If you've never nursed a hangover, your own or someone elses, with the tough love of a chile-smothered breakfast burrito at Tia's, you're shy an important Santa Fe rite of passage. Packed to the gills during breakfast hours and again for the lunch crowd, Tia's is morning and noon medicine for junkies in need of a chile fix. With fiesta dresses on the wall and a friendly and frenzied staff doling out oil-glistening sopapillas to the intimate booths, this is roots New Mexican cuisine. In 2005, the downtown eatery celebrates 23 years on San Francisco St. and 30 years of dishing up enchiladas with an egg on top. And, thanks to small mercies, nothing much has changed in that time; you won't find any double soy lattés or Atkins diet concessions on the menu. Fighting your way to a breakfast seat-which is basically a roller derby with pancakes-you'll find it in your heart to love the truck stop coffee and super-sized bottles of Tabasco sauce. Both breakfast and lunch have regular daily specials worth maiming a stranger for and everything from omelets to rellenos come in old-fashioned helpings and prices. If only they were open for a late-night cup o' joe and avocado abetted BLT for those post-Lensic munchies.
210 W San Francisco St., 983-9880. Breakfast and lunch,
Monday through Saturday. $.
SFR Pick:
Breakfast burrito.
