Denver Food Blog

​Time to toast a dozen students at the University of Denver School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management, who have organized the first-ever DU Vin Festival Grand Tasting.

The Grand Tasting runs from 2 to 6 p.m. today, in the HRTM Building at 2044 East Evans on the DU campus. Tickets are a deal at $52.80, since the proceeds go to a scholarship program. For more information, click here -- or just head to DU at 2 p.m.

John Plessinger in a booth at the Nob Hill Inn, the bar his father put in his name back in 1969, when he was 21.

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What you may have missed this week on Cafe Society while you were hanging on every last word of our hi-larious stories about the time we spent getting up close and personal with the regulars at Nob Hill Inn, which may very well be the best damn dive bar in Denver.

Those of us who write this food bloggy thing called Cafe Society are communing at the Fainting Goat next Wednesday night for drinks, drinks and more drinks. But you know what Jason Sheehan's like ... It's not a party unless all of his fans show up. (Weege, this means you.)

Speaking of Sheehan, if you haven't read the touchy-feely love letter from his biggest fan, a chap by the name of Jon Richard, then you should totally stop whatever it is that you're doing right this moment and get ready to PEE YOUR PANTS.

Which you probably won't do after reading Lori Midson's Chef and Tell interview with Parallel 17 chef-owner Mary Nguyen, who is nothing like Mr. Richards. Instead, the calm, cool and composed chef talks about fleeing Vietnam during the fall of Siagon, her contempt for scrambled eggs and chicken breast and her appreciation for annatto seeds.

Midson also had the pleasure of dining at C Y Steakhouse in the company of strippers, but while the peelers were titillating, it was the food porn that got Midson all hot and bothered.

Bobby Stuckey, the master sommelier at Frasca Food and Wine, looked hot, but not remotely bothered, when he placed 283rd in the New York Marathon with a time of 2:47:23. In case you suck at math, that means that Stuckey averaged a 6:24 minute mile.

God only knows how many drinks Drew Bixby averaged while researching and writing Denver's Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in the Mile High City, but we're guessing it was more than necessary.

Apparently, the shirts behind XO Noodle Bar also found it necessary to close that place down, because that's exactly what they did last Saturday. But according to exec chef Jose Guerreco, it was the location -- not the concept -- that left a wet noodle in the mouth of diners.

It was much better news for Jeff Osaka, owner/exec chef of Twelve, the tiny restaurant on the fringes of downtown that just celebrated its first birthday in another difficult location. If you missed the toast, stop by for the $35 prix fixe dinner, offered Tuesday-Thursday .

Colfax Avenue has plenty of places to drink, as we prove with our profile of the Nob Hill Inn. But there's also good food along America's longest main street. Including:

Lori Midson

​Bastien's Restaurant 3501 East Colfax Avenue., 303-322-0363. Bastien's isn't retro; the rest of the world is. Looking for the cocktail culture of the ´50s? Bastien's has it. Early-´70s swinger swank? It has that, too. Bastien's doesn't change with the times; the times change around it. Like they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and while the batteries on Bastien's Timex ran down a long time ago, this is still a great place to go for good steaks, strong drinks and a taste of Denver's culinary past.

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Does reading this blog make you hunger to write?

Westword is expanding its Cafe Society coverage, and we're looking for a great freelance writer with a passion for food and restaurants, as well as the ability to produce stylish and knowledgeable news and opinion pieces about the Denver dining scene. This is not a restaurant critic position. We have one of those already, and Jason Sheehan's not going anywhere. A background in reporting is highly desirable. So are interviewing skills. And if you're a master of compiling witty "Top 10" lists, all the better.

E-mail a cover letter that includes why you're a good fit for the job -- which is definitely part-time -- along with a resume and clips (or writing samples), to lori.midson@westword.com. If you've previously applied for this position, we still have your resume and clips on file. Trust us on this.

Just another Tuesday night...

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In case any of the rest of you out there do need an excuse to come out and have a few drinks on a Wednesday night, we've invented one for you: the first-ever Cafe Society Contributors, Commenters, Readers and Sources Bachanal.

Yeah, we've been doing this whole bloggity thing for a while now. And you good folks have hung in there with us through all the ups and downs and virtual weirdness. Thus, we have decided to celebrate the best way we know how -- by drinking and carousing and behaving badly at the first bar that would have us: the legendary Fainting Goat.

Fans and haters, freaks and weirdos, working folk and angry loners -- everyone who reads and/or participates in this little online gastronaut commune we've got going -- is welcome to attend. We're all gathering from 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, November 11, at the Goat, 846 Broadway. We'll have drink specials ($12 for a bucket of five Coronas, shots of Wall Street whiskey for some ridiculously low price). We'll have special guests (well, I'll be there, anyway, as will Patty and Lori, maybe Tyler the Intern, possibly Nancy and the rest of the Cafe Society staff) and I'm hoping that some of our more outspoken commenters will make the scene as well and amuse us all by getting drunk and rasslin'. (By the way,
Weege, e-mail Patty at patricia.calhoun@westword.com -- she has a mission for you.)

And if all goes well--meaning if a bunch of you show up and the police, mercifully, do not--we'll be making these parties a regular occurrence.

Liz Kellermeyer

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​Like a good Jew-in-training, I've adopted a ritual of taking down a massive bowl of vermicelli noodles covered in pork before heading to my Intro to Judaism class.

The eternal question, the one no rabbi can answer, is this: Who's serving up the noodles?

Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images

​First, Michelle Obama caught the attention of carrot stalkers when she corralled a group of Washington, D.C., schoolkids to help her garden grow on the White House's South Lawn; she also pimped her garden on Sesame Street.

Then Spike Mendelsohn, burger wizard, former Top Chef Chicago contestant and the exec chef of Good Stuff Eatery in D.C., named a burger after the First Lady. Made with free-range turkey, Swiss, caramelized onions and several of the herbs grown in the White House garden, he called it the "Michelle Melt" and donated the proceeds to a D.C. nonprofit that feeds the city's homeless population.

And on Tuesday night's episode of The Biggest Loser, Obama's garden was, again, prominently featured -- even if she wasn't.

But now comes word that the First Lady will appear on the January 3, 2010, premiere of the Food Network's Iron Chef America.

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Yesterday I talked with Alex Gurevich about his plans for making pizzas at the former Mojitos/Mel's/Montecito/Piscos/Dudley's space at 1120 East Sixth Avenue, right smack in the middle of Sixth Avenue's restaurant row. It sounded like good news. Despite some bad moves over the years, I think Gurevich is a good chef who runs interesting restaurants with talented crews. And the Sixth Avenue spot isn't the only new project he has going, it turns out.

A couple years back, after getting crushed during the opening of his Limon, his novo Andino restaurant 1618 East 17th Avenue, Gurevich decided that, rather than spend his Friday and Saturday nights turning away the overflow or making his customers wait upwards of an hour just to get a table, he would pick up the space next door to Limon and expand his cool little modern Peruvian joint from around fifty seats to something more like a hundred.

A few days ago, I saw my chef talking to an older man with a funny-looking wicker basket. She called me over for what turned into an all-organic olive oil tasting. The guy had finishing oil as well, so that we could compare ours to his. After trying the oil we use, the man (who looked and talked a little like Jeffrey Steingarten) searched for a word to describe it, and eventually went with "cloying."