Denver Food Blog

George Ayala still can’t believe that the next president of the United States sat in his restaurant for lunch. Luckily, Ayala, owner of Jorge’s Sombrero, 1319 East Evans Avenue, in Pueblo, has a ton of pictures to commemorate the visit by Barack and Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha.

The First Family was in Pueblo on November 1 for a rally downtown. I’d suggested they try Patti’s for its unusual, but very Colorado-like item: Italian sausage in a tortilla smothered in spaghetti and green chile. Instead, the Obamas went to Jorge’s, surprising the staff and customers who had no idea they were coming.

“He ate one taco with carne asada and one chicken soft taco on a white tortilla,” Ayala says about the presidential meal. “Michelle had carne asada, and the girls shared a quesadilla. Then they took two shrimp tacos to go.” Ayala also sent the Obamas on their way with a to-go bag full of empanadas and pan dulce. “We tried to buy it for them, but they wouldn’t have it,” he says, adding that an Obama staffer paid for the food.

Ayala plans to mount a plaque where Obama sat and hang some pictures on the wall – “It was very historic” -- but the most lasting change at Jorge’s will be a new menu item. The Presidential Surf ‘n’ Turf includes one carne asada taco and one shrimp taco. “We never used to break them up, but we will now,” he says. “What the president wants, he gets.”

Since the visit, Ayala says Jorge’s has been much busier than usual as people came in to see where Obama was and what he ate. In fact, the U.S. Ambassador to China was there to take a picture and have lunch. The only disappointing part? Obama didn’t try any of Colorado’s signature dish, and a Jorge’s specialty, green chile.

Maybe next time. – Jonathan Shikes

Barack Obama can’t get enough of Colorado.

On Saturday afternoon, he’ll be in the Union Avenue Historic District in Pueblo – on his second trip to the Centennial state in just seven days, and his fourth since the Democratic National Convention in August. Last Sunday, Obama attracted a reported 100,000 people to his speech at Civic Center Park.

But if Obama really wants to get a taste of the state, he should check out Patti’s, a family-owned restaurant at 241 South Santa Fe Avenue in Pueblo, which has managed to blend foods from two of our most historic populations into a meal that could be – maybe even should be – Colorado’s signature dish.

Photos by Nancy Levine. See more after the jump.

I am a creature of habit, and there are a few events I look forward to every fall. I’ve attended Oktoberfest since I was old enough to drive, although I’m still confused as to why it’s in September. And no sooner is Oktoberfest over than I start stringing together my pretzel necklace for the Great American Beer Festival (October 9-11 this year).

Now I have another must-attend fall event: the Denver Fire Department Chili Cook Off. I went to my first one last Friday, and Larimer Square was full of smokin’ hot men. They were all firefighters competing in four categories -- Chili Con Carne, Green Chili, Hottest Chili and Best Booth – and like their chili, each cook was hotter than the next. Although the event is ostensibly for charity, a benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, it’s also an opportunity for the boys to let off a little steam.

Just thinking about next year (and looking at the pictures I snapped when I suggested these firefighters were worthy of inclusion in the annual calendar), I can already feel my temperature rising. –- Nancy Levine

October is National Chili Month! But here in Denver, the only chili that matters is spelled with an "e," and features those hot, hot peppers now being roasted up and down Federal Boulevard. So all this month, chile fans will be weighing in on their favorites around town.

There are many delicious part to this homegrown, only-in-Denver story.

One morning last month, Dave Herrera, our music editor, was in the Westword kitchen chatting with Bob Gonzales, the burrito delivery guy. (As far as we’ve been able to determine, Denver is the only city in the country with door-to-door – and often office-to-office – burrito deliveries every workday. How delicious is that?) The two were talking about their favorite green chile, and something about both Bob’s taste and his face struck Dave as familiar. Turns out that they are cousins on their mothers' side, the Lucero side.

And their uncle Fred is the man behind Lucero’s & Sons, a now three-outlet operation.

Here’s how Lucero’s got its start: Fred Lucero was running a neighborhood market at 37th and Fillmore back in the '50s, and he’d make burritos that his nephews – Bob included -- would peddle at the nearby softball field during night games. The burritos became so popular that Fred created a window in the store so that he could sell them from there, and as their popularity grew, he ultimately turned the market into the first Lucero’s & Sons restaurant.

