On my plate this week: Ace Eat Serve. Located on the corner of 17th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street in the Cap Hill neighborhood, Ace marries culinary traditions from cultures across Asia — Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, and Japanese — to serve up an entirely unique and elevated dining experience through modern Asian fare. Executive chef Thach Tran spent his childhood in the kitchens of his grandmother’s noodle houses in Saigon, Vietnam, where he grew up knowing, loving, and recreating the tastes of Asian street food.
The kitchen specializes in noodle bowls, bao buns, rice and veggie accouterments, and traditional dishes — like Thai fried rice, crispy beef and broccoli, and stone grilled short rib wraps — served in shareable portions. But my soft spot at any Asian restaurant is always for dim sum. I opted for shrimp and chicken patty bao buns, slurp-worthy mushroom soup dumplings, and Korean fried wings in a gochujang chili sauce. All of it was delicious, but the real star of my meal was the pork belly potstickers: simply packed, exceptionally executed, and served with a Chinese ginger mustard worth licking the bottom of the ramekin for.
🏓 Pro-tip: Check out Ace’s MASSIVE ping pong hall, available for private bookings!
🗓️ Don’t miss: Ace Eat Serve’s annual Peking Duck event next Tuesday Nov. 8 to raise funds for the Denver Housing Authority Youth Employment Academy.
In Other Food News:
- 🍽️ Last year, like every year, Westword published its list of “100 restaurants we couldn’t live without.” One Denver gentleman ate at every single one and then shared his takeaways. [Westword]
- 🍩 Voodoo Doughnuts is breaking into the airport game. First stop? DIA. Good to know for your next early morning flight.
- 🥪 Today is National Sandwich Day! Looking for somewhere to celebrate? Check out our episode from a few months ago: Snarf’s Vs. Cheba Hut: The Ultimate Sandwich Smackdown.
