Another Roman holiday

I was driving through Denver’s old Italian neighborhood Friday, looking for a restaurant that might pair well with my review of Locando del Borgo. Unfortunately, being all weirded out on caffeine and Scotch cordial (check out Cafe Society for my diatribe on drinking glayva for breakfast), I first landed at…

Our Weekly Bread: Dinner Roll at Smiling Moose

The Sandwich: Dinner Roll What’s on it: Turkey and roast beef, melted white American cheese, grilled onions and creamy horseradish on a giant Kaiser roll with a side of au jus for dipping. Where to get it: The Smiling Moose Deli (727 Colorado Boulevard, 333-3354) How much: $6.69 A smiling…

Second Chance at Second Home

New exec chef Jason Rogers has just put up his new menu at Second Home (150 Clayton Lane), in an attempt to recover from the bland and affectless fried-cheese-and-crab-paste board that’d been assembled by Home’s opening chef, Che Frey, and oh-so-tenderly deconstructed by yours truly in my review of Second…

Lamb lovers, unite!

If you are a fan of lamb, this would be the contest for you. Every Friday through February, the Denver-based American Lamb Board will select a winner for its “Recipes for Romance” contest. Winners receive a variety of items, including a professional knife set and cookware. E-mail fanoflamb@baltzco.com with your…

Grand Junction’s food scene: pickups and empty places

Denver is what I consider a relatively accomplished culinary town, as is Boulder, where I live. And sometimes perspective is necessary to really appreciate your surroundings.  This is a roundabout way of saying I went to Grand Junction for the weekend.  The drive is always beautiful, ascending into snowy peaks…

Vesta wins in Colorado Wine Industry awards

The Colorado Wine Industry announced the winners of its 2008 Restaurant Recognition Awards Monday night. The competition, which I wrote about a few months ago in “Colorado wine sure is fine,” handed out honors in two categories: Best Colorado Wine List and Best Use of Colorado Food and Wine. The best…

When not in Rome: Eat at Locanda del Borgo

Until fairly recently, Denver’s culinary universe had a gaping black hole at the center that consistently swallowed the vain attempts of well-meaning chefs and barfed out scads of pretenders offering “Colorado-accented” Italian cuisine that rarely rose above the level of a tomato-and-mozzarella tamale with an Italian flag stuck in it…

I dashed to Denny’s; I left hungry

5:30 a.m.: My alarm starts ringing, but I have been up for a while already. It’s like Christmas for Jews. My brother Travis and Jed, my other roommate, emerge from their rooms and we hop in my car, then pick up my best friend, Micah. We’re on our way to…

Dash to Denny’s, now

As part of a Super Bowl promo, your neighborhood Denny’s is offering a free Grand Slam until 2 p.m. today (dine-in only). Run grab your breakfast, then come back to Cafe Society to read Tyler Nemkov’s review of his meal…

Are you the best teen chef?

If you think you’re the country’s best teen chef, it’s time to enter the Art Institute’s Best Teen Chef Competition. The contest is open to high schoolers graduating in 2009 with a GPA of 2.0 or better; applicants must sign an entry and release form by this Friday, February 6,…

Milking It: Hannah Montana Multi-Grain Secret Identity Cereal

Hannah Montana Multi-Grain Secret Identity Cereal Kellogg’s Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four Cereal description: Corn-and-oat discs that resemble semi-flattened Crunchberries — a resemblance underscored by the light red and dark purple color scheme. Does that mean the real secret identity of Miley Stewart (the character Miley Cyrus plays in…

Squealin’ Pig silenced

Another Irish bar bites the dust. The Squealing Pig has shut its doors at 2700 East Third Avenue, and its phone number is disconnected. While the Pig wasn’t a classic Irish bar, as described by Jason Sheehan in How to Create a Great Irish Bar, and didn’t even come as…

The goal is simple at Full Belly

Radek Cerny, the celebrated chef of L’Atelier (located at 1739 Pearl Street in Boulder), plans to open his second Boulder restaurant within the month, recession be damned.Full Belly, which is going into 2779 Iris Avenue, will be a bistro-style place, Cerny says, and cheaper than L’Atelier, with dinner entrees averaging…

Today Only! $.43 Entrees at Spicy Pickle

You know your Sunday will be filled with copious amounts of chips, dip, beer and maybe even a snack food stadium (if you’re so lucky), so why not start training for the big event now?  A great place to start would be The Spicy Pickle at 1298 South Broadway.  In…

Candy Girls: Reese’s Select Clusters

What’s not to love about a Reese’s peanut butter cup product?  Even when the effort is lazy,  the end result is still delicious.  Something about the saltiness of the peanut butter melting with the sweetness of the milk chocolate…home run every time.  Even though we know it’s hard to improve…

The SPAM champ among us

(Read Jason Sheehan’s SPAM confession here.) All hail the SPAM king, ruler of all that is pink and meaty and rectangular. This year, the king is from Colorado Springs. Ron Pearman — 48-year-old Lockheed Martin engineer, father of four (soon to be five) and Colorado State Fair cook-off champ –…

SPAM on wry

Once again, SPAM — everyone’s favorite potted meat product — is in the news. And this time, there’s a Colorado hook: Ron Pearman of Colorado Springs won the grand prize in the Great American SPAM Championship. (Read Melanie Asmar’s interview with the champ here.)  The contest, held at state and…

Big Red F re-tools at Zolo

Word just came down that Dave Query — right in the middle getting his new noodle house project, Happy Noodle House, up and running in Boulder — has brought some new blood into the kitchen at Zolo Grill, his least press-pimped address, at 2525 Arapahoe Avenue in The Republic. Actually,…

A burrito bonanza!

It’s been a busy week in the world of burritos. Jason Sheehan reviewed the shaky Beaucoup Burrito, and spoke a little more about it here. In desperate need of an uplifting burrito story to erase the bad taste left by Sheehan’s description of the Beaucoup seafood burrito, I went out…

Our Weekly Bread: the Emerson at Earl’s

The Sandwich: The Emerson What’s on it: Ham and Swiss on focaccia bread, with choice of veggies. Where to get it: Earl’s Sandwich Parlor (1431 Ogden Street, 303-832-7411) How much: $6.85 This is the kind of place you’re thankful for if you live in the neighborhood, and never visit if…

Southern Sun recycling ablaze!

The Southern Sun, a brewpub located at 627 South Broadway in Boulder, was on fire last week — and I don’t mean that in the “my-God-they’re-on-a-roll” way, or the “five-alarm-epic-battle-with-nature” way, either. Apparently, something (possibly a cigarette butt) caught fire in the recycling bins outside the restaurant — and since…

Veggie Girl: Taqueria Patzcuaro

Fresh, salty chips, burning hot salsa and maybe the best vegetarian red chile in Denver — these are just a few of the reasons that I frequent Taqueria Patzcuaro at 2616 West 32nd Avenue. An even bigger draw, though, is the chile relleno burrito, an absolute genius invention that starts…