It was the smell of the place that got me. That warm, salty, enveloping, fried-pork-and-soy-sauce smell that spun through the small, squared-off dining room like a fog, like smells do in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons — turning into fingers and tickling the duck or bear or whatever right under…
Swimclub 32 reminds me of this girl, Meghan, who was everything a (much) younger me could hope for in a girlfriend. She was gorgeous in an uncomplicated way, a bit ethnic, well-traveled, pretty in the face, with that face attached to a killer body and that body held up by…
Life so rarely lives up to your expectations. The Big Three — prom night, losing your virginity and your wedding day (which, in this ever-accelerating culture, can all happen in one 24-hour period if you really try hard) — have become so built up in the modern mind, so fraught…
I tacked the thayir sadam onto my order at the last second, no doubt hopelessly bungling the pronunciation as I tend to when I’m trying to be cool about something on a menu I’ve never seen before and don’t know whether I’m asking for rice pudding or the cook’s underpants…
Greg Goldfogel, owner of Ristorante Amore, was on the phone, and we were talking about gnocchi. We were talking a lot about gnocchi, which might surprise someone not steeped to the neck in the lore and weird obsessions of the kitchen. Because, really, how much is there to say about…
Americans like to take credit for things — but culinarily, we’re screwed. Almost everything we eat, good or bad, comes from somewhere else. What’s worse, most of the great things we eat come from the Europeans (the French, in particular) and we’d much rather blame the Europeans (and the French,…
One of the great things about living in Colorado is that no man, woman or child ever has to go to bed worrying about where to find good Mexican food. Nuclear terrorism, alien abduction, how the Broncos are going to fare in the playoffs — sure, those are real concerns…
Last Labor Day weekend, after spending several hours wandering around in the sun eating lukewarm shrimp cocktails and cheesecake on a stick at the Taste of Colorado, I stopped by Somethin’ Else, the place that Sean Kelly was putting into the very same spot where his last restaurant, Clair de…
Thanksgiving is a distant memory, Christmas is done, and the holiday season — in all its shlocky glitz and sweetness — is nearly over. All that’s left to do is bid a final farewell to the year gone by, to turn our backs on the little victories and larger defeats…
When I was young, Christmas in the Sheehan household was a fairly predictable event. It began about 4 a.m., or whatever godawful hour my brother Brendan and I would drag our parents out of bed for our annual living-room reenactment of the battle of Thermopylae, with Mom and Dad playing…
Larry Herz is happy. Walking the floor of Go Fish Grille on a Saturday night, he’s in his element — an industry veteran working a crowded house — and he’s got an energy that arcs off him like sparks. He moves between tables, chatting, checking up, floating, dodging. He back-pedals…
Finally, I feel like a true Coloradan. I’ve eaten at the Brown Palace. I’ve eaten at Casa Bonita (and lived to tell about it). And now I’ve eaten at The Fort. That’s the goddamn trifecta, isn’t it? So where do I get me one of them “Native” bumperstickers? When do…
Reporter, huh?” Fred said, looking entirely uninterested. “Like, you work for the newspaper?” “Yeah,” I said, looking down at the Vesuvius of cigarette butts in the ashtray, the half-eaten cheeseburger and cold coffee in front of me, thinking how working was the last thing I was doing. “Something like that.”…
It’s an embarrassment, the amount of instant ramen noodle soup in my cupboard right now, from a variety of companies (Nissin, Maruchan, some off-brand called Ninja), in several preparations (both the cup and the brick, as well as a microwavable bowl) and a spread of flavors that all taste exactly…
For nearly half my life, I watched no TV. When I tell people that, a squint of fundamental distrust screws up their faces, and they look at me like I’ve got lobsters crawling out of my ears. They always treat me differently afterward — as though I’ve just admitted to…
It must be weird when fame pays off, when you’re not just recognized for what you do well, but when that recognition translates into the kind of fast return that usually only comes in movies. There’s that scene of the Beatles in their hotel room, tumbling all over each other…
I never thought Mirepoix would make it. I didn’t believe that Bryan Moscatello and crew could squeeze Adega’s smart, beautiful cuisine into a JW Marriott corporate template; I kept seeing all that lovely food dying under the domes of room-service trays. And the fact that they were trading on the…
Phil Collier, owner and executive chef of A La Tomate Cafe and Tarterie, is a nervous sort of fella. I can see him in the kitchen — a big space for such a small place, full of tall bakery racks, new ovens, antique slicers with exposed motors, bright stainless steel…
Wild-mushroom-and-Fontina grilled cheese. Frittatas; toasted-oat pancakes that taste like giant oatmeal raisin cookies laced with wispy vanilla; seared tuna in a soy-ginger glaze. Eggs Benedict made with poached eggs wrapped in smoky Nova lox and topped with crème fraîche, and a breakfast pizza assembled from scrambled eggs, beef tenderloin, sprigged…
Once is an event, twice is a coincidence, but three times? Three times is the beginning of an addiction, and for the Bush administration, Heaven Dragon Chinese Cuisine and Lounge is starting to look like an unhealthy habit. It was back in 2002 that President George W. Bush got his…
One of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the country, Dac Hoa, is in Rochester, New York. It’s a small, Barton Fink-ish place, with a perpetual pall of dishwater gray light, rickety tables and peeling everything in a borderline-creepy neighborhood. Still, most people who eat there have no idea how good…
The International House of Pancakes seemed like the obvious choice for breakfast. I had friends in town — non-foodie friends who couldn’t pick a head of endive out of a lineup even if I spotted them three food groups — and the IHOP was walking distance from their hotel. We…
