We heard you loud and clear, loyal Fork-natics (we're still working on a cool name for all y'all) who love meat—and let us just calm your nerves by saying that The Fork is an equal-opportunity food newsletter, wherein we shall continue to talk about all the foods of the food spectrum. Food. Although, we will say that we were mostly reminded of this clip.
But we digress—right into the world of hamburgers. Why? Because they're awesome and because it's a good entry-level meat topic; the great leveler, if you will. So where do we like to get our burger on? There are a few spots that top our list:
THE OBVIOUS
The Obvious Award goes to the fine folks at Santa Fe Bite (311 Old Santa Fe Trail, 982-0544), though it’ll always be Bobcat to us. With their many thick-ass burgers (and semi-new slightly smaller one), they’ve found their way into our heart arteries and we love ’em for it. If you’re a long-timer, you know what to do. If your’e a newcomer, ease in with the aforementioned slightly smaller burger (6 oz. starting at $9.25 and going up as you add stuff to it).
THE NOT-SO-OBVIOUS
From here we take a little trip to Sunrise Family Restaurant (1851 St. Michael’s Drive, 820-0643), a seemingly average diner with a monster burger that, like, tastes really good. These bad boys start at $4.49 and only go up to $5.79 (depending on what you put all up in it)—incredible.
THE OH, C’MON, MAN, WE THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T GONNA DO US LIKE THIS NO MORE!
Suckers! We’re throwing down with vegan burger options, too! We like Boca Burgers and we usually get ’em at Sprouts (we have two, one at the DeVargas Center, 199 Paseo de Peralta, 988-1140; another on the Southside, 3201 Zafarano Drive, Ste. 20, 424-1900). A friend of ours warned us they might be a little fatty, but we don’t think he’s a food scientist, and when you throw some mashed avocado (not guacamole, though you should probably just live your life) on a pretzel bun and Boca it up, it’s pretty great. We also found this handy list of other vegan burgers at onegreenplanet.org.
As always, get at us with some of your favorites. And seriously, Forkasters (still tryin'), we're open to all forms of food.
Also
-Donut chain Krispy Kreme is joining the ranks of democracy by allowing fans to vote for their next big flavor (do so through the link we just provided). The contenders are blueberry, maple, lemon and caramel. Yeesh. (NB: The New Jerseyan copy editor cannot let this go without commenting on it and would like to voice her undying support for Team Dunkin.)
-Oreos with Peeps filling are very real and very scary, but we can only assume this is great news for some folks out there. Our advice? Buy Peeps, sure, but just to put in the microwave, because it's weirdly enjoyable.
-Amazon went and did the thing with the grocery store that doesn't have clerks (because who wants jobs?) and you just scan your way in with a phone and walk out with the stuff. If your plan is to resort to thievery in some sort of misguided punk rock attempt at sticking it to Bezos, however, Ars Technica's Sam Machkovech already tried and failed. Womp-womp.
–Food & Wine compiled their 25 biggest food stories of 2017, which you can check right here, and it's basically a bunch of stuff about Amazon and how Trump likes fast food and it's a great time to live in America and love beer.
-Local coffee company Caveman Coffee has introduced their own line of coffee pods (you know, for those Keurig machines?) that are 100 percent compostable. Nice!
-And even though we just talked about them recently, downtown mac & cheese zone Macalicious (226 N Guadalupe St., 557-6495) is kicking off dinner service on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the coming weeks. Give 'em a call to confirm a start time.
Finally
Fork reader Gabrielle was indeed psyched that we have no plans to stop talking about meat, but does bring up an excellent point about how to go about it: "As a working family we have made a commitment to all grass-fed dairy and meats," she says. Gabrielle does point out it's a little pricier, but that it only means her family eats meat a little less often. "But when we do it tastes so much better!" she says. Word to that—being responsible.
An earlier version of this story said that The Beestro would potentially re-open in the Santa Fe Arcade off the Plaza, but it turns out The Fork mixed up buildings in our brain someplace. The reality is that the popular downtown eatery will indeed reopen at some point in the future in the Plaza Galeria. Business manager Nick Barral tells us they're excited to get it going and to keep an eye on the Beestro Facebook page for upcoming info.
So what else you got, Santa Fe? Get at us with those tips!
Maintain your Fork-ness til next time.
