Mono Gogo's Korean Fried Chicken is Excellent

You may have noticed that hot chicken restaurant Mono Gogo recently took over the space next to the Belmar Century 16 theater that was formerly Menya Noodle Bar. Menya's noodles were good but not great, while Mono Gogo serves up some of the best hot chicken right now in Denver. End of story. 

Except, it's actually more complicated than that. 

Mono Gogo and Menya are both owned by Denver restauranteur JW Lee, whose Seoul Hospitality Group also owns Belmar's Wasabi Sushi Bar and a whole bevy of other restaurants in other Denver-area locations. 

Lee specializes in a range of Korean restaurants. Some serve what I would consider more traditional Korean recipes (I'm basing this on the two years I lived in South Korea), while others are delightfully Americanized (Bulgogi nachos, anyone?) He's always trying something interesting. And he has so many new restaurants that I'm only now learning about some I've got to try, like his dumpling-focused restaurant Seoul ManDoo, and his Hawaiian-Japanese style donut shop Mochinut. 

Right now, however, I want to give another shout-out to Downtown Lakewood's Mono Gogo. The joint serves some seriously good food. Specifically, Mono Gogo needs to be your go-to place for hot wings. I like the soy garlic and the hot spicy, but there are a couple of other flavors as well--all of them light and crispy and absolutely delicious. You can even wash them down with Mono Gogo's own rice lager, made at the Mono Mono Brewery in Longmont. 

It's not elegant dining. Everything comes served in baskets or paper boxes. There's a napkin dispenser on each table, and far too many flat screen TVs playing spammy adverts. But it does remind me a bit of the fried chicken restaurant on my block when I lived in Busan back in the 1990s. That place wasn't fine dining either. It was a quick place to grab take-out on the way home from work, tasty and hot. 

The difference is I never had fried chicken in South Korea that was even half as good as the birds served up by Mono Gogo. So the next time you're in Belmar, drop in and order some soy garlic wings and a beer and pretend you're still a young English teacher in South Korea on your way back home after a long day at work. That's what I do.

Change Is Good, Mostly.

Change is good. Mostly. I think. Or at least, it's good on balance. 

What change am I talking about? New businesses. New landlords. 

I'm excited by the soon-to-open Lady Nomada, because I live in Downtown Lakewood, and what I really want is a patio to go and have drinks on in the summer (if it's ever going to be summer again, which is a different topic altogether). At the same time, I'm sad to see Sur La Tabla gone, along with Baker Street.

Actually, it doesn't matter what I think, change is happening. The pandemic closed a lot of businesses. Others retrenched. The old ownership structure of Belmar in Downtown Lakewood went belly-up and Bridge 33 bought the property with the goal of finishing the project.

Bridge 33 has been aggressively trying to fill empty storefronts, and that work is starting to bear fruit. A Lululemon pop-up has filled the space vacated by Guess at the corner of Teller and Alaska. Directly across from the Lululemon pop-up is Garage Sale Vintage, a pop-up thrift store/bar. 

As I mentioned above, Arvada-based Mexican restaurant Lady Nomada is renovating the space that was previously the Italian joint Brodo. And the old Sur La Table location on Teller has become...a Fidelity brokerage??? Well, as I said, change is good on balance, but perhaps not in every detail.

It's also been a busy few years for me personally, and I haven't had a much time to write this blog. I'm still busy, but I'm going to try and post more regularly, now that Belmar and Downtown Lakewood have come out of their pandemic lull.

So yeah, change is good, mostly. Let's see what the year brings.