Rio! A fantastic Mexican dinner in Denver!
Back when we lived in Philadelphia, we would occasionally stop by a select number of Mexican joints to satisfy our cravings for nachos de la casa, queso fundido, tacos, and more, all paired with various tequila and mezcal cocktails. At Rio on Wazee, combine every place we visited in Philadelphia, throw in scratch-made everything, and indulge in a place that has been open for decades! Following a fantastic wine tasting at Blanchard Family Wines, which if you haven’t read my most recent blog post, click on the tab and enjoy, along with several new friends’ recommendations, thanks Kevin and Matt, we headed over to Rio for a delicious dinner.
The first thing you smell outside the door is freshly made tortilla chips, queso, and then inside you see all the amazing Oaxacan artwork displayed. Of course we sat at the bar, but that is pretty normal for us unless we have a dinner reservation. We started with two appetizers, hand-made guacamole, salsa and chips, along with the very popular queso fundido! Topped with chorizo, it was definitely what we needed at that point.
For our main course, we split a char-grilled meat platter with cheesy poblanos, charred spring onions, two fantastic sauces, and quite a bit of meat that included ribs, chicken, skirt steak, bacon wrapped shrimp, and these ground meat cigars that I could’ve demolished all night. They were that good! For dessert, we split what Eric said was literally his mothers and grandmothers authentic flan. It wasn’t overly sweet, had that perfect consistency, and it was delicious.
We cannot wait to head back to the downtown location, but if you’re based in a few other locales, look them up! They are well worth the trip, and thus far the only Mexican spot that we’ve hit while in Colorado. Enjoy!
