This is the second installment of this series that I explained fully here.
Denver Burrito #2: El Tepehuan
3457 S Broadway
One of the things that was implied but sort of went unsaid is that this burrito search will take me to places I've never been, but more than that, the kind of places that I've never been. Hole in the wall, authentic, taquerias and restaurants, mostly run by people that speak Spanish and serve to Spanish-speaking clientele.
This is a modest sit-down restaurant with three TVs--two flat-screens and one SD television sitting on a tall beer cooler. I happened to go during the Brazil-Mexico game and it was on all three TVs. It was surprisingly unobsessed with the soccer game. Two of the employees were wearing Mexico flag shirts and there were enough people sitting at the tables, but very quiet.
This place serves the opposite of Mission-style burritos. They are served on a plate covered in green chile. I came here second because I wanted to get one of these under my belt quickly, to have a better frame of reference for judging other burritos.
I ordered the Adovada burrito, no beans. I realize this whole "no beans" thing may be affecting the process. The description on the menu said "marinated pork, beans, smothered with green chile." So I was axing half of the interior ingredients. The thing is, I just dislike beans enough that I prefer burritos without them. Since this is a sit down restaurant, tax and tip brought this burrito to over 11 dollars.
So it comes just like you'd expect. It's rolled but open on both ends. The burrito is smothered with green chile overflowing onto the plate and then topped with shredded cheese. Lettuce and tomato are piled on the side, but I ignore them.
I used my fork to cut off a piece and stir in some of the pooled green chile for my first bite. The pork is outstanding. I look inside and it really is the only thing inside the burrito. So it's a pork and cheese burrito with green salsa, except the last two ingredients are outside the tortilla.
One of the knocks against the smothered style is that your tortilla will likely suffer. It's not going to have any of that griddled flavor. It probably has to be thick enough to handle the sauce. And even if you serve a good tortilla, it will probably get soggy and overwhelmed. The tortilla at El Tepehaun does suffer from all of these mentioned, and yet it's still pretty good.
The pork is the real star of the show. As I take more bites I discover there are bits of pineapple mixed into the small cubes of pork. The color of the meat is a rich burnt orange. Again, it tastes authentic--heavily seasoned, probably cooked on a grill that has accumulated it's own seasoning profile. The pork even has crunchy bits of char that are delicious and make up for the fact that the tortilla has not been crisped. (The tortilla did seem to have a bit of crispiness on the inside, though the green chile was wet enough to counteract that.)
The green chile was pretty darn good, but not mind-blowing. It had a good heat level, good flavor. Solid but not that memorable.
I find myself drawing many similarities to the hand-held burrito I had last week at Tacos Rapidos. In both cases, they were full of meat and hardly anything else. Luckily the meat was very good. But both are missing the range of flavors that I've grown to expect in a burrito.
I think that today's was superior to my first outing. Trying to assign these burritos number ratings has been harder than expected.
At the moment, I'm thinking:
Chipotle 8.5
El Tepehaun 7.5
Tacos Rapidos 7
But all of these ratings are still fluid and may rise or fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment