FOOD & DRINK

You won't find any granny here. Instead, behind the counter is Scott Meyerson, Culinary Institute of America graduate and pie-maker extraordinaire. Realizing that the art of pie-making was getting lost in the shuffle of flourless chocolate cakes and creme brulees, Meyerson decided to do something about it. Of course, when he says he's making pies just like grandma used to make, he's talking about one who went to the Cordon Bleu school of cooking. Each pie sports a top that looks like a view across the Rockies, all meringue and soft, flaky crust. The fillings are equally spectacular; for example, the nut and brandy pie, made from an old New Orleans recipe, mixes macadamias, pecans, walnuts, pistachios and peanuts with white chocolate. And it only looks like some matron gave up her dining-room furniture in order to turn Granny Scott's from a sterile mall space into a cozy, comfortable dining parlor perfect for a cup of coffee and a warm slice of pie.

Best Pie Not Made by a CIA Graduate
Pete's Kitchen
1962 E. Colfax Ave.

Pete's son Dean makes the pies, and these look more like something your average grandmother would cook up--lard-crusted, tooth-achingly sweet and oh-so-good with a big glass of milk. The offerings vary, but the fruits--cherry, peach, apple, blueberry--are almost always available, along with one or two unusual models such as German chocolate, peanut-butter chocolate and chocolate chocolate chip. Get a wedge to finish off a meal that started with one of Pete's bodacious burgers, or call a day ahead to get the whole humble pie. And if the craving for pie hits late, Pete's is open round the clock on the weekend.

Best Sweet Potato Pie
M&D's Fish & Bar-B-Q Palace
2004 E. 28th Ave.

Once you've polished off one of M&D's huge, Best of Denver-winning platters of barbecued ribs or buttery battered fish, cozied up to side dishes of potato salad, greens or sugary baked beans and washed everything down with Mason jars filled with sugary lemonade, who's counting calories? When you're that close to heaven, why not just amble right on through the gates? M&D's sweet-potato pie will show you the way. This dessert belongs at the end of a hearty meal, especially when the lightly blackened edges of its unshowy crust give away the human touch that's so essential to the M&D's experience. If you ask us, heaven is definitely a sweet, slightly juicy, burnt-orange color.

Best Pecan Pie
Bourbon Street Original Pizza Bar
5139 S. Yosemite St., Greenwood Village

What kind of nut would order pecan pie in a pizza place? A nut who knows that Bourbon Street's pecan pie is the chewy-gooey-ooeyest around, four inches tall and chockfull of pecans, corn syrup, eggs and a generous splash of bourbon. And it's all crammed into a crust as smooth and flaky as a French Quarter shoeshine man.

Best Chocolates
Cocoloco
1525 15th St.

If you're just after chocolate, pick up a Hershey Bar. But if you want to revel in an experience that's both tasteful and tasty, head to Cocoloco. The LoDo shop and eatery's logo--a naked woman lounging before a bouquet of cocoa leaves--perfectly captures the ambience. Quotidian cares are easily doffed when indulging in Cocoloco's seductive confections (the Denver Nuggets feature a splash of Jack Daniel's) and gourmet selection of coffees, liqueurs and desserts.

Best Cookies
Colorado Cookie Company
1525 Market St.

Chewy and fresh--because they're made right here in downtown Denver--these cookies are a great deal at 65 cents each or three for $1.75. You can choose from old standbys like peanut butter, oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip, but even better are the awesome soft sugar cookies, oatmeal chocolate-chip coconut, chocolate peanut-butter swirl and chocolate chocolate-chip walnut cookies. The Colorado Cookie Company also sells brownies, big frosted cookie "cakes" and decorative gift packages. And special punch-card holders can buy eleven cookies and get the twelfth one free. As though we needed the incentive!

Best Ice Cream
Cucina Leone
763 S. University Blvd.

