Tarasco's New Latino Cuisine: Masterful Mole and More

Many, many weeks ago my wife and I met some friends in what was a rare but much-needed rest during my frenetically-paced September. Completely wired and simultaneously tired from a month-long toxic mix of caffeine, a computer screen, and squealing infants all through the wee hours of the night, I decided it was time to finally check out a place that had been at the top of my list for a while now. I am referring to Tarasco's Nuevo Latino Restaurant which was recommended to me at least two years ago by the knowledgeable Examiner reporter Thomas Spahr for its made-from-scratch mole.

Mr. Spahr

Mole is something that is hard to find done right. There are good moles around town to be sure (El Diablo, Laughing Ladies, Chili Verde, El Paraiso to name a few), but the best I have had Stateside have been those I have made in my own kitchen using Patricia Quintana's Mulli recipe book as a guide. When Mr. Spahr touted Tarasco's as Denver's best, I knew I had to go. I just didn't plan on taking two years to get there.

If you have ever arrived at Tarasco's and ordered mole from its menu without an explicit recommendation from someone else then I commend you. Located just South of the busy Alameda and Federal intersection, it is understandable that you would drive right past it on the way to one of your other favorite taquerias, pho shops, Banh Mi bakeries or other "ethnic" eateries. If you originally set out to find Tarasco's, it would be no fault of yours if you missed it, as it is hidden at the end of a narrow parking lot, and there doesn't seem to have been any concerted effort to advertise its presence closer to the street. If you did manage to get as far as the parking lot, you would have had to push your way through the thick plumes of smoke coming from the dispensary next door and fight off your sudden growing sense of apathy.

One-stop shopping

Next, as you pondered whether or not you should open the door and step inside for some Mexican food, you would not be alone in having second thoughts, as the outside walls are plastered with signs touting the great--indeed "los mejores perros calientes"-- hot dogs. If you decided to enter, you were greeted with even more signs tempting you to try the hot dogs (I didn't have any, but even a bacon-wrapped Mexican hot dog can't beat a good mole). If by now you hadn't already ordered a hot dog (because you now had the munchies), you sat down to open a busy menu full of many typical Mexican platters. If you made your way past the first page and onto the second, there was a small section of "Especialidades". Here were your two mole options. If you ordered them, well done.

The hot dog sign is bigger than the restaurant sign

To be fair I have not sampled the hot dogs or many other dishes from the Tarasco menu, but for your first visit here there are really only three places you need to look for ordering options: One is the "Specials" board on the back wall, the second is the aforementioned "Especialidades" section of the menu and third are the items highlighted with an "*". It is not really clear what the asterisk refers to, but take it as a subtle hint (versus the explicit hot dog signs) that will take you down a path of great Mexican food.

From the asterisk-ed menu items we started with the guacamole. A mash of avocado with any combination of cilantro, onion, tomato, garlic and chiles is bound to be good, but the Tarasco's version was truly great. It was full of big chunky onions, copious amounts of cilantro and healthy portions of both tomatoes and jalapenos. I believe it was even mixed and molcajete-d to order.

The nopales were my wife's favorite, as this Mexican cactus is not often on Mexican restaurant menus in our city--much less done two ways. She chose the nopales asados over the ensalada and we were not disappointed. The grilled nopales were perfectly cooked so as not to be rubbery nor particularly slimy, and simply seasoned with salt. A generous squeeze of lime and a few dabs of a hot red salsa made for one of the better nopales I have had on either side of the border.

Tamales de elote might seem like a redundant choice: corn masa filled with corn--but the corn filling inside of these steamed corn masa appetizers was creamy and sweet; and over the top was drizzled that typical and fabulous Mexican crema, which is much more like crème fraîche than your usual sour cream.  

For the mole there were two options, a red "siete chiles" mole and a green tomatillo-based one. Each (I preferred red, my wife green) is the the kind of plate where you may very well find yourself "mmmm-ing" out loud as you savor every rich, complex flavor. As you feel the chile's heat slowly build in your mouth after layers of sesame, garlic, cumin (and too many more to even guess at or list) you may smile or even burst into spontaneous laughter that you could have a mole this good in a place this far from Mexico. In fact I have eaten my fair share of moles in Mexico, and besides a few experiences of very literal mole nirvana--one at a table with Chef Quintana herself, the others during a homestay in college with a family in Morelia--Tarasco's was better than most of them.

