Hooooweeee! Didja miss us last week, gang? Best of Santa Fe popped up and it was just a whirl of wind around the SFR offices, so we were like, “Check y’all later,” and then went off on our merry way to eat stuff and think about other stuff we might eat.
We’re back now, though, and in the spirit of the recent Best of Santa Fe issue, we’d like to present The Fork’s Second Annual Best of Santa Fe, a food-based listicle that is in no way open to the public but more of a way for us to tell you about things you should eat. We’re just going to start writing some and we’ll stop when we get bored or too busy. Let’s get into it (while understanding this is based solely on personal preference and in no way meant to be an exhaustive list because we just don’t think you’d read many more words than the ones we already included):
Best Apple and Where to Get Said Apple: Envy Apples @Natural Grocers
Most of the time when we’re in Natural Grocers, we’re thinking about how there are too many nut butters now and we’ll stick with peanut, thank you very much. But this year heralded the emergence of the Envy apple (which we capitalize because the brand name is literally trademarked). As of this writing, we can’t actually speak to whether the store will be stocked up, because we kept buying them and so did others, but if you get a chance to sample the goodness, you’ll know what we mean. Envy apples are the product of plant-breeding missions that married Braeburn and Royal Gala apples, leading to a most satisfying crisp that’s almost more like a crunch, as well as a fantastically sweet (yet not over-sweet) flowery flavor. If you see them, get, like, five of them at least.
Best Appetizer in Town Right Now: Salmon Fish & Chips @Dinner For Two
As we understand it, an SFR writer is working on a review of downtown date spot Dinner For Two, but since it was our idea to go there in the first place, we’re going to sneak in a quick mention of the eatery’s salmon fish & chips app. It’s brilliant and we think everyplace in the world should do it. “Perfect” is not really a word for use in food writing, but it’s a perfect app from taste to size to value.
Best Vegetarian Sandwich: Literally Anything @Bread Shop
Real ones know that the bread from Jacob Brenner and Mayme Berman’s Bread Shop is the breadiest bread, but the sandwiches on offer are also top-notch. The menu rotates regularly based on the seasonally available accouterments, but we’ve repeatedly enjoyed the roasted cauliflower and tahine sammie with carrots on focaccia all summer long. Now, though, BS has a new one on the menu called the caponata, in which you’ll find roasted eggplant and tomato alongside olives, golden raisins, pine nuts and mozzarella. Some might say the raisin thing is a bridge too far, but we’ll at least try it once. For what it’s worth, too, we’ve never once had a subpar sando from Bread Shop.
Best Creative Burger: The Crep-rese Burger @Crepas-oh!
We still can’t get over the killer crepes at Crepas-oh! on the Southside or its mini location in the Railyard, but we’re almost always popping by just for crepes. When we’re a tad more peckish, however, and feeling like we need a burger and a crepe, the crep-rese burger is outta-control-good. Think of it like a tortilla burger, only the patty’s wrapped in a crepe alongside mozzarella and pesto and tomato (y’know, like a caprese salad or samwich—and yes, that’s three ways to say sandwich so far in this Fork alone). Chances are, you won’t be able to eat it by hand, but the fork ‘n’ knife thing works just as well, and they’ll cook the burger to your specifications. This one feels like something that’s so obvious only we didn’t think of it until someone showed it to us. We love you, crep-rese burger!
Best Cookie We Had All Year: Piñon Chocolate Chip Cookie @Chainé
Way back in the beginning of the summer, one of SFR’s staffers put together a piece for the Summer Guide that suggested cool ways to throw together an elevated picnic-esque experience for opera tailgating. It was crammed with cool meats and cheeses and breads, but also cookies. The shop from which to get those cookies? Chainé Specialty Cookie Shop, a small affair downtown in Burro Alley brought to you by the incredibly talented Chainé Peña. And though Peña created a special box of mini macarons and chocolate chip and sugar cookies, we were able to finagle a chocolate chip cookie bursting with piñon. Now, piñon is the sort of thing that makes pretty much anything better, but in the context of a classic chocolate chip cookie—that was warm at the time, mind you—it was sheer magic. Also of note, Peña knows juuuuuuuuusssst the right amount of salt to put in a cookie. Oh, God, we want it now.
