Deanna, Aarti and I took a fantastic long weekend road trip in New Mexico and one of the most popular things to do is to drive the Turquoise Trail up to Taos. Along there way there are cute tiny towns to visit with quirky museums (Tinkertown Museum is a great stop), art galleries and jewlery shops as well as just fantastic scenery all around. The "biggest" town on the trail is Madrid - it's actually got a main road and is about 3/4 of the way along the trail, so it's a good place to stop and take a lunch break.
There are about 3 total places to eat in this whole town and The Hollar has the nicest atmosphere with a large outdoor patio facing the main street. New Mexico is famous for their green chili and it is indeed on every single menu I saw. It is not really a spice pepper but a tangy one and it adds a level of flavor that I really enjoyed and now miss in NYC. The menu here is classic Southwest cafe food - salads, sandwiches, burgers as well as a hint of Southern cuisine such as grits and fried green tomatoes. We were all starving because we didn't really eat breakfast, so we started with the fried okra and I, of course, had to get the burger with green chili and swiss cheese on a pretzel bun with a side of potato salad. This was all washed down with a cold local beer. I was one happy girl at that moment.
The fried okra was great - small bite size pieces that you could pop in your mouth and served with house made ranch dressing. The okra was cooked just right - not too slimey and the fried crust was a light corn meal batter. It definitely curbed our hunger right away. The burger also was super satisfying. It was a 1/2 lb angus burger cooked medium rare. The pretzel bun was a nice option as it was very sturdy and kept all the juices and flavors together. I kind of assumed that the green chili that would come with it would be more like a green salsa like consistency but it turned out to literally be roasted green chili peppers - so that was a bit disappointing. But it still added some great pop to the meat and I could see why everything has green chili in it. The potato salad was a redskin curry flavor potato salad with pickles which was a nice twist to a regular mayo based salad. Deanna got the same burger but in a veggie version and on a buttermilk biscuit and Aarti got the fried green tomatoes with grits. They both liked their meal but said that the grits had a bit too much black pepper on it.
Overall, it was a lovely way to kick start our vacation. The place had a folky hippie vibe which is exactly how I pictured New Mexico - so this place did not disappoint. Everyone was pretty nice there and it felt like a chill local joint that even people from neighboring towns might check out. Total bill: $26/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
Orlando's New Mexican Cafe 1114 Don Juan Valdez Lane, Taos, NM 87571 3 Forks
We finally arrived in Taos in the afternoon and checked into our super cute Airbnb. It was smack in the middle of town and within walking distance or a short drive away from most of the main shops and restaurants. Our host had recommended checking out Orlando's which was a around the corner for our place.
I should have mentioned earlier that all the portions in New Mexico are HUGE. I mean, you see it and your eyes are literally bulging at how much food is on the plate, yet somehow I always manage to finish everything. The shrimp enchiladas came on blue corn tortillas which was a nice touch and it was smothered in green chili (what else?) and cheese. I wish there were more pieces of shrimp as it felt a bit skimpy and the pieces I did have were overcooked a bit and dried out. Aarti mentioned that her burrito was under-seasoned, which is surprising given how many ingredients were in it and Deanna's veggie bowl almost kind of looked like soup because of how watery the beans and tomatoes were.
I should also mention that very few places in New Mexico seem to have a liquor license. Most of the places we went to only had beer or wine or this really overly sweet wine margarita mixture. While that isn't a deal breaker, it is kind of a bummer to have so much Mexican food without any tequilla. Overall, the meal was fine and was a nice foray into New Mexican food but we all thought that there was room for improvement for each of our dishes. It was kind of like a nicer/sit down version of Chipotle. Our waitress started off really nice, giving us a free taste of the wine margarita, but in the end kind of came off bored. It might be because everything closes at 9pm in New Mexico and that they were trying to usher us out, which I can kind of understand if she was looking to get home quickly. Total bill: $15/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
1 comment:
How could you neglect to mention that our waiter threw a cup of ice over Aarti's head 😂 Holla!
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