Restaurant Reviews
A hut with potential
With ith a name like Elephant Hut, it’s initially unclear what’s served up at this Boulder restaurant, housed in 30th Street’s Steelyards development. Those with dark imaginations may envision it as akin to Pizza Hut, except with a certain massive land mammal ...
Thunderbird beats the chains
Thunderbird Burgers & BBQ faces the formidable challenge of being a locally owned business in direct competition with big multinational chains. To effectively compete, it needs to be at least comparable in price and, ideally, superior in quality. For the most part, ...
At your service
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 ...
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 ...
Chinese, like mama used to make
For me, a visit to a Chinese restaurant is either an exercise in frustration or dewy-eyed nostalgia. I either feel that the chefs are butchering the favored dishes of my youth, or they should immediately be canonized for their uncanny ability to reproduce the ...
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...
Double vision
Unsurprisingly, the Asian fusion restaurant was all about combinations. But not in the way one might expect...
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...
Rain or shine
It’s hard to quantify something like “best patio.” But even without statistics wunderkind Nate Silverapproved objective data, it’s fair to say to that La Revolución Taqueria and Cantina in old town Louisville is in the running. At least half the total square footage ...
The friendly, global curator
I wonder what Teddy Roosevelt would think of a swanky wine bar. You are confronted with that question at Modena Wine Cafe in Longmont. It’s located next to Roosevelt Park, but more pertinently, its large windows open up to a Rough Rider-era Roosevelt, cowboy hat and ...
A slice of Italy
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...
Tavern fare with a twist
Whenever I visit a place calling itself a tavern, I half expect it to be populated by a clientele consisting of Revolutionary War colonists plotting their next move against the monarchy. More realistically though, I anticipate that a self-proclaimed tavern is an ...

