The siete chiles: dark and rich; bitter, nutty, sweet and then pleasantly spicy. I got mine with shredded pork carnitas. Absolutely incredible.

The green mole: lighter and more acidic likely from the tomatillo base. Also a rich and complex mix of flavors but without as many layers as the red siete chiles. Still it was an excellent mole and reason enough to make a trip out here.

Other menu items sampled at our table that night were impressive as well. A highlight was this house-made huarache piled high with among other things thick cuts of nopales and smothered in the excellent red mole.

I could go on and on about the great food we had. In fact I will for just a bit. It is worth mentioning that Tarasco's also has an impressive assortment of fresh made liquados (shakes) and jugos. There are more combinations of fruit and vegetable drinks than would seem necessary, and the health benefits of many are found lining the walls of the restaurant along with Mexicanismos, or dichos (sayings), that are always good for a laugh. My favorite, loosely translated, read: "Guns are loaded by the devil, and fired by pendejos."

One last menu item I need to cram in here are the churros. For whatever reason I have had the hardest time finding a good churro in this town, and Tarasco's has one of the better ones I have tried. It was nothing special; just perfectly fried, sweetened and served piping hot. A fitting way to end one of the best Mexican meals I have had in Denver.

I am kicking myself (which is a step up from the usual: other people kicking me) for taking my sweet time to eat at Tarasco's Nuevo Latino Cuisine. The crew and owners of Tarasco's clearly take pride in their food and take the time to do things the right way. The result of their careful efforts was for us a most memorable Mexican meal. I would urge you not to make the same mistake I did and get to Tarasco's as soon as you are able. And maybe next time I'll get around to trying that hot dog, but only if it's covered in mole.

Denver al Pastor Take 10: Toluca Mexican Restaurant in Westminster

You know that taco smell? Not the enticing aroma of chopped meat sizzling over grill, but rather the odor that lingers on your clothes and hair-- that seems to ooze from every pore of your body--after you spend any amount of time in any respectable taqueria. It is the smell you carry into your office after a taco-lunch at which your co-workers jealously sniff in the air as you pass. It is the smell in your lovely wife's hair as you snuggle up and fall into a restless taco sleep after a late-night taco run; and it is the smell that you still have on your jeans when you go to put them on the next day. And although I don't dislike this clingy olfactory residuum on my clothes, breath and wife; I must say that it is not the most agreeable smell on a baby.

I learned this a couple weeks ago when my wife and I dined out for the first time with our babies at Toluca Mexican Restaurant in Westminster-- and even though the righteous taco-smell we left with forced us to  change and sponge down our babies once home, Toluca is much more than a taqueria. In fact they have a full bar and a large, though minimalist, and mostly pictorial menu that includes a wide variety of Mexican specialties. But it wasn't carne asada or menudo that we were here for. No, I dragged my family all the way up to Lowell and 92nd specifically for some tacos al pastor thanks to some some enticing photos sent to me a few weeks back.

Tacos al pastor are, of course, my raison d'etre (if you remember, they even made their way into my wedding) so when someone shows me pictures like that it doesn't take long for me to track down their source (although it takes me longer these days that ever before). When we arrived at the out-of-the-way strip mall from whence aforementioned spit originated I immediately asked to see the meat-stack they had going that night; and when I asked if I could take a picture, they invited me right back into the kitchen to check it out.

The staff at Toluca is incredibly friendly and inviting. They seem to do their best to take care of each and every customer, and for people like me that show a particularly keen interest in the going-ons of the kitchen, they are especially cordial. In fact after I had snapped a few photos it wasn't long before Victor, the affable patriarch of Toluca came out to talk with us himself.

By this time we had before us heaping plates of tacos al pastor and tacos de pescado. He introduced himself and immediately we began talking pastor. The first thing he did was apologize for the small size of the current spit, which as we all know is meaningless when it comes to taste, but nonetheless Victor was right: more pastor is better. When he sensed that I was more than a casual eater of tacos al pastor he disappeared into the kitchen and emerged seconds later with his secret spice rub for me to sniff.

