Restaurant Review Part II: Santa Fe

Alternate titles for this post include:

• I’m so spoiled by eating fresh authentic Mexican food that eating anywhere else feels like torture
• How I came to realize I love Mexican food
• Dare I say Santa Fe takes the cake for best city I’ve ever eaten in?

Clearly, those are all a little long so I opted for something more boring simple. 

Santa Fe is such a foodie heaven.  There are restaurant gems EVERYWHERE and in the past few days I’ve had some of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life.  Seriously.  There was no chance we would be able to make it to all the places we wanted to try in such a short trip but my sister and I are already dreaming up a summer visit. 

Let’s review, shall we?

Maria’s

We got into town around 6 or 7 (who can remember), dropped off our bags and headed to this local favorite.  I’ll admit I wasn’t all that excited.  The menu looked a little meat heavy for someone who doesn’t really eat a whole lot of meat but there was promise of a good (dare I say famous?) margarita, so I agreed.  And thank God I agreed because it was my favorite meal of the trip.  Three out of four of us got the Pork Green Chile Stew.  Yeah, you heard me, I willingly got pork (wasn’t I just complaining about meat?).  It.was.to.die.for.  The pork was ultra-tender and the spice was just right.  Plus I had a margarita to wash it down with.  The marg menu is like a small book and there’s a $50 one!  The of age-ers each got one and my dad couldn’t stop raving about how good they were.  That’s saying a lot considering I could probably count the number of times I’ve seen my dad drink alcohol on one hand.

Sadly, I only took one picture and it’s baaaaad.  Forgive me.

Okay, okay, I’ll stop talking about Maria’s but if you happen to end up in Santa Fe one day, please go there.  For both our sakes.  You might even run into Leonardo DiCapsrio…

The Pantry

This was one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had.  I got eggs, potatoes, red chile and flour tortillas on the side which sounds simple but turned out to be incredible.

It was a lot of food.  I made it through half and gave up, then proceeded to be full for the next 4 hours.   If that’s not the makings of an awesome breakfast, I don’t know what is.

My sister deemed the green chile “the best she’s ever tasted,” which made me kind of sad I didn’t order it too but I was all porked out after going to Maria’s the night before.

Blue Corn Cafe

We wandered around town looking for somewhere to eat lunch and ended up at Blue Corn Cafe and to put it bluntly, it was unremarkable.  It looked pretty at least.

La Plazuela at La Fonda on the Plaza

This was our last big meal in Santa Fe (unless you include our breakfast at Whole Foods the next morning, and I don’t).  When looking over the menu, I saw the vegetarian option and was immediately on board. 

It was every bit as good as I thought it would be. 

The best part?  The brussel sprouts.  By far.  Am I the only one mourning the end of brussel sprout season?

There was one other foodie stop but that deserves its own separate post, believe me. 

Have you ever been to Santa Fe?  Or had a meal that you felt was one of the best you ever had?