My wife and I just spent 5 days in Taos, NM. I’ll have a few upcoming posts about it, including a review of El Monte Sagrado, a Marriott Autograph Collection property. But for now, I think it’s worth admitting that my favorite type of food may be New Mexican… and my favorite ingredient is probably the green chile. Our trip is over now, and as I was reflecting on the idea that Taos really is a great place for foodies, it only then occurred to me just how many green chiles I had consumed in the past 5 days.
For our first day on the slopes, we started off our lunch with some chips and green chile queso.
To follow that up for dinner at Lambert’s, I got lamb chops and a poached egg, which of course was served with a green chile.
The next day we were back on the slopes, and we had burgers on the patio of Hotel St. Bernard. I went for a salmon burger. But what good is a salmon burger if you don’t smother it completely with green chile?
After that day of skiing, it was time to kick our feet up, relax, and waste some time on the internet. Of course, wasting time on the internet DOES require snacks. How about some caramel corn? More like… green chile caramel corn!
After relaxing, it was time for dinner. I had made a reservation for us at El Meze. While everything on the menu looked good, I opted for the tamale. This tamale wasn’t just an ordinary tamale, though. Nope. It was soaked in a green chile sauce!
At this point, my skin was probably starting to turn green, and maybe my overall figure had started to warp in the shape of a green chile, but I guess I didn’t notice. The next day when we were back on the mountain, I had a bacon cheeseburger for lunch at Rhoda’s. This was a special bacon cheeseburger, called the Taoseño. What made this burger so special? Perhaps it was the fact that under the patty it had a layer of green chile!
The next day, we took the day off to see some of the local sites, of which there are plenty (more on that for a later post). While site seeing, one does typically require a hearty lunch to replenish the energy. What better lunch is there than 3 enchiladas at Orlando’s? One of those enchiladas was, of course, a green chile enchilada.
After eating some pretty hearty meals over the duration of the trip, we decided that we would take it light for dinner and just each have a cup of soup and a salad. I’m not sure what soup Katy selected, but I opted for the green chile beef stew.
The next day we woke up early to go to the Bandelier National Monument before spending the afternoon in Santa Fe. While strolling the streets of Santa Fe, I told Katy that after eating so much New Mexican food, she should feel free to pick a spot that was a bit more standard. We stumbled upon a cute spot called the Elevation Bistro. We decided to share the caprese salad to start, and for our main course, we split the mac n cheese. Although, this wasn’t any ordinary mac n cheese. Nope. It was GREEN CHILE MAC N CHEESE. YES!
When we got to the ABQ airport, we went our separate ways, as Katy was flying back to the SF Bay Area, and I was going to Austin, TX. This morning I woke up, had my calls, did my meetings, and as I settled into the afternoon, I looked into my backpack for a snack… What did I happen to find? Some peanut brittle… just normal peanut brittle? Um. nope. That’s boring. I killed the whole bag of GREEN CHILE PEANUT BRITTLE!
It’s dinner time, and I currently lack the ability to get my hands on any green chile meals… Will I go into withdrawals?? I sure hope not…
In any case, if you like Mexican food, you will probably love New Mexican cuisine. New Mexico is a place that I believe often gets overlooked by tourists, but after spending five days there, I can’t wait to go back. There are way more sites for us to see, but I mostly think I just want some New Mexican food loaded up with green chile…
