Complicated, addictive sauces and impeccable ingredients star on the menu of this Indian restaurant that turns vegetarian food into a nuanced feast.

Dining critics and regulars rave about the creamy saag paneer, a luscious soupy blend of white, tofu-like cheese cubes and more than a dozen spices. Masalaa’s saag paneer won over my daughter, age 11, who normally shuns spinach, removing spinach shreds from soup or souffles with the meticulousness of an archaeologist picking dirt from a potsherd.

We came for Masalaa’s staggering Sunday lunch buffet, a spread of gorgeously hued vegetable, chick-pea and lentil offerings, rice, salad, lentil pancakes and those weird pastel-colored puddings that look like rejects from a Methodist potluck — a gustatorial remnant of the indignities that the English visited upon its former colony.

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Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy will play Boulder’s Fox Theatre on Saturday. Photo from the KEXP blog.

Denver Post pop music critic Ricardo Baca checks in with this Q&A:

There’s no denying the fact that Colin Meloy is a weird dude.

The Decemberists frontman, born and raised in Montana but now a proud Oregonian living in scene-strong Portland, is known and celebrated for his anachronistic verbiage and affinity for tales of sailors, childhood and the working class.

Meloy posted a MySpace blog on Leap Day titled, “A poem for the last day of February,� and it’s short and simple: “There is no/ excuse/ for anyone/ to not/ own/ an electric/ sorbet maker.� It’s accompanied by a Rockwellian faux-watercolor of a family hand-churning a bucket of ice cream. And that’s not all he’s written. Meloy also wrote a short book, part of the 33 1/3 series, on the Replacements seminal album “Let it Be.�

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Manufactured Superstars at a Skylab pre-party in Sept. Photo from MySpace.

Like some sort of fantasy superhero comic — Batman meets Superman! — two of Denver’s night life big shots are joining forces to celebrate spring.

On Friday, Beta (1909 Blake St.) hosts “In Bloom V: Let There Be Light� as well as Manufactured Superstars’ “The Circus Strikes Back,� two annual parties combined to create one super-party. Presented by Image Magazine, “In Bloom� is a fashion show — but not the usual 10-minute parade of stick figures.

Instead, the show ties into the Superstars’ circus theme with crazy body paint, props and the requisite “Greatest Show on Earth� attitude.

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What’s a family to do after a full day of skiing at Eldora? Try Wild Mountain Smokehouse & Brewery.

We had spent much of the day skiing at Eldora Mountain Resort, just 40 minutes up a canyon from Boulder, and we were starved. It would not surprise me if prisoners would turn up their noses at the “food” offered, expensively, at the ski resort. Yet we weren’t sure our stomachs could hold out until we reached home.

So it was Nederland, the little stoner town maybe five minutes from the slopes. Nederland has a Nepalese place. Nederland has pizza. Nederland has German food and a hamburger joint or two, and it has a grub-serving coffeeshop.

But we’d also seen Wild Mountain Smokehouse & Brewery, on the town’s miniature main drag. So after we’d schlepped all 4,957 pounds of ski gear across the parking lot and into our freshly muddied minivan, we pointed the vehicle downhill and didn’t hesitate. Beer and smoked meat — and in my wife, Annie’s, case, smoked tofu — it would be.

My expectations didn’t exactly soar.

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Grant Gordy (right) is one of several artists playing Dazzle’s Wednesday night Rhythm & Roots series.

We know you’re a busy person. Between the job, the relationship and the mutant living in your basement, you’ve got a lot on your plate. Well, here’s one more thing to add to the pile, and listen up because it’s worthy: Dazzle, Denver’s premier jazz club, kicked off its Rhythm & Roots series about a year ago, and the weekly event is slated to end in the coming months.

That means you’ve only got a limted time to catch the Wednesday night program devoted to American roots music, including jazz, bluegrass and folk. The best part? There’s no cover to see bands like the Expedition Quartet (first Wednesday of the month), Grant Gordy Quartet (second Wednesday), Blue Avenue (third Wednesday) and Hot Club Nouveau (fourth Wednesday). A $10 all-you-can-drink Budweiser special (that gets you a 1/2 pound burger, too) sweetens the deal.

Need more? Visit Dazzle’s website to check out their other musical offerings.