This is a most unusual from my experiences in my wife's native Mexico City, where pastor recipes are guarded with ferocity and debate rages on not only about which taqueria has the best, but who invented it in the first place. But Victor is from a small town in the state of Puebla, so I guess he is more relaxed about those things, and it's not like he told me all the details-- but a whiff of the rub mix was strong with cumin and garlic.

It turns out that Victor is really passionate about his cooking. A few minutes later he emerged from the kitchen with a mole that he had just made from scratch. "No Doña Maria in there," he told us, referring to the ubiquitous (and remarkably decent) grocery-store jarred mole. "Mole Poblano," he proudly told us again. Made from scratch. Making mole from scratch is a tedious and delicate process and his did have the complex taste of a well-crafted version: smoky heat, bitter, earthy and rich. I was becoming more and more impressed with Victor and his little Westminster outpost.

It turns out he has always had a penchant for food. He started out years ago making carnitas at home and slinging them from his car by the kilo all over Denver and Aurora. He then did the same with tacos and as his business grew he took over Toluca Mexican restaurant a year ago.

At this point I had not had a chance to take more than a couple bites of my pastor, and as happy as I was to talk food with this man, my first bites of pastor were so good that I was practically drooling over my plate as he talked to us. Indeed these tacos al pastor are among the best I have had in Denver, and I can see how outside over open flame sliced right onto a taco (how Victor does it when he caters outside) it could be unrivaled in the metro area.

Besides the almost perfect taste, my favorite part were the absolutely perfect slices: thin, delicate and slightly charred; crispy but with plenty of marbled layers of gooey fat. Exactly how pastor should be sliced. Fresh pineapple balanced the bold flavor of the marinade and I'll say it yet again because it bears repeating: a superb taco al pastor.

The slice of pastor is ever-so important and I appreciate the efforts that Victor and his taquero go through to make every slice so thin and delicate. Too many taquerias take a great marinade and just about ruin it by carelessly hacking away at the meat, resulting in big, uneven chunks. In the US this has become all too commonplace and I let it slide because options are few and far between, but in Mexico City, the arguable home of pastor, these places wouldn't last a week with hack knife-jobs like that. In fact in the DF they take it to another level altogether and slice so quickly and deftly that the slice literally flies through the air and is caught on the tortilla-- never once touching a hand or plate.

It wasn't too long before I had mowed my way through the huge taco plate and ordered two more small tacos al pastor. It was at this time that Victor engaged us in a conversation about another hard-to-find Mexican specialty, Chiles en Nogada. This seasonal dish is served in conjunction with Mexican Independence Day in September and is a gloriously patriotic plate of a stuffed roasted chile (green) topped with a cold sauce of walnuts and goat cheese (white) and sprinkled (red) seeds of a pomegranate. He wanted my wife in particular to sample his sauce as this is one of her absolute favorites, and while his sauce had more of a heavy sour-cream taste (versus delicate goat cheese), it was still quite good and is another item that will keep us on the hook to return soon.

Before I forget, my wife's fish tacos were also very good. A mixture of shrimp and grilled fish, they were fresh and the fish was not over-cooked. It was no taco al pastor, and I can't imagine a scenario that would have me ordering those tacos while that spit of meat was roasting so close by. Nevertheless, if fish tacos are your thing, I would venture to say you would like these tacos.

I got my second round of tacos and as I was going to take my first bite Victor signaled to me as he was coming out of the kitchen. Beaming, he tilted the plate in his hand so I could see the perfect Mojarra Frita he was about to serve. He gave me a look like, "You know you want this." I did, but I was too full of pastor.

Before leaving I did something that I almost never do. I told Victor what I do in my spare time and told him I would like a picture for my piece. He responded the way most taqueria-owners do when I tell them: "A blog?" Then a look that either says: "What the hell is that?" or "What's wrong with you?" But true to his amiable ways he consented with a big smile even though I'm not sure he understood exactly what I wanted to do with this picture, and brought me back into the kitchen so that his family and cook could pose as well.

