So, a few weeks ago, I wrote this little piece titled “How to Create a Great Irish Bar.” It wasn’t something I put a lot of thought into. It wasn’t something that groaned under the weight of background research (unless drinking counts as research). Really, it was just a way to…
One of the first big restaurant deals of the new year was the purchase of Aix — by a new partnership comprised of of Keith Arnold and Stephanie Bonin (owners of Duo), and John Broening and Yasmin Lozada-Hissom (chef and pastry chef of Duo, respectively). When the quartet took on…
I feel like Michael Flatley is riverdancing on my head. When 30,000 college kids move back onto campus after winter break, the inevitable respiratory illnesses spread across campus faster than your everyday STD. (Please keep that movie running while reading this–it is the perfect soundtrack.) A nice, throbbing head cold gave me…
Denver Restaurant Week doesn’t start until February 21, but it already looks like a hit, with more than 224 restaurants signed up to participate and over a hundred chefs slated to attend the scheduled February 17 press conference to hype the event.But once Barack Obama’s noon visit to Denver that…
I finally got a chance to try Merle’s, the new American restaurant made out of that most American of businesses, an old shock-alignment place. Merle’s managers pimped their vinegar-based Carolina barbecue when I first talked to them, so I felt obligated to try the pork sandwich, topped with a traditional creamy…
Cocoa Pebbles Post Rating: Three spoons out of four Cereal description: Rice cereal that doesn’t look anything like rice. Instead of retaining a kernel-like shape, as does the stuff that snaps, crackles and pops, Cocoa Pebbles features grain that seems to have been imploded — a process that transforms it…
A couple days after the Second Helping I wrote for Parisi went up — the one in which I reported how I’d accidentally tried to order spaghetti at a real estate office and proved, once again, what a boob I truly am — I got a note from Christine Parisi…
Yesterday’s picture in the Denver Post real estate section of the new Curt Fentress architecture firm headquarters/Watermark sales office, in the historic Chittenden Mansion on West Fourth Avenue just off Broadway, brought back memories of a much earlier attempt to label the Baker neighborhood as one of Denver’s hippest.Close to…
The James Beard Foundation has just released the semifinalists list for its 2009 restaurant and chef awards. And Frank Bonanno — of Mizuna, Luca D’Italia and Osteria Marco (and now Bones, which opened at the very end of December) fame — is one of twenty people up for Outstanding Restaurateur.No…
There’s a sign in the window of the Common Grounds at 1601 17th Street, and it’s not good news. The landlord has put this prime piece of real estate up for lease, and that means LoDo could lose a great local coffeehouse (and a barista who was once on Survivor)…
We recently heard about organic chocolate bars from Shaman Chocolates, and were eager to try out these chocolates for a good cause: 100 percent of the profits go to support the Huichol Indians in the Sierra Madre mountains in central Mexico, and sales of the Fair Trade-certified chocolate have already…
It turns out that Quiznos – the carnivorous, Denver-based chain that gave us subs like the 5 Meat Stack and Prime Rib Cheesesteak, with a double-meat option – has been engaged in behind-the-scenes talks for a year with the most notorious veggie lovers of them all: PETA. (I use the…
When Bar Luxe opened three years ago, it was a sleek Cherry Creek bar, soon to be joined by Euro, a hip Cherry Creek restaurant helmed by Olav Peterson, formerly of Restaurant 1515. But Euro was gone by the end of 2007 (Peterson is now at Bistro One), and Bar…
Tell Dr. Atkins to shove off and stick that paleo diet back in its cave: Local political writer Ari Armstrong’s low-carb, personal-liberty food-stamp diet is the hottest thing since sliced bread (sliced bread bought with food stamps, that is). Turns out our recent account of dining with Armstrong during his…
At the bottom of this week’s Bite Me, I wrote about my troubles getting a decent hoagie out of Taste of Philly — specifically the one at 18121 East Hampden Avenue in Aurora, but I’ve had similar issues at other locations. Although every once in a while I’ll get a…
Like Little Anita’s, Il Vicino is one of the few Albuquerque chains to survive the trip to Denver. But while Little Anita’s has never been a top-tier spot back home (though it has some of the best chile I’ve found here in Denver), Il Vicino has always been one of…
The Sandwich: Greenwich Village What’s on it: Pastrami-seasoned turkey, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, lettuce, tomato and Russian dressing on rye Where to get it: Mendelson’s New York Delicatessen (600 17th Street, 303-996-5555) How much: $9.75 If sandwiches were movies, then Mendelson’s triple-deckers would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a…
Squeaking in just under the wire before one of the biggest dining nights of the year is Arugula, a very-very-Boulder restaurant that’s scheduled to throw wide the doors at 2785 Iris Avenue on February 13 — just 24 short hours before the big Valentine’s Day rush. That’s a helluva way…
See more photos of DJ’s at westword.com/slideshow Laura and I are in bed, sheets pulled from the corners, blankets mussed and tangled. I can feel her, warm beside me, and from the sweet edge of exhausted sleep, I can hear her voice. “Dammit. Why didn’t we order a pizza first…”…
See photos of oysters from all over the world at westword.com/slideshow. For video of how to shuck an oyster, visit the Cafe Society blog. Nearly four inches long, the “Sand Dune” oyster from Prince Edward Island was so plump, it was bulging out of its shell “like a large breast…
DJ’s Berkeley Cafe (this week’s review) blows the current economic bell curve by being not just full, but overflowing at a time when most restaurant owners would strip naked and hang coupons from their ding-dongs just to get a few more people through the door. A five-page wait list for…
Think you want to open a restaurant of your own? Well, before you get too excited, I suggest you check out djscafe.blogspot.com — a website that Jason Stallings put together to detail every phase of the construction at DJ’s Berkeley Cafe and all the nightmares that went along with it…
