Hop Alley

Hop Alley Restaurant Review:

There are a flood of Chinese restaurants in Denver, but Hop Alley, the sequel to Uncle, Tommy Lee's popular noodle house in LoHi, is unequivocally the standard bearer of soft shell crab, duck rolls and just about everything else that you'd associate with the Chinese food anthem. Seats are difficult to come by (most of the tables are reserved for walk-ins), but once you're settled (if you're not averse to strangers, the community table is where most of the revelry occurs) the parade of hits come fast and furious from the open kitchen. Start with the chilled tofu with bang-bang sauce and peanuts along with the steamed eggplant slicked with a Sichuan bean sauce textured with crispy garlic. A bowl of Shanghai rice cakes tangling with ground pork and carrots in an oyster sauce is festooned with a yolk-spilling egg, while the whole wood-grilled Alamosa bass arrives with a pickled green papaya salad dressed with nước chấm, a salty, sweet-and-sour Vietnamese sauce. And while Chinese restaurants aren't typically extolled for their beverage program, Hop Alley excels in that arena, offering a dozen cocktails (all named after Chinese Zodiac signs), obscure beers and a well-curated wine list.