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Snooze owner Jon Schlegel certainly has loyal fans -- and family members. Today's print edition includes a response to my January 18 Second Helping from Schlegel's brother Adam, who works at the popular breakfast/lunch place. We also received the following from another relative who lives in Tucson: What's Jason Sheehan got against Snooze? He's had it out for the place since his first review, which included more obscure references to Omega Man than it did about the actual food. I guess the scores of people, including myself, who willingly and happily wait to get a taste of that f'ed up corn beef hash, blown hollandaise, gooey tortillas and those "okay" pancakes are all just a bunch of morons. But what do we know? We're not the hipster food critic.

And seriously -- call it eggs Benedict. "Eggs Benny" just makes Jason sound silly. Or lazy. Or both. It does not make Jason sound hip.

Personally, I've never had a bad meal at Snooze, and will continue to support it any chance I get.

And considering her connection to the owner, she'll probably have plenty of chances. -- Jason Sheehan

"Check it out," I said. "The dancing pizza is back. Why do you think it's wearing a top hat?"

And with that, I begin this week's exploration of Lebanese cuisine and Middle Eastern pop music at Aladdin Cafe and Grill -- where the falafel is hot, the hookahs are smokin' and everyone, everyone ends up dancing.

Also on tap in the February 1 Cafe section: the end of an era for line-cook slang and convicts milking goats. -- Jason Sheehan

With temperatures dropping again, people are warming to the thought of hot, hot food. BBQ, in short. Witness this recent plea from Jeff:

Growing up in the Midwest, I have developed a predilection (or as my wife would call it, an obsession) for BBQ. I enjoy different regional sauces but am still drawn to the more standard Midwestern molasses/ketchup/tomato-based sauces.

Like you, I can almost weep over well-prepared ribs. I have yet to find "that place" that I can call mine. I found a mom-and-pop joint in Kansas City, Missouri, that I'm sure barely passed health inspection, but made me kiss the mama of the place because her sauce was so good. I am looking for that kind of place.

In your (paid) wanderings, have you found "the" BBQ place for Denver? Not the best "North Carolina" style or the best "Texas Style", but what you would consider as hands-down the best place. I keep finding great places, and they keep closing. Blest BBQ, Ollie's Rib Shack, a place off of Parker and Yale. It's rather frustrating, but I like to give my money (and my stomach) to these kind of places.

Help Jeff go for broke. Send your BBQ ideas here. -- Jason Sheehan

There's big news coming out of Cherry Creek, with the announcement that Elway's is expanding to a second location inside the new Ritz-Carlton, Denver, which is currently under construction at 1881 Curtis Street.

And I predicted this almost a year ago, in the April 20, 2006 Bite Me column where I wrote that Elway's had hired former Mel's exec chef Tyler Wiard. Before bringing Wiard on board, Elway's co-owner Tim Schmidt and floorman extraordinaire Tom Moxcey had made the decision to bump current chef, Charles Schwerd, to an exec's position.

For the record, I liked much of the food (if not the service) at John Holley's Asian Bistro, which makes the fact that they tossed the Westword rack after my review came out a little puzzling. No question, though, that the place has lots of fans, because letters like the following keep coming in:

Contrary to your review of John Holley's I find the food and service excellent. I eat there on a regular basis and find the staff friendly and the food wonderful. John is almost always there and makes a point of spending time in the dinning room and handing out special samples to try.

That's nothing, though, compared to the output from fans of Snooze, which I still don't like much at all. A couple of those letters may make it to next week's paper; in the meantime, here's a sampling from "supermom":

Are you nuts? Don't know what your problem is, buddy, but you seem to be the only one that doesn't have "good taste." You will be eating "crow" when you find out later this month that Snooze has been voted the top Breakfast place in Colorado!

Better crow than Snooze's hash. -- Jason Sheehan

Two weeks ago, Elizabeth Plotke of Campo de Fiore (300 Fillmore Street in Cherry Creek) announced that local business tycoon and big-time philanthropist Josh Hanfling had come on board as a partner at the restaurant, which opened back in 2001.

Hanfling is allegedly the man who knows everyone, and I'm guessing the hope around Campo is that he'll bring them all in for dinner. At the very least, he'll bring in plenty of press -- including a big plug on a party there in yesterday's Bill Husted column in the Denver Post.

And this one, of course. -- Jason Sheehan

2052 Stout Street has been a bar for as long as matters. It was the Punch Bowl for damn near forever—an old boxing bar famous for the landscapes painted on all the booth-backs by wandering artist Noel Adams, who traded art for drinks and sandwiches, and for the number of people who'd been carried out of the place feet first. When the Punch Bowl finally succumbed to the cruel gravity of modernity a couple years ago, the address went to the Stout Pub, a bar/restaurant that kept the scrim of seasoned age the Punch Bowl had earned and added a menu featuring the cuisine of the upper Midwest: fried cheese, fried potatoes, fried pickles, fried everything, and then beer to wash it down.

I liked the Stout Pub, but I like its replacement even better. Isaac James -- a first-time restaurateur with no experience in the industry and a hankering for creating a British/Pakistani fusion bar -- stepped in and took over the space two years ago, turning it into the British Bulldog.

