It’s taken me decades to get back to New Mexico. I was there briefly as a young teenager – first trip without the parents!! – and always wanted more time than a few hours in places like Taos, Santa Fe and what I learned was called the High Road between the two cities. This year, with my pals MM, the Potato Queen and Mr. T, I finally got there.
We took Amtrak out, picking up the train in Kirkwood and changing in Kansas City. It arrived more than an hour late, but Amtrak held what was once the Southwest Chief for folks like us arriving from points east. It was midnight when we climbed on board the Chief. The roomettes are basically upper and lower berths in a small compartment, a reduction in size since the last time I did this sort of thing when Joe was alive. Fun crawling into the upper, of course. But the Amtrak personnel were all very nice, especially the conductor on the late-running train from here to Kansas City.
Food on the train? Surprisingly good pancakes at breakfast, watery coffee.Chilaquiles at lunch, very appropriate, and they were quite good. But generally it was humdrum, and one employee said that Amtrack is planning to offer only box lunches on trains running on the East and West Coast. Time to reinstate the old tradition of taking picnic lunches on the train – or buying food from trainside vendors like they do in Asia.
Santa Fe was preparing for the annual Indian Market, so everything was abuzz. It also made for great people watching; the lobby of the Hotel la Fonda on the Plaza for that. Talk about dramatic, artsy clothing style – absolutely wonderful necklaces the size of breastplates were common, and I’m not talking about silver and turquoise in the traditional styles for this crowd.
But we’re here to talk about food, right? New Mexicans insist their food is definitely not Tex-Mex, and they’re right. But there are plenty of enchiladas and burritos and their friends, to be sure. The most obvious thing to a visitor is the ubiquitous chile, often first encountered in the form of a server’s question: “Red or green?” This translates as What kind of sauce do you want on that? Green chile sauce is chunky, and always made with fresh or frozen but definitely not dried chiles. The red is from dried ripe chiles that have been ground, seasoned and cooked. Which is hotter? It seems to vary with the restaurant. Just ask; servers are used to it. Be aware, though, that “sweeter” doesn’t refer to sugar in the sauce, in my experience, it refers to a higher level of the vegetable flavors that are more easily noticed. As in wine, sweetness is a nuanced term. It’s okay to ask for the sauce on the side or, more commonly, to respond, “Christmas, please,” which brings you both red and green chile sauces on the dish. Another interesting thing we found was that sopapillas(shown below) are sometimes used as bread or rolls. No cinnamon sugar on them, but honey in a squeeze bottle, and they were always fresh, sometime still hot from the fryer.
The first night we went to The Shed , which has been around for years. Very traditional menu, a patio and several dining rooms. We were lucky we’d made reservations – the wait on a Tuesday night was almost an hour, said the hostess. We were hungry, the enchiladas, soft tacos, stuffed poblano chiles and tamales were great, but the pictures were awful. Sorry. A nice prickly pear margarita, I’d add. Don’t be surprised when garlic bread shows up; it’s a tradition at The Shed. Overall it feels almost like New Orleans, between the courtyard-like patio, the succession of rooms and the busy, busy air. I’d certainly go back and the crew agreed. Every time we walked by during the rest of the visit, there seemed to be a line, so think about reservations, even if you only call thirty minutes ahead of time.
Right on the plaza in Santa Fe is the Plaza Cafe. For such a prime location it’s surprisingly modest, and very much in the diner mode. Lots of locals here for breakfast even in peak visitor season, as the Santa Fe Opera was still working, plus the Indian Market. The menu is very mixed, some local food, some standard things – blue corn/pinon nut pancakes and French toast, for instance. I got posole. That usually means, as it does here, a pork-and-hominy stew that the eater adds Mexican oregano, chopped cabbage, chopped onion, cilantro and lime to as they prefer. Here, of course, there’s chile on offer. Technically, posole refers solely to the hominy (which was available as a side with The Shed’s entrees the night before), but usually it’s the brothy soup. All those add-ins add up quite nicely, although the Plaza Cafe is light on the salt, I found.
Papas fritas are not what you find in a tapas bar in Barcelona. In some ways, it’s not far from a slinger, but better. Angelically better, I’d say. Arriving in a cereal bowl, it’s home fries (with onions, thank you), topped with a couple of eggs, cheese, chiles, sour cream and chopped green onions. My pal had asked for the chiles on the side, and not having them was no hardship. This was just heavenly, and adding a piece of diced green chile to a forkful just made the stars glitter a little more. An unsung hero of the breakfast menu, but a don’t-miss dish.
Even a French bakery-cafe has chiles. Clafoutis is run by the Ligier family from eastern France. The name refers to a classic granmere-ish dessert who was often made by a dear friend of ours, now sadly gone. Breakfast (croissants, crepes, gaufres or waffles, quiche) and lunch only. We knocked off a couple of large salads, a charcuterie plate, some crepes and of course a piece of clafouti. Tres tasty.
A short Lyft ride from the center of town, and the ride will take you through residential neighborhoods you might not see otherwise. No reservations; be prepared for a little wait.
More to come in Part 2!