Mas sopaipillas, por favor!

Casa Bonita.

For those who are fans of the TV show South Park, you may have seen the episode about this Denver-area institution. Despite having lived in Denver nearly seven years, I had yet to set foot inside this unique establishment until this past weekend, when we took Scarlett and Jason to celebrate her move to Denver.

I don't think, even given the breadth of the English language, that I am capable of fully describing the Casa Bonita experience. Here are some things you may not know about it:

*It seats over 900 people
*If you are over the age of two, you must purchase a "meal." I use that term only in the most official sense, as I wouldn't say what I ordered truly was food. My "taco salad" consisted of half a head of shredded iceburg topped with five kidney beans, two slices of barely-pink flavorless tomato, tasteless cheese shreds, a plop of sour cream, a plop of something greenish that was supposed to be guacamole, all inside a fried flour tortilla shell. A small amount of seasoned shredded chicken came on the side. When I asked for some salad dressing, it took half an hour for the guy to bring it to me. The cost? $12.

"Food"

*When you get inside, you go through a veritable maze to get to where you can look at a menu. Then you order. Then you go through some more maze and you grab a tray and a napkin roll. Then some lady hands you what you ordered, which just came out of the kitchen. Then you walk through some more maze until you get to the second hostess, who shows you to your table.
*It features a variety of live entertainment, including cliff divers, people dressed as gorillas, sound effects, mariachi bands, Black Bart's Cave, and puppet shows.
*A little flag sits on your table, and when you raise the flag they bring you fresh sopaipillas.
*People come around to your table and try to sell you plastic glow-in-the-dark crap.


The area in which we were seated was set up to look like the inside of a mine. They had a recording of a snoring sound effect playing, which must have been near where I sat because I was the only one who could hear it. I guess there must have been a "miner" someplace nearby but I didn't see it.

Photo courtesy Dan, who managed to get my camera to do a manual 5-second exposure.

After we ate, we watched some of the live entertainment. We saw some people dressed in costumes (including one in a gorilla suit, who of course ended up in the water). We saw a cliff diver. Then we explored the place a bit and found Black Bart's cave, which was probably the highlight of the whole deal for me. We watched a "gunfight" and then decided we'd had enough.

Sign outside Black Bart's cave. Obviously they care very much for their attractions.

When we got home, we spooled up that episode of South Park and watched as the visions of Casa Bonita dancing through Cartman's head echoed our evening's experience. "Food and fun and festive atmosphere!" Cartman sings.

Well, there was "food." The sopaipillas are pretty good, anyway. Jason, at least, had a lot of fun (as did Dan, who hadn't been to the Casa since he was in middle school). And it is nothing if not a festive atmosphere.

Casa Bonita: the ultimate cheeze factory; an experience I only needed to have once.


Plus, this winner was parked next to us in the parking lot.

Midsummer Month's Blopping

I've participated in NaBloPoMo for the past two years, and now it's expanded to be every month (not just November). Each month has a theme, and while I'm not up for trying to write a post every day in July (lack of internets at home makes blopping nigh unpossible on the weekends), I am interested in food. And writing about it. So I'm going to write about food sometimes this month. And you are going to like it.

First up: Thai spring rolls

Our 3-month wedding anniversary was on Sunday, so Dan and I decided to make a nice dinner. We decided to make thai spring rolls (making use of some of the thai basil in the garden), edamame, and wonton skins filled with red bean paste. Luckily, the only things we needed at the grocery store to make this fine meal were shrimp and carrots. We got to use some of our new kitchen equipment (bamboo steamer for the edamame) and, after some major teamwork, had a tasty and relatively healthy celebratory meal.

Thai spring rolls (makes 4) (which is enough for 2 people if you add in some edamame and some wonton skins filled with red bean paste)

4 spring roll wrappers (the big kind, I think they are 9x9 inches?)
2 carrots, shredded
3 large lettuce leaves, shredded
12 leaves thai basil (you can use regular basil or mint, but I like thai basil a lot)
a handful of rice vermicelli
16 51-60 size raw shrimp, defrosted, peeled and deveined
1/4 red bell pepper, julienned thinly

1. Prep the veggies and boil water for rice vermicelli (often sold as rice stick noodles, the really really thin kind)
2. Season shrimp with something that sounds tasty. We used this but you could use garlic or any variety of seasonings.
3. Sautee shrimp with a very small amount of oil in a nonstick pan until cooked, about 2 minutes (toss occasionally). Transfer shrimp to small bowl and refrigerate.
4. Toss handful of rice vermicelli into boiling water. Cook for 2 minutes, then drain and run cold water over the noodles for 30 seconds or so to cool them off.
5. Soak spring roll wrappers one at a time - we have to use a cookie sheet with high sides - maybe this is a jelly roll pan? - to make sure the wrapper fits and can be completely submerged.
6. Pay attention to spring roll wrappers - touch them frequently to see how pliable they are. If you wait too long, they'll fall apart.
7. When each wrapper is at the correct consistency, drain and transfer to a plate. On each wrapper, place some lettuce, carrot, noodles, red bell pepper, 4 cooked shrimp and 3 thai basil leaves. Roll up like a burrito (fold sides in).
8. When all 4 wrappers are filled, you can refrigerate for a while or eat right away.

I also made an impromptu peanut sauce with natural style chunky peanut butter (ingredient: peanuts), some soy sauce and some brown sugar. We drizzled this on the thai spring rolls and it was mighty tasty.

As for the less-than-healthy portion of our dinner, we opened a can of red bean paste, spread some on the middle of four wonton skins that had been in the freezer since God was a boy (so it took forever to defrost them and they were all weird and mushy), topped each with another wonton skin, and fried them until they were cooked, turning occasionally. We don't eat much fried food so wonton skins (either filled with something or alone) are a guilty pleasure. Also, it's fun to put uncooked rice vermicelli in the hot oil because they get all weird and puffy and snakelike in like 2 seconds.

It was a really yummy dinner.