Ah, well, we've been back a good week now, and you know how it is getting back into the routine after being gone. What a great trip! What GREAT FOOD! And your suggestions were fantastic - I mean, so fantastic, thank you again and again!
I wrote down all the places we ate and what we ate knowing I'd be reporting back. We didn't eat out as much as I'd expected, just worked out that way. We had a little casita we were renting, so ended up buying food and eating more from "home" than I wanted to, but we still got to some exceptional places.
OK, first thing I have to say is I don't know if it's a good thing to have the best the very first time. I'd asked specifically about the breakfast burrito, and I felt like The Burrito Lady should be my first place to try the infamous breakfast burrito.
We got there about 1 pm the first day we were in NM, just an hour before they were closing. I'd never heard of Carne Adovada, but learned quickly. OMG! The meat was so tender, so moist, so full of amazing flavor - it was utterly delicious. Those are the actual words I wrote down sitting at the little table inside. We got to talking to the actual Burrito Lady, Consuelo, and she told us how she made the meat, constantly stirring the red sauce, the meat, for a long, long, long time to make sure to infuse it with the flavor and keep it moist. I've never tasted Mexican-type food so good, so full of subtle flavor, yet so easy to taste. I don't know if that's a good description, but it's all I can seem to express right now.
The breakfast burrito from The Burrito Lady was utterly amazingly good. It had the red sauce, but I tend more toward green sauce when I eat Mexican food. (remember, I'm from San Diego), so I had to get some green chile on the side. We were warned it would be hot, but I thought it was perfect, had just the right heat and didn't linger on the lips at all. I've never had green chile "sauce" quite like it - great consistency, and flavor, again, something subtle in it. I loved it. We ate it all up, put it over the Carne Adovada breakfast burrito, chatted with Consuelo, who had sat down with us at our table, and had the best welcome to NM anyone could ever have!
Then we tried the also-infamous soapapilla. It was crispy outside and then chewy inside, super hot and a delight. I could have eaten 2 or 3 more, I really could have! I didn't even dip it into the honey - it was so good just by itself.
Then we went on up to Santa Fe the next day and made it to Horseman's Haven Cafe. I wanted to taste that Level 2 chile that people had talked about. At the Burrito Lady, Consuelo had warned us that her green chile might be too hot for us, and when it wasn't at all, I wasn't going to miss seeing how hot this Horseman's "supposed" too-hot green chile was, actually.
We decided to order some more Carne Adovada since we liked it so much earlier. Also, I have to admit, I wanted to see if it could be as good as the one we had at the Burrito Lady. The plate was huge, filled with beans, and to my surprise, hominy, which I've always loved but don't eat too often. The food was really good, as was the burrito...but...I think Consuelo has something going for her with all that stirring. The meat was cubed in the burrito, so although it was good, it didn't have flavor infused throughout it, and the burrito didn't pop the way The Burrito Lady's did. Still, we loved our lunch there.
The place was welcoming, comfortable, a really nice place to sit back and enjoy a meal. The people working there seem happy. The energy was upbeat, and the workers seemed to really like each other. When we made sure to order the #2 chile, both the cook and the waitress suggested we get it on the side, and we agreed. They even watched us as we tried it.
And although it was hot, oh yes, hot, like sizzling hot, I was able to eat it, well, some of it. It burned my lips for so long I decided it wasn't worth eating much of it. (I kind of wanted to taste my food, you understand.) You were right! It's super super super hot! We took the rest home, though, and we ate most of it up, but in the end, it was just too hot. After it touched the lips, tongue, the heat didn't let up for minutes, like many, many minutes, maybe an hour. It was fun to try, and again, thank you for making this lunch fun for us! I would recommend the Horseman's Haven Cafe, but do get the #2 chile on the side.
