Tag: Guacamole and Chips

AmericanMadridNew MexicoNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Excellent

The Mine Shaft Tavern – Madrid, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, don’t you call me cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company store.” Those immortal lyrics, hauntingly performed by crooner Tennessee Ernie Ford describe with a poignant reality, the plight of the American miner even onto the 20th century. By payday, which came at month’s end, miners did indeed owe their souls to the company–for the company house in which they were living, for groceries to feed their families, for doctor bills and even for the tools they used to mine. They were paid in scrip which could only be spent at the company store, leaving them no choice but to buy from the companies. Despicably, this allowed the company to gouge the miners with vastly over-inflated prices, leaving miners with families inextricably in debt to the company. When they got paid at month’s end, any money left after settling their debts to the company was insufficient to last through the following month. This vicious cycle was perpetuated the following month when miners again had to pay the company first and were lucky to have anything left for their…

BurgersDog FriendlyNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Santa Fe Bite – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:29 PM

“This burger is a wonder. It’s thick, it’s perfectly cooked, juicy and covered in cheese… If eating a burger is a sin, this burger is like going to Vegas with a hooker who you kill, stuff in your trunk, and push off into a canyon.” —The Amateur Gourmet Glass-half-full nay-sayers will tell you it shouldn’t have worked. Housed in a ramshackle building some might describe as being “in the middle of nowhere,” it defied the number one rule for restaurant success: location, location, location. It was Lilliputian in size, incapable of accommodating everyone clamoring to get in. Long waits were common with only a small porch and limited eating as a “waiting area.” Seating was in personal space proximity. in winter and rare rainy seasons, the dirt and gravel parking lot could become rather messy. From a debits and credits perspective, these were the debits, the factors which worked against the Bobcat Bite ever becoming a success, much less a legendary dining destination. Fortunately the Bobcat Bite was frequented by diners with a glass is half full perspective, not by accountants and their ledgers. The Bobcat Bite was not beloved in spite of the aforementioned debits; it was beloved because…