The Fork

So, like, no joke, we’ve loved Martha Stewart since always. Since we were just a young forkling smoking weed in the morning and learning how to make macaroons (the coconut kind...with two Os), so when we discovered Martha (we’re on a first-name basis) had a croissant recipe hidden in a video about making lemon bundt cake, we got to thinking about how we should probably get a croissant. And so we did. See, over on SFR’s regular staff, the culture editor has a piece this week about Cafecito, the restaurant in the old Opuntia space off Baca Street—and he was saying it was the best croissant he’s ever had. Our response to that was basically to shout “OH, YEAH?!?!?!” at no one in particular, because we don’t decide stuff like that without horking something down ourselves. This got us thinking about other croissants we like in Santa Fe, and we’ve assembled a list of favorites. No, there aren’t many, but it’s important to stick with the good ones rather than lie about liking some jank-ass croissant from who-knows-where.

Let’s get into it.

Cafecito

OK, we hate to admit SFR’s culture editor is right about anything, but we’ve sampled the Cafecito croissant, and we’re all about it now. It came warm and crispy and we didn’t even have to put anything on it. Seriously—we just tore into it like a movie where some kid hasn’t eaten in too long and they just start shoveling food into their mouth. If you’re into croissants, this might be the current king in town.

Chocolate Maven

So, we’ve had croissants in-house, and we’ve bought them at grocery stores, and we have some advice. If one gets a croissant from the fountainhead itself, it’s great as a little buttery treat all on its own. It’s flaky, it’s golden, it’s laminated in a satisfying way...and so on. If, however, one buys a pre-packaged croissant from, oh, say, Whole Foods, our advice would be to use it for a fried egg sandwich of some kind. As croissants are wrapped, so, too, do they lose their flakiness. This might sound like a drag to some, but they’re easier to cut into when less flaky, and they don’t drop pastry crumbs all over your front.

Clafoutis

Speaking of egg sammies on croissants, the one over at Clafoutis is heavenly. Heads up the VERY French cafe and bakery is renovating right now and, thus, closed until April 21. Just build up your desire for croissants in the meantime. These ones are slightly smaller than others (and we mean SLIGHTLY), but when it comes to adding egg and green chile to the mix? Holy smokes!

Boultawn’s Bagelry, Café & Gallery

We also can’t say enough good things about Boultawn’s egg croissant sammie. The place with the best local bagels (you heard us, New Yorkers—how about you adapt to us instead of the other way around, shit!) has a delightful egg n’ cheese on a croissant, and it’s not only flavorful as hell, it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t leave you hungry right after because, for real, there’s so much egg on that bad boy. Pick up some bagels for home...like the green chile and cheese. Ohmygod. So good.

The New Santa Fe Baking Co.

A little crispier than the rest on this list, New Santa Fe Baking Co.’s croissants are still beyond tasty and make excellent sandwiches or treats. Sometimes on the weekends we like to order a brekkie b and one of these bad boys, then we’ll smear it with raspberry jam and just a littttttle bit of butter (in case you didn’t know, croissants are about the butteriest thing out there). Hot tip, though? They tend to sell out fast.

And that’s just our own personal list. Like, that’s where we like to go if/when we have our druthers. What’s a druther? And what’re your favorites in and around Santa Fe? We want to try them so badly.

She went to prison and got out all like “I’m really energized about croissants!”

Also

-We kind of can’t remember if we already mentioned this or not, but we have a little bit of news pertaining to Second Street Brewery. As of this moment, what we know is that the beloved brewpub’s Rufina Street location in Santa Fe is slated to start serving food again on April 16. Its long-dormant Railyard location is reportedly set to reopen May 1. Plans for the original location are still not set—but who else is fixing to get some fish and/or chips?

-Oh, dang—the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners are having an online plant sale April 21-May 5 with curbside pick up at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds at a designated time on May 8 and 9. Visit SFEMG.org for more info.

