Ironwood Kitchen on Albuquerque's sprawling Far West

I’m not sure Matt Moody could sell milk to the lactose intolerant or ice to an eskimo, but it would be hard to bet against him. The genial owner of the Ironwood Kitchen on Albuquerque’s sprawling far northwest, Matt has a rare enthusiasm for both his restaurant and his recipes.  He won’t just describe a dish on the menu, he’ll tell you how it’s prepared and may even give you the genesis of its ingredients. That type of enthusiasm and confidence is infectious.

Matt is also wise and experienced enough to understand the customer is always right…even if he doesn’t agree with them.  When my friend Bill Resnik and I practically accused him of being a “Cuminista” for using cumin on his red chile, he listened to our diatribe then related his long history in having prepared that chile to much popular acclaim in the Mesilla Valley Kitchen restaurant in Las Cruces.  Despite the success of his chile recipe, he also promised to test his chile recipe sans cumin, reasoning perhaps that the Duke City market may be as finicky as we are about the purity of our chile.  While I doubt he’ll actually abandon a tried and tested recipe, at least he’s willing to listen.  How can you not like that?  There are many things to like about the Ironwood Kitchen.

Enchilada Plate: Three rolled corn tortillas--one stuffed with cheese, one with ground beef and one with chicken topped with green chile, melted cheese and a fried egg over easy. Served with home-fried spuds and beans.

The Ironwood Kitchen, which opened in December, 2011, is situated on Unser Plaza within a few blocks of the demarcation line between Albuquerque and Rio Rancho just west of the new Presbyterian Healthcare Services hospital.  At more than 2,500 square feet and with an external facade resembling a slick chain restaurant (no insult intended), the restaurant is named for any of a large number of woods that have a reputation for hardness.  Hard woods are part and parcel of the restaurant’s rustic interior as is locally crafted ironwork.   Both booth and chair seating are available.

Open Monday through Saturday for breakfast, lunch and dinner with breakfast served all day long, this casual restaurant specializes in affordable and healthy American and New Mexican entrees.  Matt will tell you with obvious pride about the freshness of his restaurant’s ingredients, that meals are prepared to order and that nothing is frozen. Diners place their order at a counter and your order is promptly delivered to your table.  It’s at the counter where we first encountered the affable owner, but it wasn’t the last time we saw him.  He also visited our table at least twice to ensure we were enjoying our food.  He visited every other table, too.

Three ground beef tacos with salsa, green chile and a bowl of beans

The menu is scrawled on white boards behind the counter.  It’s not an overly ambitious menu if your definition for ambitious is tampering with tried and true recipes.  You won’t find ingredient combinations the kind of which the Food Network’s Iron Chefs introduce weekly.  It’s a menu with no major surprises, but one which should satisfy diners wanting comfort food favorites and breakfast all-day-long.  New Mexican favorites–huevos rancheros, breakfast burritos, green chile stew, carne adovada, quesadillas, enchiladas, tacos and more–are very well represented.  So are popular American food standards: chicken fried steak, burgers, sandwiches, French toast, pancakes and more.

The enchilada plate features three rolled corn tortillas filled with cheese (also available with beef or chicken) topped with your choice of red or green (or both), melted cheese and a fried egg or two if you wish.  Ask for one of each–cheese, beef and chicken.  The ground beef is very well seasoned and griddled to a light crispiness.  The chicken is plentiful and it’s cut to right-sized pieces.  The fried egg is prepared to your exacting specifications where unctuous yellow yolk runs over the other ingredients when you press your fork into it.  The corn tortillas have the flavor of fresh corn, not the oil in which they’re fried.  The enchiladas are served with home-fried spuds and beans, both of which are quite good.    The green chile (the personable owner couldn’t convince me to try the cumin-contaminated red) was fairly mild, but had a nice flavor.

The Sixth Guy Burger with avocado and Munster cheese; housemade French fries

The taco plate, a last minute addition to the menu, features three crispy fried shells engorged with ground beef, tomatoes and lettuce with both green chile and salsa served on the side.  The salsa is excellent, so good it should be offered separately with chips (preferably made with the same corn tortillas as the enchiladas).  Matt told us the tacos have been especially popular with children who happily consume all three of them, sometimes to the surprise of their parents.  It’s easy to see why these tacos are so popular with children, but adults will enjoy them, too. 

Perhaps because of its proximity to the popular chain burger restaurant, the Ironwood Kitchen’s burger offering is cleverly named The Sixth Guy Burger.  The beef is obtained from a local butcher who grinds out a 100 percent chuck to Matt’s specifications.  Each patty is hand-formed then is both charbroiled and griddled, a technique which seems to bring out the beef’s moistness and flavors.  The beef is set on a fresh-baked Kaiser roll and served with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles.  Optional toppings–you have your choice of two of them gratis–include avocado, cheese, bacon, mushrooms, green chile and green onions.  This is a better burger than you’ll find at the Five Guys Burger joint just north of the Ironwood Grill and I’m not just saying that because I dislike chains.  The housemade French fries are excellent! 

The burgeoning far west area near where Albuquerque and Rio Rancho meet is growing rapidly and so will the number of visitors dining at the Ironwood Kitchen.

Ironwood Kitchen
5740 Night Whisper Road, N.W., Suite 250
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 890-4488
LATEST VISIT: 3 January 2012
# OF VISITS: 1
RATING: *
COST: $ – $$
BEST BET: Enchiladas, Tacos, Sixth Guy Burger