Then we decided we'd better try this ubiquitous Blake's Lotaburger. When it was recommended by several people on this thread, I wrote it down even though I didn't think I'd want a burger while in NM with the cuisine so unique - I mean why waste time on a burger when I can have that any time? Still...after passing them, like on every other street corner, we simply HAD to try it.
First, are they all pink and purple inside? The outside on so many of them didn't look like much, but as soon as we went inside, it felt really good, comfortable decor, definitely different from any burger place I've been in, and in a good way different.
WE ordered the cheese and green chile burger and I'd seen Hatch chile advertised so much that I had to try it, so I ordered some Hatch chile on the side. Yummmm!!!! So good. I can see why Blake's was included in the recommendations, but what I really liked was the Hatch chile. I only ate a bit of it there and took the rest back to the casita and ate it like a dip. I smothered string cheese with the Hatch chile and ate it in one sitting. I wish I'd had the opportunity to find some Hatch chile and bring it home, but I was hesitant to buy anything in a jar. Unless you know for sure, jar chile can be less than interesting.
The next day, we went to the Placitas Cafe and had a superb light show. We were eating outside at dusk after having spent the last 6 hours at Meow Wolf in SF, and the skies looked ominous in the distance. Soon, the rain dumped on us (about 56 seconds of dumping!),and we moved our table closer to the edge of the building to avoid getting wet. The lightning then began, so I got my lightning storm that I'd so wanted. IT wasn't too much, but still. I was happy.
As for the food, it was good. I was intrigued with a plate that said hot fries were dumped on a plate covered in cheese (so the fries would melt the cheese) and then green chile strewn across the top. Again, really good combination, but a little skimpy on the essentials - like cheese and chile. And although the service was fine, and the man who ran the place was really nice, we didn't like it anywhere as much as we'd enjoyed the other three places we ate. It was nowhere near as welcoming. In fact, I felt like when we walked in, we were walking into a super cliquey place because I could see people looking us up and down. It's the reason why I decided to sit outside.
And now I'll say what we left the ABQ area with in our hearts. We felt at home immediately. The people felt genuine. I've always loved diversity and loved the idea that as a white person, I'd be in the minority in NM, so I was anticipating how it would feel. I felt immediately comfortable. I felt nothing special. We felt at home, actually. I believe what I've read that NM is truly integrated. Now, I was only there 4 days, and that's certainly not enough time to truly know, but there was a distinct difference in the feel of ABQ compared to what I lived in for 40+ years in Southern California. There's more of a subtle division (often by choice) between different people in SoCal than what I experienced in ABQ.
Here's my example - at the Horseman's Haven Cafe, our waitress was Hispanic. She was welcoming, fun, almost flirtatious when we ordered the #2 green chile. She teased my husband, made us laugh. We truly felt like she knew us and liked us, like we were regular customers. There were other customers she was tending to, and then two Hispanic women came in, about her age, I'd say her peers, yet I didn't see her behavior change toward them in any way. In San Diego, I would have seen a little extra care given them, an eye of "recognition" between them even though they didn't know each other simply because they were similar - in age, in culture, but I didn't see that at all in the Cafe. I saw our waitress treat all of us customers, who were pretty different in age and culture and socio-economic status, all the same. I'm not used to this at all, and it was refreshing, and made for a sense of ease while in ABQ area, but pretty much everywhere else we went - because this seemed to be the norm everywhere, except for... The Placitas Cafe.
It was a little weird there, and even though we pretty much fit in there looks-wise, I suspect it was because we weren't locals. I got the feeling most of the people that night were regulars, and we felt like interlopers. Again, though, the staff were very nice, the food good, but the clientele, well, funny. We enjoyed being outside with the mountain, rain, and lightning!
I know this was ultra-long, but I wanted to say thank you again to everyone who contributed. I've still got a long list of the places we wanted to go, and will go to next time. Because there will be a next time. We fell in love with ABQ, loved the artful freeway on-ramps and overpasses, the red rock, the skies that had clouds in them every day we were there, some type of clouds, and esp the people.
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