Restaurant Reviews

From the outside, Vina Pho & Grill has that anonymous, unappealing look so many non- Pearl Street located Boulder restaurants have: a plain tan box with a sign of some sort. It is the khaki of architecture...

Exploring the basement food court on University Hill, I recently encountered an eatery with the unlikely moniker of Goody Monster. I was mildly disappointed to discover that the person behind the counter wasn’t a furry blue puppet with ping-pong ball eyes. But my ...

Café Aion on the Hill, unlike other spots in this neighborhood, is less grab-and-go student hangout than leisurely neighborhood haunt serving all three meals. Its combination of wood and brick, coupled with ample sunlight and modernistic seating, give it a quality ...

For those old enough, you may remember 1985 as a dark time, mostly because that’s when McDonald’s launched the McDLT. In today’s recycling-conscious age, the McDLT probably wouldn’t exist. For those of you unfamiliar with this environmental atrocity, this was a ...

There’s something about the term “international” that makes it a sort of red flag when judging a restaurant by its menu cover. It’s understandable prejudice on one hand — jack-ofall-trades, master of none, bringing to mind half-assed buffets and ubiquitous houses of ...

It had been a while since I poked my head into Mateo, noteworthy for its fine charcuterie and cheese-laden happy hour and accessible South of France cuisine. Warm, sunny days evoke recollections of tooling around Provence’s gorgeous lavender-scented landscapes. As a ...

One of the required American barbecue trail pilgrimages is Dallas’s Sonny Bryan’s, a joint renowned for its meltingly tender beef brisket. There are several locations scattered throughout the city, but the cognoscenti know that the food is best at the original shack ...

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 ...

Sometimes hunger can sneak up on you like a pouncing cat or a stealthy ninja, and this is precisely the dilemma colleague Carin found herself in one fair weekday morning. Given that it was a tad late for breakfast, and a touch early for lunch, we figured that North ...

Generally, the newest local restaurants shy away from the excess frilliness of haute cuisine and instead towards venerable comfort foods. For the past year, gourmet pizza has been all the rage, and folks can’t seem to get enough of updated pies with artisan ...

While most local Mexican restaurants are affordable familystyle venues, there are a handful of restaurants in this genre gunning for something rarefied. These locales up the ante with memorable ambience, a gourmet versus utilitarian experience, and prices to ...

Stepping off the Pearl Street Mall into Boulder’s Antica Roma, one immediately notices the pains taken to recreate a Roman Holiday-worthy street facade. Exposed brick and other architectural details rendered in earthy reds and browns give this interior a retro, back ...