Emilio's Mexican Restaurant: Still Super To Me

First, an apology:

Dear Joey,

I am really really sorry I missed you. I honestly don't know how it happened. Wait! That's not true, I know exactly how it happened. I didn't know you existed in the first place and I got caught up with my expectations, and you know what that leads to. I was unmindful and unseeing, which are not qualities I am trying to improve, especially during this project. The funny thing is, in the space of half a city block, I never even passed you. I got to my other destinations just shy of seeing you, tucked back in there, angled front window, dirty and dusty, red and white lettering spattered and lonely. Hang in there Joey, I'll be there next week, I promise. 

Okay. The first thing I notice about Emilio's is that it is no longer called Emilio's Super Chef Mexican Restaruant. What? Emilio is no longer a super chef? Were they ashamed of false advertising and decided to go humble and true? Hopefully the name change is not a portent of the meal to come. The Super Chef logo, which is still visible on their website http://www.emiliosmexicanrestaurant.com/, was a gorgeous little piece of art deco lit up by a spotlight and all the glow of mexican restaurant neon. It’s the kind of sign that makes me wish I knew more about the location of sign graveyards.  It kind of looked like this: SUPER CHEF , italics, then bigger, try to say that out loud, I dare you.

It’s a sunny evening and there is a patio and a bike rack next to the patio, tulips sprouting next to the rack. Score. Michael Jackson is singing about the way I make him feel. Even better. The sign on the door says Please Wait To Be Seated, which forces me to endure an awkward moment as I wait just inside for the one waiter to take the order of the one other customer. I’m such a sign-abider. Anywhere is good he says. I’m meeting my friend Seth and two fine ladies, Amanda and Megan, but they’re not here yet. I sit at the four-top next to the open door leading out to the patio.  It’s like a Mexican diner, complete with the requisite red and green and white paper doll style cut-outs of sombreros and donkeys and beer bottles hanging from the ceiling, water color prints of desert landscapes, and your typical Mexican-Catholic iconography. And neon.

My friends old and new arrive, sit down, and hail and regale the waiter Tony. They love Tony and they love Emilio’s and I’m glad they are my companions. Seth immediately takes charge of beverage ordering. He had warned me before that their margs come out of a gun. Perfect! What an efficient way to get some tequila into my system. Okay so it’s a soda gun, but the effect is similar. Seth gets the Mexican Tour Beer Bucket. Hmm, whatever could that be? Of course I picture a bucket of beer, with a little divet on the lip of the bucket for easier flow into the mug or mouth. Oh ha ha no, it’s a metal pail of ice with 5 lovely bottles of Pacifico sticking out, a table top cooler if there ever was one, containing a perfect star of beer bottles with limes and golden liquid below just waiting to become spinning fuegos artificiales at the fiesta in my mind. Oh wait that must be the first sip of my marg talking. Sure enough, it is deceptively strong and delicious and tastes nothing like the coin-styles I’ve been fancying lately. This is a gulping marg. We all draw out a beer, leaving one in the bucket. 5 beers for 4 people, it’s like the way they package hot dogs and hot dogs buns in different numbers, a sure way to get you to buy more so it evens out.

I like the menu. It has more focus on a la carte items than on combo platos. All the better for trying a variety of my own choosing, who needs rice and beans anyway? I order: 1 chile relleno, 1 barbacoa taco, 1 chicken enchilada, and chicharonnes. I have never had chicharonnes before , I spy them on the menu almost immediately and think that I will impress my friends but I give away my ignorance and ask what exactly they are. Fried pig skin, like pork rinds. Okay, I can handle that. Now that every chef in the nation is on board the porky pig train I’ve had myself a fair amount of that animal, including those cuts that I had never heard of 2 years ago. So why not the skin? Can the skin be considered a “cut”? Maybe somewhere in the world but I’m guessing not at Emilio’s. But hell, if it’s deep fried it’s edible and probably, maybe, hopefully tasty. At least these were my thoughts upon ordering the chicharonnes, although I couldn’t help but notice the wince on Amanda’s face when I ordered them.  

The food comes out, was it in a basket or on a plate? I can’t remember, I’m on my second marg now and while I thought I was taking copious notes it turns out they weren’t all legible. While I’d like to start with how well proportioned the sauce and cheese was to my trio of tex-mex goodness, I have to get right to the point: The chicharonnes, which mind you cost $2, the cheapest thing I ordered, are taking up half the plate and something tells me I know my friends aren’t going to help me out. They are small and somewhat pyramid-shaped, various shades of brown, they look like they spent too much time in the fryer. I do the deed. Uck. Totally gross. Wow! I’m actually grossed out, this rarely happens. I try another, the fryer grease gooshing out, the flavor is rancid, there is nothing good about this cut of pig. I douse another in tomatilla sauce, thinking that might be the magic ingredient, the cheese to the macaroni, but no. I stare helplessly at the looming pile left on my plate, I wonder if the cook gave me a double amount just to fuck with me, pinche gringa. Moving on to the edible portion of my dinner, it is just what I wanted. The barbacoa perhaps a little dry and tough, but drown that in sauce and you’re good to go. The relleno, one of my all-time favorite tex-mex foods, is nice and crispy (go fryer go!) and the ratio of cheese to chile pepper is perfect. It’s hard to fuck up a chicken enchilada, and this one does not disappoint.

Emilio’s is the kind of place you get drunk and put hot cheesy Mexican food on top of the alcohol and talk a lot about whatever. And we did. In case you were wondering the glowing eyes on the giant blue stallion outside DIA look even scarier at 5 in the morning when you’re grogilly taking your acupuncturist to the airport. Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay. What does Montevideo mean anyway we wonder. Mountain video, definitely. Denver was named after John Denver for sure. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing at this point, we are singing and dancing in our seats and if they had karaoke you know we’d be all over it. The Boss, Olivia Newton John, Owner of a Lonely Heart, You Can Do Magic, you get the idea. We ended the meal on the patio, smoked a cigarette, the final third of the perfect meal pie: eat, drink, smoke.