Local TexMex

 

3 Margaritas is your basic family Tex-Mex place, with inexpensive large portions that taste great.  Above is their steaming pile of fajitas. The chain actually started in the Seattle area as Las Margaritas, which grew to 15 locations and then was sold.  Then a new chain was started in Colorado, with currently 8 locations around here now.

Why Asian?

You may have noticed a trend here.  I like Asian Food of all kinds. 

Why? It is exotic to me: I can't easily make this stuff at home.  It just tastes great, and often comes kinda spicy.  It is prepared usually quickly, and sometimes it is even good for you.

When you go out to eat, you want something different.  Burgers and pizza usually don't fly, I get enough of that already.

This stuff requires skills, equipment, and ingredients that are not in everyone's kitchen, so I am happy to try another's.


Maybe I missed your favorite Asian
place?  Mention yours in the comments, and I will check it out.

  

Give it to me Raw

Suehiro is known for some of the best Sushi in FoCo.  There used to be 2 locations -- one in Old Town and a newer one in SE at the Front Range Village.  The old location burned up a few years ago, then changed ownership and is now called Wabi Sabi.

Up above we have their Dynamite Lunch Special: comes with a unique bowl, a kinda baked fish casserole, and a choice of 2 raw sushi rolls. Recommend the Tijuana roll on the right, their version of spicy tuna.  We suspect that the bowl is really yesterdays leftovers baked up, but it all tastes good.  Also shown is the complementary miso soup and cucumber salad.

Famous Food

Dave's is a big national franchise with almost 200 locations, one of those is right here in SE FoCo,  part of the Front Range Village. It was started in Wisconsin over 20 years ago, and the interior decor echos that beginning -- made to look like a large hunting or fishing cabin from the Great Lakes region.

Meat lovers rejoice!  I can't handle this much meat daily, but once in a while it is fun to go protein here, where everything just tastes really good.  Up above, left, we have their Burnt Ends app, the really crunchy parts of brisket they used to throw away.  Also shown is the 2-meat lunch special sampler, with ribs, brisket, and a side of grilled pineapple. Mmm, good!

Piece o PanCake

A new pancake house arrived in town: IHOP on over to The Original Pancake House when I get chance, just make sure you get there before 2pm.  This is a franchise out of Portland, Oregon.  Huge portions and known for their pricey but awesome bacon.  Above we have blueberry pancakes, one of about 20 varieties offered.  Located in the hot SE corner of FoCo tucked behind Peleton on Harmony.

Bann Me Anyday

This Thai place is in SE FoCo, another restaurant in the hot Front Range Village off Harmony.  This is actually the second location, another is downtown near campus.  Above we have Panang Curry once more, my favorite try at any Thai place. Accompanied by an order of pot stickers and coconut rice.  Bann or บ้าน means home. Welcome home!

Alfredo Burrito

Another local burrito place in FoCo, Cafe Mexicali has been around over 10 years now. Actually a small chain today with 3 NoCo locations. The mid-town place on College in FoCo is popular for lunch, so get there early before the line goes out the door. What makes this place? Only place in town that make fresh tortillas right before your eyes.  Unique homemade sauces, savory meats, large portions, smothered.  Always use a knife and fork here. Recommend this combo: Sweet Pork with their unique Creamy Habanero Sauce. Yum!

Out of Africa

I don't often get to eat African food, but this place is fun.  Ras-Ka is in is FoCo on Laurel, a small Ethiopian place right across from NE CSU campus. The atmosphere is unique and homey: the owner and chef greets you, seats you, takes your order, and servers you.  Kinda feels like you are guests in her living room.  Above we have African Chicken with a tasty vegetarian side, and the strange, spongy bread called injera. Fun!

Not Italian!

Please don't take me out to an Italian place. 

