New Mexico's nickname is the Land of Enchantment, and I am duly enchanted. Beautiful weather, breathtaking scenery, and friendly people made New Mexico easy to love. But this is Blog Tartare, and what we're really here to talk about is the food, right? Brace yourself, because we did a hell of a lot of eating in the few days we were there! (Disclaimer: This post will be a mix of nice DSLR photos [mostly taken by Neil] and crappy iPhone photos [mostly taken by me]. We apologize if you find this visually jarring. Be sure to click on them if you want to see bigger versions. Also, I didn't really take notes about anything, so restaurants that don't have menus online are going to get some pretty vague descriptions.)
Day 1
We arrived in Albuquerque at 12:00 local time, which was 2:00 our time, which meant that we were more than ready to eat lunch. I employed Yelp to locate something that was on the way from the airport to Santa Fe and came up with the Red Ball Cafe.
This historic eatery dates back to 1922 and is located on part of what used to be Route 66. The original owners adopted a Popeye theme, selling Wimpy burgers for 5 cents. The Red Ball closed in the late 1970s and was finally resurrected by the current owners almost 20 years later.
I decided to waste no time getting acquainted with the local flavors and ordered a green chile cheeseburger.
Here it is with the lid off:
Delicious! Unfortunately, this relatively mild burger lulled me into a false sense of comfort as far as chiles were concerned. I had no idea what was in store for me in the coming days.
After lunch we drove up to Santa Fe. For dinner I employed Yelp once again and came up with Casa Chimayo, which was a short walk from where we were staying. We sat out on their patio and enjoyed some delicious beer from
Santa Fe Brewing as well as some fantastic food.
This is Neil's dinner. He describes it as "a chicken taco, a cheese burrito in a blue corn tortilla, and a pork tamale in red chile. And it was delicious."
I had two tamales, one with pork and red chile, the other with vegetables and green chile. Both of these were pretty spicy, but totally delicious. That squashy business next to the green chile tamale is calabacitas, a mixture of sauteed squash and onions. I love squash to begin with, but this was way tastier than I even expected to be. I'm definitely going to be making some of this myself this summer.
We were also serenaded by this guy while we ate. He sang the Habanera from
Carmen. Impressive!
Day 2
Our plan for the day was to visit the
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and then do some wandering around and shopping. But of course we had to eat breakfast first. So off we went to the
Tecolote Cafe. This restaurant's tagline is "Great breakfast - no toast," a nod to the fact that they provide baskets of muffins and other baked goods instead of toast with their meals. Yes please!
Neil had the carne y huevos, which is described on the menu as a "Heaping serving of lean pork, cooked in a blend of red chiles, two eggs any style, and our famous potatoes." Neil comments, "It was spicy as hell, but the pork was very tender. That was our first helping of that style of potatoes as well." Indeed, potatoes that were very thinly sliced and then fried up together seemed to be the typical preparation method for breakfast.
I had the breakfast burrito. "Eggs scrambled with ham, bacon, or sausage [I chose sausage], rolled in a flour tortilla, topped with red or green chile [I chose both, which is referred to as "Christmas style"] and melted cheddar; choice of beans, posole, or potatoes [those are potatoes on the far side of my plate]." This was so hot. SO HOT. I laughed. I cried. I blew my nose. It was right on the border of being too hot to eat. This was by far the spiciest meal of the trip. Tecolote Cafe does not eff around with its chile sauce!
My dad, who is apparently known as El Niño at one of our local Mexican restaurants because of his absolute inability to handle anything spicy, wisely ordered the French toast.
Not pictured is the bakery basket, which included green chile muffins (mmmm), chocolate chip muffins, and plain biscuits. Thank god for the biscuits; when I was finally bested by my burrito, I slathered half a biscuit in an unreasonable amount of butter in order to soothe my poor scorched mouth.
After an enjoyable morning at the museum, we proceeded downtown to do some wandering around. One of the first places that Neil and I came across was
Oleaceae Olive Oil. "Do you want to go in?" Neil asked. "Yeah, I guess," I said. I like olive oil, but how interesting could it really be to go look at a bunch of bottles of it? It's not like I can't buy good quality olive oil at home.
I laugh now at my naïveté.
This is what it looked like inside of Oleaceae:
Those are tanks full of different flavors of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and customers are invited to taste as many as they like. And did we ever. Then we were approached by a very friendly salesperson who introduced us to the concept of mixing the oils and vinegars together in the little paper cups. Sweet basil olive oil and ripe fig balsamic. Citrus limon olive oil with lavender balsamic. Chipotle olive oil with dark cocoa balsamic. I quickly lost track of all the combinations that we tried.
In the end we bought the
Arbequina olive oil and the
ripe fig and
Tahitian vanilla vinegars. We also picked up a jar of campfire smoked sea salt. I easily could have purchased everything we tasted there, and I will definitely be ordering more.
We were so full from breakfast that we more or less skipped lunch, instead stopping for a quick snack at a frozen yogurt place.
