Annie’s Reopens on Colfax

Annie’s Café officially reopened today, June 18, in its new spot at 3100 East Colfax Avenue, and it’s already starting to feel like home – despite a number of kinks that have yet to be worked out, said Peggy Anderson, who owns the old-school Denver eatery with Diane Williams. “The…

Grape Expectations

For chef Matt Franklin, the Wine Experience Café concept was a perfect fit. It’s a wine shop with a restaurant attached. (Or, in my world, a restaurant with a wine shop next door.) All of the bottles and glasses served in the restaurant are available for sale in the shop;…

Community Spirits

Expect to drink a lot of red wine – and pay a hefty bar tab – at the new, and popular, Community Table Night at Parisi, a northwest Denver hotspot at 4401 Tennyson Street. If you’re shy, you’ll need a glass or two to get into the spirit of things,…

Milking It: Princess Gems cereal

Princess Gems Disney Magic Selections Rating: Two and a half spoons out of four Cereal description: The main cereal pieces are made of oats shaped like puffy stars with a hole in the middle, as if they’ve been blasted by a Disney super-villain armed with a .44 magnum. In addition,…

Pass Around the Cup for One of Denver’s Top Roasters

You may have noticed that your favorite local cup of joe has lately tasted a bit off, even a tad bitter. If so, there’s a reason: The local coffee community has been shaken to its core by painful news about one of its key members: 26-year-old Semeon Abay, head roaster…

Candy Girls: Indiana Jones Special Edition Candy

This week, the Candy Girls decided to try a few of the limited edition flavors released by the Mars candy company to celebrate the release of the first Indiana Jones film in almost 20 years. The Snickers Adventure Bar promises to “Satisfy your taste for adventure! Rich Chocolate. Crunchy nuts…

Gluten-Free Food Fair

Forget low-carb; those with celiac disease, the most common genetic autoimmune disease, have to pay attention to every kind of tasty gluten (wheat, rye, and oats) product they’re offered or risk severe illness, not just severe damage to their waistline. Luckily, the Denver metro chapter of CSA (Celiac Sprue Association)…

Coleman’s Soul Food

When I was a young man of nineteen, maybe twenty, I spent three weeks living in a motel in Detroit. The particulars of how I found myself in such a sorry state — staying in a room where, on my first night, I found a dead rat under the bed…

Take a Bite of Cafe Bites

Chinook Tavern is staying put — at least for now. Originally, the Georg family planned to pack up their restaurant at 265 Detroit Street this month, and move their restaurant down south. But now they’ll be open in Cherry Creek at least through October. You’d already know this if you…

Soul on Ice

Henry Coleman, owner and head cook at the new Coleman’s Soul Food (which moved into the old home of Ethel’s House of Soul shortly after it closed in January), knows from Detroit soul food, Detroit comfort food, Detroit’s streetside, slap-dash, eat-while walking cuisine. He’s a veteran lunch-wagon cook from that…

Win Some/Lose Some

While I might not have had much luck at this year’s James Beard Awards, it’s a damn good thing that I wasn’t the only one from our little square state in Manhattan this past weekend. As a matter of fact, Colorado was much better represented at the Chef Awards (which…

Annie’s Moves On

I don’t remember the first time I ate at Annie’s Café, but I’m guessing it was 1981 or 1982, shortly after the restaurant opened across the street from my dad’s office at the University of Colorado medical school. My mom recalls being so happy that there was a family place…

Milking It: Rice Krispies Treats

Rice Krispies Treats Kellogg’s Rating: Three spoons out of four Cereal description: The classic Rice Krispies shape — a slightly puffed rice kernel — is still the foundation of Rice Krispies Treats, the cereal spinoff of a marshmallow-laden recipe beloved by people who know more about eating than cooking. But…

Road Food

Just a few hours after returning from the James Beard Awards in Manhattan, sans medal, to Laura’s folk’s house in the Philadelphia suburbs, we found ourselves once again back in our rental car and hightailing it for the heart of the City of Brotherly Love. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies…

Beard House Blues

So, yeah….As has already been announced, I tanked it at the James Beard Awards. Didn’t win, lost it in the clutch, came home empty-handed (again…). But you know what? That’s cool for a couple of different reasons. For one, it was just an honor to be nominated and blah blah…

James Beard Awards Update

Five years ago, when Jason Sheehan had not yet worked at Westword a year, he won the James Beard Foundation award for reviewing — the biggest award around for a food critic. This year he was again a finalist for the prize, but at last night’s awards ceremony in New…

Doughnut Donation to Your Tummy

I am not attempting to enter the heated debate on doughnut store superiority, but rather to present a fact: free doughnuts are the best doughnuts. Today Krispy Kreme is celebrating National Doughnut Day by giving each customer a complimentary doughnut of their choice. As an employee who patiently answered my…

Candy Girls: Pop Rocks Milk Chocolate Bar

“Melts on your tongue, pops in your mouth” First reactions: At first glance, the Pop Rocks Milk Chocolate Bar appears just like a Crunch bar. You can see what look like crunchy bits of rice buried inside the milk chocolate, but the truth of those innocent looking morsels soon becomes…

Bursting Sheehan’s Bubble

A condensed version of Justin Warner’s letter about Jason Sheehan’s talents — or lack thereof — is published in the June 5 letters column. But the entire letter was so tasty that we present it here, uncut and unedited: Jason Sheehan: I write in regards to my disgust of your…

Chicago

With every meal we eat, we betray ourselves. Our politics and our personal history, our deepest longings, our most private loves and hates — all of this is laid bare every time we open our mouths and shove something in. Think about it. What beer do you drink when the…

Wash Park Grille

I’m tired of sliders. Seriously, they were cool for about a minute two years ago when a few brave chefs decided to resurrect them as jewel-box examples of haute-gone-south lowbrow chic. Then they were amusing for a few months as everyone scrambled to add them. Kobe sliders. Barbecue sliders. Truffled…

Welcome to the Windy City

The newspapers? Chicago Tribunes. The tattered phone books? Chicagoland area directories. The game on the radio is the Cubs or the Bears and the tin stars in the display case are all replicas of Chicago police badges. Chicago is really less a restaurant than a small, cramped, cluttered and plastic-wrapped…