Mountain Shadows is a hugely popular breakfast place in Old Colorado Springs. They’re only open from 7 to 2, and they stay busy and, like everyone else these days, understaffed. Nancy and I braved the crowds on a Monday morning, and we were able to get an outside table after a mere 30-minute wait.
I ordered two eggs and green chile over hash browns, which came with an extra tortilla.
I was concerned that the green chiles would dampen and ruin the crust of the hash browns. Lo and behold, the hash browns were served, well, upside down, with a truly great crust on the bottom with the chiles oozing into the fluffy potatoes on top. Genius!
Nancy ordered a small blueberry pancake and huevos rancheros.
The small blueberry pancake turned out to be large.
Nancy liked the huevos rancheros. They rested on a bed of flour tortillas — multiple tortillas — rather than one tortilla and refried beans — with green chiles on top. There were hash browns on the side, all of which, alas, she ate all by herself. As I had discovered, those were some good hash browns.
There I sat, watching Nancy eat her hash browns with nothing on my plate but a flour tortilla. That’s when I thought of Bill Clinton.
I adopted a trick that I learned one of the times when I was having a couple of beers with Bill Clinton, back when I was helping out his first campaign for office. Bill (he was just Bill then) had spent time in San Antonio, the home of many baskets of very good tortillas, and he fell in love with hot buttered tortillas. He talked about that more than once, back before he went over to the culinary Dark Side. So I added butter to mine, and thought with every delicious bite how happy I was not to be President, not that there was ever any danger of that. I recommend the combination to you — flour tortillas and butter and not being President.
If you’re in Colorado Springs, mosey on over to Mountain Shadows for a good breakfast. And be sure to get an extra tortilla or three. And ask for extra butter.
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