The A&W Burger Family in Lemitar, New Mexico
For nearly a quarter century, the most popular section in New Mexico Magazine (the nation’s oldest state magazine, by the way) has been a humorous column entitled “One of Our Fifty is Missing.” The column features anecdotes submitted by readers worldwide recounting their experiences with fellow American citizens and ill-informed bureaucrats who don’t realize that New Mexico is part of the United States.
Some travelers from other states actually believe they’re leaving their nation’s borders when they cross into New Mexico. Others think they need a passport to visit (not that they’d visit considering they’re wary of drinking our water.) Merchants and banks throughout America have been known to reject as “foreign credit cards” American Express and Visa cards issued by New Mexico banking institutions.
The realization that it’s New Mexico, U.S.A. isn’t lost solely on ordinary citizens and bureaucrats. Even modern pop culture has gotten into the act.
During one episode of The Simpsons, the iconic Homer Simpson didn’t know New Mexico existed until looking at a Krusty Burger map and exclaiming with surprise “Hey, there’s a New Mexico.” Homer’s despotic boss, the Yale educated Mr. Burns wasn’t much better: “Whoa! Whoa! Slow down there mistro. There’s a New Mexico?”
The green chile cheeseburger at the Bobcat Bite is perhaps the very best in New Mexico.
Not only is there a New Mexico, it’s being increasingly “discovered” by thousands of viewers who tune in to various shows on the Food Network. Hardly a week goes by without one of the network’s gastronomic glitterati visiting the Land of Enchantment and salivating effusively at some culinary creation or another.
It’s not only the Food Network which has uncovered New Mexico’s gustatory gems. It’s the Wall Street Journal, GQ magazine, Gourmet magazine and dozens of other traditional media publications. Online, New Mexico’s cuisine is frequently feted on the popular Roadfood Web site as well as on salon.com, epicurious.com and a wealth of other Web sites.
New Mexico’s cuisine has also achieved the pinnacle of achievement in the culinary world, garnering numerous awards from the prestigious James Beard Foundation. In recent years, the “Oscars of food” have been awarded to chefs, restaurants and cookbooks all from New Mexico.
Not every mention of New Mexico’s cuisine is “peppered” with references to chile, the capsaicin blessed staple of New Mexico home and restaurant fare.
It may surprise you to learn that an Italian restaurant (Trattoria Nostrani) in Santa Fe was lauded by Gourmet magazine as one of the 50 best restaurants in America or that the Food Network and epicurious.com selected as the best burger in the entire fruited plain, a burger crafted in a humble New Mexico café (Bobcat Bite) with seating for only 26.
The Bobcat Bite's hamburger steak with green chile.
Several other New Mexico restaurants have earned prestigious national accolades. A surprising number of them are nondescript mom and pop diners with little to offer in terms of ambience but which serve outstanding food (most of it not sophisticated enough to be called cuisine).
Understandably many of New Mexico’s best restaurants are concentrated in its most populous cities, but to limit your culinary exploration to those cities is to miss out on some of the very best restaurants anywhere—many just off the “well eaten path.”
Stay on the teeming tourist traversed areas, and you won’t discover that some of the state’s best New Mexican (El Bruno) food can be found in Cuba (New Mexico) or that its best Cuban food (Tocororo Cafe) might just be found in Madrid (also in New Mexico). You’ll miss out on conceivably New Mexico’s best Cajun food (Callie’s), which is served from a dilapidated mobile kitchen that looks like a rejected hippie bus (or a rusty roach coach on steroids).
Within miles of one of the ten natural wonders of the world you’ll find what is arguably the state’s best barbecue and (gasp) until just a few years ago it was served at a Carlsbad Dairy Queen by an owner who took the term “independently owned” to heart. Even though it’s on a tourist trodden path, neither the Food Network nor the guidebooks have found this one.
New Mexicans like me are a discerning and demanding lot when it comes to our disposable income and one of our favorite ways to spend our hard-earned money is by dining out.
