Showing posts with label santa fe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label santa fe. Show all posts

Friday, April 1, 2011

Green Chile Burger at Bobcat Bite (Santa Fe, NM)

The green chile burger at Bobcat Bite may be the most famous food item in Santa Fe, having been voted best burger in America by Bon Appetit, featured in Gourmet, Food Network, and many more.

Bobcat Bite is actually on the outskirts of Santa Fe and about a 20-30 minute drive down the Old Las Vegas Highway. We made the drive from the city at the urging of FoodGPS. The restaurant's name apparently came from the wild bobcats that used to wander around to get fed. I wonder if they like green chile too?


Here's the burger breakdown:
Buns from Fano bakery in Santa Fe, a juicy 10 oz patty (ground chuck), a mix of American and Swiss cheese, melted, tomato, lettuce, and of course minced green chile.

Green Chile Burger
Look at that thick juicy patty, pink in the middle:
Green Chile burger - cross section
A very satisfying burger, with a kick. If you're already in Santa Fe, it's not that far of a drive and worth visiting. Eat outside or in the low ceiling-ed dining room. It's tight, but it's part of the experience.

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Bobcat Bite
420 Old Las Vegas Highway
Santa Fe, NM 87505
(505) 983-5319
www.bobcatbite.com/
Bobcat Bite Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Sunday, October 10, 2010

The Pantry (Santa Fe, NM): Breakfast with the Locals

The Pantry was probably the most memorable breakfast I had in Santa Fe.
The PR for Taste of Santa Fe set us up for breakfast at The Pantry. When we arrived the place was bustling with locals. The Pantry is a Santa Fe institution that first opened its doors in 1948. Since then it has changed ownerships a few times but it seems to be doing quite well under the current owners, the Singley family. The son had just graduated from Le Cordon Bleu Scottsdale and is on track to take over the business.

As most meals in New Mexico, The Pantry provided one big, heavy, breakfast.
After waiting a day and a half, I finally got my sopapillas!


Sunday, August 29, 2010

Kakawa (Santa Fe, NM): A Meso-American Chocolate House

Continuing our Taste of Santa Fe trip ...

Ever since Mattatouille pointed out the Sante Fe chocolate trail to me over breakfast, I had my mind set on visiting Kakawa, a chocolate shop featuring Meso-American style chocolates and truffles infused with chili.
There were also samples of some gluten free Aztec brownies (spiced with chile and other spices) when we entered the little adobe house. Since they were gluten free the brownies were a bit on the dry side, but the I enjoyed the heat from the spice.
I found their most interesting offerings are the Meso American chocolate "elixirs". They're much thicker and richer than hot chocolates - they're pretty much melted chocolates. They have European-style chocolate elixirs too, but this place is called Kakawa after all.

An espresso-sized cup of chocolate elixir is $3.50 which by no means is cheap, but considering how thick and rich these elixirs are, you'd understand. You're paying for the cocoa, not hot water.

After tasting quite a few, my favorite elixir was the Atole, made with blue corn atole (atole refers to a Mexican/Central American masa-based hot drink), unsweetened 99% chocolate, honey, chili, salt.
You can take most of the chocolate elixirs home in dehydrated wafer formats, and reconstitute them with a little hot water. Buying the wafers aren't much cheaper either, they're $16.95 for 3 wafers which make for 6 oz each.

Alas, the Atole isn't available in dehydrated form (apparently dehydrating it doesn't work out for this one), so I opted to take home the Mayan Full Spice instead, made with unsweetened 99% chocolate, agave nectar, chihuacle negro chili, mexican vanilla, and various herbs, flowers, nuts, and spices.


Read Food GPS' review here.


