The Fork

The new hotness…
If you didn't hear or you hadn't picked one up by now, our 2019-2020 Restaurant Guide is out, and it's hot as heck! Believe us—it almost killed us, but it's glossy and massive and full of all kinds of restaurant related stuff.

Like what? Well, we'll tell you a few things.

The Top 10!
It's not easy, but each year we eat at every place we can possibly imagine and then choose our 10 favorites of the year. Some are mainstays (like La Choza), others are unexpected (like Apothecary) and some are just so dang popular among locals (like Paper Dosa) we'd be fools to leave them off—FOOLS!

But Also, 15 Faves!
Then there's the ones we love and want and need to include, but that seem only slightly less vital. We're not saying they're not amazing (like Jambo Café) or unimportant (we love you, Pizza Centro!), but for whatever reason they just didn't give us the positive ass-kicking we desire. It's a stringent process decided on over a months-long period of eating and eating again, then eating a little more, arguing, then eating. It's good stuff.

Effing Food Trucks!
We also traipse around town with a camera and an empty stomach in search of awesome food trucks. This year's guide to those mobile delights seems to have stirred some controversy over not including Chile Toreado, but since all the angry letters we received said some form of everyone already knows about it, we figure everyone already knows about it. Long live Freezie Fresh!

Hot Profile!
We caught up with Market Steer Steakhouse's Kathleen Crook, a chef who not only brought her eatery in the Hotel St. Francis to victory in SFR's 2019 Best of Santa Fe issue, but who grew up on a ranch, trained with the best and who cooks a steak like woah.

And All the Rest…
We also unveil the winners of our annual Food Foto Contest, suggest an array of desserts and highlight a few out o' town spots to sample when you need a little getaway. Let us all also celebrate photographer Joy Godfrey who turns our words into poetry with a backdrop of incredible and inspired photo work.

If you're dying to pick one up, click here to find all the pickup locations. Do note that it's a separate product from our regular issues (that's what makes it so hard to do!) and that we think it's the best dang one around. We're still open to suggestions and ideas. We always want to hear from you! We're also stalling at this point because we know you've come to depend on the first video section of The Fork, and we just need to think up something that'll be timely and funny and—wait, we've got it!

Sure, it's for kids, but it's full of helpful information and one helluva beat.

Also

-Rowley Farmhouse Ales had a kickass weekend at the Great American Beer Festival, winning medals for all kinds of things including Best Small Brewery of the Year! SFR's Julie Ann Grimm spoke with founder John Rowley about the prestigious honor. By the time you read this, Rowley will also have appeared on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with the food demon himself, Guy Fieri—and you know what that means: Ash rains from the skies as an ominous laugh shatters the silence. Human skulls pile up by the thousands and naught but pain rings out among the smoldering ruins of our once-proud civilization. Unseeable, and unknowable, Fieri bellows his bone-chilling cry across the cracked landscapes: "WELCOME TO FLAVORTOWN!"

-Also in beer-related news, Santa Fe's Second Street Brewery and Albuquerque's Bosque Brewing Co. have signed on for this really cool thing called OktoberForest, an organization that's out to plant a billion trees. Each brewery will make special brews and promote the tenets of tree-planting, there'll be special coasters and the rest of us (namely, people who breathe and like forests and stuff) will reap the benefits of beers and trees.

-And again, in more beer related stuff, a reader who wishes to remain anonymous reached out to ask us about the Santa Fe Brewing Co.'s Pepe Loco Mexican lager. Here's a link. The reader tells us that they're uncomfortable about the marketing for the beer, claiming that the company is making light of luchador culture and selling 15 packs known as "the quinceañera." We admit that we also find this a little weird, but we also wanted to get a discussion going. Check out those links and tell us your thoughts.

-If you like fermented things and don't mind a quick jaunt down to the ABQ, the New Mexico Fermentation Festival is coming up on Saturday Oct. 19. We're talkin' cider, wine, pickles, kraut, kombuncha, kimchi—anything that can be fermented WILL BE fermented! Tickets and more info here.

-Ever heard of Santa Fe Spirits? It's a spirits distillery? In Santa Fe? Well, anyway, the spirits they … spirit into existence are spirited and good for one's spirits, and it was named one of the 10 best gin distilleries in the country by USA Today. Ba-dooooom! Congrats, SFS!

-Arroyo Vino wants to court the whole family with a series of special family meals coming up on Oct. 17 (tapas!), 24 (pan-Asian duck!) and Nov. 21 (Americana!). The prix-fixe meals run $49 a person and come with an optional wine pairing situation. Learn more about the first one (including why we're now obsessed with black rice croquettes) here.

More Tidbits

-Eater.com does it again, this time tackling the idea of colonialism as it pertains to the tiki bar, to the mai tai and beyond. Look, agree with them or don't, but it's still cool that a food-based site is so focused on exploring these concepts, and you might just learn a lot about where these drinks come from.

-Ever heard of soufflé pancakes? Well, they're a combination of pancakes and soufflés (so it's a smart name), look absolutely amazing and, so far, have lived in Japan and Japan alone—but that's about to stop, at least for New Yorkers. Japanese chain Flipper's is coming to NYC with the enticing flapjacks, and we just hope they wind up over this way real soon.

-We wanted everyone around here who loves a good fistful of piñon (and who doesn't?) to know about Pine Mouth, a very real and very scary affliction that occurs within a small percentage of pine nut fans. Word is, when some people eat piñon, they can develop this thing, and it makes your entire mouth taste like pennies for days or even weeks. The worst part is that it sounds like nobody knows why it happens, if there's a specific origin or how to stop it. Apparently you just have to decide if you can live with that in exchange for the piñon. Us personally? We love it, but we're also an anxiety-riddled mess, so … we'll just have to be careful.

-In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder gave a rare interview to the Christian Post, saying that her father's death led her to Christianity which in turn led her to print Bible verse on her company's food packaging. We're not telling anyone how to feel about this, just giving you the information. Also, The Fork is from Southern California (we've lived here for eons, though, so relax) and is here to tell you there are better burgers in the world … there are better burgers right here in this town.

-In other news from around the CEO-o-sphere, Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown said in a recent interview that his plant-based meat competitors "suck." The Fork readily admits that there's a lot of truth there, but we straight up prefer the Beyond Burger.

-A new report from website Wallethub has named Portland, Oregon, the top food city in America. To that we'd say, "Yo, have you dorks even been to Santa Fe?" For real, though, Portland has killer food, no question, but they don't really do chile, and that'll always be the clincher for this Fork.

-Lastly today, National Geographic sets out to discover why so many Americans are malnourished. It's a tough topic and a tough read, but a very good question. The Fork particularly despises all those stories we see about kids who aren't given access to cafeteria food at school. We understand it's a complicated issue, but still.

Finally