After expansion, more of the SAME Cafe

SAME Café — the name is an acronym for So All May Eat — is now making sure that all may eat at once. Today, the innovative restaurant that serves healthy, organic food on a pay-what-you-can basis opened up a new dining room. The expansion basically doubles the size of…

Milking It: Oat Cluster Cheerios Crunch

Oat Cluster Cheerios Crunch General Mills Rating: Two-and-a-half spoons out of four. Cereal description: Three variations of the trademark O’s — original recipe, a glazed-looking, slightly yellower version, and their deeper brown siblings — made from a melange of oat, wheat, rice, corn and barley. Also present are oat clusters…

The Branch Inn is history

When the building housing the Branch Inn exploded in Pueblo on Thursday, it not only took a life, it wiped out a piece of history. Although the building at 301 South Union, in the Union Street Historic District, had been empty for some time before new proprietors reopened the Branch…

Another local on Top Chef: New York

The premiere episode has run, the first two chefs have been booted, and while I know everyone in town was excited about having two locals in the game (Hosea Rosenberg, exec chef at Jax in Boulder and Melissa Harrison, sous at another Dave Query joint, Centro Latin Kitchen), how ‘bout…

Encore for Encores on 26th

There’s action in the 2600 block of Welton Street, with a new sign suddenly appearing on the outside of the 725 Club. But as it turns out, the real action is around the corner on 26th, just past Zona’s. Because after a long delay, Encores on 26th is now getting…

Candy Girls: Nestle Chunky Bar

While scouring the candy aisle at Walgreen’s earlier this week, I happened upon a mysterious box filled with giant candy bars that looked like they were left over from the Reagan administration. The packaging had a decidedly retro ’80s feel, and since the box was sitting all alone on the…

Parallel Seventeen is without parallel

Parallel Seventeen continues to set styles. Since it opened three years ago, Parallel Seventeen has always been a style leader — in food (Mary Nguyen’s classical Vietnamese cuisine, which Jason Sheehan raved about when he reviewed the restaurant), in decor (elegantly hip), in entertainment (with rotating DJs). And now it’s…

What’s in store for the green movement? Ellie’s

Want to see what’s next in the green revolution? Head to Boulder, a hotbed for businesses specializing in natural and organic products (for more on that, see my Naturally Boulder blogs). That’s where the first Ellie’s Eco Home Store will debut tomorrow at 2545 Arapahoe Street — right by a…

So pho, so good at Pho 7

You can’t keep a good pho place down. A few days ago, I wrote about the temporary destruction of Pho 7 by two men, one silver BMW and too many action movies in “Talk about a cursed location!” When this spot at 10009 East Hampden Avenue in Aurora was home…

Cutting off the bartender at K’s China

“Would you like a lime with that?” Sounds like a missed a wild night at K’s China in Boulder last weekend. According to police reports, cops were called to the joint at 1325 Broadway because the owner of the joint was allegedly smashing glasses on the bar, and shattered glass…

New owners for Theorie

When they bought the site of The Real World: Denver series at 1920 Market Street (formerly B-52 Billiards), Shane Alexander and Josh Hawkinson had big plans for the ultra-swank nightclub and restaurant they planned to name Theörie. But the reality of running a restaurant proved much rougher than life on…

Veggie Girl: Lucile’s Creole Cafe

I’ve been trying to get to New Orleans for years. The first time, my road trip across America was cut short by an early start date for a new job. The next time I wanted to go was for my honeymoon, and we seriously considered New Orleans before I decided…

Going green, saving green at The Kitchen

In a town of environmentally-conscious restaurants, The Kitchen could be greenest of them all. And now it’s saving you some green, too. The homey restaurant at 1039 Pearl Street has a daily “tasting hour” from 5:30-6:30 p.m., with $5 wines and $2.50 beers complimenting an array of small bites. There’s…

The Empire Lounge still has a way to go

It’s one of those things that has come to define a floor that’s actually concerned with the happiness and comfort of its guests, a little thing that shows a staff out for more than just tips and a night with no complaints. Fixing a wobbly table. True, a restaurant that…

The real counter culture at Johnny’s Diner

This is my fear: Someday, this modern turn toward the glorification of quote/unquote regional American cuisine and New American and modern American fusion will destroy what little we have left of the true American cuisine. Someday, many years from now, some smart-ass food writer is going to start waxing metaphoric…

Pho 7: Talk about a cursed location!

This past Saturday night, Pho 7 was the scene of something out of a Michael Bay film, when some jackass — in the middle of a scrap with some other jackass literally hanging out of the driver’s side window of his car — drove his BMW right through the front…

Hot food, hot topics at 8 Rivers

The new 8 Rivers, at 1550 Blake Street, is becoming a hot spot for politics as well as Caribbean cooking. Even before it officially opened on October 1, six weeks behind its original target, it hosted hungry and thirsty politicos — including Nancy Pelosi, Walter Mondale, Harry Reid, Ken Salazar…

TV or not TV? That’s no question for these chefs

Chef Hosea Rosenberg Bright knives, big city. The fifth season of Bravo’s Top Chef premieres tonight at 8 p.m. MST when seventeen chefs compete in Top Chef: New York. The lineup includes Melissa Harrison, sous chef at Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace in Boulder, and Hosea Rosenberg, exec chef…

The Fainting Goat Stands Tall

At 11 a.m. today, The Fainting Goat will be standing tall — and open, at 846 Broadway, in the former home of Moon Time, and Minturn, and Basil’s, and the Parlour before that. The Parlour is the first incarnation that Mark Holland remembers, and the memory was enough to get…

It’s about Thyme: sampling the new chef at the Harvest House

Executive chef Dedric McGhee (left) and executive sous Paul Stickler make a meal at the Millennium Harvest House a stirring experience. The Millennium Harvest House is finally ready for this millennium, with executive chef Dedric McGhee and executive sous Paul Stickler now overseeing menu and food preparation at the hotel…

The Empire of my imagination

The Empire Lounge and Restaurant is no dinosaur, even if its inspiration dates back to the ’70s. At the front, on a Saturday night with an overfull house and spillover crowds starting to pack the bar, I’d been given a dinosaur — a large, plastic tyrannosaurus rex—and had felt less…