Restaurant Reviews
An escape to Paris
Clear winter days often put me in a Paris frame of mind. This time of year, cold, crisp air, leafless trees and wintry light give the French capital a monochromatic yet nostalgic quality. For me, this romantic appearance evokes the black and white photography of ...
A homey brunch at Colterra
It was one of those chilly, grayish Saturdays that was a harbinger of upcoming winter. Too cold to go out on the bike and not enough snow on the ground to enjoy wintry sports, so why not go out for a leisurely breakfast? In this spirit, friend Justin joined me on an ...
Farmer Girl Community Bistro seeks to elevate simple
Often in this column I’ll praise a restaurant for preparing food simply. It’s always a feat when a chef lets ingredients sing their own...
If it ain’t broke
In many ways, Boulder’s restaurant culture, with its focus on local, organic and high-quality ingredients and preparation, serves as a model for what the rest of the country could be doing to help Americans eat better. But a significant barrier to that end is that ...
Something for everyone
Avexing of diminutive slider size. A product of gender bias, culinary conundrum revolves around A&W’s sizing scheme for its hamburgers. It was easy enough to figure out the Baby Burger’s place in the pecking order, as it was the Mama Burger was larger, but it was ...
Tibet Kitchen: bad parking, great prices
You know Tibet Kitchen. You’ve driven by its location on the corner of Arapahoe and Folsom dozens of times, seen its large sign advertising lunch specials starting at $4.95 and its nightmare of a parking lot and kept right on going, thinking “one day” to yourself. ...
Off the beaten brunch
As friend Lisa and I drove on Hwy. 36 north of Boulder, we couldn’t help but notice the landscape’s arid harshness. Even though the sun was shining, we couldn’t shake a feeling of wintry desolation. Happily, the mood shifted for the better once we entered our ...
Snap judgment
At first glance, Casa Alvarez might as well be decorated exclusively in red flags. It occupies the back corner location of a 30th Street strip mall and has an interior that looks like every Mexican restaurant in every town, with light pastel coloring and tile, overly...
Niwot’s gourmet pizzeria delivers
This is the sort of place you’d find in the Northeast,” declared Kurt, a Massachusetts transplant, as we took our seats inside Lefty’s Gourmet Pizza and Ice Cream. We had been bicycling for the last few hours on the back roads north of Boulder when this homey Niwot...
Burgers and shakes with style
I used to mess with my friend Andrew by feeding him false reports that a popular burger and milkshake chain had set up shop in Colorado. As it turns out, that chain now does have a Denver-area outpost, but it’s far enough away to require advanced planning, and who ...
Indian food, buffet style
Occupying the site of the former Royal Peacock (the restaurant, not an actual bird), India’s Clay Oven continues the decades-long tradition of dishing out subcontinental fare near the intersection of 55th and Arapahoe. With the exception of a brighter paint job and ...


