We all scream for the kind of ice cream that Cucina Leone's makes--rich, creamy, not too soft or hard, filled with toothsome tidbits and laden with calories. Cucina answers our call with banana-bourbon-cinnamon, white raspberry brownie, chocolate peanut butter and espresso, all made with as much cream and eggs as can be packed into an ice-cream maker. For the calorie-conscious, there's an equally (believe it!) scrumptious low-fat French chocolate, as well as a chocolate sorbet and a slew of fruit sorbets packed with fresh flavor. Yell for more.

Best Carrot Cake
Pete's Fruit and Vegetables
5600 E. Cedar Ave.

Past the fresh produce spilling out onto the sidewalk, past the arborio rice and the pine nuts, past the dried pasta and the mascarpone cheese, Pete's has tucked away a modest bakery that's responsible for making the best carrot cake in town. Not only is it the richest, densest, butteriest carrot cake imaginable, it's also topped with the cream-cheesiest of icings. Baker Marilyn Callender uses freshly grated cloves and nutmeg, which gives the cake its intense flavor, and she grates the carrots fine to let the butter--and there's a lot of it, to be sure--take over the batter. The only "What's up, doc?" here is when you get your cholesterol checked after your fortieth piece.

Best Flan
Los Volcanes
10471 S. Parker Rd., Parker

Too often this custard lays an egg--it's either loose and runny or scared stiff by a cook afraid to ease up on the egg whites. Los Volcanes shows no fear: The flan here is smooth and creamy, more like ice cream in richness, and coated with the sweetest caramel sauce imaginable. It's the perfect finale to some excellent Mexican food.

Best Tiramisu
Greens
1469 S. Pearl St.

The name means "pick me up" in Italian, but let's be honest--most versions of this overused and overrated dessert are major letdowns. Greens takes tiramisu and turns it upside down--literally--in a martini glass. But the innovations don't end there. Instead of ladyfingers, mascarpone cheese and espresso, Greens layers ginger sponge cake with hazelnut cream, chocolate cake dipped in espresso and Kahlua, whipped cream, hazelnut pralines and chocolate shavings for an inspired taste sensation. The icing on this cakewalk, though, is a shot of caramel sauce, a rich decadent dollop that awaits you at the bottom of the glass.

Best Caramel Apples
The Chocolate Foundry
2625 E. 3rd Ave.

If the apple in the Garden of Eden had looked anything like the ones in the Chocolate Foundry's window, Adam wouldn't have needed any prodding from Eve to try one. These crunchy Granny Smiths are draped with a thick caramel sauce that the Foundry makes daily, then sprinkled with either pecans or a mix of peanuts, almonds, cashews and walnuts. For the real kid at heart, the Foundry offers apples covered with chocolate sprinkles, or you can get them plain. Either way, these are temptation itself.

Best Dessert List
Zolo Grill
2525 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder

All of Zolo's food is so good that it's hard to save room for dessert. But save you must, because the payoff involves such stomach-stretchers as grilled banana cream pie, satin crunch cake and brownie truffle bar. They sound innocent enough, but they're sinfully delicious. For example, stuff the banana cream pie in your face and experience caramelized bananas, white chocolate cream flavored with rum, a thick ginger-cookie crust and two sauces--hot fudge and caramel. Or how about a brownie truffle bar, flavored with espresso and coated with a layer of chocolate, caramel sauce and a cloud of whipped cream, served with peanut brittle and wafers of imported chocolate? Sign up for aerobics before it's too late.

Readers' choice: Cocoloco

Best Dessert Reference to Poop
Denver Buffalo Company
1109 Lincoln St.

Don't be alarmed--this stuff doesn't stink. The Buffalo Chip Brownie may look like a big ol' fresh dropping, but it's really an enormous, spongy, fudgy brownie topped with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge spiked with Amaretto.

Best Desserts If You're Arnold Schwarzenegger
Ruth's Chris Steak House
1445 Market St.