Toluca Mexican Restuarant is home to some great tacos al pastor but I also saw--and sampled-- a lot more. Victor and his mostly family-led crew are attentive hosts and purveyors of excellent Mexican food from tacos to regional specialties like his mole poblano and chiles en nogada. And in addition to being a family-friendly restaurant they do have that full bar along the back wall (which always makes family-time much more fun). So I encourage you to head on up to 92nd and Lowell in Westminster to visit Victor and company for some of Denver's finest pastor.

Long Live La Casa del Rey in Commerce City

I chose to go to La Casa Del Rey for the first time about a week ago because I met one of the owner's family members and I liked the story he told me: a quarter century in existence growing from a dream to a small four-table operation to a busy and successful Commerce City standard. All the while run by the same family from our own San Luis Valley, literally going back almost 100 years to take pages from grandma's old recipe book. Oh, and I am always up for something new and I have to admit that I have never once been to a restaurant in Commerce City. Or for that matter written the words: "Commerce City Standard".

CC (not to be confused with the Chocolate City-- which would be hard) is thought of by most Denverites as a commercial and industrial wasteland, and not without reason; but at the same time it is full of working-class families and pockets of communities that are the basis for forming good neighborhood restaurants. I was hoping La Casa Del Rey would be one of them.

There are mixed signs to be found when one is considering eating his first meal at the House of the King. Consider the withered banana (pepper I suppose) that appears to be coming off a sleepless three-day bender and thought that by putting on a ton of make-up she would be able to show up at work and no one would notice. Little did she know that was the day La Casa decided to take her picture and emblazen it on eveything from the website, the servers, the menus and even t-shirts for little babies. Mrs. Cha Cha, as she is known, reminds me of an old lady who spent one too many years sunning by the pool in Florida. And trust me, you don't want this picture on your chest. Or your menu.

On the other hand, the fact that La Casa embraces this pepper so much makes it somehow funny and OK. And they keep with the preferred way of spelling "chile" which I take as a tremendously great sign. Plus the rest of the back story of this restaurant as it was told to me included the fact that just about everything at La Casa Del Rey is made from scratch in-house: from the beans and tortilla chips to the shredded beef and chile rellenos. And again, many of these are good old-fashioned Southern Colorado recipes. This is about as Colorado as it gets.

And this is why, as promised in my last post, I was bringing my Mexican in-laws out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. But of course this is not a Mexican restaurant in a pure sense, and as I have dedicated many lines of prose to the differences between Mexican food and New Mexican-- or food from Southern Colorado (remember it was all Mexico about 150 years ago)-- I won't bore you again on the differences. Suffice to say I was bringing my in-laws here to taste the distinct flavors of Coloradan fare that developed just like another region of Mexico-- though with the technicality that it was now in the US.

La Casa Del Rey is an adobe structure just off Quebec on 72nd in the heart of Commerce City. Inside it is wildly decorated with tropical faux palm-leaf ceiling fans, wooden parrots, southwestern prints and utilitarian booths and tables. None of these are particularly good signs for me either, and I doubted myself for a second for bringing my in-laws here for their first true Southwestern food experience.

We sat down while being serenaded by the sounds of a guitar duo. This was a nice touch, and they quickly warmed to my family and even belted out some obscure requests form my mother in-law while we sipped our drinks. I also immediately ordered us a big plate of green chile, and for the first time my inlaws brought a spoonful of green chile to their mouths.

I have to say that it was a very good green chile, cooked the way I like it with big chunks of red tomatoes and chiles, just a little thick but mostly soupy, just the right amount of spice in the hot version and all with a casera (homemade) taste and comfort. We all liked it very much and I breathed a sigh of relief that my inlaw's first green chile was this good.

While we savored our green chile, we browsed the extensive menu and I decided on the enchiladas with shredded beef--smothered, of course, in green chile. The house-prepared, hand-shredded beef was indeed moist and rich with flavor. Topped with the green chile and mixed in with the thick refried beans, it was an excellent plate of enchiladas.

