Believe me, I’ve heard the complaint before.
In fact, I’ve made the complaint before: There just aren’t enough interesting independent restaurants in and around Denver’s big shopping and residential developments.
And it’s true. A large share of the area’s marquee restaurant real estate is occupied by deep-pocketed corporate entities like Ted’s and Elephant Bar and P.F. Chang’s, that are, if popular, decidedly not local or independent.
** RATING | VERY GOOD
But more often than not, the remedy to corporate cuisine is nearer than we think. In fact, it’s right across the street.
You’ll have to squint, because the little guys don’t have very big signs, but they’re there. Case in point: El Tapatío, just across West Alameda Avenue from Belmar.
Rooted at the end of a worn, second-tier strip mall, El Tapatío is kitschy and roughshod in only good ways. You’ve been in this friendly room before (there’s one in nearly every neighborhood in town), with its rows of low booths, televisions in each upper corner, maracas and plastic flowers hanging from the rafters.
A dry-erase board at the front spells out the specials, which will include things like tacos al carbon or menudo or crab. You’ll nestle into your well-worn booth, order a margarita (refreshing and alcoholic) and speed-scan the menu, which like those of many Mexican restaurants in town is expansive and repetitive.
Good thing the chips are warm and fresh, and the salsa vegetative and back-of-the- throat spicy.
If you’re a fish-freak like I am, it’s hard to beat the huachinango (red snapper), fried and presented on a plate with all the requisite fixin’s: rice, beans, cilantro-spiked pico de gallo, lime. The skin was crispy and brittle and light, the flesh was soft and flaky and rich, a rib-sticking supper more regal than I expected in this unpretentious setting. Makes sense they’d put out a good fish dish, given the provenance of this place (Jalisco, a maritime state on Mexico’s west coast).
The shrimp cocktail, more entree than appetizer, featured big, meaty prawns perched around a piquant red dipping sauce studded with onions and chiles. More varied in content was the mixed seafood cocktail, a fresh-tasting ceviche-like jumble of fish, shrimp and squid in a zingy citrus bath. Make a lunch out of either of these, and wash it down with an icy beer.
Tacos are easy to screw up, but as the folks at El Tapatío evidently know, also easy to get right. Choose the barbacoa for a soulful, slow-roasted flavor, or the al carbon, tossed with grilled onions and jalapeños for a charcoal vaquero taste. The adobada featured succulent bits of marinated pork which, while nicely textured and porky, needed more punch for my palate; those who like things mild might dig it.
El Tapatío is blessedly open for breakfast. You’d be hard- pressed to find better shopping fuel than a bracing plate of huevos rancheros, in my opinion a more inspiring morning meal than you’ll get at Le Peep just down the way.
The green chile at El Tapatío is too tepid in seasoning (more precisely: desperately lacking in salt) to rank among the city’s best, and is much better enjoyed as a smother over your burrito than as a main event in itself. The chile relleno is likewise a soggy letdown, but then, it’s been a while since I’ve met a relleno that I really liked.
Call it relleno ennui; I’ve got it.
What I’m not bored with is friendly service, the norm at El Tapatío. If you’re conversant in Spanish, you’ll be happy to use it here; if you’re not, no matter. You don’t need it.
Call ahead for the mariachi schedule, which is currently Friday nights and Sunday afternoons, and plan your visit accordingly. (In other words: If you can’t stand live mariachi music while you eat, and judging from my inbox it drives many of you nuts, come another time.)
You’ve got a week until Christmas. If you’re like everyone else at the mall, you’ve lost your mind with all the stress and angst of desperate last-minute preparations. Who in tarnation has the mojo to cook, what with all those presents to wrap?
Leave the stove alone. The run-up to the holiday is prime time for a warm, restorative, no-brain- cells-taxed supper at your favorite neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Make it El Tapatío if you’re in this neighborhood.
(Note: El Tapatío has a second location in Golden. Only the Lakewood location was visited for this review.)
Tucker Shaw: 303-954-1958 or dining@denverpost.com
El Tapatio
Mexican. 7301 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, 303-239-9872 (reviewed); and 714 Golden Ridge Road, Golden, 303-279-7565. (Very Good)
Atmosphere: Large, comfortable, rough-around-the-edges (but clean) dining room, relaxing and informal.
Service: Smiley and swift. Expect your soda to remain topped off, and plenty of chips and salsa.
Wine: Have a margarita or freezing-cold beer.
Plates: Combo plates $10 or less, nothing over $18.
Hours: Three meals, seven days.
Details: No reservations. Parking lot. All major credit cards. Come on game day, plenty of TVs carry all the action.
Three visits.
Our star system:
****: Excellent
***: Great
**: Very Good
*: Good
