Picture This: Our Food-Porn Roundup for May 2025

When I was asked to serve as interim food editor during Molly Martin’s medical leave, the role made sense because as the first music/culture editor here, I’m familiar with Westword. Over the years, though, I’ve moved from concentrating on music to focusing on food – starting with posting #foodporn photos on my social media. I don’t limit my subjects to food in restaurants, either: I just posted pictures of my dinner, Polidori Mild Italian Sausage sliced and pan-fried with cabbage, onions, garlic and green onions, with some leftover potato gratin from STK.

I love food. I’m proud to be a foodie, and over the years I’ve gained a reputation for the #foodporn I share – much to my surprise.

I didn’t do this when I was young; hell, social media didn’t exist when I was young. But I have been posting photos of my meals for a couple of decades, using the hashtag #foodporn. I also used #twEATs back in the day, but dropped it when Twitter was taken over by the DOGE-ey dude and changed its name to X. “Xeats” sounds sorta poopy, and besides, I don’t use that platform anymore.

While I’m holding down the Food & Drink fort at Westword, I’ll serve up regular roundups of the food I’ve had both at home and out and about. Some of the photos might be from new places I’ve just written about, some might be takeout dishes I’m snarfing up at home while I melt my brain watching Netflix, and still others might be repeats of dishes from restaurants I am loyal to.

On May 30, I stopped by the Denver Performing Arts Complex for the closing event of the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month (yeah, it’s a mouthful – when it first became a national observation in 1979, it was just called Asian Pacific American Heritage Week). The event, organized by the City of Denver, featured tables with AANHPI organizations representing the Lao, Japanese American, Sikh, Filipino, Hawaiian and Nepalese communities, as well as pan-Asian organizations; Mayor Mike Johnston spoke about the contributions of the AANHPI communities to Denver’s history. And following a loud and proud lion dance from the Colorado Asian Cultural Heritage Center, the mayor and Denver City Councilman Chris Hind joined restaurateur Mary Nguyen at a ribbon cutting for the grand opening of her latest Olive & Finch eatery, a welcome addition on 14th Street.

Throughout the event, Olive & Finch and many of the community groups offered samples of Asian cuisine, like banh mi sandwiches, dumplings and a umami-packed Lao salad that had fish sauce as the front-and-center flavor profile, something Asians would welcome but non-Asians might find a tad too pungent.

Speaking of pungent, just before I got this gig, I had lunch at Ramen Star, one of my favorite ramen restaurants. Owner and chef Takashi Tamai is always coming up with creative additions to the ramen arsenal, from the normal soy sauce, miso and tonkotsu soups (he calls his tonkotsu the “Ramen Star”) to out-of-the-box bowls like Chocolate Ramen (yep, you read it right, and it ain’t a dessert) and a flavorful Truffle Ramen, which is topped with a wagyu beef ravioli and has sliced pork added to a deeply satisfying truffle-based soup.

As a DEI-embracing foodie, though, I go to all types of eateries. A few blocks up Tejon from Ramen Star, Pochitos Tortilla Factory makes takeout tortillas of all types (at a damned good price) and the best tamales we’ve come across in the area.

Staying on Mexican plates, I recently had the pleasure of dining at Tecate Grill, a large restaurant in Severance that was formerly a barbecue joint, which cooked up an amazing plate of Quesabirria, a mashup of quesadilla and birria beef folded into soft corn tortillas and served with a savory, saliva-inducing consomme to dip into.

Back on the Asian front, my recent story about the old Organ Grinder restaurant found me visiting the fabulous Vinh Xuong Banh Mi bakery in the Alameda Square Shopping Center, behind where Organ Grinder used to serve pizza and entertain families with pipe organ performances. The original location is not far away at the Far East Center, but this one’s easy to get to and easy to park at. Vinh Xuong has amazing banh mi sandwiches. When I was there a few weeks ago, I got the weekend special Spicy Duck Banh Mi that was so tantalizing I had to gobble it while driving, sending crumbs from the bread all over my clothes and the car seat. The mess was worth it.

I describe myself as “King of the Grill” on social profiles, and it’s a joke, but sort of a serious one. I love grilling. I use a propane grill but add wood chips to the flames to add unmistakable smokiness to the meat and vegetables I grill. This was a Mother’s Day meal for my mother-in-law, Halal Ribeye from the Costco Business Center (which is in the same shopping center as Vinh Xuong), and my wife Erin tried a couple of new recipes she’d found, for Melting Potatoes and Melting Cabbage.

I’ll finish off this first installment of my #foodporn roundup with a quick breakfast that I enjoy, but would gross out most readers. Natto, fermented soybeans, is one of the world’s best superfoods. But it’s sorta smelly (I don’t find it offensive) and it’s definitely slimy. Japanese people don’t seems to have a problem with slimy foods, what can I say? Even many Japanese Americans are grossed out by natto, and it’s been called “snotto.” Really. Anyway, you mix it with the included soy sauce packet, and add it to hot rice. I topped it with another popular Japanese tradition, Tamago Kake Gohan, or raw egg on rice with more soy sauce, and this time I also sprinkled on something I’d found at Pacific Mercantile in Sakura Square, Garlic Furikake. The combination beat oatmeal or Pop Tarts, that’s for sure!