Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [206]
Recently remodeled, the dining area offers hugely spacious booths and counter service. And for truckers and other travelers who want to stay connected, it is a Wi-Fi hot spot.
La Fogata
5670 E. Evans Ave.
303–753–9458
Denver, CO
BLD | $
(2nd location in Denver at 8090 E. Quincy Ave.
720–974–7315)
La Fogata means “the bonfire” however, the green chile stew served in this bilingual establishment isn’t really all that hot. But it is quite delicious: zesty, glowing with sunny chile flavor, and packed with the punch of cumin. If you are looking for excellent Mexican food in Denver, this is the place to be.
Many items on La Fogata’s menu are nationally familiar Tex-Mex staples—enchiladas, chiles relleños, tamales—expertly made and served in abundance; but this is also an opportunity to be adventurous. If you are blasé about beef in your taco, you can order tacos filled with crisp-roasted pork (wonderful!) or with beef tongue (spicy!), or ceviche tostadas, or you can spoon into a bowl of menudo, the Mexican tripe-and-hominy stew that is alleged to have magical powers to cure a hangover. To drink, there are imported beers, plenty of tequila cocktails, and the true-Mex nonalcoholic favorite, horchata, which is sweet rice milk.
This is a fun place to dine, where the crowd is equal measures of downtown business executives, blue-collar beer drinkers, and foodies who appreciate a rare taste of high-quality but unpretentious and inexpensive Mexican food.
Kansas
Al’s Chickenette
700 Vine St.
785–625–7414
Hays, KS
LD | $
We salute The Splendid Table listener named Craig who wrote to tell us that Al’s Chickenette is “a great Roadfood place…fantastic, everything freshly made, piping hot, and slender, fresh-cut French fries, a rarity in that part of the country.”
We agree. If you are traveling in western Kansas along I-70 with any degree of appetite as you approach Hays, do yourself a favor and find Al’s. It will be especially easy to find if it’s after dark, for this sixty-year-old eatery has a beautiful vintage neon sign glowing outside. Indoors, the walls are covered with evocative pictures of Kansas railroad history and a huge collection of chicken figurines.
Of course, the thing to eat is chicken, fried. You can buy it by the quarter or half bird, tenders or nuggets, a breast fillet or a giblet dinner of livers and/or gizzards. This is not fast-food chicken. It will take a while for your order to cook, which is one reason it is so good. As your teeth crack through the chicken’s crunchy skin, wafts of aromatic steam erupt into the air. It is delicious plain, but the way Al’s customers know to eat it is to take a squeeze bottle of honey and drizzle some across the crisp skin (as well as on the excellent French fries). The honey’s sweetness sings mellifluous harmony with the chicken’s salty crust.
Brookville Hotel
Lafayette St.
785–263–2244
Abeline, KS
LD | $$
Buffalo Bill slept at the Brookville Hotel in the small town of Brookville, as did untold numbers of cowboys when Kansas was the end of the line for trail drives up from Texas. It was opened in 1870, and it has built a reputation for its bountiful family-style chicken dinners since 1915.
The old Brookville Hotel closed a few years ago and a new version opened in Abeline. It’s a modern building with a design reminiscent of the old facility; however, the charms of the old railhead town of Brookville are absent. For travelers who considered