Why? Pizza and pasta don't motivate me to drive over there.  Just not that into it anymore.  Americans are over-Italianized in their food choices already.  How many frozen pizzas are in your freezer right now?  Fast, easy, tastes OK.  Frozen lasagna is pretty good, most places are serving frozen anyway.  Spaghetti sauce out of jar at home comes pretty close to restaurant quality. I grew up eating SpaghettiOs and raviolis from a can.  Not real food there, but Chef Boyardee has helped cure me from all other Italian chefs.  How many ways can you make a noodle, then add a sauce over it?  Bored already. 

I lived in South Jersey for almost 3 years.  This also led to my cure.  It seemed every restaurant there was Italian.  Every time we went out to eat, it was pasta or pizza.  (And the rumor was, you could get a no-paperwork, high-interest loan at most of them.) So keep the Olives out of my Garden. Send the Spaghetti back to the Factory.  Capeesh?

Eyes for Eggs

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Another local non-dinner venue is the Egg & I, started about 30 years ago in FoCo.  It is a franchise success story, now with 92 locations all over the USA.  Up above we have their wild mushroom frittata, part of their new seasonal menus, this was the Fall menu. Good stuff. But what is a frittata anyway? I guess you could call it an open-face Italian omelette, or, a not-folded-over omelette. 

Young's at Heart

Young's Cafe has been in FoCo for over 30 years, it is still here because it is the best Vietnamese place around, or even the best Asian food, period.  Up above is a curry rice noodle bowl with duck off the lunch menu.  Really good stuff.  They have the best service, also.  They could use a better location, though.  Tucked behind Red Lobster in an older strip mall, it is not easy to find, and even harder to park there.  But if you find it, and park OK, it is well worth getting over there.

Cheapest Lunch in Town

At $2.65, the pizza combo above, with an extra slice, is hard to beat for value. No fancy bistro here, just Sam's Club in store cafe.  So if you are shopping, or just get stuck there for a few hours waiting on tires ... quick, cheap, not bad.

Torched in FoCo

This new taco joint just opened a week ago in FoCo, near the renovated Foothills Mall on College.  Another growing chain, Torchy's Tacos started as a food truck in Austin, Texas.  The menu is very simple: 14 artistically named tacos.  Up above we have Baja Shrimp, Dirty Sanchez (veggie) and Mr. Orange (salmon).  The line was out the door, since folks in FoCo love to try new places.  But the wait is not very long. This basically feels like food truck eats in a brick & mortar restaurant. Trendy and fun.  Really weird sodas on tap: do not expect Coke or Pepsi products, they are all corn free and interesting.  They also have a large covered patio.  Seems most of the new places in town offer roof-top or patio dining.  My favorite taco so far was the Dirty one.

Burrito Revolution

There has been a burrito revolution in the USA.  It was in 1993 when big fresh burritos started showing up near college campuses, Chipotle was one of the first, near the DU campus in Denver.  Cheap, fast, good, fresh food in large portions was exactly what poor starving college students were looking for.  Back then, most fast food places were burger joints.  Maybe Taco Bell offered a burrito back then, but it wasn't very filling, good, or fresh.  My first experience with this new kind of restaurant was Big City Burrito, which started in FoCo in 1994.  It was a very bohemian place, almost like a hippie food co-op from the '60s.  There was a long line of students waiting to devour their football-sized tortilla-wrapped bundles of joy.  It was fun.  Since then, the concept has been corporatized, and American fast food will never be the same, thankfully.

Aztec Peppers

This is no small bistro, but a corporate giant with 2,000+ locations world-wide.  However, it did start here in CO, with roots in the Boulder area.  Above we have a veggie burrito bowl, huge portions, and almost guiltless at $6.50.  Something about their food just tastes better to me.  Maybe it is their commitment to Food with Integrity campaign, documented in the snarky custom cold cup above (love those).  Maybe it's because their ingredients just have awesome taste, compared to Qdoba who relies on a gloppy goo they like to call "queso".  

