"Step into the always-buzzy Hop Alley in Five Points, Denver, and you'll be hit with the hubbub of lively table conversation and sizzling woks in the kitchen. Most tables have a plate of la zi ji, a signature dish in which chicken thighs are battered and fried to an almost shattering crispiness, and arrive covered in dried, crushed Chinese chilis, Sichuan pepper, and Ichimi Togarashi."
"Gai lan is another favorite-a snappy vegetable stir-fry flavored with oyster sauce and shallots, and accented by woodfired smoke and schmalz. Then there's the shrimp toast, a whipped mixture of shrimp and chicken atop pan de mie, that's zigged with a garlic-ginger tiger vinaigrette, then zagged with mustard gastrique. The menu at Hop Alley, a Michelin Bib Gourmand awardee, is reflective of a cuisine that calls back to certain Chinese classics, but embellishes them with unexpected ingredients and techniques."
Hop Alley in Five Points, Denver, offers vibrant, modern Chinese dishes like la zi ji, gai lan, and shrimp toast that combine traditional flavors with bold spices, woodfired smoke, and inventive sauces. The kitchen produces intensely crisp fried chicken coated in dried chilis, Sichuan pepper, and Ichimi Togarashi, and a shrimp-and-chicken toast finished with garlic-ginger tiger vinaigrette and mustard gastrique. The restaurant earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand and exemplifies a wider Denver movement of new Chinese restaurants flourishing alongside a rediscovery of the community's heritage. Chinese laborers arrived in Denver in the late 1800s for rail and mining work, and redlining concentrated them in LoDo, historically called Hop Alley; the restaurant name reclaims that past.
Read at Conde Nast Traveler
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