What does a hungry man need after he's watched Jamie Lee Curtis gyrate for fifteen minutes? The same thing he needs after eating an eighteen-ounce steak along with an entire head of broccoli and a baked potato the size of a couch pillow: a dessert the size of half a pie. No true lies here: That's about what you get at Ruth's Chris, be it an order of seven-inch-high mud pie or a whole loaf of bread pudding. We'll be back...when our appetites are.

Best Dessert With Your Beer
Rock Bottom Brewery
1001 16th St.

With so much beer around this city, it was only a matter of time before restaurants started putting it in everything. There's beer soup, beer bread, beer brats and beer sauce, but only recently has the beer-in-dessert thing caught on. Rock Bottom Brewery cooks up a wonderful cheesecake made with its Black Diamond Stout. The brew's mild molasses, heavy roasted flavor and bitterness cuts through the usual over-sweetness of cheesecake, and the addition of both cheddar and cream cheeses doesn't hurt, either. Top it off with an avalanche of strawberry puree--and might we suggest an after-dinner drink of more Black Diamond?

Best Local Microbrew (Ale)
Railyard Ale
Wynkoop Brewing Company
1634 18th St.

Railyard is this six-year-old brewpub's bestseller, and we're not surprised. We've often made tracks over to the Wynkoop for a pint of Railyard, won over by its hip hops, its smoothness and clarity--and its easy access by all types of beer drinkers. But mostly, we're amazed at how well it goes with Wynkoop's shepherd's pie.

Readers' choice: Railyard Ale, Wynkoop

Best Local Microbrew (Lager)
Old Scratch
Broadway Brewing Company
2441 Broadway

Old Scratch takes care of our itch for a lager that doesn't taste like it was made in a barrel full of old jockstraps--which is what we get from most of the big beer barons. Brewed with a lager yeast that ferments at ale temperatures, Old Scratch has a round flavor that ends on a slightly bitter note. Although it isn't available year-round, you can get it now at Broadway, a year-old brewpub that taps brews from Wynkoop, Flying Dog and Idle Spur Crested Butte Brewery. And we're not just throwing you a bone--they serve some of the tastiest brewpub food around, too, in a great, cozy bar.

Readers' choice: Wynkoop

Best Local Microbrew (Stout)
Out of Bounds Stout
Avery Brewing
5763 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder

Out of Bounds won the gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver last year, and it's easy to see why. Modeled on Guinness, this stout has the oatmealy, hoppy, sweet, roasted-barley flavor reminiscent of one of the best beers in the world. That should come as no surprise, either, since Avery Brewing founder Adam Avery says Guinness is one of his favorites. The brewery, which opened only a year ago, also makes Elle's Brown Ale, a distinguished porter-style, malt-driven brown.

Readers' choice: Oatmeal, Breckenridge

Best Local Microbrew (Porter)
Saint Brigid's Porter
Great Divide Brewing Company
2201 Arapahoe St.

Saint Brigid turned her bathwater into beer for a group of clerics, and we figure we're no less worthy of a miracle. In the meantime, the Saint Brigid's Porter comes close enough. The year-old Great Divide, which offers free samples of its products at the brewery so you can decide before you buy, takes a more traditional approach in making this porter, a thick-tasting but light-textured brew teeming with roasted malt flavor and undertones of chocolate and coffee. We'd move heaven and earth ourselves to get a glass...or two.

Best Local Microbrew (Wheat)
Tabernash Weiss
Tabernash Brewing Company
205 Denargo Market

Last, but not yeast. Tabernash Weiss is a German-style wheat beer and--ach du lieber!--that's what we like about it. Most American wheat beers use English ale yeast, which results in a thinner flavor, and they use more hops than German wheats, which results in more bitterness. Tabernash avoids those flaws by relying on a German strain of yeast to produce a full-bodied, fruity flavor with little bitterness.