Maybe they also need to balance Food with Integrity with "Food with Safety".  Numerous food alerts have cut their stock value in half over the past year, maybe non-conventional food sourcing comes with it's own set of risks. I have never had a problem, so far, still rolling the dice here.

The name chipotle derives from the Aztec word for "smoke-dried jalapeño pepper".  Sure, I like the local joints better, but this also works for me.

Thai'm for Thai

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One of the newer Thai places in Loveland got a new name.  What was once Cafe de Bangkok II is newly christened Thai Thai'm.  The reason: this place does a lot of carry out orders.  Folks on the phone were getting confused between the Loveland and FoCo locations.  So the new name should help fix that.

Above we have the Panang curry.  Still the same deliciousness, just a new name.

the Matador, another one

The renovated Foothills Mall in FoCo has some new places to eat, this is one of them.  Casa Del Matador or The Matador is a small chain from the Seattle area, with a few new locations in CO.  The Tex Mex menu is not huge, but the tequila menu is, with 200+ different kinds offered. (It is amazing how humans will ferment just about anything they can to get buzzed, even in the desert.) So, maybe mostly a tequila bar, with some food.  But the burrito above seemed to be very tasty and different, homemade and fresh.  Their upscale space is attractive and fun, and the protected patio is popular. Not to be confused with the other Matador in town, which is faster, cheaper, and has more beer than tequila.

This is the kinda place that makes eating out in FoCo fun: new, young chains seeking early expansion opportunities love to come here, because we will support them, if they are good.

Phở Sure

A little bit of Vietnam in Loveland, Pho Lan recently moved from a sketchy strip mall on US-34 to a better location, where Red Dragon used to be, near the Post Office.  Huge portions of noodle soup, that is what they do here.  You get your "salad" on the side, just dump all that in and stir. 

Above we have their Pho Dac Biet, dac biet means "special deal" and it means you get not one, but 4 different pieces of cow in there.  Come on now, be brave, when's the last time you had tripe for lunch?  If you can't "stomach" that, select any of the the other 13 varieties offered.  My favorite place when there's lots of snow falling or I need to cure a cold.

Loveland Thai

So eating out Asian has been getting more fun down in Loveland.  The town used to be known only for the typical Asian/American buffet with stale, tasteless food sitting in iffy steamer trays, all you care to eat.

Not anymore.
Something has changed recently.  Good, fresh, spicy Asian offerings are starting to show up in FoCo's southern sister.

This one here is called Cafe de Bangkok II.  The sequel.  A spin off of the one in FoCo over on Elizabeth.  Bangkok II is located in a old strip mall off the main street Eisenhower / US-34.  The location is bit sketchy, but hey, isn't that usually where the good food hides?
Up above we have spring rolls ($4.95) and duck curry ($12.75).  No reason to stray from the curry page of the menu with 8 different curries to choose from, most with the sweet and spicy coconut milk base.  With 4 levels of heat you can set when ordering, nothing boring here.

Bai the Way, in Loveland ...

Here's another example of the new awesome Asian offerings showing up now in Loveland.  It's called Bai Tong, which anglicizes from ใบตอง or banana leaf, I'm told. They also offer 8 different Thai curries, most unique is an Avocado curry. Up above we have chicken Panang curry ($10.95), fresh roll ($6.50) with cabbage & chicken soup (free).  (I've got a thang for Panang, do you?)

Don't go for boring white or brown rice, go large with the unique coconut rice offering for .50 more, trust me.  They offer 5 levels of hotness here.  Warning: they really mean it!.  If you can go 3 stars or higher, you can really take the heat.

It's located in a quaint, brightly-colored house/restaurant (or "housetrant") on Loveland's main northbound 1-way, called Lincoln. (Be extra nice to the wait staff, there are a couple flights of stairs for each trip from the kitchen.) With roots in the Seattle area, I am not exactly sure why the Sunti family decided on Loveland, but I am sure glad they did.

