Snowmass Deja Vu
Ever feel like you’re doing something that you swear you’ve done once or twice before? Well, that is what they refer to as Deja Vu.
The Deja Vu festival in Snowmass, CO, was an attempt to take Colorado residents back in time to a place where the beers were cold and the chili was hot. The festival brings back nostalgic elements from the original Snowmass Rendezvous event, an event held in August that marks the end of the summertime but does so with an afternoon of fun, suds, and chili.
The festival featured over a dozen breweries bringing their best brews, and a chili cook off featuring over half a dozen incredible Snowmass restaurants. Each restaurant brought their version of the Texan meat stew to receive votes in the form of small wooden tokens, the winning restaurant going home with a special award.
I was lucky enough to attend the Deja Vu festival and tasted all of the different chili variations the restaurants had to offer, and I am ready to tell you all about them. I don’t have to do this in any particular order, but I’ll do it in the order I visited each restaurant.
Venga Venga
Going right off of the Skittles gondola, a small 12-car gondola that helps people get from Snowmass’s base village to the outdoor mall, the first stop for the cook-off was at a well-known Mexican restaurant, Venga Venga (come come), who brings authentic Mexican cuisine for Snowmass locals and visitors to devour.
Venga Venga had two forms of chili to offer, a classic red beef chili and, a Colorado specialty, pork green chili.
Their beef chili had all of the classic beefy, slightly spicy flavors that one expects from a classic chili with the addition of some crunchy tortilla strips on top for a nice textural contrast, while the pork chili featured tender pork shoulder, vegetables, and a lightly spiced broth that was wonderful to scoop up with the tortilla chip that they served it with.
New Belgium Ranger Station
Across the street from Venga Venga, the next bite of chili came from New Belgium Ranger Station, a restaurant that serves up craft Belgian beers to pair with their European-style pub fare. Ranger Station’s chili offering was a unique shrimp chili topped with a buttery biscuit that happened to be the only seafood chili offered at the festival, a great way to stay unique indeed.
I did get a slight sweetness from the tender shrimp, which counter-balanced the spice of the chili very well, but for me, the hero for that chili was that buttery, flaky biscuit that soaked up some of the chili and brought extra richness to the party. It made deciding who I was going to vote for that much harder.
Kenichi
The next spot in the festival came from a well-renowned pan-Asian and sashimi restaurant tucked within Snowmass’s base village, Kenichi, which knows their way around their fish.
What does a sashimi restaurant serve at a chili cook off? Only a smoked chicken and white bean chili topped with a pickled fresno pepper and crispy wonton strips.
I have to say, this chili was very enjoyable. There was a nice earthy flavor from cumin, that pickled pepper gave a nice touch of acidity and spice, the chicken was nice and tender, and it was a generally tasty chili.
Stark’s Alpine Grill
Moving even further down the line, we now head to a new restaurant that focuses on contemporary American cuisine in a relaxed cozy atmosphere, Stark’s Alpine Grill. From sunrise to sunset, Stark’s gives Snowmass food lovers something excellent to dine on while viewing the gorgeous mountain that it sits on.
Their offering was a roasted chicken and white bean chili which, while a similar concept to the chili that Kenichi served, had Stark’s unique twist with roasting the chicken and topping their chili with green onions, cheese, and sour cream.
This was one of the most flavorful chili that I got to taste at the festival, roasting the chicken did give it a depth of flavor that I did not get with the chicken chili from Kenichi, and it also had just the right amount of spice without being too intense for the palette.
Viceroy
For the 5th stop on this Snowmass chili adventure, we now head to an upscale Snowmass hotel/Cafe that gives Snowmass tourists a chance to experience a quick life of luxury, Viceroy. The restaurant in Viceroy, TORO, offers Viceroy guests upscale Latin-American cuisine for them to enjoy.
For the chili festival, Viceroy offered another chicken and white bean chili, but this one was topped with chipotle sour cream, aged cheddar, and scallions for an extra kick of flavor. Like the other two chicken and white bean chili, this one also had a lot of flavor and a mild spice, but for me that chipotle cream is what set it apart from the other two as it added a bit of smokiness that paired wonderfully with the chicken and beans.
Big Hoss Grill
For the second-to-last restaurant on this chili tour of Snowmass, we now head to a local barbecue restaurant that offers comforting American classics with a relaxing patio, Big Hoss Grill.
Much like Venga Venga, Big Hoss had two different varieties of chili to offer, a classic red beef chili and another pork green chili, but one thing that allowed them to stand out from the other 6 restaurants was that Big Hoss offered their signature barbecue sauce to drizzle onto the chili and had a bit of creamy macaroni and cheese to go with it.
Their beef chili, again, had all of the classic beef chili that one would expect, but the addition of that barbecue sauce (sorry, Texas) gave a bit of sweetness that, surprisingly, made the chili taste even better. The pork chili featured thin shreds of pork vs the small cubes that the Venga Venga chili contained, not that there’s anything wrong with either, and the mac and cheese they served had a nice creaminess and cheesiness, which are what I expect from a good mac.
The Stew Pot
The final chili stop for the Deja Vu festival came from a restaurant that has been warming the hearts and bodies of Snowmass locals for 50 years, The Stew Pot. Given their name, you can expect that their take on chili should be amazing, and you would not be disappointed.
Stew Pot offered three different varieties of chili, the first was a traditional beef chili, the second a veggie chili, and the third was a habanero pork chili, seemingly the only chili that made use of the small but powerful habanero peppers.
Of the three beef chilis I tasted, The Stew Pot’s had the most depth of flavor and didn’t need to be masked by lots of sour cream or cheese, the veggie chili was very light and also had tons of flavor, despite having no meat involved whatsoever, and while the pork chili did have a nice kick of heat from the habanero, it seemed like they used the right amount as it was not overpowering.
I am pleased to report that all 11 of the chili varieties that I tasted at the Deja Vu festival were as full of flavor as the next, so it was almost impossible for me to decide who to vote for for a winner. Yes, I was given two wooden tokens that I could use for voting, but that didn’t make the decision any less daunting.
What it came down to, for me, was what chili stood out to me the most in terms of flavor, spice, color, and meat tenderness. In the end, I decided to cast my votes for The Stew Pot’s beef chili and the roasted chicken and white bean chili from Stark’s, but again, all of the chili tasted great.
I’ll be sure to keep a lookout for the next time Snowmass does a chili cook-off, because this was fantastic.
