Reilly, the former chef of Encore, which closed early this spring, would open a new dining mecca called called Beast + Bottle, a restaurant, he told me, that would be nose-to-tail and “much more about the food and food…
Yesterday marked the glorious return of America’s favorite onion-ed, pickled, sauce-slathered, probably-pork sandwich. Much to my delight, the McDonald’s location at 505 East Colfax Avenue is now serving the McRib sandwich — and thanks to McDoo’s extremely persuasive “Get a second McRib for $1,” I not only got one McRib…
Jax is about to add a fourth location, in the new City Set development in Glendale, behind the Hilton Garden Inn at the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Cherry Creek Drive — an area definitely shy of good restaurant options. Jax isn’t the only eatery going into the project: Udi’s…
Cafe Society served up four Guess Where? posts last week, zigzagging from a rich — and rewarding — bowl of Malaysian shrimp laksa from Phat Thai, to a healthy kale salad from True Food Kitchen, to a dish with sliced lamb, scallions and chiles from a suburban Chinese joint, whose…
All this week, I’ll be featuring my favorite culinary stocking stuffers and presents for the fervent foodnik, cook and restaurant fiend in your life. These are all gifts that are available locally — and locally made or produced — and they’re all things that I hope to find in my…
If you’re looking for something to bring to the office for the holidays — and you work with people who don’t eat animal products — these vegan ginger cookies are a quick, easy solution. Softer than gingersnaps but with a similar bite imparted by the distinctive root, they’re a great…