Matador Burritos

If you have not found Matador Mexican Grill yet in SE Foco, you should.  It's on E. Harmony next to Cold Stone in a little strip mall.  Do you need yet another another burrito joint?  Yes you do, and here's why: 5 kinds of wrapper (suggestion: jalapeno-cheddar), 6 kinds of veg choices (including potato), 6 kinds of generous, well-seasoned meats (suggestion: big chunks of steak), and optional piping hot liquid queso sauce.

But by far the best reason to go to "Maty" is for the homemade salsas.  The photo up top shows 20+ offerings for salsa, I personally go for the Mango Habanero, but there is something for everyone, here.  If you are a hot-pepper aficionado, like the local owner is, you may recognize Ghost, Scorpion, and Carolina Reaper listed there.  These are the newest, hottest peppers that have recently redefined the Scoville scale of hot-pepperiness.  This is the only place in town that offers 3 of the hottest peppers in the world on your plate, if you like to eat bear spray on your burritos, like some of my friends do.

Tips: beat the lunch rush, this place can have long lines right at noon.  Another location is available in Loveland, a bit east of Target.  The green chili smother, shown above, is another nice option.  They offer a really, really cheap daily special, check the menu or chalkboard. So try something other than corporate Qdoba and Chipotle, go local instead.

Lunch Bunch

Do you have a lunch bunch? That is, some folks you regularly eat with at lunch time?  If not, you should get one.  Eating alone is boring. Eating in can be, too.  Find some friends at work and go out for lunch together.  Especially helpful if one of them drives a larger vehicle.  Christen that the "lunch bus" and go explore the local eateries.  Make sure at least one of them is an extrovert, to keep the convo rolling.

Loveland Raw

Here's a $10 combo plate: spicy tuna roll with 5 nigiri sushi.  Located in NW Loveland, Sushi ZENSAI has been around a while, pretty good eats.  Be sure to order the combos, buying this à la carte would double the price tag, what a "raw" deal that would be.  寿司 or sushi literally means "vinegar rice", referring to the old days when the rice was fermented. 前菜 or zensai means "before salad" or "appetizer".  握り or nigiri means "handle", indicating easy-to-eat with your hands.  So if you can handle fermented rice appetizers, this place is for you.

Corporate Dough

Huge corporate chain with 2,000 locations, not my usual food.  But this stuff just tastes really good.  Not my usual crowd either for the lunch bunch.  A few of the places we go seem to attract the "soccer mom" set: younger housewives with kids in tow.  Must be all the salads here.

But at a place literally titled "Bread-Basket Bread", you should order, uhh, bread, like above.  Sandwich, baguette chunk, and optional pastry for .99 more. Lots of bread. Sandwiches you can order off the menu that actually taste great.  My favorite here used to be something called the Asiago Steak sandwich.  Panera risked dropping me as a customer when they dropped this old choice from their menu recently.  So I tried the replacement Steak & Arugula, above.  Tastes like nothing else I've ever had, and the combination is incredibly yummy.  (What is arugula, anyway? I guess you could call it Italian kale, or others call it "salad rocket".)  Hats off to the creative sandwich chefs here who forced me to try one of their new surprising offerings.

Triple D

Huge portions, fresh-made, green chili, yum.  Sums up Doug's Day Diner.  This is a local CO chain, with NoCo locations in FoCo and Loveland Downtown.  The owner is from Windsor, Doug Weckerly.  The homemade green chili can be ordered with just about any menu item.  The chili is a legacy of Doug's first restaurant in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Up above we have huge pancakes, thickest bacon in town, a giant omelette (or would that just be an 'omel') with homemade peach jelly and a biscuit the size of 3.  You will not go away hungry here.  Just don't show up for that other D -- Dinner, closes at 2pm.

Not Five Stars

This place is popular.  Sure they have fresh burgers with lots of unique toppings.  The bag o' fries is generous, but just not that tasty. The best fries in town are a few doors down from here. The food here is not very fast.  The barn they give you to eat in is noisy, uncomfortable, and crowded.  And I can make a pretty decent burger at home, with almost as much grease.

