All chile peppered out in New Mexico!
October 2nd, 2012 by Mr. C
(green chiles roasting on the fire at the farmers market on Cerrillos Road & St. Francis Drive in Santa Fe)
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Last week the Planet Chocko raggamuffin crew flew out to New Mexico for a little excursion hoping to get abducted by a UFO in order to find out more about our martian ancestry. We bounced from Albuquerque to Santa Fe to Taos with no such luck on discovering our family tree. Instead we got molested, slapped in the face, and burnt in the mouth by New Mexico’s roasted chile peppers! We went to a whole host of cheap eats throughout our travels in New Mexico and every single establishment had remnances of red/green chile peppers as their defining influence in their foods! Apparently, green chile is a popular ingredient added to everything including burgers, fries, enchiladas, burritos, pizzas, potato chips – I think you get the idea! Even Mcdonald’s had a green chile double cheeseburger on their menu! We snapped a few photos and provided some captions on some noteworthy cheap and good eats in New Mex below!
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El Modelo Mexican foods
1715 2nd St SW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
El Modelo was located in an industrial looking area and definitely off the beaten path of wandering tourists. That didn’t stop us though as we stood in line with the locals as everyone was getting food to go for dinner. El Modelo was strictly takeout with no tables inside but there were picnic tables located across the parking lot. The restaurant was run by ladies from the back of the house to the front and they served up some serious down home Mexican eats with ginormous portions! The food was delicious and the chile chorizo sauce was on fire if you know what I mean! Overall, I gave the food 4 out of 5 chile peppers for taste and heat!
(The Mexican Plate – tamale,taco,enchilada,rice,refried beans,chile chorizo sauce,spare ribs,tostadas, & sopaipillas! This plate could feed 4 people. Loved the enchilada,tamale,spare ribs,rice,sopaipillos, and chile chorizo sauce. Didn’t care too much for the taco and tostados.)
(chile cheese fries)
(Sopaipillas soon to be taking a bath in some honey & chile chorizo sauce!)
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Frontier Restaurant
2400 Central Ave SE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
Next up to the plate residing from Albuquerque is the heavy hitting Frontier Restaurant conveniently located across the street from the University of New Mexico! The Frontier looks like it feeds the local masses, students, & tourists with the utmost efficiency! You line up to order, get your receipt, find an open table, & then pickup your order by number which is posted on an lcd screen. Breakfasts, burritos, burgers, roasted green chiles, homemade flour tortillas, their famous sweet rolls, & freshly squeezed orange juice can be had here. The sweet roll or what we call cinnamon rolls back home was delicious and not as sweet as the cinnabon variety. Overall the food was good and the spice level of our carne adovado was pretty tame. I was expecting some more heat but the strands of pork stewed with the red chile was flavorful. Buggy said the Fiesta Burger was delicious albeit a bit sloppy with the red chile sauce. Heat was not an issue as well. The Frontier is a great place for decent-homestyle cooked food for a person on a tightwad budget. I gave the Frontier a 3 out of 5 chile peppers for taste/convenience/price and a 2 out of 5 chile peppers for heat.
(Breakfast Burrito – one egg, hash browns, carne adovada, cheddar cheese and green chile)
(Breakfast platter – carne adovado, eggs, hashbrown, & flour tortilla.)
(Fiesta burger with red chile + cheese fries)
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Blake’s Lotaburger
404 North Guadalupe Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
The next cheap but good eats spot landed us into Blake’s Lotaburger in Santa Fe. Blake’s is a New Mexico only burger chain that started in Alburquerque in 1952. Now, they have over 70+ stores in New Mexico! All their burgers are of the angus variety and very tender to boot! Lotaburger is a fast food joint, sort of. They cook all their burgers to order so it’s not really fast, but it is tasty! The green chile on the burger definitely got up and slapped my face and my tastebuds quite a few times! I ordered the fries, shake, the green chile burger and never looked back. The shake provided a nice cool down period for the green chiles! I give Lotaburger a 3.5 chile peppers for taste and 3.5 chile peppers for heat!
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Bobcat Bite
420 Old Las Vegas Hwy
Santa Fe, NM 87505
And now batting cleanup – hailing from Old Las Vegas Highway in Santa Fe – Bobcat Bite! If there is one thing that you must order from here, it’s the green chile burger. Actually, I ordered the bacon green chile cheeseburger for added insult to my heart and arteries! The bun was airy & was toasted nicely on the grill – lathered with butter. The bread offered as a nice pillow to sop up the burger juices and green chile! The burger meat, a mix of sirloin and boneless chuck was a nice blend of fat to beef. The meat was juicy and thick in all dimensions! It was cooked to about a medium to medium well I would estimate. I almost had lockjaw trying to clamp down on my bobcat bite burger! The burger was delicious in all of its parts including the bacon, cheese, the green chile, burger meat, and bun. Suffice to say as big as the footprint was of this green chile cheeseburger, I had no problems destroying it! My only gripe was that the green chile was not as smoky nor as spicy as I would of liked. But overall, Bobcat Bite’s Cheeseburger was one of the better burgers that I have ever had! I give Bobcat Bite a 4.5 out of 5 chile peppers for taste and 2.75 out of 5 chile peppers for heat/smoke. I so wanted Bobcat to take a bite out of me with some heat!
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Michael’s Kitchen – Cafe & Bakery
304 Paseo Del Publo N
Taos, NM 87571
And if things couldn’t get any heavier in the heart, we continued onwards up north to Tao’s. Michael’s Kitchen was highly recommnended to us by our flight attendant on our travels from Denver to Albuquerque. Michael’s is a bakery/cafe/rustic diner of sorts with homestyle new mexican cooking. The food here was hearty, heavy, and fit for the long haul truck driver. That’s a compliment by the way! I’m not sure if I would travel long distances like that 4 hour drive the flight attendant would make but if you are in the neighborhood, this is definitely a great option to fuel up. I ordered from the local favorites category on the menu, the poor man’s eggs benedict with a side of hash browns. The eggs were done over easy nestled on top of a few slices of shaved ham and a toasted english muffin layered with a generous portion of green chile and melted cheese!
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Zia Diner
326 S Guadalupe St
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Now back in Santa Fe after some consignment store shopping and milling about we ended up at the Zia Diner which is less of a traditional Diner and more of a Bar and Grill. Being all chile peppered out, I decided to order a salad. What? At least it was a Southwestern grilled chicken salad with romain lettuce! The salad was actually quite fresh and tasty with the orange-chipotle vinaigrette! The grilled chicken was on the dry side but the components of the corn, avocado, slivers of tortilla chips, and orange-chipotle dressing picked up some slack. Our server disappeared like Houdini at times but was friendly at the very least. I would place Zia as a decent safe option if you get tired of the Cowgirl BBQ joint across the street.
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Last but not least we had a delicious homemade Southwestern omelette a la Roseanne made by our friend and travelmate – Roseanne! The omelette was started by sauteing diced onions and peppers in butter before the freshly whisked eggs were married into the mix. The omelette was accompanied by a jalepeno corn bread with two healthy dollops of salsa and green chile! Yum! Thanks Roseanne!
Tags: eats, food, new mexico
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