My wife ordered the chiles rellenos, which quickly became the talk of our table. Unlike its Mexican counterpart, traditional chiles rellenos in these parts are made with the long New Mexican green chile instead of the shorter and stouter Mexican poblano. I don't know if my mother-in-law ever quite believed that her daughter was eating chiles rellenos, but she did agree that, whatever it was, it was really good. The batter was thick and fried crisp, the chile fresh and the cheese melted in with the smothered green chile sauce.

My father-in-law had an excellent plate of Steak Ranchero: sliced strips of steak covered in a sweet and spicy tomato and chile sauce. It reminded him of Puntas de Res a la Mexicana, which is another, very similar dish of beef tips covered in a red sauce all mixed in with sauteed peppers and onions. Whatever it was, there was an enormous plate of it and we all got to try a healthy share of it.

My mother and sister-in-law had relatively unremarkable plates of carne asada and a carne asada burrito, respectively. Although, to be fair, my sister-in-law ordered her burrito without the green chile, which is a lot like getting a slice of pizza without cheese or sauce, but being fifteen, she is a little less-than-adventurous and in the end really did like her meal. Here is what her burrito contents looked like on a small tortilla (flour of course) with a nice helping of green chile and beans. Now that was good.

We finished it off with a round of sopapillas. Just like the chile relleno plate, my family gave me a confused look when a plate of five fluffy pieces of plain-looking dough came out for our dessert. For some reason I am not a huge fan of the sopapilla, although I do recognize that fried dough drizzled in honey is generally a good thing. These were good sopapillas, and got the nod of approval from the in-laws by being devoured in a matter of minutes.

Regardless of what the signs were for La Casa Del Rey, in the end it was a great meal with friendly service and fun entertainment. While the kitschy and dated interior decor reflects the 25 years this restaurant has been up and running, the food reflects a family that still cares about its patrons by turning out quality plates served by a friendly and efficient staff. Yes, La Casa del Rey is exactly the type of neighborhood restaurant that I hoped to find in CC, and is a comforting taste of Grandma's home-style Southern Colorado cooking perfected after generations of practice.

What do Joe Biden, Dog the Bounty Hunter and a young John Elway all have in common? They all have been to La Casa de Rey over the years and had their mugs added to the walls and website of La Casa. See if you too can join this elite crowd by visiting La Casa in our industrious neighbor to the north and eating a plate of their excellent green chile.  

Fritangas of Denver: Fried Stuff, Breakfast for Dinner and More

It was a Friday night, I was hungry and again found myself approaching the crossroads of international cuisine in our fair city. My stomach growled loudly in a prime example of classical conditioning triggered by pulling up to the stoplight at the corner of Alameda and Federal. Like the simple-minded Pavlovian subject that I am, my salivation level was approaching canine-like drool when I saw the light turn green, opening passage to a bounty of great eating. This time around I was headed to Fritangas, just west of Federal on Alameda, or as its chef and owner Eduardo calls it, "Flavor Corner". Although "Flavor Corner" sounds much too much like an old cigarette ad for me to ever write again, it is true that there is a lot of great food to be found in this part of town. Fritangas moved to this corner a couple years ago after spending some time further up the road at 25th and Federal which itself boasts some flavorful options.

Simply by the descriptive name, I knew Fritangas had to be good. Firtangas loosely translates to "fried stuff", and the menu here is full of these delicacies found on almost every street corner in places like Mexico City: quesadillas (the good, fried kind), sopes, huaraches, flautas-- the list goes on and on. In fact the owners are from the Mexican capital themselves, and have tried to bring their little deep-fried slice of the city to Denver. And the menu is not limited to oil-soaked crisp corn masa, it is also full of just about everything else-- six pages worth of goodies such as a super-stacked hamburger replete with, among other things, a hot dog and bacon; to tacos, tortas and enchiladas; to breakfast served all day.

When our helpful and attentive server pointed out to us that breakfast was indeed served all day (a handy three page menu insert in the original six page volume) I was elated. Recently I have been having an unusually intense craving of breakfast food items after the sun goes down-- that is, breakfast for dinner, or for Scrubs fans like me, Brinner. Last month I made my wife and I pancakes, eggs and bacon for two nights in a row but my urge was not sated, and tonight I realized why: I wanted Mexican Brinner (desayena?).

