To whom it may concern,
Our name is The Fork, and we're tired of seeing the same three restaurants pop up in every internet list about Santa Fe food.
This letter is not an attempt to dunk upon the travel writers and self-proclaimed foodies, nor is it meant to ignore data—such as the data included in the recent Best Fine Dining Restaurants list from Trip Advisor-dot-com's Traveller's Choice Awards—it is an attempt to stanch the consistency with which people cite Sasella, Sazón and Geronimo when it comes to internet discourse. People might start to think we're a town with three restaurants, and there are more eateries betwixt heaven and Earth than these; we're begging people to re-think how they do these things.
Do we think it's cool that the aforementioned restaurants gain notoriety from big-time sites and Beardos (which is what we think the James Beard Awards should be called)? Absolutely. Have we had phenomenal meals in these establishments? No question. We have enjoyed killer meals in all three. Yet still, we ask you—when do we get to the point where we all just know people like those places? Again, we won't argue with users on Trip Advisor saying those places rule, and it's cool that Santa Fe takes three spots in a list that includes a mere 25 restaurants. But when we read some dumb travel blog or the bazillionth Condé Nast-owned outlet's piece that's like "Didja hear Geronimo does elk?" we start to ask ourselves, what of Zacatlán? Dinner For Two? What of the people who can't afford fine dining on the regular and want something a little more mid-tiered? What of the taco joints and trucks that admittedly have garnered more attention from the James Beard folks?
We want to see Palacio on more lists. And Café Castro. We want to see just about anything besides the white walled/white tablecloth'd, $50 a plate spots. Fine dining can be so glorious as a treat or splurge, but in most cases these restaurants don't tell the cultural story of our town as well as, say, The Shed or The Burrito Company or Los Amigos or even Felipe's Tacos (RIP; yes, it's closed so obviously it won't be on any lists, but we still miss it every day and we're not over it).
Many years ago, a television show about America's burgers visited Santa Fe. We don't remember the name of the program, but we do know that the host invited Fork creator Rob DeWalt (also RIP) to show off his favorite burger. Santa Fe restaurants have always offered up mean burgers, but DeWalt took the guy to a then lesser-known hole-in-the-wall known as Bobcat Bite (today it's called Santa Fe Bite). And it was so special. More of this, please, list writers. We'll try to do the same, though it's obviously a little easier for us since we live here and get paid to eat. Anyway, excelsior! We look forward to your mean letters, dear readers! And no, we don't think that "don't tell the tourists," joke is funny. Oh, and btw, our email is thefork@sfreporter.com. Just so you all know.
The song that plays in our head when we talk about writing letters...to our baby or otherwise.
Also
- We caught an add for a deal at Tesuque's El Nido Restaurant that offers a Caesar salad, pizza and bottle of wine for two, and it'll set you back $65. Now, like you, our immediate reaction to that is that $65 is a wild price for pizza and salad and wine. But when we really break it all down—and assuming the wine is a good one—that's actually not so bad what with inflation and all. In fact, we were stoned as shit the other day and got Taco Bell, and it set us back nearly $30, so maybe this is actually a pretty dang good deal.
- Three cheers for up-and-coming Los Alamos-based chef Christopher Rutherford, who, at 11, won second place in the recent Tesuque Casino World Posole Cooking Championship. We love when kids are all pumped on doing art (yes, food is art) and we want to congratulate young Rutherford for killin' it out there.
- Speaking of the James Beard Foundation, know that the food-lovin' org will pop ino Santa Fe for the James Beard Foundation Taste America Dinner at 7 pm on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Where will this event go down? Chef Fernando Ruiz's Escondido, baby. Who's cooking? Ruiz, of course, but also Horno's chef David Sellers. How can you get tickets? By clicking right here.
- Also upcoming, the Santa Fe Farmers' Market's Tribute to Farmers promises to be quite the foodie event come 5:30 pm on Thursday, Oct. 24. The org will highlight the work of Cañada Farms, The Vagabond Farmers and Khalsa Farms with a killer Mexican meal from Mas Chile and its chef Edmundo "Mundo" Kelley Mendoza. Find tickets and all the pertinent info here. Full disclosure, the event runs $100, but some of that is tax-deductible, so...party.
Wow. Turns out there are sooooo many country songs about farmers, and this is one of them.
More Tidbits
- In huge bummer news, Food and Wine-dot-com reports that two new studies have found that ingesting too much fruit juice and soda can be linked to stroke. We all knew that soda is pretty much the worst thing you can drink, but the fruit juice thing kinda hurts. As always, though, the main bummer is in giving up or cutting back on things that make you want to live longer in order to live longer. Stupid existence. WE DID NOT ASK TO BE BORN! AND WE WILL NOT FOLLOW INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN! WE WILL STAY AND FIGHT UNTIL OUR BLOOD TURNS BROWN ON THE ROCKS OF GLORY!
- Speaking of studies and surveys and survey studies and such, research analysis and data firm YouGov recently conducted a study that found Gen Z wants more transparency when it comes to food quality and sustainability. Ummm, we feel like everyone wants that stuff, minus food monopoly execs, so, like...good? Anyway, according to this piece from Food Business News-dot-net (which is just an A+ name for a food business news site), the survey says that climate change remains the elephant in the room.
- Lastly, in not specifically Santa Fe news, the fine folks at Foodbeast-dot-com (which is one of of our fave sites now) reports that Burger King has teamed with Hidden Valley Ranch for a new big-ass dipping cup that'll allow Whopper fans to dip them Whoppers into said cups. Seriously, the thing is huge, and we just thought you should know that.
A totally scientific breakdown of The Fork's correspondence
What's that—no food in the print edition of SFR this week? AGAIN?! Sorry, buds, we know they're working on it as hard as possible. In the meantime, we'll still be here most weeks. Visit sfreporter.com for all the other stuff our paper does, and that includes about a million Forks. Once again, our email is thefork@sfreporter.com if you'd like to write.
Number of Letters Received: 41
*Some of y'all are so nice.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader):
"Milk needs a date—sell-by, produced-on, rancid-after. Or we need a sniff portal."
*This section is usually reserved for us to dunk on nerds, but regular reader Jeff D is right. While we stand by the weirdness of expiration dates as pointed out in last week's Fork, we don't recommend drinking old-ass milk.
Actually Helpful Tip(s):
"Hi Forky (I hope that isn't a slur), I wanted to say I've really enjoyed reading your columns and checking out your recommendations since moving to Santa Fe some 10 months ago. They have definitely helped me navigate the food scene, which was a big draw for me in coming here. I especially liked the El Salvadorian torta at Torogoz. Your column makes Thursdays at my desk when I'm bored as shit a little more bearable, but now my boss just walked by and I was looking at pictures of tacos, so I might "catch a stray" on that one. Oh well."
*Sorry, y'all, but Rex S here is our new favorite. And while it's not technically a tip, he's right to remind us all the Torogoz rules.
Dictated and read,
The Fork