You can read all about it (as well as stories about Sean Kelly and Eric Roeder) right here on Wednesday afternoon, or pick up the next issue of Westword.
-- Jason Sheehan

Word is out on the third annual Denver Restaurant Week, February 24-March 7. The culinary celebration has boomed from 83 restaurants the first year to 125 last year to 150 this year. All are offering multi-course dinners for $52.80 for two ($26.40 for one), not including tax or tip.

For a list of those participating and to make reservations, go to www.denver.org.

One of DRW's regulars is Panzano at 1717 Champa Street, in the Hotel Monaco. Panzano is currently closed for some kitchen renovations (including a new floor), but it will be up and running again on February 4, in plenty of time to prepare for the the Restaurant Week onslaught later that month.

In my year-end roundup, I shared my shock that Windows Cafe -- the all-veggie, pan-Asian eatery that had opened in the embattled 12200 East Cornell space in Aurora that had already swallowed the likes of Maruti Narayan's, Denver Woodlands and Boudreaux's Bayou Buffet -- was still open. As it turns out, though, Windows closed before 2007 started. (At least I was only off by a couple of weeks -- unlike the Rocky Mountain News, which included Windows in its list of green restaurants on Saturday.)

And another joint has already moved into this jinxed location: La Toscana, an Italian restaurant doing a straightforward menu of pastas, salads and seafood dishes. -- Jason Sheehan

Toast is the greatest breakfast bar in the world.

Am I being a bit hyperbolic here? Yes. I know I shouldn't say it's the best in the world because I haven't yet been everywhere in the world. I shouldn't even say it's the best in Colorado because it's conceivable that there's some pancake wizard living up in the mountains somewhere, a hairy madman who has direct and serious conversations with God himself about the art of pancakin' and who serves his masterpieces only to the squirrels and lost hikers who wander too near his shack in the woods.

But those of you who regularly read my reviews know that I am fast to fall head-over-heels and shameless (if sometimes fickle) in my drippy affections, so until I find the mythic Flapjack Hermit or some other little hole-in-the-wall that tickles my pancake bone, I'm holding Toast up as my A-number-one and king of the breakfast rush -- my favorite among all the worldly contenders, at least for this week. To read the full review, come back to this site later today, or pick up the new issue of Westword. -- Jason Sheehan

Late word from Greg Goldfogel over at Ristorante Amore in Cherry Creek, who took possession of the former Sambuca address at 1320 15th Street (shown above) after New Year's Eve. Goldfogel had already started a massive turn-around of the space (redoing the bar, tearing up floors, re-covering or replacing most of the furnishings), when he encountered a complication: the name.

Goldfogel had originally planned (and long ago announced) that his new joint was going to be called Brio. And that's the way things stood up until last week, when he got a "nasty" cease-and-desist letter from the lawyers at Bravo! Development Inc. out of Ohio. It seems that the restaurant group already had a trademark on the Brio name -- and about twenty locations across ten states flying its Brio Tuscan Grill brand.

What's more, Bravo said it's looking at making a move into Colorado and doesn't want anyone else opening under what it considers its name. So what to do...

"Well, I didn't sleep much," says Goldfogel. "We all discussed all sorts of names, trying to keep with the theme." Problem was, Goldfogel's Brio logo had already been designed, the signage made, the new phone books printed with the new phone number: 893-BRIO. Not only that, but work was proceeding full speed ahead on-site and actually going even faster than Goldfogel had planned -- something that absolutely never happens in this business unless, somehow, getting the work done quicker will fuck an owner even more.

"I guess my lawyer and I didn't do enough due diligence on this," Goldfogel says.

But after an exchange of letters and a phone call between Goldfogel and one of the Bravo bosses (in which he asked again if he could use the name and was told, again, absolutely not), a decision has been reached. The new restaurant just off Larimer Square will now be called Alto. A new phone number has been procured (893-ALTO, natch), the logo altered, new signage designed and one more hurdle crossed. As for those phone books? Well, there's nothing to be done about them -- or all the press the new restaurant has already gotten under the Brio name.

Alto is still looking at an early February opening. In the meantime, Goldfogel's original restaurant, Ristorante Amore, is still open and serving at 2355 East Third Avenue. As a matter of fact, Amore will continue to be open and serving until June, when its lease expires and the landlord starts razing the space before building a new development.

A tip for anyone looking at a space there: Before you call the printers, do a quick Google search, huh? -- Jason Sheehan

There are some restaurants where the world does not intrude -- rooms where time does not pass, weather does not change, current events go unnoted. Often inadvertently, these restaurants have successfully stopped time -- a trick that mad scientists and evil super-geniuses have been attempting since forever with dark matter and black holes and atomic-energy-mo-trons, but that here is accomplished with nothing more than an old-school egg roll and a total disregard for advances in the field of interior decorating.

Attempting to escape the blizzards and the holidays -- and to get some shrimp pho -- I went to Pho Saigon in Centennial, and discovered that it is one of those rare places where time stands still. But the kitchen does not, and even with the highways shut down, my shrimp pho was delivered. For the rest of the story, see my complete review in this week's Westword, which hits the streets and this web site later today.

As for dining in 2007, so pho, so good. -- Jason Sheehan