Category: Food Network Eats New Mexico

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Al’s #1 Beef – Chicago, Illinois

Gil Garduno7:48 AM

Assume the position!  It’s been called the “Chicago Lean,” the “Italian Stance” and simply “The Stance.”   It’s  the time-tested, traditional art and science of eating Italian beef sandwiches, a Chicago specialty.  Trust me, it’s not the same as eating an ordinary sandwich.  If you don’t follow the process, you’re bound to spill shards of beef, bits of giardiniera and drippings of spice-laden beef gravy onto your clothing.  Italian beef sandwiches are as messy as they are delicious.  Some Italian beef sandwich shops don’t even offer seating.  Instead, they provide high, thin counters with or without stools where you’ll park yourself and proceed to assume the position.  I’ll let the professionals take over from here.  Courtesy of Italianbeef.com: (1)  Put…

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Bert’s Burger Bowl – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:57 AM

The tee shirts worn by a nattily attired and enthusiastic wait staff at Bert’s Burger Bowl say it all: “Since 1954: One Location Worldwide.” Celebrating its golden anniversary in 2004, Bert’s seems to transcend time with a winning formula: great burgers, terrific service and reasonable prices. Generations of New Mexicans and visitors have made Bert’s a beloved Santa Fe dining destination.  It is such a beloved local institution that then-Representative Tom Udall entered it into the Congressional Record in September, 2004 to commemorate its 50th anniversary. It’s easy to believe Bert’s popularity is an anomaly. It’s open only until 7PM six days a week and until 5PM on Sundays. There’s nowhere to sit inside the restaurant and if you’re in…

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Orlando’s New Mexican Cafe – Taos, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:07 AM

During his 2005 visit to Taos for the taping of the Food Network’s Food Nation program, über-celebrity chef Bobby Flay, likely the best known grill chef in the world, probably didn’t do as much to put Orlando’s New Mexican restaurant on the culinary map as you might think. Ditto for all the many first place awards hanging on the restaurant’s walls–“Best Mexican Food in Taos County” every year since 2005, best red chile, best green chile, and more than 25 other awards.  Flay’s visit and the accolades on the wall are merely validation of what locals and visitors in the know have long known: Orlando’s is a “must visit” dining destination in Taos. Located in El Prado, a “suburb” of…

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Bobcat Bite – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:38 PM

Update:  In a twist of cruel irony, the Travel Channel’s May 13th airing of the Burger Land program celebrating the Bobcat Bite debuted just a few days after the announcement that the world-famous Bobcat Bite as we all know and love it will be forever changed.  An official statement from Bobcat Bite, issued on May 9th, announced the restaurant renowned for its outstanding green chile cheeseburger would shutter its doors in June, 2013.  The press release read: After 12 years, Bonnie and John Eckre will serve their last famous Bobcat Bite burger at the Old Las Vegas Highway location on June 9. They will be vacating the premises June 14th at the demand of the building’s owners, the Panzer family.” …

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Restaurante Rancho De Chimayo – Chimayo, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:26 AM

The humble Northern New Mexico village of Chimayo has a reputation far and wide as a place in which miracles occur. Because of the healing and restorative nature of those miracles, it has even been called the “Lourdes of America.” During Holy Week of 1813, a devout Penitente named Bernardo Abeyta was performing his penances on a hillside when he looked up and saw a bright light emanating from the ground near the river. Abeyta ran to the spot, knelt and began digging with his bare hands toward the light’s source. Within minutes he uncovered a large and wondrous crucifix bearing the image of Nuestro Senor de Esquipulas. The crucifix was processed to the church in Santa Cruz where it…

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Dragonfly Cafe & Bakery – Taos, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:29 PM

In 1989, the tarantula hawk wasp was designated the official state insect of New Mexico, joining the roadrunner (state bird), whiptail lizard (state reptile),  spadefoot (state amphibian), Sandia Hairstreak (state butterfly),  Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout (state fish) and the black bear (state animal) as official symbols of our great state.  Ostensibly the state legislature put aside partisan politics and selected these symbols after carefully weighing all options.  A case could certainly have been made for the dragonfly to represent New Mexico.  Not only is the dragonfly a ubiquitous presence–flitting fluidly and gracefully like tiny fairies attired in wardrobes of many colors–they are omnipresent in local lore and legend.  In The Boy Who Made Dragonfly A Zuni Myth retold by New…

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Zia Diner – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:54 AM

In the year 1880, La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís” (“The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi”) bore little semblance to the popular vacation destination and tourist town it is today.  In fact, it was still pretty much a dusty frontier town of the old west with statehood more than a quarter century away.  Despite a population growth of nearly forty percent over the previous decade, Santa Fe was hardly considered a burgeoning center for commerce, much less tourism.  That would all change with the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company, an event which heralded a new period of prosperity and growth. The railroad facilitated…

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La Boca – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:49 AM

In a 1997 episode of Seinfeld, the “show about nothing,” George Costanza declared food and sex to be his two passions, reasoning that “it’s only natural to combine them.”  Jerry’s retort, “Natural?  Sex is about love between a man and a woman, not a man and a sandwich.” George Costanza may actually have gotten it right!  The mouth is actually considered an erogenous zone, an area of the body with heightened sensitivity, the stimulation of which may result in a sexual response. While most people don’t get sexually stimulated by eating, the mouth does host very sensitive taste receptors, including 10,000 taste buds on the tongue.  Perhaps that’s why so many people derive so much pleasure from the act of…

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La Casa Sena – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:55 AM

He was an academic prodigy, one of the first two persons admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico. He had a distinguished military career in the Union Army before being mustered out with the rank of Major. He served as sheriff of Santa Fe county for more than ten years and was a political power broker for both the Republican and Independent parties. Despite such an impressive pedigree, Civil War-hero Major Jose Sena might have been forgotten by the annals of history had it not been for his fabulous Territorial-style adobe house a block east of the Santa Fe Plaza. A prime example of a Spanish hacienda, the stately home has 33 ground-level…

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Cafe Pasqual’s – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:36 PM

Pasqual Baylon’s devotion to the Mass and the Holy Eucharist was so fervent that when assigned kitchen duty, angels had to stir the pots to keep them from burning.  It’s ironic therefore that San Pasqual is the recognized patron saint of Mexican and New Mexican kitchens, a beloved saint whose smiling countenance in the form of various art forms graces many a kitchen, including Katharine Kagel’s kitchen in the world famous Cafe Pasqual, one of Santa Fe’s most popular restaurants. Cafe Pasqual is a very small cafe with seating for only 50 patrons sitting in very close quarters. Prospective diners place their names on a waiting list then typically wait half an hour or more to be seated, usually longer…