Kakawa Chocolate House
1050 E. Paseo de Peralta
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 982-0388
www.kakawachocolates.com/
Kakawa Chocolate House on Urbanspoon

Albuquerque/Santa Fe, NM

Albuquerque Restaurant Reviews
Kelly's Brewpub
Sophia's Place

Albuquerque Breweries
Marble Brewery

Santa Fe Restaurant Reviews
BobCat Bite
Cafe Pasqual
The Shed
The Pantry

Chocolatiers
Kakawa

Hotel/Lodging
Eastside Compound - Kokopelli Real Estate and Property Management

Wineries
La Chiripada Winery (Dixon)

Festivals
Taste of Santa Fe 2010 - Gala Dinner
Taste of Santa Fe 2010

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Recap: Taste of Santa Fe 2010

Taste of Santa Fe was the annual fundraiser for the New Mexico History Museum, apparently a pretty small event that had hibernated over the recent years. This year, though, they relaunched Taste of Santa Fe bigger than ever, gearing it up to be one of the premier food events in the area. For that same reason, they invited Angeleno bloggers who are willing to go to Santa Fe to join them for the event (Disclaimer: we received free tickets to the events and lodging, but paid for own transport).

The main event took place at the Santa Fe Railyard Park on July 17.


It was a hot afternoon in Santa Fe (about 94 degrees!), and having been spoiled in Southern California, we had a hard time bearing with the sun and the heat. That's why I immediately veered towards to gelato booth and got the Blackberry Cabernet Sorbetto from O-Gelato, which had just opened on July 3.
Their other flavors included Ispaha, made with Parisian rosewater and raspberry, and Harry's Peach Bellini.

Mole and taquitos were abound, but there were more than New Mexican cuisine to be found at Taste of Santa Fe, although of course many incorporate ingredients and influences from the area. The resorts and fine dining restaurants participated with offerings such as seared tuna.

A non-VIP ticket to Taste of Santa Fe only gave us one drink, which was unfortunate considering the weather. I had to choose carefully. Since the wines weren't local and I tried many of the beers from the Santa Fe Brewing Co., I opted for the Chicken Killer Barley Wine Ale (yes, partly due to its awesome name).
This was fairly balanced with a bit of both maltiness and hop without being too bitter for me.
You can buy fork up cash for more drinks, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, though we didn't do so that day.

A sample of the homemade lemonade from Flying Star Cafe was such a lifesaver in the sweltering heat, I even stopped by the actual cafe to buy a full glass.

One of my favorite tastes that day was this BBQ ribs with red chile honey glaze and green chile cole slaw from Josh's Barbecue.

This year's event brought Chef John Sedlar of Rivera Restaurant in LA for a cooking demonstration. Chef Sedlar grew up in Santa Fe and has also given us some restaurant recommendations for the area.
He prepared a dish called Scallops Arabesque which calls for Vadouvan, an Indian spice blend.
Chef Sedlar suggests using grapeseed oil since it can go to high temperature and doesn't burn.

Since Chef Sedlar had also made this dish for a Los Angeles Mag's event, you can find the full recipe for it here.

Chile, both red and green, can be found everywhere, including on your kettle corn. Kernel's Kettle Corn which normally parks its cart on the Plaza, offers three flavors: original, red chile, and green chile. Both sweet and spicy, these were actually pretty addictive.

Can you see the red chili powder?


Friday, July 16, 2010

Taste of Santa Fe 2010 Trip: Our Pad

Thanks to Kokopelli Real Estate & Property Management (www.kokoproperty.com) and Big Ink, PR, Food GPS, Mattatouille, e*starLA and I got a gorgeous adobe style compound in the Historic District for our Taste of Santa Fe trip! (EatingLA joined us later and was put up at a hotel instead)

This compound usually runs $350-500/night.

The property is actually 2 adjacent houses: the main house is a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom house with a beautiful living room (love the red couch against the clean white walls), top of the line kitchen and bathroom fixtures.


Even a stockpot faucet! Not that we'll be using it ...



The other house, separated by a narrow courtyard, is a 1B/1B with a smaller living room.




The house was so awesome, Mattatouille wants to just stay home and drink and smoke cigar instead of going out. We'll see.

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