14 OCTOBER 9-15, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Den-Mex Diary THE MEXICAN RETURNS TO HIS BELOVED DENVER TO EAT AFTER MANY YEARS. HE HAS THOUGHTS. BY GUSTAVO ARELL ANO Denver! Where have I been? It’s been way too long since our breakup – 2018, to be specifi c. That’s when I was at Su Teatro for the premiere of Interview with a Mexican, the play based off my for- mer columna, ¡Ask a Mexican!, that ran in Westword for eleven years and made me fall in love with ustedes. And then I left y’all at the altar. Look, I didn’t want to. Denver became like a second home to me, a place I began to be able to map out in my mind and began to recommend to others as a far cooler place than Austin or pinche Nashville. But I had to leave after I lost my job at Westword’s former sister paper, OC Weekly, because I refused to lay off half the staff. I had to orient myself toward my homeland of Southern California and wher- ever a freelancer’s paycheck took me. Sadly, I never got back to Denver...until last month. (Okay, so I actually spent a night in Golden last year as part of an epic road trip I took across the American Southwest that helped me become a Pulitzer Prize fi nalist in Com- mentary, because guess what? I totally sold out and my day job is now as a metro colum- nist for the Los Angeles Times.) So many things have changed over the past seven years since we last saw each other, but know that I always speak fondly about y’all — even that old anti-Mexican wacko Tom Tancredo (but not Dick Lamm). I learned so much about what a cool city you are, but especially with your unique take on Mexican food, which I christened Den-Mex: your Mexican hamburger, your chile, your smothered burritos, your cooler burritos and so much more (but not Chipotle). So when the University of Denver asked if I could give its annual Margolin lecture, named after a Pulitzer Prize fi nalist in in- vestigative reporting for the Rocky Mountain News back in the day, it was like asking me to return to heaven. I ended up spending a day and a half eating my way through Denver and talking about your food — and not just Den-Mex. Denver? I’ve got thoughts about what ustedes eat, and not all of them positive! So I offer my following food diary with peace and love… Wednesday I fl ew into Denver and got my Uber. Most drivers never say anything other than check- ing to see if you’re the person their phone says they’re picking up and a syrupy “thank you” at the end in hopes that you give them fi ve stars and a bigger tip than what some bot suggests. Not my Uber driver this time. Didn’t get his name, but he was a Chicano. Grew up in Gypsum “and got the hell out as fast as I could. Every time I go back, I hear about an- other person I know who just got out of jail.” He asked what I did for a living and was shocked when I told him the Mexican ham- burger only exists in the Denver area. “Man, my wife just made a great Mexican hamburger last night,” he said as we drove toward the History Colorado Center. “I’m going to eat that for days!” He liked that I’m a fan of the Original Chubby’s and was shocked when I fi gured out what fancy market he was talking about when he said he wanted to get an Italian sandwich after I dropped him off. “How does a Cali guy know about Marczyk?” he asked. “Bro, you really know your Denver.” He dropped me off at the History Colo- rado Center so I could hear a great lecture about the music of southern Colorado while waiting for Calhoun to fi nish her work. All credit goes to her for teaching me about Den-Mex over the years — but you’re going to have to subscribe to my newsletter to read my paean to her in the coming weeks (gustavoarellano.beehiiv.com). All I can tell you for now is that I was going to ask her to take me to El Noa Noa, where I shared pork tamales with Tancredo before our infamous debate (moderated by Calhoun, of course) across the street at Su Teatro in 2010, something that could never happen in these stupid times of ours. But before I asked, I Googled to see if El Noa Noa was still open — and damn, it had given up the space it had occupied for forty years to El Chingon, which is currently closed because of a kitchen fi re. So I asked Calhoun if we could go to my other favorite Den-Mex spot: La Fiesta. La Fiesta stayed open late for us because owner Robert Herrera remembered who I was and besides: When Calhoun calls in a favor there, it happens. The famous smoth- ered chiles relleno were as silky and crunchy as ever, and the house salsa was spicier than I remembered — but the chips that went with it were thin and greasy, and the fl our tortilla that came with the spectacular chile caribe (a Wednesday special) were pedestrian. But I’m glad that La Fiesta is fi nally open for Friday and Saturday dinner and Sunday brunch, even if the reason — the lunch business that has never really rebounded since the pandemic — is sad. Step up and support, Denver, before another treasure of yours disappears and another Chipotle opens there. Calhoun dropped me off at my hotel so I could prepare for my evening pilgrimage to Casa Bonita, which I had never been to. You can read my thoughts about it in my Los Angeles Times columna — the only thing I’ll say here is that Casa Bonita shouldn’t be claiming it’s smothering its burritos when it’s instead offering them “wet,” like we heathen Californians call that style. But at least the fl our tortilla used for mine was thick and delicious — our hostess said that they came from a local tortilleria. Oh, and Casa Bonita’s fl uffy sopaipillas were the best I’ve ever tasted — may it put that same care into the rest of its menu. Thursday My University of Denver host picked me up in her car and promptly handed me a burrito bowl from Bonfi re Burritos out in Golden. The green chile fuego-style was spicy! The chorizo was great, too; the only criticism here was that it was a tad too salty. I only ate half of my burrito bowl because I don’t like to lecture on a full stomach. But it was the perfect nourishment to fuel me through my Margolin talk, which I devoted to my career covering Mexican food. One of the big developments in my life since 2018 is that I’ve been haunting southern Colorado (sorry for cheating on you, Denver, but your country cousin is as cool as you). The photo I used as my backdrop was the outside of Corine’s Mexican Food in Walsenburg, a spectacular roadside diner with pie and chile Colorado made from Pueblo chile (not the Hatch stuff that too many Denver spots use) and chicken tacos on lightly fried fl our tortillas that southern Colorado likes to call “chicken taco on white.” I found out about those traditions when I did another epic road trip in 2018 for Eater driving up Interstate 25 from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to Denver and eating nothing but chile in its various incarnations. When I asked the packed room if anyone had eaten at Corine’s, only one person raised a hand. You gotta explore your Pueblo-Mex, Denver. When the University of Denver said we’d have a catered lunch afterward, I requested Santiago’s. I thought DU was going to bring a bunch of breakfast burritos, so I was pleas- antly surprised to fi nd chicken enchiladas instead. The red enchilada had a deep chile fl avor that was better than the green, which was still delicious. And the red salsa was pure fi re. I sat down with friends I hadn’t seen in years. We could’ve talked deportations, Trump, the Broncos — but food was on all of our minds. Writer and fi lmmaker Manuel Aragon asked about my Casa Bonita experience and said the food was better when it was in preview mode: “They were even making mole, and it was good. Not sure why they took it off.” Tony Garcia, the author of Interview with a Mexican and longtime head of Su Teatro, reminded me of a Den-Mex spot that he took me to years ago whose name I couldn’t remember: Las Delicias, which has survived gentrifi cation in Uptown and whose carne adovada is the best I’ve had in Denver. Someone mentioned that she grew up in Brighton with the family that created Santiago’s; I had told an out-of-state student that Brighton was where Santiago’s started, and thank God I was right. See, Denver? Your prodigal adopted son never forgot our good times. We all started talking about the Original Chubby’s when it was a tiny spot on West 38th where you ordered through a little CAFE FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS Gustavo Arellano with Cartman at Casa Bonita. GUSTAVO ARELL ANO
