While The Fork was busy dealing with a very sick cat (who survived, by the way, and is also our best friend), springtime came roaring in as if this past winter hadn't been a snowless wasteland that prevented us from wearing our most-treasured jackets. Sigh. But still—it's so damn nice out. We honestly love this town in spring—let's talk about some highlights (which are mostly places to be outside while you eat).
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While us locals generally send touristy types to The Shed, the star of our town's New Mexican scene is totally its sister joint, La Choza. Yeah, yeah, we've talked about 'em before, but have you checked out the patio at this place? The upside: Has beautiful trees. The downside: Unless you made a reservation, you're gonna have a lengthy wait.
Meanwhile, a little further downtown you can find the Coyote Café's Rooftop Cantina, now a year-round affair with special drink and food items served on a gorgeous rooftop seemingly designed for spring and summer hangs.
Just up the street on the Plaza find The Draft Station, a glorious draught (The Fork's preferred spelling) beer zone with a kickass shuffleboard table, a stellar patio and the ability to have pizza sent from Rooftop Pizza, located at the other end of the same building. Score one for you.
Over on Cordova, the kinda-sorta-recently-moved Clafoutis isn't just about servers who wear suspenders, it's about a super-comfy patio situation. Stuff your croissants, ogle the macarons, feel French—but, like, not into Jerry Lewis.
As a two-fer, The Railyard hosts both Second Street Brewery and its swanky patio and the Violet Crown Cinema, a place that should be known for its food and beer every bit as much as its films and super-handsome manager Peter Grendle. Seriously. You seen this guy? Daaaaamn. Anyway, both places have killer patios.
Obviously we can't name every patio in town, so what do you Forkefeans like? Shoot us your favorites and we'll share them with everyone!
Also
-Seems we have an opening date for the Chick-fil-A going up at College Plaza on Cerrillos Road—April 19. And though we may have mentioned it before, we also know they're looking to hire somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 people. You can get it. We also hear that fans of the fast food chain have been known to show up to new locations on day one with lawnchairs and boom boxes and stuff. Woah.
-After using the perfectly cromulent word "embiggen" in last week's newsletter, the fine folks at Merriam-Webster dictionary saw fit to promote it to actual word. Read all about it here and send thank your love notes to The Fork: 123 Awesome Blvd.
-Ten Thousand Waves (and by extension, us) seems to have really gotten y'all with that glorious April Fool's joke about koi sushi. Thanks, though, for pointing out its fake-ness, fearless readers!
-The ultra-nice Buffalo Thunder resort (which is a Hilton thing) announced a new executive chef last week, and The Fork would like to welcome Klaus Happel to our town's culinary world. Happel has worked in Miami, London, Austin, Berlin and elsewhere but, like most people who move here, he'll probably wind up living in Santa Fe for the rest of his days. A net gain for our fair city!
More Tidbits
-While we've all got spring on the mind, website Birds and Blooms counts down the top 10 veggies of the season. Three cheers for peas!
-Cooperstown, New York, is not just famous for the Baseball Hall of Fame anymore, as The Guardian reports that a resident there attempted to ingest a chile pepper so hot, he was hospitalized. Turns out the Carolina Reaper is no joke—easily a 2.2m on the Scoville heat scale, which is a very high heat on a very prestigious heat scale. Now, we know that New Mexicans might take this as an "Oh, yeah?!" moment, but don't eat crazy peppers. It never goes well:
-Meanwhile, Food & Wine's website wants us all to know that latte art is, like, so passé, while beer foam art is the wave of the future. Us here at The Fork? We just wanna drink the coffee and the beer however it comes (even out of an old boot!), but good for these people who probably have plenty of time on their hands to make beer foam art.
-According to Quartz, if you're trying to work clean eating into your kid's way of life, you must be careful or you'll miss out on important food groups. Who was it who coined the phrase "moderation in all things?" Oh right—we remember—it was us. The Fork. Yeah, that's right.
-Lastly (for this section, anyway), Krispy Kreme (they make doughnuts, hate spelling "cream" correctly) has added the last possible thing doughnuts ever needed to their lineup: Cookies. Now find Nutter Butter and Chips Ahoy! pieces crammed in with that fried dough. I mean, we'll eat it, though. Yeah, we'll probably eat it.
Finally
There was both good and bad in the reader responses this week, from Gabrielle, who suggested we visit The Hollar in Madrid to address our new pretzel bun lust and Jonas who did the same with Trader Joe’s pretzel bagels, to the scads of readers who thought we didn’t know Ten Thousand Waves was tricking all y’all with their April Fool’s koi sushi email. We knew, we were just trying to mess with you guys. Sigh.
We couldn’t fool our own mother on the foolingest day of our lives with an electrified fooling machine.
We otherwise received no small amount of praise for defending New Mexico’s chile title, though one reader seemed upset that we were trying to claim all that goodness for ourselves. Setting aside the VERY tongue-in-cheek nature of The Fork, we would never tell people in other places they couldn’t have or grow chile … We would, however, have no problem letting them know that we do it better. And we do. Forever and ever. Amen.
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THIS WEEK IN LETTERS FROM READERS:
Number of reader emails
37
Of those, the number of auto-responses that said something like “Sandra doesn’t work here anymore, idiot!”
4
Best statement of the week
“Damn right!!! Chile is OURS!!!”
Most helpful email of the week (not edited for content)
“I just want to say the Best Metal Band in Santa Fe is Carrion Kind the 1st. Time i ever herd them was 5yrs ago there the best.! Rock ! On.”
Number of times The Fork cried this week
3.5 (though it may have been because we were watching flash mobs do Les Miz songs in malls and at weddings).
Number of readers who expressed that they too are bummed when people spell it “chili” instead of “chile”
3.
Answer to that one important question—you know the one
No!
Most significant bummer of the week
That Sharon didn’t let us know how her Easter brunch quest went.
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Kisses!
The Fork
