It's been a crazy couple of weekends! And now, with us both back home and Logan at work, it's time for me to start writing about them.
On Memorial Day weekend, we hopped on a plane all stupid early and went to Colorado. No, like stupid stupid early. Like leaving the house at 4:45, after four hours of sleep early.
At least we gained two hours of time on the plane! Our flight landed before 7 AM, and we had one thing on our minds - BREAKFAST. With COFFEE being a close second.
We followed a recommendation I'd found from Gourmet Magazine (obligatory sob) and went to El Taco de Mexico. Five hours into our artificially lengthened day, we were totally ready for some big smothered crazy Colorado-style Mexican food.
Looks all inviting, right? All those bright colors and a splash of neon. I liked it already, and we hadn't even walked in yet.
Upon walking in, I liked it even more.
It took a bit of staring at the menu to figure out which food direction we wanted to follow. We ruled out lunch since it was now 7:30. But that still left us with a lot of choices and sub-choices. After a good bit of dithering, we finally settled on the breakfast burrito (smothered, of course) and cheese chilaquiles.
Come to mama, you enormously beautiful sexpot of a burrito. I will scratch you under your chin before jamming you in my mouth, sideways if possible.
Yeah, this food was exactly what we needed to start our Denver day. The burrito was filled with eggs scrambled and flattened a bit like an omelette, crumbles of spicy chorizo, and the same wonderful yet slightly mushy rice and larded, soft beans that came on the side of the chilaquiles. The mammoth was then topped with a not too spicy green chile, that I think was the type made of reconstituted dried green chiles. It didn't have that fresh, fruity snap of green chile made from canned or fresh chiles, but there was still that distinctive mouthfilling green chile light heat and bit of creaminess.
The chilaquiles were great. Crunchy tortilla chips were scrambled with more of their great green chile, with clusters of melting fresh white cheese, and a side of awesome rice and beans. This was all about the textures - crunchy and gooey and soft.
We made it all go bye-bye, yes we did. And we were happy.
I've read complaints that the place is a bit expensive, now that it's had some national writeups, and this is true. I think our breakfast came to about $20, which is definitely a lot for this kind of breakfast. But honestly, I didn't mind - it was freaking delicious, and I'd go back for lunch in a heartbeat.
El Taco de Mexico (no website) is at 714 Santa Fe Drive in Denver. They're open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner 7 days a week. 303.623.3926.
Reminds me of back home. I didn't know there was a Colorado-Mexican style! Who'da thunk?
Posted by: Krista | Tuesday, 08 June 2010 at 20:33