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Last week’s wind event and planned power outages had a truly devastating impact on Boulder-area restaurants. Eateries lost business during some of the busiest days of the year. Holiday parties were canceled, fresh food spoiled, and food businesses scrambled for refrigerated trucks. Workers lost wages and tips just before the holidays.
I hope the event isn’t the final straw that convinces some cafés to close their doors during an already challenging time for diners and restaurants.
If you appreciate Boulder’s independent culinary spirit, gift something delicious to yourself and your loved ones. Skip the Waffle Hut cards on the rack at Safeway and purchase a bunch of gift cards from the local restaurants you love. Choose to spend your dining dollars in the coming months at an independent bistro, not a chain.
And please tip generously.
For your taste bud inspiration, today’s Nibbles features my dining diary for 2025. Birria ramen and empanadas, soup dumplings and burnt ends are just a few of your food editor’s favorite tastes. Send your comments and information about Boulder County restaurants, food classes and events to nibbles@boulderreportinglab.org.
— John Lehndorff
My first restaurant meal of 2025 was also the best dining experience I’ve had in several years. In early January, my family enjoyed a tour de force culinary evening directed by Eric and Jill Skokan at Black Cat Farmstead. We dined in a glass-walled cabana heated by a wood-fired stove on smoked trout with duck prosciutto, lamb with piperade sauce, and brandied pears with gingerbread and crème anglaise.
This was also my priciest dinner of the year, and it was well worth saving up for.
My most surprising meal of the year was lunch at the Eat Well Cafe. In the era of the $25 burger, this under-the-radar downtown Boulder destination offers a complete cafeteria-style meal for $7.99. I enjoyed chicken pot pie with vegetables, a buttered roll, a bowl of soup and all-you-can-drink beverages. Your tablemates may include some of the city’s veteran residents.
Meals are available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on weekdays inside the City of Boulder’s Age Well Center at 909 Arapahoe Ave.
After looking through the following Nibbles itinerary of dishes I ate in 2025, I want my nutritionist to know that I love eating big green salads and steamed superfoods at home. When I go out, I insist on “yum!”
Craving torta cochinita, birria ramen and Guatemalan empanadas
Sometimes you don’t know you have a craving until you first taste something in an unexpected place. Monday through Friday, the Off Campus Cafe is a fine breakfast and lunch spot near Lafayette’s Good Samaritan Hospital.
On weekends, the owners break out specials from their Yucatan hometown. I happily enjoyed a torta stuffed with cochinita pibil, roasted pulled pork infused with achiote (annatto seed), garlic, chilies and citrus juice topped with pickled red onion.
A friend pointed me in the direction of Esly Divas, who celebrates Guatemalan culture and cuisine at the tiny Chí Kapé in Longmont. Divas bakes savory and sweet empanadas in a buttery crust, including Cuban-style empanadas layered with roast pork and mustard pickle sauce.
Que Rico specializes in birria, the slow-cooked, fall-apart, juicy stewed beef perfected in the Jalisco region. The eatery in Boulder’s Twenty Ninth Street Mall also celebrates Mexico’s culinary fusion with spicy birria ramen, a big bowl of chile broth jammed with chewy noodles, lots of tender meat with chopped cilantro, onions and lime wedges.
Meeting some worthwhile burgers, brats and barbecue
I’m hard to impress when it comes to cheeseburgers, but I was wowed by the version I tasted at Noah Westby’s Ironwood Bar & Grille at Boulder’s Flatirons Golf Course. The fresh ground beef patty was cooked to order, medium rare, with Swiss and veggies on a fluffy, toasted, buttered bun. Boulder is short on eateries providing a peaceful, pastoral view but this place has it, along with hand-cut fries and beer.
Course. Credit: John Lehndorff
Nostalgia grabbed me with the need to visit one of Boulder’s oldest dining establishments, Mustard’s Last Stand. It looks the same as it ever was, and I sighed over a Polish sausage on a bun with mustard, relish, onion, tomato, pickles, hot peppers and celery salt. In order to experience the exquisite oak-smoked burnt ends and beef fat rolls at Wayne’s Smoke Shack, you need to be committed. The Superior barbecue joint is only open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The line of cult followers starts forming before 10 a.m. Get in there before some TikTok influencer “discovers” the ribs.
In the land of kitfo, hummus and baklava
The little City of Lafayette continues to offer some stellar culinary reasons to visit besides the top-notch Mexican fare. Over the past year I was reintroduced to doro wot and kitfo at Ras Kassa’s Ethiopian Restaurant.
This year was also the year I got to sample the Middle Eastern pastries and brunch treats at the Kismet Cafe. Owner Fadya Bekta shares her take on spanakopita, honeyed pistachio baklava, sweet rolls, koulourakia butter cookies and bougatsa, a warm custard dessert. All can be paired with eye-opening Turkish coffee.
My sandwich of the year is the falafel sandwich served appropriately at Falafayette, parked behind Romero’s K9 Club & Tap House. Freshly fried warm nuggets, pickles and veggies along with hot sauces fill a soft, thick pita. The key ingredient: owner Adam Bratter’s exceptionally silky and flavorful scratch-made hummus.
Exploring the edges of Asian cuisines
I freely admit that I’ve had a lifelong crush on Asian cuisines, and new and old eateries offered me plenty of chances to feel (and taste) the love.
At King Dumpling, I finally refined my xiao long bao (or soup dumpling) eating technique. Xiao long bao are soup-filled pork dumplings, which you must approach carefully to avoid squirting your face with scalding broth. Take a little bite and let the steam escape.
It seems like every Boulder eatery has a fried chicken sandwich on its menu. My fave is the Japanese chicken sandwich at Ginger Pig Asian Street Food on the Hill. Crisp karaage fried chicken is tucked in a soft potato roll. Don’t miss the craveable coconut jam, cornflake-crusted French toast.
This year, I also enjoyed: spinach saag with tofu at Dot’s Diner; vegan pho, banh mi and spring rolls at Lotus Moon, 2770 Pearl St.; and yellowtail handrolls and potstickers at Shin Yuu Izakaya in Louisville.
Where the loaves, pastries and sweets are
Regular readers and listeners know that I love bakeries and look for any opportunity to taste what they bake. This year’s research has been quite satisfying in the carb department.
I was delighted to taste the sourdough country loaves Ben Watson bakes at his Kinship Bread, using local organic and heirloom grains cold-fermented for 48 hours to achieve a tart flavor and perfect chew.
Cherry Shuler also crafts fine kolaches, cinnamon rolls and pies at Cherry’s Cheesecakes & Delights. Topping the menu are her namesake super-creamy mini cheesecakes in dozens of flavors.
Other baked treats on my hit pastry parade over the past 12 months include the Danish vanilla shortbread cookies at Süti & Co., savory bread pudding and ube rice crispy treats at Creature Comforts Cafe, and a perfect almond croissant at Le French Café. In Longmont, I longed for yeasty cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting at MECO Coffee Collective.
“Mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts … immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.” — From “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens
Want more Boulder bites?
Sanitas Brewing Co. closes all taprooms, marking the end of a Boulder craft beer staple
The 12-year-old brewery cites a maturing craft beer market, rising costs and shifting consumer habits as it joins a growing list of Colorado breweries shutting down this winter. “We did something that mattered to Boulder,” its co-founder said. Continue reading…
Check out previous editions of Nibbles:
🎄 Local food gifts for a very Boulder Christmas
🎁 The Boulder food itinerary your holiday guests will love — and so will you