Best Transformation of an Old Mill
Columbine Brewery
5798 Rapp St., Littleton

The Columbine started out as a grain mill a century ago, but since it closed down its milling operations, it's seen a succession of doomed restaurants come and go. The latest owners wisely decided not to go against the grain and instead turned the structure--still rustic and filled with some of the old tools--into a brewpub. What cooks at the Columbine is Italian food, whose heartiness goes well with the English-style ales. And heavy imbibers can find out how much they drank by weighing themselves on the operating grain scale by the bar.

Best Blue-Collar Bar in a Yuppie Setting
Sundown Saloon
1136 Pearl St., Boulder

At the end of a long flight of stairs beneath Boulder's very un-blue-collar Pearl Street Mall sits the Sundown, a place where surly men rule the dozen or so pool tables and workmanlike pitchers of Pabst Blue Ribbon are the alcohol servings of choice. Out of place? Nah, just different--and beautiful. Best Blue-Collar Bar in a Hot Spot

Rocky Flats Lounge
11229 Hwy. 93, between Golden and Boulder
The beer at the Rocky Flats Lounge, just beyond the west gates of the former nuclear-weapons plant, doesn't glow in the dark. But it is ice-cold and cheap--just $3 a pitcher. A game of pool costs only fifty cents, and a comforting Hank Williams/Patsy Cline-style jukebox provides all the background noise you need.

Best Happy Hour for Free Food
Gate 12
2301 Blake St.

A block away from Coors Field's Gate 12--hence the name--Friday afternoon's free spread at Gate 12 is truly a field of dreams. The forty-foot-long "International Buffet" changes every week but always includes plenty o' munchies from different regions of the world. This food truly knows the way to a man's heart. Then Gate 12 captures what remains of his mind with drinks and drafts that are no more expensive here than at any other pubs in the area, as well as eleven billiard tables for rent by the hour and 33 TVs (two big and one enormous), all tuned to sports.

Readers' choice: Gate 12

Best Free Feed for Seniors
Lady Luck Casino
120 Main St., Central City

Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? On Tuesdays and Thursdays, seniors are guaranteed to come up winners in Central City. On those two days, lunch for anyone 55 and over is on the house at the Lady Luck Casino.

Best Adult Hangout for Kids
Rock Bottom Brewery
1001 16th St.

When you want to be a grownup but still want to bring the little ones, don't shy away from this brightly lit, welcoming brewpub. Without exception, the waitstaff is friendly, patient and interested in little people... which leaves you lots of extra time to sip one of their consistently good beers, eat from their better-than-bar-food menu and generally enjoy yourself. The kids will love sitting at the raised drinking tables, and you'll love letting them crayon all over the beer placemats. Just don't go during meat-market times: Friday and Saturday nights.

Best Single-Malt Scotch List
Wynkoop Brewing Company
1634 18th St.

Quite a few bars and restaurants have jumped on the single-malt Scotch bandwagon, but Wynkoop still leads the parade. With 32 single-malts available--from ten-year-old Glenfiddich to McCallen 25, from the Highlands to the Lowlands--this brewpub isn't afraid to broaden customers' horizons far beyond beer. And for single-malt first-timers, the staff is knowledgeable enough to pour it on for those looking for, say, more oak or less peat. Smooth move, Wynkoop.

Best Scotch Sampler
York St. Cafe
2239 E. Colfax Ave.

Now that everyone wants to be seen with a swinging single-malt, those unfamiliar with this whiskey--made exclusively from malt, rather than the high percentage of grain found in blended Scotches--need somewhere to turn for guidance. York St. offers just the avenue: a single-malt sampler. The six tasters, drawn from York St.'s list of thirty single-malt Scotches, changes each month, but the price stays steady at $10 for six three-quarter-ouncers. A bonny deal, indeed.

