The word on Carmine’s on Penn: You either love it or you hate it. If you love it, as I do, you appreciate the casual, fun setting and the huge portions of inexpensive Italian food. If you hate it–as many others apparently do, judging from the calls I’ve received from…
It’s hard to imagine, but as recently as a hundred years ago, no one but a few goats and some crazy rugged individualists cared much for traveling into the mountains. Hey, who could blame them? You either had to pack in your own food, live on berries–or kill your dinner…
A few months ago, the mere thought of another Southwestern restaurant had me howling like a rabid coyote. But that was before I visited the Zolo Grill, now the clear ruler of this peculiar patch of the culinary world. Southwestern food covers a lot of territory–its evolution includes contributions from…
Long the food of choice for those who want to avoid the eggs-and-bacon routine at brunch, dim sum is catching on as a great way to eat a little bit of a lot of different Chinese foods at any time of the day. For the uninitiated, the term “dim sum”…
Since delicatessens have been around a bit longer than New York has–the first tangible documentation was in a publication printed around 1183 that refers to a burglary of cooked meats from a shop along the Thames–you have to wonder what people said when the first deli opened in the Big…
The temperature had topped a hundred, with no relief in sight. Clearly, it was time to fight fire with fire–so we headed to the nearest Mexican restaurant. Tafolino’s, which sits almost on the Lakewood-Golden border, took over a plaza space formerly occupied by an Italian eatery. “When I bought the…
The questions started coming up as soon as we sat down in Transalpin. First, there were the peculiar classifications on the menu–items were labeled both by style, such as “classics,” and by geography. And then there were the incredibly low prices listed beside those items. When a restaurant has really…
This is a fish tale with a happy ending–for Denver, if not for the fish. It begins in the cool Pacific waters off the northwest coast, where Mr. Swordfish finds himself the victim of a nasty sting operation–he’s wanted in fifty states for possession of cholesterol-lowering omega-3 fatty acids, and…
Judging from the way his hamburgers always look, Jughead’s criteria for the ultimate burger is a half-moon top bun, a meat pattie as thick as both bun halves put together and exactly the same width, two layers of frilly lettuce, a square of cheese hanging over the sides like a…
The party of eight at the next table barely noticed their food. “If we close”…”net profits”…”by next Tuesday”…”budget crunch”…The phrases floated over us like corporate Muzak. I watched as plate after plate was set down before the three women (all of whom were wearing red) and five men (all of…
Italian restaurants are popping up like wild oregano, making them a serious contender in the oversaturation competition now led by Mexican and Chinese. Most of these are red-sauce joints doing the old spaghetti/Chianti routine; few feature the kind of cooking that makes Italy a true gastronomic destination. Or, as Joe…
In Wall Street, the characters played by Charlie Sheen and Darryl Hannah spend at least four minutes of screen time making an elaborate meal of sushi and pasta and a bunch of other things requiring expensive kitchen appliances that I’m sure they didn’t have to clean. (In real time, the…
When a man sets off to build an empire, he usually travels through uncharted territory, conquering exotic foreign lands. But Johnny Hsu stuck with the tried and true, never straying from familiar fare when he opened a mammoth near-copy of his Imperial restaurant ten miles to the southeast. “I wanted…
Denver’s spring weather has me on a dietary seesaw: One day I’m outside firing up the grill, and the next I’m craving whatever requires enough oven time to heat up the house. It was during the recent cold wave that we got a hankering for the quintessential belly comforter: a…
A restaurant claiming to serve Mediterranean food is in a good position–the menu possibilities are endless when you stake out a territory including such culinary strongholds as France, Italy, North Africa, Spain, Greece and Turkey. Then again, sometimes it’s better to stick with what you know best, which could explain…
During the Vietnam War, one of the best-known roads in Saigon was Pasteur Street, a bustling avenue of commerce that housed a restaurant fairly famous in its own right–Pho Pasteur, a place frequented by locals who were not averse to visits from American soldiers, my father included, who’d fill up…
In one of the most ramshackle dining rooms in one of the most rundown buildings in one of the worst neighborhoods in town, you’ll find the heart and soul of Denver’s restaurant scene. But Ethel Allen–Miss Ethel to those who’ve already discovered Ethel’s House of Soul–doesn’t mind the Five Points…
When the test kitchen’s been fired up since 1000 B.C., it’s hard to improve on old family recipes. Although some of the ingredients–lemons, honey, eggplant, phyllo–popularly associated with Greek food didn’t come along until many years and several foreign rulers later, the ancient Greeks were tending olive trees and grapevines…
The name varies–sub, submarine, hoagie, grinder, poor boy, hero, torpedo, cosmo–but one rule remains constant: This is a sandwich that should equal more than the sum of its parts. Too often, though, the sub (apparently the preferred title in Denver) is much less–a sad pile of limp deli meats, wilted…
Given the miserable survival rate of new restaurants, Willie Nelson could have sung a different tune: “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Restaurateurs.” Better the babies should grow up to be businessmen who buy a key piece of real estate and fill it with kitschy, pricey eateries…
The first Thai restaurant in the United States opened in 1961–in Denver, of all places. La-Iad “Lily” Chittivej fell in love with the area when her husband was serving in a Thai military unit stationed at Fitzsimons during the Korean War; she returned years later to open the Chada Room…
Ethiopian food makes me think of sex. Really sloppy, messy, no-holds-barred sex, the kind people in the movies have with things like clay and old Righteous Brothers tunes as marital aids. Sure, almost any food can be sexy (especially with the right dining companion), but few cuisines invite such total…
