Chile Not Chili

Almost every trip I take is an opportunity to explore some kind of regional food dishes. Over the past few years I've gorged myself on sausages in Germany, tacos in Mexico, pub food in England and cheese in Paris, just to name a few. But if there was a place I was dying to get a knife and fork in my hands to sample some local cuisine, it was New Mexico.

What is New Mexican food all about, you might ask. Well, at the risk of insulting countless current and ancestral New Mexicans, I'd describe it as traditional Mexican cuisine with a heavy dose of New Mexico chiles (typically Hatch chiles) thrown in for good measure. Yes, that description doesn't do it as much justice as it deserves, but it's a good baseline to start with. And if there's one type of food that speaks to my heart, it's Mexican food. It's the food of my inner soul, even though I have never lived in Mexico or the American southwest or really anywhere close to that part of the world. When I first started teaching myself to cook, that's what I started with because that's what I wanted more than anything else.

So what are we talking about here? Enchiladas? For sure; had a plate of those for lunch in Roswell. Tacos? Yep, those too; also had some of those in Roswell but for dinner. Chipotle mayo and roasted red peppers on a turkey sandwich? Uh huh; got that as a to go order from Millie's in Silver City before heading up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. But that's not what I came to New Mexico for. I didn't just want Mexican food. I wanted NEW Mexican food and I hoped departing from the Mexican baseline would give me what I came for. Here's what made me treasure my time in restaurants (and bars) in the Land of Enchantment.

Sopaipillas / Carne Adovado

Sopaipillas and carne adovado don't have to go together. I'm addressing them that way because I got these two kinds of New Mexican food in one spot less than an hour after we landed in Albuquerque.

Sopaipillas are eaten throughout Latin America. But each region, be it Peru or Chile or Argentina, treats the dish a little differently. In New Mexico, sopaipillas are pillow shaped and deep fried pastry dough pockets either stuffed with savory ingredients or drizzled with honey and eaten as a dessert. My sopaipilla lunch right after our landing earlier this month came stuffed with a chile and vinegar marinated pork known as carne adovado (adovado is Spanish for marinated). The pork was greasy and spicy and fall apart tender and stood up well to the fried pastry, which didn't absorb the grease it was fried in. I opted for the green chile smother, which I'd get as often as I could if I lived in New Mexico.

The spot we chose for our sopaipilla indoctrination was Mary and Tito's, a cafe in an industrial section of Albuquerque a few miles from the airport. When we got off the highway I honestly wondered what I had chosen to get myself into; there's little in that part of town that looks enticing to someone from out of town, which may exactly be the point. The food was great; I'd definitely go back for more here, including the Mexican wedding cake we had for dessert. If we needed any help thinking Mary and Tito's was a legit New Mexican spot, all that disappeared when we asked which type of chiles were milder (red or green) and they replied that the green were "lately." You only know that by tasting the chiles.

Chile Rellenos

The last time I was in New Mexico (in 2001), I had no idea what a chile relleno was until I asked at a restaurant in Santa Fe and had my first one. As a result of that experience, I will forever associate chile rellenos with New Mexico, even though they can be found and likely originated far south of there in Mexico. 

In case you need help here (because let's face it the picture above provides little), a chile relleno is a roasted and peeled chile stuffed with filling (typically cheese) and then battered and deep fried. With a light crisp batter and the right kind of chile, they can be sublime.

A little research on the internet about restaurants around Las Cruces yielded a chile relleno suggestion in Chope's Bar and Cafe, a joint (and I DO mean joint) in La Mesa just south of Las Cruces which has been serving up food (and plenty of drink when it was legal) since 1909. Chope's slogan is "Stuff It", a reference to their signature chile relleno dish made using Hatch chiles (instead of the traditional poblano chiles). Seemed like a great place to get the dish I was looking for.

If I wondered where I was headed when I was driving to Mary and Tito's, I really wondered where I was headed to get to Chope's. The 20 minute or so drive south from Las Cruces takes you down two lane unstriped roads over railroads and past field after field of pecan trees. When we finally arrived, we found a place that looked like it was barely holding itself together with a line of motorcycles out front and a parking lot full of pickup trucks. This was a local spot for sure.

I can pretty much guarantee if you head over to Chope's, you are likely to be the only out of towners in the place. I can also pretty much guarantee that you will be greeted warmly and served very well as we were. The place has atmosphere for sure; it was a slice of life we sometimes search high and low to find sometimes without success. I ordered my chile rellenos with the green chile smother (I told you...) and honestly struggled with the dish. I didn't get a whole lot of incredible flavor out of the dish and the batter seemed heavy. Can't always get what you want. Glad we went here; just wouldn't go back for the food.

New Mexican Beer

Like most or perhaps all of the rest of the United States, New Mexico is also caught up in a microbrewing frenzy. That's good for me and for the brewers who make it, but it sometimes offers a lot to focus on, so choosing wisely is of the essence. I tried to choose as judiciously as possible the four or five times I ran into the opportunity to knock back a local brew or two.

Of the stuff I sampled, I liked Sierra Blanca's Alien Amber and Imperial Stout quite a lot, especially when served in the truly excellent glasses with the alien head logo on them. Didn't make the beer taste better but there's something about drinking out of a glass with an alien head on it when in Roswell after a day of chasing the truth.

