Melita's, Denver

Here's two meals right here. Oh, also baclava too. Very gooey. I took containers with me that fit in the backpack to bring half of this home. The potatoes are re-heated in oil, that would the third deep frying, and refreshed to original dehydrated crispness.

Approaching downtown Denver from the south on Lincoln heading north, past Sixth and the goofy junction with Speer, past that and now approaching the capitol going up a hill from 8th to 9th, when you get to the top at 10th, you see this on the left. It is very easy to miss and people do drive right past. Be ready to pull in, there will be a ton of traffic right up your tailpipe.

Today was Taste of Denver, a prosaic food event that draws thousands of people to fair-like food. And in the opposite direction there is Sniagrab (bargains spelled backwards) ski supply sale, an annual dealio requiring part of the street accommodate tents and that attracts the athletic types, and beyond that something happening at Tony's, roasted chiles, I think, with their own tents set up on the sidewalk, street, and parking lot. Traffic is stopped on the main street Broadway causing traffic flow on side streets to completely collapse where full block long lines of cars wait on one making a left turn, so nothing moves light after light after light. Goodness people are patient. A good day to be on foot. Come to think of it, I discovered Melita's a few years ago by avoiding a previous Taste of Colorado holiday. Who knows, maybe they changed. Maybe they're better than before. It was a good original idea, to introduce people to local restaurants, but all that was taken over by the usual fare that dominates the entire production so everyone is walking around eating turkey legs and fire-roasted chile-flavored corn on the cob.

Tonight the room turned golden orange, I turned to look and saw this. 

In the next minute it changed to this.

And the next minute it turned to this.

Old Santa Fe, Denver

#3 combination, the one with the relleno. She asked, "what type?" I answered "beef" for the taco but forgot to specify the soft kind of relleno, not crispy.

Anybody can do the crispy method with egg roll wrappers, roasted chiles and cheese, but it takes a bit of technique for the soft pan fried type. I am interested to see how they do it. 

It is the same place that used to house El Zócolo. On 11th, at Broadway next to Floyd's barbers shop.

Quijote's salad

That's what you see when you open the styrofoam box except a lot brighter and fresher. This is unfair. I brought this home with other things, refrigerated it, then hours later photographed it. 

Quijote's is a small restaurant a short distance south of me on Broadway, away from the museum, away from the Capitol.  

I saw the place tucked in there as if it had been there in Mayberry since 1960's and wondered why I hadn't noticed before. I meant to go in, twice, but it was closed. Finally I checked its hours placard see they are limited. The woman inside by conversation volunteered they intend to expand to dinner hours, by her abbreviated story, based upon one customer saying, "I need you to be open." 

How accommodating. 

That would have been a composite example of one factor affecting their decision, cash flow, of course, being the unspoken main reason.

They inhabit that odd restaurant niche that is more than street food but not quite a proper restaurant. The styrofoam packages, American bento, puncture easily with sturdy plastic fork. I don't like both those picnic things. They don't fit in my backpack. That's for to-go. You can stay there if you want but you still have the styrofoam bento and plastic utensil. 

They speak Spanish to each other in there, and Spanish and English to me. They are uncommonly gracious among the already uncommonly gracious shopkeepers and clerks all along this entire street. And I mean it. That is my experience every single day.

Google Earth has made it all clear to me while creating another mystery. I have been in here before under the guise of a different restaurant. It was Luciano's before, and I am not surprised that they went out of business. *whispers* We didn't like it. It was a noisy place that seemed loosely run and the pizza made by high school hires with little training and tremendous indifference was crap. We do better at home. It was discouraging. I'm glad they're gone, and good luck to Quijote's.

The new mystery is why did Google Earth Street view show me Quijote's the first time when I typed [1055 broadway, denver, colorado] and go straight to it, then show me earlier Luciano's the second time without me doing anything different, without adjusting its history? Cool this is done, but how?

Windows on a building say so much, don't they? You can always approximate the date of the last serious renovation. 

Chili con carne, cornbread

Aw, you lost your color. That's alright, I'll put it back with paprika and tomato paste and stewed tomato.

Corn milled like this is best brought to a boil first. It will absorb 3X its mass in liquid to a sludge. That will be the corn component of cornbread batter. The other half is wheat flour and liquid. The total mass is tenderized with butter, fortified with egg and lifted by it along with additional baking powder. Sweetened with sugar, and flavored further however you wish. This has fresh jalapeño, and melty cheese, powdered cayenne and salt.↑

↓ The chili has chocolate, both buttons and powder, the addition of tomato at the end cloaked the disc chocolate taken from a box in the pantry in another room behind me and with the powdered cocoa right there at hand so a scant 1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder is added on top of the tomato and that changed the whole thing, added depth like garlic does except more delightful.

The idea is chili con carne the way children will have it, say at school cafeteria, basic with minced beef and American cheese. Cornbread instead of saltine crackers. It just seemed good, and it is.

The whole way through I was thinking of ways to improve it. I have poblano chiles that are excellent for a thing like this. But no, this is kept simple. 

Except the minced beef is extraordinary. Ground beef. Chuck, I think. I don't know. Expensive as h-e-double cattle prods I had ground beef out to thaw but then went on a mission in the freezing sub temperatures to Oliver's for rib-eye steaks for a dinner tomorrow and while there at Oliver's asked the guy to wrap 1/2 a pound of ground beef. It is different. It smells funny. Aged. All by itself as minced beef browning it tastes quite amazing. Adulterating all that are three bratwurst sausages pinched out of their casings. So about a pound of meat to go with this small amount of beans.

It is cold outside. The sun finally came out full blast and the remaining snow on the scrapped streets evaporate with the snap of the fingers while the un-scrapped streets remain frozen as ice. I am in the truck in bright sunlight, warmed by it, and in front of me is a towering wall of gray with no top visible.  Today again as yesterday that same wall of weather is observable advancing on the city from the West, obscuring the mountains and everything between right up to where it doesn't and the buildings are clear. There is no fading out area at all. Solid gray wall. And cold. I could actually see the cold coming right at me while I'm sitting fat and happy in the bright warming sun.

There should be a rainbow or something equally extraordinary for a thing like that.

The traffic was frenetic all day. All parking taken. Drivers running right up your tailpipe. Everyone moving, eager to do something, move somewhere, get things done quickly, but also eager to get out of the cold fast as possible.

East is top. Because that is how it is in my head when I'm going there. 

Bottom left corner to top right corner. From Art Museum to in between Cheesman Park and Denver Country Club. I did not realize how posh that area is until I saw it from Google Earth. I've been in there a million times and had no idea the alleys between properties are doubled like that to the right. No wait! Those are streets. I did know that.

There is parking across the alley, obscured by trees, so shaded in summer. They moved a few years ago, up a bit, so different layout all around now. The additional parking surprised me. I was expecting to have to park on the street.

Oliver's has an extremely loyal fan base. If you type "oliver's denver" Google Earth takes you directly there.

Cuba Cuba, restaurant, Denver Colorado USA

This lively and popular restaurant is in my neighborhood a few blocks from the Denver Art Museum.