Fritangas La Pili

Delicious meats! I got the pizza Aztec and was very impressed. I liked all the different options and everything tasted very good. I would recommend, and I will be back for this pizza again!

Everyone knows the "Big Three" Mexican street foods - tacos, chalupas, and quesedillas. Many people have met the Central/South American cousins, Arepas and Sopes...and know the distant second-cousin from el Norte....Navajo Tacos. What if I told you that there are entire families of Mexican street food served on masa, just waiting to be discovered, right here in Denver? Huaraches, Tlacoyos, Gorditas, and the awe-inspiring and terrifying Machete? I, your faithful food guide, have undertaken several expeditions, Machete in hand (see below), in my Sansabelt trousers. From what I read in other reviews and infer from descriptions of the food items above, Fritangas specializes in Central Mexico and Mexico City-style street food. According to an analysis of Mexico's Matrícula Consular program, Mexican immigrants to Colorado are disproportionately from central (including the DF) and central/western Mexico rather than in, say, Texas or California (Massey, Rugh, and Pren 2010). As a native Texan, I saw several items I'd never heard of. I had the Pambazo last night. According to Wikipedia, it is from "Pan Basso," a cheap, lower-quality bread popular in the Spanish colonial period. Cooks tried to make it more palatable by soaking it in Guajillo chile puree and frying it on a griddle, like an eggless French toast. As is often the case across cultures and centuries...cheap peasant food becomes something you crave. Mine came stuffed with potato and chorizo, iceberg lettuce and Queso Fresco (Mexico's answer to feta, which is more popular in central Mexico than the mozzarella-like queso de quesadilla or *gasp* cheddar you get in the USA). It was a very generous meal, or would have been 2 meals with a side. It was really good...the bread was grilled enough so that it was toasted and not soggy. About $8.I also had a Petrolera, which I'd never heard of. Wikipedia and Google were useless - defining "Petrolera" as "a woman who works in the petroleum industry." So.....I ordered it. It was, literally, a 14" Mexican pizza. Unlike most so-called "Mexican pizzas," which are ordinary pizzas with taco sauce instead of marinara and taco beef on a wheat crust...this one had a thick masa crust and was topped with refried beans, salsa, nopales (cactus), thinly-sliced steak like you get in Pho, and queso fresco. I have no idea if this is a regional specialty or something Fritangas came up with...perhaps inspired by pizzas American oilfield workers ate? Mine would have fed 2-3 people. About $15.In a previous visit, I had the Machete...presumably named for its resemblance to the agricultural tool. If you eat here, you MUST get this. It's Mexico's answer to the foot-long hot dog! The masa is rolled out 18" inches long, and toasted on a griddle, folded over the filling, and toasted again so it's crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. We had papa con chorizo (potato/chorizo), rajas con queso (roasted green chiles and cheese), and chicken. The also offer pork skins, mushrooms, taco meat, brains (sesos), stewed chicken (tinga), barbacoa, grilled beef, and pork. It was delicious and fun to eat; one would have been ample for a hungry diner. All of us loved the food...it had just enough grease to be flavorful, but was not at all greasy. There was a nice balance between the masa and the generous amount of filling.As any Mexican food fan can tell you....salsas make the meal. When I went, they had 4 - tomatillo, two kinds of dried chile salsa (I think guajillo and a noticeably spicier one with guajillo, chile de arbol, and vinegar), a fresh tomato sauce-based salsa with jalapeno and onion. They also had roasted serrano peppers. Fritangas la Pili is on Mississippi, about a mile East of Santa Fe, just south of Downtown. It shares a building with a special events place. It isn't long on ambiance...but given the choice between authenticity and ambiance...You're here for the food, right? There is a full-service bar, and several fountains of agua fresca and horchata. They have fresh churros and a refrigerator with jello, cake, and flan. It is helpful if you speak a little Spanish to order there...but the people are very nice, and smiling and gesturing gets you far.

Fritangas La Pili only has 5 reviews so far. That says to me that they haven't been "discovered" yet. Still, all of the reviews to date are 5 star, and I'm not going to break their perfect record. It's really a pretty amazing place - they need to get discovered.Don't be put off by outward appearances. Fritangas La Pili sits in an aging strip mall in the Athmar Park neighborhood. The strip mall might best be described as somewhere between "nondescript" and "has seen better days." It's surprisingly large once you enter although not all of the space is dining room. The furnishings are simple and the dining room is clean and bright. Our service was very kind and gracious.Honestly, I don't remember 99% of the menu. All I remember is the Machete. That's all I need to remember. Westword described a Machete as "a long, oval corn tortilla cooked to order on an oiled griddle and folded lengthwise over a variety of meat and vegetable fillings." By long, they meant something like 14 inches - literally. It's filled with traditional fillings of various proteins, vegetables and cheeses. Choose one, two or three fillings. If you choose multiple fillings, they are side by side, not on top of each other. Go for it - choose three - it's like three 4-5 inch separate Machetes when you trisect it. As I recall, the price for three fillings was something like $15. Realistically, because of the size, consider it $7.50 for each of two amazing meals. And I can't forget the salsa bar - fresh, obviously homemade with varying degrees of bite, and all delicious.So Yelpers, Fritangas La Pili needs to get discovered. Consider the lesson of the truffle - if you're not put off by the "outside" there is great treasure on the inside. As the humble truffle goes, so too Fritangas La Pili ...

This place is excellent but they have relocated! They're on the corner of alameda and Morrison rd. Highly recommend this place. The machete taco is so good (love the cabeza), shrimp cocktail (could drink the sauce), gorditas, and the micheladas are top notch!

Excellent Mexican food one of the best in Denver everything was great the salsas were fantastic the barbacoa incredible !!!!!

I absolutely love this place! I've been to quite a few Mexican restaurants and this is now my #1 spot! Food is so authentic and fresh. Everything is made on the spot and every bite is bursting with flavor. The service is impeccable and the atmosphere is great. Big food portions and the prices are very reasonable. I'm glad I decided to try this place. I highly recommend this place to anyone. Definitely gonna become a regular!

Aside from El Camarón Loco, this is the best Mexican food I've hand in Denver since I've lived here. I had a Machete with mushrooms, barbacoa, and rajas (Roasted Chili Peppers). The flavors were spot on to what you would find in downtown D.F. México. Trust me, I've been there and experienced the flavors. Super affordable for the sheer amount of food you get too. "La Pili" están al cien!

There smothered burrito was not it at all , there beans were not smashed at all .. there was no meat in the burrito just pure fat plus there smothered sauce wasn't even good at all

Great place to grab some food before the brewery. Machaca burrito was delicious and so was the Chilaquiles. I highly recommend this place