If you are in the old Mesilla in Las Cruces, I'd recommend a stop by NM Vintage where you can sample New Mexican beers and wines in a pretty cool courtyard. I grabbed some samples of Las Cruces Brewing's Pecan line of beers as well as a pretty good and sweet milk stout (pictured above) from Tractor Brewing (their website is getplowed.com; how awesome is that?).

But the best beer I had in New Mexico has to be the Double Wheat made by Albuquerque's Marble Brewery. This is unusual favorite for me since it's based on a Belgian style witte beer (complete with spices), although I've been known to have one or two of these that I go back to now and then. But whatever they've done to make this a double (Belgian dubbels are traditionally twice fermented, although describing a wheat beer as a dubbel would not be appropriate), it works. It took away any sort of wateriness and banana notes that I find Belgian wheats to sometimes have and left a crispness that was very nice. Two enthusiastic thumbs way up here.

Green Chile Cheeseburgers

If there's a dish that I associate more with the state of New Mexico than any other, it's the green chile cheeseburger so it's worth spending maybe a little extra typing on this one. The concept is pretty simple: a green chile cheeseburger is just what it sounds like, a cheeseburger with green chiles on it. What's so great about green chiles, you ask? Well, although I've made a couple of references to green chile smothers before in this post, I've reserved my description for this spot. At their best, what you get out of green chiles (which again are usually Hatch chiles) is a roasted, fruity flavor with some good lingering heat from the capsaicin in the chiles. And they are good with everything.

I may have had one dish of enchiladas, one dish of chile rellenos, one dish of tacos and one sopaipilla in New Mexico, but there was no way I was having just one green chile cheeseburger. You can get these things everywhere (even McDonald's although I didn't - on this trip). I figured finding a great one might be worth throwing caution regarding my gout issues to the wind and digging in and exploring.

I ended up eating three in the seven days I was in New Mexico: two beef and one bison. The most forgettable was at the St. Clair Winery Bistro in Las Cruces. The bison one, ordered and quickly consumed at the Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House in the almost ghost town of Pinos Altos just north of Silver City, was good but not as great as the place we ate in, a restored from long ago old west saloon shown in the photograph at the very bottom of this post. If there's a place I wish I'd lingered a little longer, it was here but the prospect of a long and very unlit drive home to Las Cruces got us out of there too early. Should have stayed in Silver City a night.

The third and final green chile cheeseburger we had was at Sparky's in Hatch, New Mexico, the town that invented the strain of chiles that makes these burgers famous. I've eaten a lot of burgers in my life. And if I've had a better one than I had a Sparky's, I can't remember it. This thing was incredible and it's worth probably a couple of paragraphs on this experience. This was for sure the best thing I ate earlier this month in the southwest.

We decided to visit Hatch on the last day we were in New Mexico after a morning of sightseeing right in the southwest corner of the state. I managed to mis-time our day's schedule so badly that by the time we rolled into the chile capital of New Mexico it was about 2:30 p.m. Late, but not super late for getting some mid-day grub. I had read that Sparky's was surrounded and/or covered by an assortment of fast food and cartoon related signage and statues so was a little apprehensive about finding something cheesy and touristy rather than local and genuine. All fear of that went out of the window when we arrived and found a 20-25 person deep line. At 2:30 in the afternoon. Probably a good sign.

So stomachs growling, we stood in line for about 30 minutes and ordered as soon as we were able. Two World Famous! Hatch Green Chile Cheeseburgers please. Have a seat and they'll bring them to you, which thankfully was a quick wait. We thought about the people exiting the restaurant while we were in line assuring us that the wait was worth it.

What arrived at our table were two sandwiches on ordinary looking hamburger buns with the sides (I went with the pineapple cole slaw) right in the same tray. The crust on the burger looked incredible and the extra juices that stay in the burger on a flat-top grill had seeped into the bread a little. This thing was so tasty. It was cooked perfectly and was everything I want out of a greasy hamburger. It didn't even need the cheese and ironically, the green chiles didn't (for me anyway) enhance the taste at all. This was a damn good burger. I'd go back in a heartbeat but my love of this sandwich overshadows the fact that our green chile cheeseburger quest produced nothing spectacular about the chiles themselves.

But ultimately, Sparky's redeemed our search for something delicious featuring green chiles. Not in their "Best Green Chile Cheeseburger in NM" but in the drink I ordered with it: a green chile lemonade.

Sound disgusting? I can see why you might think that. After all, not everyone wants pieces of soggy roasted and peeled green chiles in their lemonade. But here's the deal. First the heat of the chiles which is real and right up front is complemented beautifully by the sweetness and sour of the lemonade. And because the whole thing is shaken vigorously with a generous amount of ice, the chile bits are actually seriously chilled or maybe a little frozen. The result is a little bit of literal chew to your beverage which keeps that heat going. I loved this beverage. I'd love to have another one with one of those amazing burgers on the side right now!

Our New Mexico food quest started at Mary and Tito's and ended at Sparky's. I'd have to say those two places served us some of the best food we ate in the almost week we were in the state. There were some misses (aren't there always) and some hits but ultimately I'm left wanting more. I'm hoping I can have less time between visits this time around. I'm not sure I can go another 16 years before a return trip.

The Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House. Should have stayed closer to this place.