October is National Chili Month! But here in Denver, the only chili that matters is spelled with an "e," and features those hot, hot peppers now being roasted up and down Federal Boulevard. So all this month, chile fans will be weighing in on their favorites around town.

I come from a long line of green chile connoisseurs, all born and bred in Colorado. My great-grandmother Gertrude died before I was born. From what I hear, though, her green chile was to die for. The way my cousins tell it, her recipe won contest after contest back in the day.

Myself, I’ve been eating green chile since I was a kid, as far back as I can remember. I vividly remember my mom cooking up a fresh batch of chile and fresh batch of tortillas several times a week when I was too little to even see over the kitchen counter. I don’t know if the stuff Mom was cooking came from her grandma’s kitchen or not, but my oh my, was it lethal!

After Dad passed away and as Mom got older, she eventually quit cooking altogether. Thankfully, she passed along her recipe. My wife doesn’t make green chile as much as I would like, though, which has inspired me to get my fill elsewhere -- namely, Santiago’s.

That chile I swear by; it’s as close to Mom’s as I’ve been able to find. Well, until last month, when I stopped by Lucero’s, my cousin’s Tim's restaurant at 104th and Federal. (The original Lucero's & Sons, which my uncle opened more than forty years ago, is still at 37th and Fillmore; there's another one at 5201 Pecos Street).

My cousin Bob tells me that the chile at Lucero's is a variation of great-grandma Gertrude’s. If so, I can see how she won all those contests. -- Dave Herrera

October is National Chili Month! But here in Denver, the only chili that matters is spelled with an "e," and features those hot, hot peppers now being roasted up and down Federal Boulevard. So all this month, chile fans will be weighing in on their favorites around town.

When it comes to Denver’s green chile options, I’m left wondering: Where’s the burn? The mild, mostly flavorless concoctions that pass for green chile in these parts definitely leave me cold. When I bite into a chile-smothered burrito, I want to feel the heat.

My family has lived in New Mexico for generations, so I was raised on green chile. In Albuquerque and Santa Fe, where my clan hails from, we’re purists. There shouldn’t be anything but chile in our chile, and any attempt to add anything to the chopped, roasted chile is considered sacrilege.

Gustavo Arellano, author of the weekly Ask a Mexican and the go-to guy for all things Mexican, was born in in Orange County, California, the son of a legal immigrant and an illegal immigrant. He tells his family's story --- and so much more -- in his new book, Orange County: A Personal History, which he'll read from at the LoDo Tattered Cover at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 23.

Just as Orange County has a very personal take on Mexian culture, so does Denver. And a very personal taste: green chile. The last time Gustavo was here, we took him to La Fiesta, a weekday-lunch-only joint at 2340 Champa Street that the patriarch of the family opened more than forty years ago in an old supermarket. Today, it remains one of the very best examplars of Colorado Mexican, smothering its crispy chiles relleno with a hot, gravy-like green chile you could only find in Colorado.

Where should Gustavo eat this time? What restaurant offers a uniquely Colorado twist on Mexican cuisine? Las Delicias? (I visited the original outpost, opened in 1976 at 19th and Penn, last night, and it was as delicious as always.) Benny's? Maybe even the original Chipotle? Post your suggestions here -- fast. -- Patricia Calhoun

Mark Schlereth isn’t a green chile expert. He doesn’t know how to make it, he doesn’t have any favorite places around Denver that make it, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Colorado-style chile and New Mexico-style. Until recently, he admits, “I’d never had green chile. Now I’m hooked.”

But his lack of knowledge doesn’t seem to matter, because Schlereth certainly knows how to eat green chile — and sell it.

Can you digest a steel-belted radial? Are you goiter-popping iodine-deficient? If so, has Chubby's got the lard-laced saltastic green chile you've been looking for!

I understand why people don't love this place. The north Denver landmark can put a hurtin' on anyone's bowels. Even those who were raised at the teet of Grandma Stella's fat factory at 38th Avenue and Lipan have been betrayed by this, their childhood love. Even those who swear the kind of allegiance to Chubby's that makes the French Foreign Legion oath of honor look like a kindergarten pinky swear have stumbled in here hungry at mid-day or mid-night, only to later be roused from deep sleep with the kind of gut-wrenching regret that usually pangs only those who have committed violent crimes of passion, or paid to see Gigli.