Sorry, Five Guys is not a Five Star rating in my book.  Maybe one. 

I like to do lunch with my usual lunch bunch for the food and for the conversation.  Hard to do the convo here.  Just not a fun place to sit and eat. Just OK food, zero ambiance.  I stay away.

Chili in Here

 

If you have not found Chili House yet, you should.  Probably not the best name for the place.  You will not find Texas-style nor Cincinnati-style here.  The only beans served here are in the form of tofu.  What you will find is a delicious mix of Asian offerings inspired from China, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

It is located in S FoCo off College, tucked in the corner behind Burger King.  You may have heard that it burned up in 2015.  It did. But it has bounced back.

For lunch, there is no reason to stray from the unique 2nd column of the menu, with the Malaysian and Thai entrees. Sure, you can order like the usual American, and get Sesame Chicken. But why?  Up above we have Thai Spicy Rice Noodles with chicken, and yes, with red chili peppers on board.  No one else has that dish.  Yum.

So maybe it should be re-named Pepper House, or Chili Pepper House. Whatever. You Texans can stay away, but everyone else, enjoy.

It's Greek to Me

You'd think this here gyro came from Renzios Greek Food: A Taste of the Old World.  At least that's what the label says.  But you'd be wrong.  This came from Café Athens in SE FoCo, in the hot Front Range Village, a few doors down from Five Guys.

Renzios Greek Food was what it was called when the place was located in the old Foothills Fashion Mall food court.  Yep, Mall Food.  When the mall got shabby, the owners moved out.  Good thing they did.  Turns out the founders are former Greek farmers from Montana.  Yes, Montana. There are 7 locations, 2 in NoCo, with another one in Loveland between Dick's and Barnes & Noble on the back side of Centerra Promenade (hard to find).

This food is fast and good.  Recommend you go Hot & Spicy on the gyro, which means jalapeños.  Less boring that way.  The fries are some of the best around: crunchy & crispy.  Sorry Five Guys, like these better.

Room for Rumi's

 

If you find yourself in NE Greeley, look for Rumi's House of Kabob, it's in a house-restaurant, or "housetrant", on the main eastbound 1-way called 9th Street, park in the back.  Their offerings are Middle Eastern, above is their Koobideh and Chicken Kabob platter trio.  Comes with saffron rice, but the Greek salad is optional, ordering it makes it a "trio".  Koobideh is kinda like Iranian sausage: a ground mix of meats with spices and onions, really good stuff. You should mix the butter into the rice, then squeeze the roasted tomato over the rice also.  A nice surprise in Greeley.

Cajun Naked Burrito

Above we have the Jean Lafitte ($9) combo at J. Gumbo's, it's a combo of their Voodoo Chicken and Bumblebee Stew entrees, pretty much a naked (or just topless?) Cajun chicken burrito, but darn tasty.  Be sure to order a side of their scrumptious corn bread, if your order does not already come with one. 

Yes, this a small franchise, starting in Kentucky but with know-how from Gran Coteau, Louisiana.  It is very fast food. The only CO location so far is right here in the hot Front Range Village in SE FoCo, a few doors down from Five Guys.

Update: This place just did not make it.  Closed their doors Nov 2016.

Best Reuben?

If I'm trying a sandwich shop for the first time, I'll order up a Reuben and see what happens. 
Why? I guess because everyone's supposed to know what a Reuben is. Quick, easy order from a new-to-me menu. 

Some places in town serve something they call a Reuben, but they often just do not measure up. 
This one here is stacked 3 inches high with lots of corned beef and kraut, best I've had in town. $9.99 

Yes, it's a chain, even started in Texas. But you will not go away hungry, but maybe with a touch of lockjaw.

If you know a another good place in town for a Reuben, put it in the comments.