Restaurant Reviews

Rain or shine

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The Hungry Toad was built for rainy days. It makes for a cozy pint when you can sit in the corner and watch the wind beat rain into the windows with wooden jambs. The fixtures are natural, from the exposed brick wall to the leather bar chairs to the wooden tabletops...

A well-designed and hospitable Kasa

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You’d be hard-pressed to find a restaurant in Boulder with a more conscious design aesthetic than the Japanese eatery known as Kasa Japanese Grill. Decor here is anchored by leafy trees painted monochromatic white, setting off light hardwood floors in a cheerful, ...

Cup at Conor’s

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Unfortunately, pretty much everything I know about World Cup soccer comes from the mid-’90s pinball machine of the same name. I know that teams from around the world are involved and someone enthusiastically yells out “goal” in an elongated manner whenever points ...

Stopping in, stepping out

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You’ll have to be OK with picnic casual: good food made simply by friendly people. If you like that, you’ll like Caspian Deli & Grocery — an unassuming Middle Eastern market on Pearl and 26th Street that does nothing but charm as soon as you walk in the door...

Tracking down perfection

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You have to appreciate the moxie of a restaurant that is open until it sells out. Especially when you set up shop at the end of an empty parking lot, triangulated by Buffalo Wild Wings, PetSmart and Super Target, in the perpetually under construction, unglamorous ...

Give me home fries or give me death

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  Boulder Weekly last visited the North Boulder Cafe in 2009. And it’s not hard to understand how we forgot about it. Tucked into a nondescript shopping center on the edge of town, the North Boulder Cafe isn’t really on the way to anywhere, and its signage is pretty ...

Straightedge

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When I announced plans to review The Rowdy Mermaid, Boulder’s new kombucha taproom, a co-worker swiftly warned me reading on the Internet that kombucha, a sparkling fermented tea drink with live yeast and bacteria cultures, can cause “fatal diarrhea,” to which ...

Out of this world

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When you order at El Fogon in Longmont, you’re supposed to look up at the old Spanish-only menu with pictures and relay your choice to the cashier. But in practice it’s hard not to look at the giant rotisserie of bright red meat behind the counter and point and say...

Real ramen rocks at Bento Zanmai

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Rmen gets a bad rap in the United States, especially since most of us are only familiar with the instant dime-a-pack variety, weighted down with a surplus of salt and MSG. This is too bad, as authentic ramen has about as much resemblance to the starving student ...

An old-school diner with smart updates

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Nestled in Longmont’s Prospect neighborhood, Two Dog Diner is ideally matched to its vibrant, New Urbanist residential setting...

A slice of Italy

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Some local Italian restaurants trace their culinary lineage back to the venerable Americanized red sauce haunts of San Francisco or the East Coast. Alternatively, they may possess a more direct link to the old country without the hindrance of flavors compromised to...

At your service

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When we go out for a dining experience, there are expectations, many of which we can’t even articulate, but know viscerally when they’re not met. That’s why as a food writer, I spend so much time writing about a restaurant’s environment and atmosphere. The food is ...