Emilio’s Super-Chef

Another restaurant and another website gone awry, http://www.emiliosmexicanrestaurant.com/. Maybe one day they will reclaim their URL, but until then enjoy the perpetually young college girl who is symbolic of cyber-squatting.
Emilio’s is several years old and a restaurant I frequently pass on my walk to work. Located at the corner of Colfax and Logan, they heavily advertise cheap margaritas and good breakfast burritos, fortunately at different times of the day.

I love breakfast burritos. It is the perfect mix of savory, heat, serving size and value to start the day. Unfortunately, Emilio’s opens at 8 AM, at which point I have been at my desk for the better part of an hour, so Emilio’s has always been the shuttered place that evidently serves breakfast burritos. When Aaron and I went I was pleasantly surprised to learn they serve breakfast all day, and even happier when Aaron said he was in the mood for one. In an effort to taste as much food as possible, he and I have taking to sharing our orders. We look like a long-married couple, picking at one another’s plates, but convention be damned as there is a lot of food to be eaten along Colfax!
The "Emilio's Breakfast Burrito" was huge, featuring several eggs, a few strips of bacon, potatoes, cheese and slabs of chorizo sausage. Aaron opted for smothered, which had the burrito swimming in green chile. While costing more than the $2 burrito I am used to from the street vendors downtown, this was cheaper when viewed by the pound, and there are also smaller breakfast burritos on the menu.


When the recipe calls for combing savory breakfast meats with eggs, cheese and green chile, it is hard to go wrong, and this item did not. I would argue that it is oversized for breakfast, as it is likely to leave you comatose for an hour or two. But if you find yourself in the need of a meal that will power you through your day, assuming you are not sitting behind a desk, then tuck into this.
I opted for soft tacos, one pork and one carne asada (beef) wrapped in two corn tortillas, served with salsa verde on the side. While they did not outdo some of Denver’s better tacos, Tacos y Salsas, Tacos Pinche, or Tacos de Mexico, for $2.50 each they were worth the money, generously filled with meat and topped with diced tomato. The only obvious oversight was a lime wedge.  


As for the guacamole tostada, it was what one would expect, a tortilla with guacamole and iceberg lettuce. If you want to judge the restaurant, this is not the item to order as they seem to be the same place to place.
Sitting on the patio we were only asked for money only once by a passerby, which we politely declined. The gentleman next to us noted that the money surely would have gone to buy crack. I am not sure where such insight came from, but possibly the 32oz soda and sopapillas he was enjoying.
We did not try their $1.75 margaritas, which seems to be quite the selling point, but did take advantage of $2 happy hour beers. All in all, we put down two tacos, a huge breakfast burrito, a tostada and a 3 beers for ~$22. There is better Mexican food to be had in Denver, but given the value and the service we received, Emilio’s is a restaurant I would visit again, if they only opened earlier...
ADDENDUM: Stopped by the next day and ordered nachos and the now $3.75 margarita. Neither are worth recommending. The margarita was heavy on the mix, so quite sour. The nachos we covered in the classic “nacho cheese”. You could go to 7-11 and double up on an order of their nachos, have chili included and get an equivalent, if not better, product. Other reviews had mentioned the hit or miss nature of the food and service, and I am afraid this was encountered with only two visits.So do go, and if you have a good experience don’t go back,