Restaurant Reviews
A good bite
Out of the disemboweled corpse of a failed Chili’s emerged the shiny new Murphy’s Tap House in Louisville earlier this month. And though there are definite similarities in the skeletal structure of the two restaurants, Murphy’s Tap House has done enough in its ...
Going guilty at Dish Gourmet
Since 2006, chef-owner Brian Benham’s Pearl Street fixture has been catering to Boulderites in the figurative as well as the literal sense of the verb. From the antique pantry at the entrance of Dish Gourmet to the colorful blackboard menu mounted above the deli ...
Mumtaz Mediterranean Food elevates street fare
In four street food dishes, Mumtaz cultivated unique flavor and elevated the routine to the exceptional.
The first dish was a lamb and beef gyro...
Parting shot: My favorite restaurants
Editor’s note: This is Clay Fong’s last restaurant review for Boulder Weekly...
Upstairs and upscale
The Hotel Boulderado spent much of this year revamping its culinary amenities with overhauls transforming the basement-level Catacombs Bar into License No. 1, and the upstairs and upscale sitdown, Q’s, into Spruce. The, ahem, “sprucing up” was finished and launched ...
A farmhouse kitchen and pub
Bramble and Hare — the name evokes an English countryside pub, perhaps a spot in the Cotswolds. Waggish diners may initially dismiss this as Black Cat Bistro Chef Eric Skokan’s attempt at creating a sort of Locale Next Door. Yet this new self-styled farmhouse ...
Respecting the urban taco’s roots
I’ll argue that the most critical determinant of an ethnic restaurant’s success is how much it respects the source cuisine. Go to any ethnic neighborhood in a big city, and you’ll likely chance upon a family-run hole in the wall that’s wildly popular due to its ...
Oak has recovered — and then some
When assessing the recently reopened Oak at Fourteenth, the lazy tendency would be to open with a sentence such as this: “Like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Oak has returned from months of rebuilding from a debilitating fire.” Given this tough history, it’s also...
Some China spice
Spice China 269 McCaslin Boulevard, Louisville. 720-890-0999 One of my childhood traditions was Friday night family dinner in Oakland’s Chinatown, a ritual both satisfying and inexpensive. This custom lives on, as my sister recently related that she was able to ...
Savor El Salvador
Comfort food’s a tricky concept. When it entered the popular lexicon a couple of decades ago, the term applied mainly to meat loaf, tuna casserole and other suburban midcentury staples; today, reflecting shifts in the American culinary landscape, it could as easily ...
Going samurai at Alfalfa’s
The standard-issue American breakfast of bacon and eggs traces its lineage back to its British ancestor, the “full English.” While some breakfasts may focus on sweet pastries and not much more than a tipple of coffee, the Anglo-American approach embraces both ...
The Boulder Cork has aged well
Settings into a venerable locale such as the Boulder Cork restaurant, one can’t but help wonder if the dapper sports coat-clad gentleman at the next table might be a regular who’s come here for decades. Perhaps a younger version of him showed up here in the ’70s, ...











