By that, I mean the heart of Denver, and by finest dining experiences, I mean Casa Bonita.
For those of you unfamiliar with Casa Bonita and our inspiration for driving 2200 miles through 5 states to get there, please go to http://www.southparkstudios.com/ and find the full episode on season 7, “Casa Bonita.” Then you’ll understand.
So what is Casa Bonita? It’s been described as the “Disneyland of all Mexican Restaurants.” And it really was. Not only can you get fed there, you’ll get entertained. There were 3 floors of excitement, chock full of cliff divers, mariachi bands, arcades, caricature artists, and best of all, all you can eat sopaipillas!
Actually, I think if anybody could describe the euphoric feeling that results from a visit to Casa Bonita, it would probably be these paid actors whose video was on repeat while we waited 45 minutes in line to get in:
So as you can see, that alone was enough to encourage us to go on a pilgrimage to see a Mexican restaurant three states over. We had actually been planning for weeks, and calculated routes, driving times, and costs plenty of times over. We rented a car, booked the motels, and before we knew it, we were on our way:
Of course it wasn’t going to be a short and easy drive. The first half of the trip took us through the great states of Nevada, Arizona (briefly), and Utah, where the majority of landscape looked like something from Fargo:
Along the way, we discovered that gas is considerably cheaper in other states, even if towns are in the middle of nowhere, Mormons are the nicest people in the world, you probably shouldn’t drive faster than 50mph on black ice, and they sure like their Arby’s out in the mountain west and southwestern states. 1,028 miles and 31 hours later, we finally reached that beloved restaurant. Smack dab in the middle of a suburban shopping center, nudged between a Wal-Mart, a Hollywood Video, and a Dollar Tree, we found the establishment to be the tallest building for miles (downtown Denver was only about 5 miles away, but that’s still miles). It stood out as the largest and most decorative building in the area, it was lit up by spotlights, and there seemed to be an aura emanating from structure itself. And best of all, it was exactly like they animated it on South Park:
Actually, a lot of things were exactly as the show described. Listen as Cartman sings his praises of Casa Bonita, and watch as we experience the same:
The restaurant was so much like the show, it was almost scary. It was as if Matt Stone and Trey Parker had actually been the restaurant. Several times. As promised, there were cliff divers, mariachi bands, and the infamous Black Bart’s Cave.
I of course ordered the all you can eat deluxe beef dinner, which seemed to consist of microwave enchiladas and cheap tacos. But it was damn good. But I suppose anything is damn good if the only meals we had prior was McDonald’s and the chips and brownies we brought along in the car with us.
You raise the flag up when you want more food!
And what’s an experience at any Mexican restaurant without a mariachi band singing happy birthday to you?
With the rental car place demanding the Mazda back in a couple of days, we unfortunately had to end our tenure in Denver after a short 15 hours. Deciding to take a different route back to avoid the New Year’s Eve traffic heading into Las Vegas, we instead decided to drive 1200 miles through New Mexico and more of Arizona, rightfully deciding after some fireworks purchases and crappy pizza that there is absolutely no reason to ever visit Albuquerque. Well, except for maybe, Las Vegas, NM:
After countless hours on the road, hundreds of dollars spent on gas and food, and only a fraction of time spent at our actual destination, would I say it was worth it? In the words of Eric Cartman: Totally.
But really, what really made this trip worthwhile was while on our way out of Denver, we picked up the Ronco Rotisserie. The moment we got back to LA, we picked up some Cornish game hens and set it and forget it:
Happy 2009, everyone!
“could you get me a crappy souvenir from every state you stop by?”
-BM
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