Restaurant Reviews
Chinese-American standbys
I’ve finally taken a “If you can’t beat, join ‘em” tack to my critical assessment of local Chinese restaurants. No longer do I hold Boulder eateries to the same standard of the Bay Area joints of my youth. Why? Because for the most part, establishments around here ...
Can’t complain
As applied to restaurants no less than to novels or films, the adjective “critic-proof ” is usually a backhanded compliment, acknowledging the consumer savvy rather than the craftsmanship of the producer in question. There’s just no point in arguing with the easy ...
Just in time
Finding a place at the Boulder breakfast table is often troublesome. Though it’s not necessarily a Boulder-specific problem — the truth is that, proportionately, there aren’t a lot of breakfast joints, and people like eating breakfast out. It’s cheap, it’s delicious ...
A hipster visit to Boulder’s Snooze
A couple months back, I was chatting on the phone with my sister when I mentioned my fear of becoming a hipster...
Eastern authenticity at Ting’s in East County
I’m often forced to compromise at Chinese restaurants by eating less authentic fare like sesame chicken and cream cheese wontons — not exactly the stuff of childhood Chinatown dinners. Certainly Lafayette’s Ting’s Place has such dishes available (and I do enjoy them ...
The Peloton%uFFFDs pizzeria
Nowadays, many big-city, high-end residential developers strive to install an on-premises destination restaurant as an inducement for buyers. Case in point is San Francisco’s Millennium Tower, a pricey residential high-rise that features the RN74 eatery, operated by ...
Comfort food
Sherpa’s Adventurers in Boulder feels a little bit like home — not necessarily your own home, but a home...
It’s in the name
There’s no better name for Precision Pours in Louisville than what they chose. Like many in the craft coffee world, there is a focus on acquiring the best beans from around the world, and there is a second focus on using the best methods available to extract flavor, ...
No furry blue puppets, just good Korean
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 ...
Big Daddy (not Burl Ives) serves up quick, inexpensive meals
It`s been difficult for me to disassociate Boulder’s Big Daddy Bagels from the 1958 film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In this adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Burl Ives’ Big Daddy was a menacing sort, the dying patriarch of a fading...
An overdone riff
The word “riff” implies improvisation and excitement. It instantly brings to mind a memorable guitar solo, and applied to food, the expectation for something inspiring. Unfortunately, in the case of Riffs Urban Fare, there is such a thing as too much riffing...
An authentic Chicago dog, hold the ketchup
The finer points of the Chicago-style hot dog have always been a bit cryptic for me. A few layover meals of sausage in a bun at O’Hare did little to deepen my understanding of this Windy City nosh. Unsurprisingly, I was happy to have friend and Windy City native Paul...