Best Glow-Up: Market Steer Steakhouse
Though everyone knows Market Steer Steakhouse from Kathleen Crook and Kristina Goode was downright super-sweet in the years it operated within the Hotel St. Francis, its sojourn over to the former El Mesón spot on Washington Ave. feels like the start of something special. In fact, you know it must be intense, because for Market Steer to even have room to glow up after its previous spot takes some doing. And speaking of doing, Crook and Goode and company do fine dining right in a decidedly unstuffy atmosphere with a drop-dead gorgeous dining room, but it’s the $10 happy hour menu in its Tack Room bar that really seals the deal. Go for the steak, sure, but try other dishes, too, including the now-famous creme brulee with pickled blueberries.
Best People to Ask About Cheese: Lauren Stutzman and Matthew Bilodeau @Picnic NM
Over in the CHOMP food hall, find Picnic NM, a biz that started as a charcuterie thing, but has since grown into a small but mighty cheese shop carrying things you just plain won’t find anyplace else. Stutzman and Bilodeau are what we might call master mongers, and much of it comes from their straight-up love of all things cheesy. So while they’ll still put together a gorgeous board for your next party, they’ll also help you learn a thing or two about cheese itself, how to pair it with other foods and wine and why you just plain don’t know enough about non-cheddar varieties. If you do, in fact, know about cheese, scratch that last bit.
Best Drink We Had at the Best of Santa Fe Party: Chai-ish Cold Brew from Seth (Whose Last Name We Don’t Know) @Ohori’s
We all had a real fun time celebrating the Best of Santa Fe in the ol’ Railyard last week, and while ‘twas a feast for the senses across the board, we simply must highlight a bevvie we quaffed from Ohori’s barista and roaster-in-training Seth (whose last name we don’t know). The temperature? Cold. The take? Coffee-and-chai-together-at-last. The taste? Cinnamony! Seth (whose last name we still don’t know) really nailed it, and it came in the nick of time (we were sleepy). And though some SFR staffers later said it kept them up until the wee hours, that’s actually precisely what we’re looking for in a coffee drink, because Freddy Kruger is after us so we can’t go to bed.
Best Thing to Eat When We’ve Only Got, Like, $10: Banh Mì @Pho Ava
We know we were just talking about this in a recent Fork, but we cannot stress enough that Pho Ava’s banh mì (sandwiches for those who don’t know) deal is absurd—they’re all $6.50. Tell them to keep the change. Actually, maybe you should only go if you have $12, because tax.
The End.
Although, dear readers, we’d love to know some of your bests. Maybe you’re one of the people who wrote the paper to be like, “I’m mad that a thing I like didn’t win Best of Santa Fe even though I didn’t vote?” Now’s your time! Drop us a line at thefork@sfreporter.com.
What we hear in our head when we look at a Bread Shop sandwich.
Also
- Subscribers to SFR’s monthly cannabis newsletter Leaf Brief are likely already familiar with Apotheculture Club and its founder James Blaszko, but for those not in the know, the events outfit has a simple goal: Get folks rip-roarin’ high, feed ‘em and take ‘em to a cool cultural event (not necessarily in that order). Blaszko is a celebrated opera director, too, with roots in Detroit, so when he says an event’s high-class and, like, good, it’s probably high-class and good. We tell you all this because Apotheculture returns to town this weekend with Summer & Smoke, a gathering in a private residence in Tesuque with pre-rolls followed by a shuttled trip to a flamenco performance from La Emi and Vicente Griego and dessert from 315 Restaurant & Bar. You’ll have to buy tickets to get the address to the private residence, and at $198, we get that they’re not for everyone so much as they’re for a special kind of person who read everything before this sentence and thought, “Finally!”
- Some of us have shopped at Kaune’s Neighborhood Market for a long time—since back when they sold Jolt Cola and still had a location near the Plaza; as in well before longtime owners Cheryl and Kurt Sommer took over in 2003. Still, we’re feeling some kinda way about the Sommers selling the local grocery shop to employees Leah Chacon and Rachael Chacon, and that way is what we’d call “pretty good.” Employee ownership is cool, man, real cool, and we hope that having been employees helps the new owners understand the plight of the worker (shoutout to our boy Marx). Anyway, Cheryl made the sale announcement via the Kaune’s Facebook page earlier this week, so while it’s too early to say what the new Chacon/Chacon regime might do, you can learn a little more from that post.
