My wife and I weren't too enamored with Breckenridge, CO. We had made reservations to spend the night there during our trip to Colorado earlier this year, but once we figured out that we didn't care too much for the town it was too late to cancel the reservations and move on. We decided to make the best of it and we went out for a walk trying to figure out what to have for dinner. We saw a Mediterranean restaurant where we checked out the menu they had posted outside, but decided against it. We saw a sign for a Mexican restaurant and walked into a building and down a hallway to check out the menu. My wife and I both sort of shrugged our shoulders and said, "Sure! Why not?" And we decided to give Mi Casa Mexican Restaurant and Cantina a try that evening.
It turns out that Mi Casa is the oldest continually-owned restaurant in Breckenridge. Alexandra Storm opened Mi Casa in August of 1981 and brought in $737 dollars in revenue for the first evening. A month after Mi Casa opened, a young man by the name of Dick Carleton came to work at Mi Casa as a server. It wasn't long that Carleton worked his way up the ladder at the restaurant eventually becoming the managing partner for Mi Casa.
Carleton - who is a city council member for the town of Breckenridge; and Storm - whose Jane Alexandra Storm Foundation is a non-profit philanthropic organization giving out grants to local agencies - opened their second restaurant - Hearthstone - in 1989. Storm and Carleton continue to run both restaurants today.
Through a nondescript front entrance in the hallway of a building along South Park Avenue in Breckenridge (see map) we entered Mi Casa. We were met at the hostess stand by two young ladies who were rather indifferent when we walked in. One of the young ladies asked if we would like to sit in the bar or in the dining room. We took a quick look into the bar area which was kind of cozy, but also pretty loud. We opted for the dining room.
The dining room was a long and narrow area with large windows that looked out onto a patio and a plaza area. The hostess took us to a table that was right along one of the windows and wordlessly dropped a couple menus on the table and walked away. My wife and I thought her attitude was somewhat callous and thought it was rather strange for a first impression of a restaurant.
We were soon greeted by our server for the evening, a pleasant, but reserved young lady by the name of Cassidy. We ordered a couple margaritas and took a look at the menu.
Actually, the little patio area just outside the window where we were seated looked sort of nice. There were a number of the trendy triangle-shaped sun shades over the patio. But it was sort of cool outside and no one was sitting on the deck that evening.
We started off getting a couple of margaritas with Herradura tequila, Cointreau, lime juice and agave nectar. They had over 100 tequilas to choose from at Mi Casa and a couple of my friends who are tequila aficionados would have had a field day looking over the selection of tequila they offered. We also had some fresh made chips that came with three different types of salsa. There was a mild pico de gallo that had a great fresh taste to it, there was a salsa verde that had a bit of a spicy bite to it, and there was a spicy red that at first I didn't think it was all that spicy. It was like, "Hmm... it's not that spicy." Then it was like, "Wait for it... wait for it... wait for it..." And then, "BAM!!" The spiciness really snuck up and definitely got my attention.
The menu was an extensive mixture of traditional Mexican favorites with a modern flair. They had items such as a mango-braised duck quesadilla, a chorizo-stuffed chicken breast, chile nut-encrusted red trout, and red chile-braised pork belly tacos. They also had a number of vegetarian selections on the menu including veggie fajitas, sweet potato tacos, and spinach and mushroom enchiladas.
I wasn't all that hungry as the lunch we had earlier in the day was still sitting somewhat heavy in my stomach. I thought about getting the grilled wahoo fish tacos, but I ended up getting a bowl of the pork chili verde they had at Mi Casa. I love green pork chili and Colorado has some restaurants that have excellent pork chili verde. And the one at Mi Casa was good, too. I thought it was a little expensive ($9.95) for the serving size, but it satiated my appetite that evening.
My wife was more hungry than I was and she ended up getting the chicken fajitas. It featured 6 ounce strips of chicken breast in a smoky onion and garlic marinade, then grilled. (For an additional $4.95, she could have gotten the 10-ounce portion of the chicken fajitas. But she was fine with the 6 ounce portion.) It came with guajillo chile-grilled onions, sautéed poblano chiles, and tomato wedges, along with a housemade guacamole, pico de gallo, cheddar jack cheese, rice and refried beans. She thoroughly enjoyed the fresh flavors mixed with a bit of a spicy bite in her fajitas.
We were happy with our food at Mi Casa, although I felt it wasn't that great of a value compared to other Mexican restaurants we've been to. But given the tourist-town nature of Breckenridge, we really should have expected it. The pork green chili was good and my wife enjoyed her chicken fajitas. The chips were fresh and the salsa that accompanied them was also fresh and a couple of the sauces were pretty zippy in taste. Even though the two hostesses showed an indifference that bordered on aloof snobbery, our server was very helpful and pleasant. We think we made a better choice between the Mediterranean restaurant that we had considered and Mi Casa.
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