Oh, hey, Fork Frenz. Did you miss us? Were you sitting someplace all like, “Damn, I’m not sure I can go on without The Fork, and it feels like they haven’t published a piece in, like, 5,000 years?” We get it. And we’re sorry for that. It’s been a whirl of wind over here in SFR-land, what with the holidays and then that thing where we moved offices from Midtown to downtown and didn’t have internet for a second. Blah, blah, blah. The point is that we missed y’all and we’ve definitely been eating a bunch of crap nonstop and we’re back now, so dry your eyes and get real.
Because we are here to tell you about French toast at Casa Bonita—the first breakfast we enjoyed in the year 2025, and a real doozy. Look, we get it, you’re probably now sitting there thinking, “Jeeze, we waited around for 5,000 years for this goober only for them to return and be all like, “did you know French toast is good?’” But this is, like, no ordinary French toast, buds. This is next level French toast. And we don’t mean that in some hifalutin’ way wherein some fucking explorer traveled through the jungle to discover the vanilla pods that only grow by moonlight for 20 minutes a month and the expedition lost seven people and the bread is made from grains that were first planted before the birth of Jesus Christ and the syrup is harvested by blind children who operate like the syrup version of truffle hogs. No, it’s not that, really. By all accounts Casa Bonita—a restaurant SFR staffers have long enjoyed, btw—serves up a fairly run-of-the-mill French toast, but they’ve got a secret weapon known as “crunch coating.”
What is crunch coating? Well, it appears to be a sort of coconut/something else crunchy we couldn’t work out sort of thing. We’d have asked, but we are merely a formless gas being, and thus cannot speak (or scream). Whatever it is, it brings the already awesome dish of egg- ‘n’ vanilla-coated toasted bread to the next level. We’re always out there trying to explain to fools that texture balance is one of the top three most important food concerns, and the balance between soft bread and crunchy crust was sublime. SUBLIME, we say! Plus, we got the brekkie with eggs and bacon for a mere $12.99! That’s a hell of a deal. That’s the kind of deal that makes you feel OK about Casa Bonita’s existence in the old original Second Street Brewery (ICYMI, that location of SSB shuttered in 2022). So often when things change in Santa Fe, the change sucks shit. This change is kind of glorious, because they do breakfast AND lunch AND dinner AND booze, so you could easily spend a whole day drinking and eating all the meals. We’re not sure why anyone would expect less from owner Luis Ortiz, whose previous places of employment include La Fogata (which SFR staffers also love) and La Piña Loka food truck (which is on our list, we swear!).
So basically what we’re saying is, you need to get this French Toast. And we’re back. Here’s hoping 2025 is full of so many rad things to eat and more interesting newsletters than, “Uhhh, we went to breakfast.” But we did. We went so hard.
You waiting for us to return to Forking.
Also
- OK, about a million things are going down in Santa Fe food-wise right now, so let’s try to get into some of those things. First up? Crepas-oh (file that one under restaurants SFR staffers love, too, and then say it in a way that rhymes with “que paso”) is set to open a new location in Eldorado, which will make its third location including the Southside and Railyard locations. All you need to know for now is that the crepes slay and the burger with caprese accoutrements (the creperese burger is what it’s called, no joke) is phenomenal. No word on an official open date yet, but we have to admit the foodie options out there in Eldo have become pretty damn impressive.
- -By now you’ve surely seen the terrifying fires ravaging Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, an event that hits oddly kind of close to home for many—ask anyone, there’s for sure a strange Santa Fe/LA connection—including chef Dakota Weiss of Capital Coal Neighborhood Eatery (and recent-ish SFR cover story star). Weiss spent a good chunk of her life in Los Angeles with her life/biz partner Rich Becker, so the two have put together an absolutely bonkers multi-course dinner prepared by a local chef superband. Slated for March 2, the Santa Fe Chefs for LA Fires fundraiser includes courses by Weiss herself, as well as Market Steer’s Kathleen Crook, Horno Restaurant’s David Sellers, Santacafé’s Dale Kester and Joseph’s Culinary Pub’s Joseph Wrede and Starr Bowers. 100% of the proceeds from the $200 dinner will go directly to survivors and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. We’re a little sad to say that the dinner sold out within 30 hours of its announcement (we can’t promise, but maybe there will be cancellations as we get closer?), but if you wanna send a few bucks to the LA Fire Department Foundation, click here. Why did we put a sold-out thing in Le Fork? Because we still think it’s cool when chefs (or any professionals) help people.
- Speaking of Weiss, word on the street is that she’ll head back to the executive chef position at Coyote Café with chef Travis Limoge heading to…we don’t know where. We don’t want to throw in any conjecture, so we won’t, but we’re big Weiss fans, and she’s been working with CC owner Quinn Stephenson for a thousand years (sung to the tune of the song from before), so we’re picturing good things. For even more on CC’s new-ness, read this week’s food coverage in SFR about pastry chef Rebecca Freeman, who fully, full-on rules.
- Greetings from our new office in the Design Center, where Yin Yang Chinese Restaurant will host a Chinese New Year Lion/Dragon Dance performance at 6 pm on Saturday, Feb. 1. The restaurant is encouraging rezzies for the special show, and speaking as a gas being that has wafted by the Yin Yang buffet a whole bunch lately, you might just wanna swing by for the food.