I started with an order of Molletes, a classic Mexican breakfast treat: pan telera with refried frijoles, melted cheese and topped with pico de gallo. It was fantastically satisfying. Unusually so, I suppose. My table mates did not share my fervent enthusiasm for this simple toasted bread and bean snack, but they were obviously not craving Mexican breakfast for dinner like I was.

I also had a big fat plate of chilaquiles. This is, as I have described before, one of the world's ultimate crudo-killers (hangover cures for the non-Spanglish readership). This pile of fried tortillas soaked in salsa was spicy and served with a thin fried skirt steak. Although not hungover--or even drinking for that matter (no alcohol at Fritangas)-- it was nevertheless a satisfying plate of salsa, chips, beans and meat. On the downside the steak was dry and would have benefited from a runny fried egg-- and given me something else to soak up with my grilled and buttered piece of torta bread served on the side.

The rest of my table was not enjoying breakfast for dinner, but they were enjoying some other fine Mexican classics. We shared a sizzling skillet of queso fundido filled with chorizo sausage. Heaping oozing chunks of chorizo-filled cheese onto fresh flour tortillas is always a good thing, and the Fritangas version did not disappoint.

Another very good dish that came out was a shrimp mojo de ajo. This garlic-laden traditional seafood seasoning commonly includes other simple indgredients like butter, chiles, lime and parsley. It is hard to go wrong with this plate either, and the Fritangas plate was a good one.

Also good-looking was a plate of roasted chicken that was advertised as a 1/2 roasted bird and came out with only the good halves of the bird. Instead of slicing the chicken down the middle, Fritangas serves both sets of wings and legs in their half-chicken platter. A chicken made of only wings and legs is of course the perfect chicken (you can order the roasted breasts in their pechuga-only platter). I didn't taste this plate, but was given a thumbs up from the other end of the table, and by the looks of this picture, it is worth posting.

By now, with so many non-fried plates coming out to our table, the Fritangas deep-fryers were likely getting a little impatient with anticipation. Their first fry-task for our table was the visually stunning masterpiece know as the mojarra frita. Mojarra, as far as my simple understanding of aquatic biology will allow me to grasp concepts in the taxonomic rank, is a species of tilapia, farmed especially for restaurants and supermarkets the world over. Whatever the case, this fish is generally served in its entirety: whole and deep-fried. Sprinkled with the juice of a few limes it is delicious. One side of the Fritangas version was somehow much drier than the other, but still it was finger licking-good.

It was also bone-licking good.

My wife, in the true spirit of her Fritanga Chilanga roots, couldn't resist a deep-fried masa classic. She ordered and ate a big plate of crispy chicken flautas-- flutes of tightly rolled corn tortillas stuffed with pollo and deep fried into submission. They were perfectly fried and true to the Mexico City classic.

We also ordered a plate of sopes for some reason-- we must have been feeling incomplete with only one fried corn dish. They are worth noting because of the delicious meat we chose to top them: chicarron prensado, or pressed and fried pork skin. They were great but barely got touched only because we ordered so much more. Some lucky person at our table took them home and is right now probably enjoying dinner for breakfast. Mmmm.

In addition to a great restaurant name, Fritangas has one of the best restaurant-website-soundtracks ever. (I'm sure the Westword will have an award for this next year-- they give those awards out to anyone these days.) Click here to be transported to a world that is part homage to fried Mexican food and part sultry rhythm and blues soundtrack. The music makes such little sense with the website content that for some reason it is all perfect together-- completed by a smiling and welcoming photo of Eduardo and a hodge-podge collage of Mexico City landmarks. For a bonus, when you click on a link the soothing sound of a bubbling brook accompanies you to your next page view. It blends in so perfectly with the music that I happily browsed through the entire website before I realized that I had dimmed the lights, lit some candles, was in the mood for romance. Groovy. Fried Stuff.

Fritangas is a good choice for a dose of Mexican-fried comfort and much, much more. There is a lot on the menu and I imagine as with any restaurant with extensive options like these there will be some mediocre and even bad to go along with all that is good. If you end up there, take your time to choose and ask the friendly and excellent servers for some recommendations. As a bonus the prices are just right. Visit them on Alameda or enjoy their entertaining website at www.fritangas.net.