Nate Boothe now on board at Ocean Prime

Just weeks after opening Fleur Bistro as the head chef, Nate Boothe has joined the kitchen crew at Ocean Prime in Larimer Square, which just opened last week. Fleur co-owner Eva Esparza won’t discuss why Boothe moved on. “He didn’t say why he left,” she says. “He just said, ‘Thank…

Udi’s will bring Saba Middle Eastern Eats to Boulder this spring

Back in 1994, Udi Baron started a ready-to-eat sandwich business with his wife, Fern. Since then, and with the help of additional family members, that shop has spawned a bakery that supplies home pantries and restaurants, a catering company, a granola-maker, a national gluten-free line, a handful of cafes and…

Pot of Pho’s vegetarian pho warms the southwest suburbs

Tucked inside a strip mall in the Ken Caryl region of Littleton, Pot of Pho is something of a suburban secret — but word is leaking out fast. The space (previously occupied by a Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli) is simple but cozy, with comfortable booths and art from the Provide-n-ce Gallery…

Burger King’s horizontal enlargement is a lot to swallow

Burger business is big, and Burger King, shrine to the Whopper, is getting bigger…in length. The fast-food meat mecca, with grease-splattered locations all over the globe, is aiming to outsize its foot-long hot dog competition by conquering the world with inch after inch after inch of flame-broiled beef patties –…

Eli Odell, exec chef of Highland Tap and Burger, on what he learned from Matt Selby, and what might happen if you wear chile-pepper pants in his kitchen

Eli Odell Highland Tap and Burger 2219 West 32nd Avenue 720-287-4493 www.highlandtapdenver.com This is part one of Lori Midson’s interview with Eli Odell, executive chef of Highland Tap and Burger. Read part two of that interview, in which Odell dishes on hammering eighty pounds of wings and the Deadliest Chef…

Reader: Keep the food trucks rolling!

Numerous food trucks report running into roadblocks set up by confusing and sometimes contradictory rules; a Denver City Council committee will discuss those rules at a meeting at 1:30 p.m. today. In the meantime, fans are hopping on the bandwagon to support the biggest trend of 2010, in hopes that…

Japoix and its kitchen are moving food forward

The great leap forward: Was it an early cook in France or China who first got the idea of using frog’s legs as food? For as long as Parisian chefs have been crisping up the amphibian’s extremities and dousing them in garlic and butter, cooks in Beijing have been stir-frying…

The future’s looking brighter for restaurants at the Beauvallon

In the five years since its completion in 2005, the Beauvallon has swallowed up a lot of restaurants. The space at 975 Lincoln Street that now houses Japoix was originally occupied by Moda Ristorante and Lounge, which developer Jim Sullivan turned into nine75 just a year later. Sullivan ultimately sold…

Japoix gives a glimpse of what’s beyond fusion

For more than a year, I didn’t set foot in the Beauvallon after the last manifestation of nine75 shuttered, but this past August, the building began showing signs of life again, with the opening of Se7en and Japoix. This week’s review is devoted to the latter, which took over the…

Guess where I’m eating?

That, people, is a platter of all the foods that stop me from slamming the snooze button each morning: prosciutto; cheese; figs; mustards; olives; cipollini onions; sweet balsamic and bread. The meats and cheeses are pedestrian, but paired with a few glasses of wine, which are poured with abandonment, it’s…

The great meat debate: Taco Bell has a beef with this lawsuit

Yesterday, we reported that the Louisiana-based law firm of Beasley Allen had filed suit against Taco Bell, alleging that there wasn’t enough beef in the taco filling to justify calling it “beef.” In fact, the firm charged, the alleged “beef” contained only 36 percent meat and 64 percent extenders, made…

100 Favorite Dishes: Truffo panino from Shangri-La Cafe

No. 78: Truffo panino from Shangri-La Cafe For several years, Massimo Ruffinazzi, who was born and raised in Casteggio, Lombardia Italy, was chef/partner at Il Fornaio, an Italian restaurant that once occupied prime real estate in LoDo, before it shuttered (the Tech Center location still stands) and was resurrected last…

Stick to the sticky rice (or wings) at Woody’s Wings n Things

After I put out my call for Laotian food recommendations, a number of readers suggested that I head to Woody’s Wings n Things, a dark, sparsely-decorated strip-mall joint in Westminser that serves, yes, chicken wings — in addition to a long list of fare with roots in the Indochina peninsula…

Reader: Illegals are the backbone of the food industry

A recent immigration-status audit in Minnesota resulted in the Chipotle operations there letting a number of employees go. “Let me be clear, if it were up to us, we would keep all these people,” Chris Arnold, director of public relations at the Denver-based Chipotle told Laura Shunk. “They’re dedicated, hardworking…

100 Favorite Dishes: Pork shank from Argyll

No. 79: Pork shank from Argyll Pig is not hard to find in Denver. In fact, save for restaurants whose menus are dedicated to herbivores, you’d be hard-pressed to find a board that doesn’t pimp porcine. And Argyll, the Cherry Creek gastropub whose kitchen is overseen by executive chef Sergio…