Best Apres-Ski Single-Malt Scotch Selection
L'Apogee
911 Lincoln Ave., Steamboat Springs

At L'Apogee you'll find the guy who started the single-malt Scotch craze in Colorado. Jamie Jennings owns this restaurant, which cooks up French food with an Asian flair on the main drag in Steamboat. But skiers aren't snowed by just the food; L'Apogee carries more than forty types of this malt-only whiskey. Jennings is a member of a single-malt Scotch club in Scotland, and he knows just about everything there is to know on the subject. If you're hungry, remember that Monday nights are Thai-only--for food, at least. For drink, every night belongs to Scotland.

Best Bourbon Selection
Rocky Mountain Diner
800 18th St.

Eliza Craig, the bourbon named after the Baptist minister from Bourbon County, Kentucky, who created this fermented grain liquor, is but one of the 26 bourbons available at the Rocky Mountain Diner. From small-barrel batches and blends to rare and sour mash, this Western-style, blue-collar diner for white-collar folks offers the choicest of the choice. Look for everything from Booker Noe and Blantons all the way down to Old Charter. The chicken-fried steak with cracklin' gravy is the obvious precursor.

Best Nouvelle Martinis
Bluepoint at the Ice House
1801 Wynkoop St.

If you don't look below the surface--of the street, that is, because this little jewel of a bistro is located in the basement of the Ice House Design Center--you'll miss the evening buzz you know you need. Wacked-out martinis, made not just with flavored vodkas and gins but with Kentucky bourbon and sake, have been sprouting up all over downtown--but although the martini lists are expansive, the drinks themselves are expensive. It's enough to leave you shaken, if not stirred. The Bluepoint mixologists, however, have distilled their martini menu down to thirty standouts--including the Cajun, with pepper vodka and a jalapeno-stuffed olive, and the Razz-tini, with a splash of Chambord and lemonade--and reduced the prices, too. At $4.50 a heady glass, these weird drinks are running at about two thirds the going rate. Here's mud in your eye.

Best Margarita
Cafe Iguana
300 Fillmore St.

All of the margaritas served at Cafe Iguana are grand; the Grand Gold, in particular, is a stunningly balanced blend of Cuervo Gold and Grand Marnier. Still, the Yucatan rules as the lizard king. To make it, Cafe Iguana starts with the fairly standard margarita base of Jose Cuervo Tradicional, fresh lime juice and Cointreau, then adds the juices of papaya, guava and coconut. The result is a terrific tropical take on a drink that's already an excellent thirst-quencher.

Readers' choice: Morrison Inn

Best Wine List (Selection)
Napa Cafe
2033 E. Colfax Ave.

With a name like Napa, it's got to be a good wine restaurant. And it is--Cliff Young and his partner, Don Heins, have assembled more than 600 wines in this cozy space that also serves beautiful American food. For vino, though, they don't limit their offerings to this country; Napa's collection spans the globe. Oenophile Heins--who mans Napa's unique wine bar where patrons can try tasters for $2 to $3--eats, drinks and sleeps wine; he studies countries' climates, soil conditions and grape varieties, then chooses accordingly. When you get wine advice from him, you've truly heard it through the grapevine.

Readers' choice: Flagstaff House

Best Wine List (Price)
Pasquini's Pizzeria & Blu Luna Room
1310 S. Broadway

Plenty of restaurants offer variations of "twelve for $12" or "eleven for $11," but Pasquini's wins the bidding with its "ten for $10" wine list. The roster is different on any given night, but a quick check with the bartender or waitperson will usually reveal a Chianti or two--match it with one of their cheese-laden pizzas--a Merlot, maybe Beringer's white Zinfandel and Fetzer's Chardonnay. No matter what the choices are, they add up to little markup and lots of value.

Readers' choice: Bistro at Marshdale

Best Reason to Take Up Drinking
City Wine
347 S. Colorado Blvd.

