Express Yourself

Southside restaurant lures palates of all stripes—and they deliver!

Sometimes you want a taco, sometimes you crave good Chinese food and at other times you just want to sink your teeth into a classic American hamburger. What if I told you that you could snag all three in the same place at the same time on the cheap, and even have them delivered to your door?

Tucked into a strip mall along Santa Fe's boulevard of hidden culinary dreams, JC's Express (4350 Airport Road, Ste. 15, 424-8889) brings something truly different to the City Different's dining scene. Owned and operated by upbeat local culinary chameleon Myrisa Mora, JC's business model is simple: fast, fresh, diverse and affordable. And in a city that desperately needs a shot in the home-delivery arm, it's comforting to know that this joint also offers online ordering and delivery ($3-$5 for delivery, depending on your location).

The first sound you may hear when you walk into the restaurant is the sizzle and metallic ping of huge woks at work in the kitchen, where a chef whips up small, fresh batches of classic Chinese and Chinese-American cuisine. General Tso's chicken, Kung Pao beef, egg rolls and other items are available on a rotating basis. But hold on: There are two other menus to consider. JC's also offers a menu of New Mexican dishes and a smaller menu of American fare that includes chicken wings, burgers and chicken nuggets. Instead of a chalkboard, the menu is displayed on three large-screen televisions.

If Chinese food is your desire, the day's dishes are on full display, cafeteria-style, at the glistening front counter (seriously, this is one of the cleanest restaurants, from front-of-house to kitchen, I have ever seen in Santa Fe). Pick two entrees from up to six choices, select fried rice or lo mein, and boom, your food is in your meaty little hands for a mere $6.50, including tax. Tack on a vegetarian egg roll ($0.99), pork pot stickers ($7.99 for six) or cream cheese wontons (six for $2.99) if the mood strikes you.

I visit JC's craving Chinese food, and the kitchen doesn't disappoint. "Practically everything in the kitchen is made in-house except the soy sauce," Mora tells SFR during a recent (clandestine, of course) visit. Wok sauces, egg rolls, wontons and meat and veggie items are prepared fresh daily, and it shows. General Tso's and orange chickens are batter-fried but not oily, their sauces bright and clean, not cloying. A bourbon chicken tastes sweet but is a bit on the dry side. Those huge vegetable egg rolls are crunchy on the outside and piping hot at their cabbage-laden centers. The fried rice and lo mein are what one might expect from most casual-dining Chinese restaurants in the 505: standard starchy sides without pretense, and perfectly suitable as companions to the bigger picture on your plate. I see the New Mexican menu includes my go-to local dish: a ground beef-stuffed sopaipilla with beans smothered in a choice of red or green (or both) chile for $6.50, but shoving egg rolls and other Asian foodstuffs into my maw has left me full. The portions at JC's are generous, to understate it.

Mora is just getting started after what she calls "trying to right a sinking ship" of a business in the same location. She also has plans to expand her menu to include fresh coffee and espresso. It's hard to obtain both quality and quantity at these prices—something that can be tested at your peril at any inexpensive, popular buffet- or cafeteria-style restaurant chain in the country. For my dollar, though, I'm keeping it local and fresh at JC's.

At a Glance
Open:
11 am-9 pm daily
(winter hours, subject to change)
Best Bet:
Chinese food
Don't Miss:
The egg roll

Extra Sauce

Winner Winner Grocery Dinner: Back in February, former Santacafé chef and current chef-at-large Fernando Ruiz sneaked off to Napa Valley to participate in a winter holiday-themed episode of the Food Network show Grocery Games that recently aired. The challenge? Make a winter-holiday-themed starter out of items found in every other aisle of a grocery store (the skipped aisle concept was the handicap for the contest). And then make a New Year's Eve dinner on a budget. And then turn the basic ingredients of a fruitcake into a holiday feast. Among the four chefs who competed, Ruiz came out the victor, taking home a purse of $14,000. Catch the reruns.

Flapjacks FTW: The Food Network also recently named Tecolote Café's atole-piñon pancakes the best breakfast in the state. We're not sure why they called Tecolote an "avian-themed restaurant," but we're not complaining, and neither are Tecolote's owners. These pancakes, which approximate the size of a small manhole cover, are worthy of such accolades. If you order them, bring a serious appetite.

Frothy the Snowman: Tickets are on sale for the New Mexico Brewers Guild's fifth annual WinterBrew Fest at the Santa Fe Farmers Market pavilion on Jan. 15. Participating breweries include all Santa Fe's standard locals as well as Bathtub Row Brewing Co-op (Los Alamos), La Cumbre, Turtle Mountain, Tractor Brewing, Abbey Brewing, Bosque Brewing and more.

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