Best Hole-in-the-Wall 2008 | Tacos D.F. | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Hole-in-the-Wall

Tacos D.F.

Mark Antonation
Tacos D.F. began its life as a taco truck — a great taco truck that worked the fertile territory along South Parker Road. Although it now has a roof, walls and a real address, it isn't anything more than a great taco truck with a roof, walls and a real address. In keeping with a neighborhood lonchera, all orders are taken through a literal hole in the wall — a window crudely hacked through the back wall that divides the dining floor from the small kitchen. Through this hole, you ask for your tacos, you pay your money and you pick up your order.

Best Hot Dog

Old Fashioned Italian Deli

Stephen Cummings
The guys at the Old Fashioned know from good hot dogs. Why? Because they're from Buffalo, a town that long ago went to the dogs. Here, they're Sahlen's brand, boiled to a beautiful ruddy pink and served on a simple bun, with a little twist of casing that makes a tail at both ends. The standard at the Old Fashioned is "flying with everything," which means topped with everything from Buffalo's own Weber's horseradish mustard and dog sauce to jalapeños. But we prefer two simpler versions: either naked with just a shot of Weber's (the Apollonian ideal of hot-dog topping, as far as we're concerned), or dirty with hot sauce and slivered onions. The setting is as authentic as the dogs: slightly grungy, with walls covered with pictures of Marilyn Monroe, mismatched tablecloths and tables, and shelves loaded down with Italian dry goods. In fact, the deli is so reminiscent of a million Back East joints that sitting here for an hour is almost as good as a trip home for those born and bred at sea level.

Best Hot-Dog Cart

Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs

Biker Jim Pittenger is still our top dog. No other vendor shows the kind of careful dedication that he brings to Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs, his cart parked in Skyline Park. He's got a cool portable grill, offerings ranging from Alaskan reindeer sausage laced with sriracha to white veal brats to serious grilled dogs with mustard-and-nothin', and crowds lined up three deep at lunch every day.

Best Indian Atmosphere

India's Restaurant

Courtesy India's Restaurant Facebook
India's shows its love for the culture and cuisine of India on the walls. Every flat surface, every spare inch of space, is covered with statuettes and serving bowls, with tapestries and flags, with seemingly every tchotchke, keepsake and souvenir ever produced by busy hands on the Indian subcontinent. In India, this place would probably be made fun of like an Outback Steakhouse in Sydney, but here the cluttered shelf space only adds to the feeling of other-ness that has always been one of India's big draws — along with the consistently fine food served off a fairly standard menu.

Best Indian Restaurant

Royal Peacock

For more years than we can remember, Royal Peacock has been serving not just the best Indian food in the area, but some of the best Indian food anywhere — the kind you can eat once and dream about for years after, or eat every day and still crave at midnight. There's no gimmickry here, no flash, no bizarre international fusions or misguided attempts at modernization. Instead, the menu is full of brilliant and full-flavored versions of somasa, murgh chaat, boti kebab, Goan masala and more, a humble offering of honest, delicious dishes passed down through generations of a restaurant family who have long been the best at what they do.

Best International Kosher Deli

East Side Kosher Deli

Courtesy East Side Kosher Deli Facebook
For almost twenty years, Michael and Marcy Schreiber have overseen this large kosher oasis that stocks everything from candies and snacks to Hanukkah candles and kosher ramen. There's a bakery, a very busy deli counter (complete with an old-fashioned plastic-number dispenser to keep an orderly flow), a fish department (specializing in lox, natch) and, all the way in the back, a small, add-on restaurant that serves up deli sandwiches, blintzes, knishes from the bakery, herring salad and chopped liver, as well as short ribs (beef, of course), fish tacos, fish and chips, Louisiana gumbo, North African lamb stew and such "Oriental specialties" as sweet-and-sour chicken and beef stir-fry. True, most people seem to stick to the basics: scrambled eggs with salami, matzo ball soup and bagels with lox. But nowhere else in Denver will you find taquitos, tongue sandwiches and blackened ahi with wasabi sharing space on the same menu.

Best Irish Barbecue

Cabin Creek Smokehouse Barbeque

Courtesy Cabin Creek Smokehouse Facebook
Okay, so there really isn't anything called Irish barbecue. But if there were, it would probably look just like the BBQ masher at Cabin Creek Smokehouse. This is the ultimate barbecue-junkie hangover food: a bowl of mashed red-skin potatoes topped with pulled pork, topped again with cheese and again with sour cream. And while you can continue on from there — adding brisket, chili, barbecue sauce and whatever else is close at hand — we believe that nothing more is needed to make this a perfect meal. Except maybe a couple pints of Sir Arthur Guinness's best.

Best Italian Restaurant in the Last Place You'd Expect It

Osteria Marco

Scott Lentz
Okay, so maybe not the last place you'd expect to find a great Italian restaurant. That would probably be Antarctica, on the moon or in the men's room of the Greyhound station in Provo, Utah. But still, finding a great Italian restaurant in Larimer Square — once home to the awful Josephina's — and in a basement space at that, is pretty surprising. With Osteria Marco, chef/owner Frank Bonanno has created a cozy little hole in the ground with handcrafted pizzas, tons of little snacks and an unparalleled board of artisanal meats and cheeses that Denver foodies would've murdered for five years ago. Start with a glass of anything from the short, tight wine list of Italian wines, chase it with a plate of prosciutto, coppa and fresh-made burrata, move on to a small, hand-thrown pizza, and finish with a bite of something sweet from the simple dessert menu.

Best Japanese Fast Food

Kokoro

Founded in Denver by Mareo Torito, Kokoro has specialized in speed, low prices, freshness and healthy ingredients — with a Japanese accent — for twenty years. The South Colorado Boulevard Kokoro is the best of the three still operating (the others are in Arvada and at 555 Broadway). It looks like an old Woolworth's lunch counter taken over by a mob of Japanese line cooks who turn out exactly what you'd expect to find at a Tokyo noodle shop. There are rice bowls and noodle bowls, sushi that isn't really sushi (five choices, all cooked), gyoza and edamame and salads, all made and delivered incredibly quickly (three minutes, order to plate). When you have a tight schedule and budget but still hanker for a taste of Japan, Kokoro delivers.

Best Japanese Restaurant

Domo Restaurant

Year after year, Domo never fails to impress with its rigid adherence to the traditional cuisine of Northern Japan, its unwavering commitment to authenticity in ingredients and preparation, and the fact that we somehow can sit, stuffing our faces, for two hours on what is essentially an old tree stump and still get up at the end of dinner without feeling crippled by the experience. From the serenity of the Japanese garden in the back to the usually raucous (but occasionally weirdly quiet) dining room, Domo is a half-meditative, half-sensual place — and a meal here can either calm the spirit or excite the senses, depending on what you order and what you're in the mood for. Although the service varies between charmingly informal and coldly standoffish, the food is never less than excellent, never anything but true to the tastes and flavors of the culture it celebrates.

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