- A little closer to right now, commercial kitchen/food biz incubator/eatery/all-around awesome food-based zone The Kitchen Table will host the Sunday at Grams personal chef business’s Sunday Supper Series gathering on Sunday, Jan. 26. With a pre-dinner gathering, apps, dinner, wine, non-alcoholic dranks (yeah, we said “dranks”) and dessert ’n’ coffee, it should be one heck of a good time. For tickets and more info, click here. For more on The Kitchen Table’s origin story, click here.
- But that’s not all from The Kitchen Table. In fact, owners Hilary Kilpatric and Andrea Abedi have partnered with the City of Santa Fe Economic Development Department for a new food biz incubator focused on resources, mentorships with pros, networking opportunities and more. In fact, if you’ve ever wanted to start a food business, this is about as helpful a boost as you’ll find. For more info, click the link above, just know you must apply for Jan. 26 in order to make it into the running. Accepted applicants will be notified on Jan. 31, and the program kicks off in February.
- Even more a little closer to right now, Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery will kick off its Club Alegría series on Saturday, Jan. 18 as both an homage to the club that once stood within what is now Tumbleroot (it was called Club Alegría, try to keep up), and as a kickass Latin dance night featuring celebrated salsa/timba/rock act Nosotros. Then on Saturday, Jan. 25, they’ll do it again with Frontera Bugalú. Tumbleroot is popping off lately. Like, did you see the listing for the Jan. 12 event called The Culinary DJ? They’ll have a bloody Mary bar going for that one, and it starts at 2 pm! Long live events that don’t start at 11 pm—some of us work tomorrow, shit! Click that link above to find out about alllllll the cool Tumbleroot stuff. They also let punk and metal bands play there, so that rules. Thanks, Tumbleroot!
- Not so close to right now, but also not as far away as March, Arroyo Vino’s upcoming Robert Sinskey one-off wine dinner sounds DOOOOPE. Come Tuesday, Jan. 28, the Napa Valley mainstay and wine-lovin’ Sinskey will pop by with special wines served to pair with chef Allison Jenkins’ steamed lobster wontons, seared sea scallop and hand-rolled ricotta cavatelli. Dang! At $150 per person, we get that it’s not cheap, but if you’ve got a hankering for vino and a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket, you’ll never regret it.
- We here at The Fork are always trying to tell you jerks how Picnic NM Cheese & Charcuterie is awesome, but somehow we missed that owners Lauren Stutzman and Matthew Bilodeau are serving grilled cheese sandwiches now?!?!!? Holy moly, baby, we want in on that. Also, since we’re sick of people asking us, this is officially our go-to rec for folks in need of charcuterie. It’s the best.
- Let’s give it up to the folks at Albuquerque’s VARA Winery & Distillery for their big wins at the San Francisco International Wine Competition. In addition to picking up gold for their Blanc de Blancs and Silverhead Zero Dosage, VARA won a double gold medal (whatever that means, though “double” suggests it’s really big) for their New Mexico Sparkling Brut. And that’s not even getting into the silver and bronze medals they won, but, like, we’re all about gold here at Le Fork.
- Lastly in local stuff for this week, we’ve got dates for the 2025 iteration of Santa Fe Restaurant Week, and they’re Feb. 17-Feb. 26. If you’d like to obsessively refresh the website in hopes of discovering who’s involved this year, click here. If you can wait until we know more, we’ll tell you more when we know more. Later. Later on. Be patient for once in your lives. WHEN ARE YOU GONNA GET IT TOGETHER?! Dang, we missed you nerds.
More Tidbits
- We’re pretty sad to hear that Eater-dot-com, being one of our fave websites, will phase to a regional model following layoffs under its overlords at Vox Media. We don’t have every last detail, but we truly believe hyper-local will be wildly important as we phase into the new hell of the next…however long.
- Since we’re in the dead of winter here, this very important piece over on Chowhound-dot-com gets to the bottom of the very important question about whether hot cocoa and hot chocolate are the same. Are they? Do we care? These people do.
- News like this pops up kind of a lot in internet-land, but a new coffee study suggests drinking the most glorious of bevvies could add years to your life. The dorks at Food and/or Wine-dot-com have a little more info on that if you click here, but if it’s true that drinking coffee expands one’s life, we are likely fucking immortal.
Seriously, though, this is absolutely what that one Folgers commercial was like.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
In this week’s print edition of SFR, find a little bit of info about Rebecca Freeman, the new pastry chef for Santacafé and Coyote Café.
Number of Letters Received: 57
*Dang, and we were gone for, like, 2-plus weeks? Y’all suck.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week:
“We didn’t miss reading The Fork over the holidays.”
*We didn’t miss you, either, Ron R.!
Actually Worthwhile Comment:
“Hi Fork, I just finished reading this week’s email. Thank you for all the fun reads this year. We moved to Michigan in June and I love being reminded of all the good places in Santa Fe. Also, we’re keeping a list of where to go on our next trip back to NM. Happy holidays! I look forward to all the new bits of information and wisdom you will impart in 2025.”
*Aren’t you sweet, Randine H.! Sorry you had to move to Michigan. We know Tim Allen is from there and he sucks so much, so at least you’re cooler than him. Pshshshshst. Tim Allen. Get real, bro! Anyway, thanks for the nice words, Randine! We hope to do a lot this year, so stay tuned.
We also wanted to drop a special shout-out to Chemen O, who gave us thoughts on the entirety of 2024 in a very funny and lengthy (yet not hard-to-read) month-by-month review. We loved it, Chemen, and we appreciate it and everyone who reads!
