Picture This: Our Food Porn Roundup for June

May is Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, but my foodie life ended up full of Asian flavor in June, and most of the #foodporn I posted on my Instagram and other social sites turned to be be Asian or Pacific Islander. I'm only including a fraction here and avoiding the Cherry Blossom Festival altogether, because Westword covered it well. I do eat everything from everywhere, though, so you'll see other cuisines in next month's collection.

In the name of research, I tried a couple of appetizers and a Mai Tai mocktail at Adrift Tiki Bar, which just introduced some new menu items. On July 9, the eatery is hosting a pre-show and post-show evening of Pacific Island eats to celebrate the screening of a new documentary at the Landmark Mayan Theater, which is a short walk from Adrift. The film is about Donn Beach (not his birth name, but he changed it legally), the Caucasian man who single-handedly invented the tiki culture embodied in the old Don the Beachcomber restaurants and the "umbrella" drinks that were once so popular.

The Mai Tai is a classic from those days, with a double-origin story. The original Don the Beachcomber restaurant opened in Hollywood in 1934; the first Trader Vic's Polynesian restaurant opened in Oakland in 1937, and it claims to have invented the Mai Tai. But the Beachcomber had a similar drink before then: As the documentary The Donn of Tiki explains, Beach kept his drink recipes secret and combined all sorts of spirits and juices (especially Caribbean rum, which he helped popularize after Prohibition). Adrift's Mai Tai mocktail was an elaborate, beautifully presented, refreshing drink.
One of my all-time favorite Denver restaurants is Woody's Wings N Things, founded by a Cambodian man who opened a Buffalo wings franchise in a dilapidated strip mall at 6817 Lowel Boulevard and then started adding a variety of foods from Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand (his chef was Thai), Chinese and even a couple of Japanese things. The spot serves damned good wings, too. A few years ago, he sold the restaurant to his niece and retired to a mansion he was able to buy in Cambodia, only to come back to Denver regularly to babysit his grandkids. His huge menu — an album of photos he shot of the dishes, with no prices on them — has expanded a bit since he moved. This dish is Beef Lab Lao Style, with slices of beef and tripe mixed with herbs. The server asked if I really wanted it because it's bitter (from beef bile), but I've had it before and love the flavor. I have yet to have anything from this Woody's that I don't like.
Continuing on my Pacific food tour, I stopped by the Filipino American Community of Colorado's Edgewater headquarters for its annual Filipino Festival, a weekend-long celebration of Pinay performances, culture and cuisine, and picked up an Adobo Chicken plate with rice. The Filipino community in metro Denver is small but mighty, with this festival anchoring its many annual events and sharing traditions with vendors spread out across the parking lot and performers on the stage.
One all-American meal I enjoyed: the Double Royal Burger with pastrami atop two hamburger patties at Crown Burgers. Once again for research, I stopped by to talk with owner Dmitri Brokalakis, whose father had died just the week before. After speaking with him, I took home one of his hand-rolled quarter-pound corn dogs, hand-breaded onion rings, a serving of the famous green chile recipe whose recipe his family got from the owners of the Holly Inn, and his own traditional cuisine, the classic Greek Gyro. Everything was dreamy.
I continued the burger theme with a home-grilled slider (I flavor the ground beef with garlic, onion, Umami powder, Baachan's Japanese BBQ Sauce and whatever else I have lying around) served on King's Hawaiian Rolls (cheap from Costco!) and served on a bed of garden-grown Shiso leaves.
I'll be writing more about my experience, but I had a fun, varied and largely Asian-inflected meal at Hey Kiddo to check out its summer menu and gawk at its amazing Tennyson Street rooftop view. This was the Walk with Us selection of items from the dinner menu centered on pork ribs (a bit strong on the black pepper, but I liked it) and fried chicken. Because it felt Asian, we asked for chopsticks. Hey Kiddo serves tasty mocktails, too.
I had to include a photo of the amazing Hokkaido Hotate: scallops nigiri sushi served up by chef Corey Baker and his hardworking staff at Kumoya Japanese Kitchen and Sushi Restaurant in LoHi. Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, is where my mom is from, and the seafood from that part of the country is incredible, including the hotate. She'd be jealous that I was able to enjoy it. The scallops were toward the end of an amazing evening of dishes that kept coming... and coming. Yes, again, I was researching. It was work. Really.
The one fail for the month — not that the place needed my approval, given the full parking lot, the wait outside and the crowds inside, and the constant come-and-go from the takeout parking spots — was Olive Garden. Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo sounded like a good idea, but when I got it home I found it way over-flavored with balsamic vinegar and gloppy sauce. At least when you eat at the restaurant, you can put aside the entree and chow down on the bottomless breadsticks, soup and salad. No, I don't go there often. No, I don't plan to return.