When dinner time rolled around we headed to a place up the street from where we were staying called
Agave Lounge. I was a little worried that it described itself as a "hip, sophisticated Santa Fe lounge," both because I am neither hip nor sophisticated and because any place that describes itself that way very well may be trying too hard. But Agave Lounge turned out to be a comfortable place with nice ambiance and friendly service. I had a pomegranate margarita while Neil opted for the smokey one. Then we split lobster sliders, mini fajita steak tacos, and calamari fritti. Everything was delicious, and a welcome respite from the chile-drenched meals we'd experienced so far. Meal in progress:
Day 3
The plan for this day was to drive up to Taos to visit
Taos Pueblo. But first, breakfast at the Tune-Up Cafe. This was probably the least impressive meal I had there. My mom had some weird brown sludge in her coffee cup, which got the meal off to a rather unappetizing start. I ordered the house-made corned beef hash. Corned beef hash is one of my favorite childhood comfort foods, and although I virtually never indulge in it anymore, when I have it I want it like this:
The hash at Tune-Up Cafe was, in a way, too high quality. The meat was not mushy enough. The potatoes were in large chunks and not fully integrated. It was good, but it did not quite meet my hash expectations.
This is Neil's breakfast burrito, of which he says: "I know it was some kind of avocado & egg burrito with red & green chile and it was one of my favorite breakfasts of the trip. One of my favorite meals, really."
After a fascinating trip to the beautiful pueblo (where I got to try Indian frybread, mmmm), we stopped at
Michael's Kitchen in Taos for a late lunch.
Okay, now this place is just ridiculous. Our meals were so big that we all saved half and ate the rest for dinner. Fortunately, they were as delicious as they were huge!
Neil had the Indian taco, "A grand sopapilla heaped with ground beef, beans, onions, cheese, chile and garnished with lettuce and tomatoes. Don't forget the guacamole!" Neil comments, "It was good, but honestly it was SO MUCH FOOD and I think my opinion of it was tempered by eating half of it at slightly lower than room temperature later in the day. Which is unfair, I know. Also, I'm still not sure how it was really all that different from what you had."
As Neil mentioned, I had the similar stuffed sopapillas, "Two delicate sopapillas stuffed with beans, cheese, onions and ground beef. Your choice of chile is ladled on, then crowned with guacamole and sour cream." This was delicious, and I was relieved that the red chile was tolerable. Despite the pain of the chile sauces, I just couldn't stop ordering them!
Not pictured are the plain, unstuffed sopapillas that came to the table in a basket with a side of honey butter. Oh my god, they were good. The sopapillas that you get in Kentucky are essentially just fried tortillas served with honey, and they're tasty, but they don't begin to compare to these delicate little pillows of fried dough.
Day 4
Neil and I decided to split off from my parents and do our own thing for the day, but first we all went to breakfast at
The Pantry.
Neil had the daily special, bread pudding french toast with bacon and eggs over easy. He reports that it was "tasty, but not mind-blowing."
Believe it or not, in real life, I'm about 75% vegetarian, so I decided to lay off the meat and have a veggie omelet with a side of delicious potatoes. But if you look closely you'll also see a bowl of sausage gravy to the left of my plate; the two choices for sides were toast or biscuits and gravy, and how could I turn down biscuits and gravy?
After breakfast, Neil and I set out on foot to see more of Santa Fe. By the time we reached the plaza I was thirsty, so I bought a cup of fresh watermelon juice from a vendor, which was delicious. We did some shopping and some art-viewing (the galleries are amazing!), and eventually we stumbled upon Secreto Lounge at the
Hotel St. Francis. This place was already on our list of things to do because I'd read great things about their innovative cocktails, so we were happy to stop there and have an afternoon drink. I had the Spicy Secreto, "Cucumbers, lime juice, cane syrup, Cabana Cachaça, St Germain and a touch of spice," while Neil opted for I'll Take Manhattan, "A spicy Southern twist on the classic Manhattan using Maker’s Mark Bourbon, sweet vermouth and locally made Bitter End Memphis Barbeque Bitters." Both were fantastic.
Neil enjoys his I'll Take Manhattan.
For dinner that night we partook of the buffet at the
Buffalo Thunder Casino, which was decidedly mediocre and doesn't merit any additional commentary. I did thoroughly enjoy the slot machines, though, especially the ridiculous
Kitty Glitter.
Day 5
This post is so long that I'm afraid it's going to break Blogger. Fortunately, I only have one more meal to report on. Our final New Mexico meal took place in Albuquerque on the way to the airport at Loyola's Family Restaurant. This place was located on yet another strip of road that used to be Route 66 and was surrounded by amazing signs for old motels, some of which were still standing.
Loyola's itself was a Route 66 relic, with a vintagey atmosphere and delicious diner food.
I had an omelet with chorizo and yes, one last bout of red chile sauce.
Neil had the same thing, but he went with with green chile. Because he is insane.
Aside from the casino, we didn't have one bad meal the entire trip. I was also impressed by the friendly, attentive service that we received virtually everywhere. Most of all, I'm inspired to learn much, much more about southwestern cooking. The food in New Mexico is obviously different from the Tex-Mex stuff that dominates most of the Mexican dining scene in Louisville, but it's also very different from the few places that purport to do more authentic Mexican-style food here. I'm very interested in exploring the regional food differences in the southwestern United States as well as Mexico. This is not a hard thing to be interested in, given how delicious all of it is.
One last note: If you're planning to travel to Santa Fe, especially if you're going with a group, I highly recommend
Casas de Santa Fe as an alternative to a hotel. We stayed in the delightful
Casa Tisnado. The house was beautifully decorated, very comfortable, and just a short walk away from downtown. I'd love to stay there again when it's cold enough to use the kiva fireplace!