-Solid-ass tip on seafood coming your way from Fork Friend (TM) Michaelene K, who tells us that local food distro company Just for You (by Just the Best) does seafood for us normies, and not just wholesale for restaurants and such. Word is, you can score 10% off an order using “OPENKITCHEN” and “SFFOODIES” when it comes time to enter promo codes. We haven’t tested those, but hopefully they work. If not, you’ll live, we bet.

-You probably already know that New York Deli rebranded as New York on Catron a bit ago, but did you know the downtown restaurant is upping its bagel game? Way we hear it, you can look forward to bagels baked fresh every day now. Please don’t lecture us, New York people. We’re just trying to live our lives.

Everybody liked the Aquabats song from last week so much, we decided to share another. If you’re a Devo fan you’ll probably like this.

More Tidbits

-If you know anything about IHOP, you know it’s been trying to kill us all for years. Joking. But also, the chain’s new bacon-in/on-everything menu is outta control. They’ve got a milkshake with bacon in it. A milkshake! With bacon! In it! We know we don’t really eat meat, but, like, there are just some things that don’t really need to happen in the world.

-Even we’re getting a little tired of talking about restaurants in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, but since Santa Fe has become a nightmarish zone of people just acting like we can all go back to normal, we figured everyone might like to check out a piece from Eater-dot-com, wherein restaurant owners from Texas, Boston and New York talk about what reopening really means.

-Website Thrillist-dot-com apparently hosts an annual fast food awards program (2021 will be its second year doing it), and the nominees were announced earlier this week. We don’t want to tell people how to live, but this seems weird. All the usual suspects are there (Wendy’s, Whataburger, Popeye’s, McDonald’s, etc.), and we just wonder if this is what the people at that site had in mind when they were going into writing. OH. EM. GEE. Is The Fork what we had in mind? PSYCH! Of course it was—when your name is The Fork, you have very few options for jobs.

-We didn’t really know much (anything, actually) about Filipino donuts, but we’ve learned the tasty treat is becoming so popular thanks to your Instagrams and Tik-Toks and what-have-you that pop-ups are, ummmm...popping up all over. Score one for fans; hopefully we get one of these going in Santa Fe. That would be so great.

-Hostess (they make Twinkies) has voluntarily recalled a whole mess of SnoBalls (they’re like Twinkies but with coconut) due to some undisclosed allergen. Don’t eat SnoBalls right now, maybe.

-OK, so look—over the years we’ve really stuck it to Guy “Flavortown” Fieri for looking like a divorced dad who spent his kid’s violen money lesson on an oversized shirt with flame graphics from K-Mart, but credit where credit is due, so, like, here’s this: Fieri founded a fund for restaurant workers struggling through COVID-19, and as of this week, said fund has almost reached $25 million. Nothing’s cooler than helping people, so well done, Fieri.

-Chowhound-dot-com put out a piece this week about how to declutter one’s pantry. Our first reaction was like “Naw,” but then our second reaction was more like “Yeah!” Yes, organizing a pantry is cool. Just look at the photos.

-The food arm of Vice-dot-com, which is called Munchies, has a pretty interesting piece about teaching people to cook after losing their sense of taste to COVID-19. There’s obviously nothing good about this virus, but the taste loss thing sounds particularly heartbreaking. Yes—we know people have died, but it’s also quite sad to think of folks having to relearn their relationships to the very sustenance keeping them alive.

Finally

In the print edition of SFR, one of our people fixes his thinking when it comes to Cafecito.

A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence

Number of Letters Received

28

*Lots of Aquabats fans!

Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)

“I don’t like drinking.”

*So maybe don’t drink?

Actually Helpful Tip(s)

A reader sent us a recipe for making fries. They sound amazing, but we’re double-checking it’s OK to share it with everyone before we run it. It sounds great, though.

-Fries forever!!

Laminated to a crispy and layered delight,

The Fork

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story had an error about the Master Gardner event. We’ve fixed that.