Anson Stevens-Bollen
Now that SFR’s offices are located in Midtown after a million years on Marcy Street, staffers are becoming mainstays at numerous Midtown eateries. This is a good thing. Nay—it’s a great thing, particularly for those of us who need to eat fast over our desks like animals and are looking for nearby places that serve with speed.
As I write this, we’re knee-deep in the super-fun realities of Amazon Web Services having gone down, too, which means your favorite local alt.weekly struggled to get this issue out along with countless other papers and outlets across the land. That means there was even less time for a bite, and I did the only thing I ever think to do during times of crisis: I got some breakfast burritos.
Baja Tacos
2018 Cerrillos Road, (505) 471-8762; Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner daily
The kind of place the term “staple” was invented for, Baja Tacos has been serving up killer tacos, burritos, burgers and more since 1968. Originally, old-timers might recall, Baja operated a small space and drive-thru on Cerrillos Road that was honestly little more than a shack, but a 2019 move to the former Wendy’s inside the College Plaza Shopping Center has meant a larger customer base, at least if the line at the drive-thru is any indication.
And why not, huh? Baja Tacos might just have the best breakfast burrito in town. We can hear folks clutching their pearls and fainting over that statement, and maybe it’s more apt to say that it has one of the top 10 breakfast burritos around, but as it clocks in at just $5, we have to take affordability into account, right? Right. Baja’s delicious handheld burrito comes packed with eggs and crispy hashbrowns. Crispy is the operative word here, as it doesn’t matter how many potato shreds you cram inside a tortilla if they’re floppy and listless. Additionally, the beloved local institution might just have the highest egg-to-potato ratio anywhere, with so much of that proteiny goodness packed into each burrito that it was literally bursting out the sides. Toss in some green chile that’s flavorful and just the right level of spicy, and it’s a quick, cheap, crammed testament to why burritos themselves could just be the smartest food in the world.
Of course, as I say, it gets busy in the drive-thru over at Baja Tacos, so take the chance to park and hit the lobby where service feels just a little bit quicker and where the same staff that’s been there forever greets guests with kindness. As an added pro tip, you should know the burritos are incredibly hot for some time after ordering. Do yourselves a favor and wait just 10-15 minutes after you receive bounty. This not only brings the burrito to an optimal temperature, it gives the chile and molten cheese time to release flavor throughout the entirety of this most excellent flavor tube.
Sagche’s Coffee House
730 St. Michael’s Drive, (505) 780-5263; Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner daily
It’s been easy to be something of a Sagche’s hound of late. The Midtown coffee spot and restaurant just kind of appeared one day beside Kinko’s in the Plaza Del Sol strip mall on St. Mike’s, and despite its unassuming interior and decided lack of pomp, it has become a go-to for midweek lunches between buds for months now.
And before we get into the whole breakfast burrito thing, know this: Sagche’s coffee itself, which is roasted through Albuquerque’s Odacrem Coffee and available near the register, is now my at-home brew of choice. I appreciate that there’s a roast date right on the bag, and I’ve been practically addicted to the light roasted Guatemalan variety for weeks. It’s bright and flavorful, but rich without tasting burnt. In a nutshell? You need this.
As for the burrito, I enlisted help from SFR Culture Writer Riley Gardner in the taste test department. See, I’ve gotten a few emails about this ongoing series that say things about how not eating meat limits me from talking turkey as it were, and since Riley’s from Texas—which means he’s legally obligated to love meat—I plopped a bacon-filled breakfast burrito on his desk, smothered X-mas.
Right off the bat, Riley says this thing is stuffed and rolled so well that the best comparison might be a top-tier cigar. With well-cooked hashbrowns filling the burrito alongside a generous serving of fluffy egg, the chile is reportedly excellent, though, he says, came with the surprise of a red chile spicier than its green. Think more sauce-like than the thicker reds of other Santa Fe joints and with a kick that appears suddenly then retreats a tad between bites. The green chile, served chopped and melding with the gooey cheese across the top, was packed with flavor, according to my guinea pig, and a side of black beans, while not the most common thing you’ll see with Santa Fe breakfasts, somehow seemed obvious once it was part of the equation.
Sagche’s breakfast burrito clocks in at a more-than-reasonable $6.99, and for it to become a standout on a menu that includes a peerless egg sandwich ($6) and a waffle with fruit ($9.25) that still beckons me months after I first had it is no small feat. So here’s to you, brothers Walfre and Erwin Sagche—I can’t even tell you how pumped I am you moved here from Guatemala to create the kind of local spot of which we can all be proud.
READ MORE: So You’re Looking For a Breakfast Burrito [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2] [Vol. 3] [Vol. 4] [Vol. 5] [Vol. 6]