- Many a reader has reached out to tell us we simply must try Santa Fe’s newest sushi spot Joy’s Sushi Bar. Located in the St. Michael’s Village West shopping center, Joy’s doesn’t seem to have a website to link for this mention, but we can tell you the phone number is (505) 954-1816, and we’ll be eating there ASAP!
- Some two years after it was initially announced, elevated taco joint Escondido, from Chef Fernando Ruizand former Meow Wolf CEO Vince Kadlubek, is now taking reservations for an Aug. 12 grand opening. Here’s a little haiku we wrote about that: Tacos, tacos, yeah/Tacos, tacos, tacos, yeah/Tacos forever. Click here to visit the site, ya bunch jabronis.
This one just feel apropos this week, and y’all should check out this record as it’s all punk covers of songs from musicals.
More Tidbits
- Apparently an older video of Kamala Harris cracking an egg with one hand has been viral-ing around YouTube following the whole Joe-Biden-dropping-out-from-the-prez-race thing, and Food & Wine-dot-com wants folks to know how she did it. Now, we’re admittedly only just now learning there was once a Cooking With Kamala online show, so we’re not sure how to feel about this.
- With the Olympics done (we assume, though we don’t watch them, so who knows?), people who like watching other people flip good but no longer have the option to do that might like to know that All Recipes-dot-com has a piece about gymnast Simone Biles’ favorite dessert which, if All Recipes’ Robin Shreeves is to be believed, is also the staff’s favorite. We find that cloying and weird and fake. Like, it’s a cookie, man. Nobody’s favorite dessert is a cookie. We all like or love cookies, but in the pantheon of desserts, it wouldn’t even crack the top 10.
- Burrito chain Chipotle (at which we’ve never eaten and at which we will NEVER eat, which gave our readers a lot to talk about some years back) has partnered with cosmetics brand Wonderskin for a burrito-proof lip stain called—and this is true—Lipotle. We’d tell you more, but we’re so exasperated by the very thought of this needless product that we’re instead gonna link to a 2022 story about college students who invented an edible tape that keeps burritos held together. We feel it’s a better use of everyone’s time.
A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE FORK
Regular readers might know that we’ve enjoyed making fun of our grandma in The Fork over the years, and we just wanted to let you all know that she died not so long ago at the age of 93. We’ll get to why we’re telling you—people we don’t know—in just a sec.
So here’s the thing: Grandma was a devout Fork reader and loved the bits when we’d dunk on her. She told us they always made her laugh and she never minded helping out with a joke or two at her own expense. She was an amazing woman who worked for the Air Force, lived in Europe and Japan in the early days of her marriage to our grandfather (we never met the man as he died before we were born) and she was, above all else, always up for a good yuk or two.
So why are we telling you that our Grandma died despite how we’re all strangers to each other? Well, in 2021, Grandma let us run her recipe for cinnamon rolls, and was so happy to do so. Like, she was very excited about the possibility of her recipe being online where people could read it. And we remember precisely what she said, too:
“Oh, do you think people would want to make them? I really hope they will. And if they don’t, maybe they just don’t know what good is.”
We don’t know if anyone ever did use the recipe, but we’re going to link to that riiiiiiight here.
If you do make those rolls, we’d love to know. Maybe send us a photo at thefork@sfreporter.com?
Do it for Grandma.
And when you pull them out of the oven, if it’s not too much trouble you could maybe give a quick little wave toward the direction of hell and tell Grandma, “This is for you, ya fish-lipped old biddy.”
A totally scientific breakdown of The Fork’s correspondence
In this week’s edition of SFR, no food, but a pretty kick-ass story about artist Virgil Ortiz.
Number of Letters Received: 24
*Given that we were gone for the week of Best of Santa Fe, we have no choice but to believe that you don’t think about us when we’re gone. Le sigh.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader):
“I always thought paletas sucked.”
*An absolutely INSANE thought from our mom who doesn’t know shit about shit, clearly.
Actually Helpful Tip(s):
“I learn something new every time I read The Fork!”
*This tip from reader Mary E is actually for you, dear readers—The Fork is cool, and you should never forget that
Better than all the rest,
The Fork