The fictional Maggie's from the movie Wild Hogs filmed in Madrid, New Mexico
In fiscal 2003, New Mexicans spent $1.6 billion in eating and dining establishments. Considering the state’s median household income is just over $30,000 a year, the Land of Enchantment’s restaurants—and not just those anointed “best of” by the culinary cognoscenti—have got to be pretty good to inspire such enthusiastic patronage.
Before you check out my restaurant reviews, please review my rating system which explains how I arrive at my ratings. It’s not exactly scientific and I don’t take into account anyone else’s opinion of the restaurants in which we dine, not even the opinion of my faithful dining companion and wife Kim whose palate has matured tremendously over the years.
Your opinions may certainly differ as there are no rights and wrongs in my ratings, just opinions–mine.
Bobcat Bite photos courtesy of my friend and colleague Andrea Lin.
Bob of the Village of Los Ranchos says:
Rattling Y‘all‘s cages; yanking your Chains (LOL):
a) What are Y’all YumYum wise, when it comes to Mexican restaurants in New Mexico? Is a Mex vs New Mex distinction too blurred in NM; of benefit; too pedantic-like? Are the Shed and El Modelo, Mexican or New Mexican per your taste buds? Did New Mexico get lost in the shuffle when it comes to an article of the 30 Best Mexican Restaurants in the US as deemed by Travel Leisure magazine http://tinyurl.com/b3phzsp? Should the NM Dept. of Tourism be alerted to speak up to the mag? (The Shed is #10; El Modelo comes in at #27 of 30.) (Apparently, and if I can apologize for our Secretary of the Dept of Tourism Monique Jocobson, she is apparently too busy to receive your emails, so Y’all might try susan.kavanaugh@state.nm.us her Executive Assistant.)
b) Yo, maybe I’m foggy, but I think in the past someone lamented the loss of GodFather’s Pizza chain. Lest ya missed it in the media, 4 are planned in ABQ over the next 2 years. Was that the one with honky-tonk piano players?
c) For those of Y’all who scoff at Hot Dogs and refuse to step into the iconic-66, locally owned Dog House, for example, I’ll bet, albeit I haven’t tasted one yet, half of yaz will be doing these http://tinyurl.com/d5jq9my surreptitiously in your backyard if you are a True Foodie! Be advised, The Drones will be watching!
d) When a New Mexican dish is set down in front of Y‘all, should it be necessary to salt it?
IMHO, the often multitude of flavors from the tortilla, avocado, various forms of green or red chile, etc. (let alone salt the Chef might add along the way) should be sufficient.
Pardon, am off to have some roughage!!1
Gil Garduno says:
Hola Roberto
There is a definite blurring of distinction between Mexican and New Mexican food…at least in the way they are perceived. Not everyone seems to recognize that New Mexican cuisine is its own distinctive entity, a fusion of Spanish, Mexican and Puebloan influences. All too often our food is mischaracterized with one national publication even declaring that there isn’t much difference between New Mexican food and the Sonoran influenced food of southern Arizona. Worse, our cuisine has also been labeled as a sub-set of Tex-Mex.
Travel & Leisure adds to the confusion by declaring The Shed as a Mexican restaurant. Because The Shed deigns to serve toasted French bread instead of sopaipillas, it’s only a matter of time before some yahoo declares The Shed’s cuisine as a fusion of Mexican and French cuisines.
While it’s rumored that Godfather’s Pizza will be making a return to Albuquerque, those of us who eschew chains are much more excited about something impresario Michael Baird is doing. Baird, who owns Vernon’s Hidden Valley Steakhouse and Prime restaurants in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque will be launching a new pizza concept called Wise Pies Pizza. Wise Pies is a build-your-own pizza concept. No word as to whether you’ll be able to add cucumbers to your pizza ala Cosmo Kramer.
Hasta,
Gil