The two guys who run City Wine--one a former wine buyer at Argonaut, the other an importer who has long supplied a clientele of well-heeled wine swillers--say they reject eight wines for every one they accept. Most of the offerings in their inventory of 200 labels fall in the range of $9 to $15 a bottle, though some drinkable choices go for as little as $5. Beer quaffers are also well-served by the store's sixty brands from famous foreign brewers as well as obscure U.S. micros.

Best Alcoholic Beverage When You Have a Cold
Wynkoop Brewing Company
1634 18th St.

Usually you visit the Wynkoop when you're feeling ale and hearty. But the brewpub also has a special potion that's good for what ails you: a hot toddy. And the bartender won't smirk when you order one, either. Instead, he'll mix up a glass of lemon, honey, hot water and bourbon--lots of bourbon, enough so that you're guaranteed to feel better one way or another.

Best Nonalcoholic Beverage When You Have a Cold
Delhi Darbar
1514 Blake St.

Often a good dose of curry is all you need to clear those sinuses. But if Delhi Darbar's excellent Indian food fails to do the trick, chase it with an order of chai. This sweet, hot, strong, spicy Indian tea can be pleasantly addictive, especially if you have a sore throat and a fatigued countenance.

Best Hot Chocolate According to Hannah Temple, Age 9
Stella Geels and Co.
1476 S. Pearl St.

After last year's Best of Denver issue, Hannah Temple wrote to ask if she could do a review of hot chocolates, explaining that she was the right woman for the job because, as she put it, "I drink it a lot." And she went on to prove it, quaffing nearly all of eight twelve-ounce cups of the stuff in two hours. She finally settled on the hot chocolate at Stella Geels and Co. because it matched her exacting standards. "First, it has to have a lot of chocolate flavor," Hannah said. "Stella's had a lot of chocolate. And it was the fresh whipped cream. That's very important." Stella's uses Ghirardelli chocolate, which accounts for the flavor, and steams the milk, too--a trick most places have caught on to. "But they didn't steam it too much," Hannah added. "Steamed milk sometimes drowns the flavor." In the end, it was just the right combination for a perfect cup. "I have to go with Stella's," she said. Hannah, we'll see you there.

Best Lemonade
Fettoush
1448 Market St.

Middle Eastern food is a perfect complement to summer weather--and so is good lemonade. Pair the two, and you have a way-cool beverage. At Fettoush the sugary homemade citrus brew, swirling with fresh lemon halves, is pumped from one of the luckiest beverage bubblers in town. When you begin to drink it, you expect a tartness that, once married to sweetener, goes down like iced silk--but you don't anticipate the refreshing splash of rosewater that distinguishes Fettoush's exotic formula.

Best Slushy Fruit Drinks
Alfalfa's
Five metro locations

It's hot out there--so hot you can hardly bear the thought of expending all that energy to eat a piece of fruit. If it was just the essence of fruit, though--a dreamy cloud of fruit that you could swallow whole through a straw--maybe that would change your enervated, heat-struck mind. Such a drink does truly exist at Alfalfa's, where, thanks to the invention of the blender, on-duty fruit and coffee baristas can whip up something indescribably delicious. Liquados are available in various combinations of orange, pineapple, banana, strawberry, papaya, melon and coconut, and they're cold enough to chill the tongue of a Polar Bear Club member.

Best Shakes
Wazoo's
1819 Wazee St.

This hamburger-and-pizza joint was one of the first restaurants to open in the new, Coors Field-era LoDo. While it's a popular pre- or post-Rockies-game hangout and within walking distance for most downtown lunchers, Wazoo's greatest asset is its menu of milkshakes. Choose something fruity (strawberry, banana, blueberry) or sweet (root beer, vanilla, chocolate, Oreo or Snickers), or go with the eye-popping mocha latte or cappuccino flavors for a guaranteed energy boost. Each shake is served in a classic soda-fountain glass and tumbler, with enough left for two more servings. And if you've got time to burn off those calories you've just consumed, there's an air-hockey table hidden just past the jukebox.

end of part 3