The Fork: Shout-outs

Turns out the world’s not ready for us yet, and we’re weirdly OK with it. That is, people are struggling to get back to work post-holidays this year in a way we haven’t seen since...ever. That has mutated on our end into this weird combo of being OK with it (like we said) and feeling like it’s all too much sometimes. Which is to say that we’ve been spending our evenings huddled in a ball not making calls or going places and remembering when we were young enough to feel ways about things. Le sigh. But then, just when we were coming up with an elaborate excuse about why we couldn’t possibly do a Fork this week, it occurred to us that we could highlight local restaurants and restaurant folk in just, like, the simplest way. It will be celebratory. It will be fun (*not a guarantee of fun), it will be words that form sentences which, in turn, form paragraphs. You will read it (*we know you might not), we’ll all feel a little better (*also not a guarantee). Life’s hard, so we’re just gonna be nice here for a second with a series of shout-outs.

Like, shout-out to chef Randy Tapia from Poki Taco for being totally cool when we sprinted up to him in the world recently to be like, “Hey, bud!” We’ve nary met a person who isn’t into Tapia’s poke truck (or its stand inside the CHOMP food hall,) and we realize now that screaming while running full-tilt at a stranger is probably scary. Way to be, bud!

Shout-out, too, to Dakota Weiss of new downtown poke spot Catch Poke, who did basically the same thing in e-form by responding to an SFR message in record time. This is a person who has been on Top Chef, is the main chef at Coyote Café and now has a poke business, and still personally responds to things? Oh, man, maybe more like a double shout-out! Also, two poke places in little ol’ Santa Fe? Neat.

Let us also shout-out the waitstaff at Adelita’s Mexican Restaurant for not only having awesome attitudes, but for giving us more chips and for handling an adovada/asada mixup that wound up delivering red meat to someone we know who only eats pork. They didn’t even flinch or anything—the woman was just like, “Oh, I can fix that in about two seconds, bruh.” And so she did. Awesome!

Shout-out to Fusion Tacos on Airport Road for having killer tacos and one of the best brekkie b’s in town, about which our friends tell us they didn’t even know. If you want a brekkie b that tastes like your mom or dad made when you were young enough to feel ways about things, give ‘em a shot.

In fact, shout-out to the bonkers massive selection of food trucks on the Southside in general. You could easily drive down there and find something good without trying for the rest of your days.

Here let us shout-out Angel’s Bakery & Café for having a kickass tres leches cake, an adorably comfortable space and other baked goods all up in grocery stores like Kaune’s.

A huge shout-out to Horno Restaurant owner David Sellers for giving his staff a little break from Jan. 11-Jan. 25. Sure, the restaurant’s getting into some renovations, but we’ve not worked anyplace in foodservice that allowed for a two-week break. We hope the staff gets some good rest.

A second huge shout-out to Kaune’s Neighborhood Market, which will ALSO give its employees a couple days off—being Jan. 13 and 14. Plan accordingly if that’s your regular market.

We’d also like to shout-out the Ohori’s Coffee Roasters employee who saw we were having a bad day and asked if we needed a hug. You know what’s weird? We did, and that magic hug fixed the rest of our afternoon. Not only that, but Ohori’s is generally cheaper than the chains and waaaaaaaaay more delicious.

How about a little shout-out to Rodrigo Rodriguez, the guy who took over the Felipe’s Tacos space in Midtown for a new spot called Charrito? Rodriguez has some big shoes to fill, but we’re excited to try what he’s cooking up.

Lastly, and we promise we won’t bring it up after this, shout-out to Tajine, the new Moroccan joint on Cordova Road. We’ve been more times than seems normal, but it’s just so damn good. Also, the brothers who own it are sweethearts and we happen to know they’re hiring. Honestly, we see this place getting huge down the line, and an enterprising young foodservice type with nothing to lose might wanna get on that rocket ship. We dunno.

Should we have a section where readers get to shout places out? Like a letters thing, only it’s a couple sentences from a reader about why they love whatever food thing? Could be cool. Tell us your thoughts at thefork@sfreporter.com.

HEAD OVER HEELS! Naw, just kidding. You know what it is. YOU KNOW.

Also

-We’re not sure who’s behind it, where it came from or why it flared into existence, but you should check out the 2023 New Mexico Reel Craft Pass. For a scant $15, you can fully get 49% off two drinks at participating locations across the state, including Hidden Mountain Brewing, Juno Brewery, Canteen Brewhouse, Kaktus Brewing, 575 Brewing Co. and many more. What a deal! Like, this thing pays for itself, pretty much! Here’s a link to buy ‘em.

-La Casa Sena is taking a break, too, it seems, from Jan. 9-Jan. 25. Very cool. We’d have put them in the shout-outs section, but we assumed y’all had section fatigue and decided to put it down here in the local news section. Section. Station!

-Illustrious downtown hotel La Fonda on the Plaza announced new Food & Bevvie Director Norbert Palladino, who has a long history in food, foodservice, dinning, bevvies and more.

-Exciting news on that Dutch Brothers coffeeshop that we’ve all heard will take over the space formerly occupied by the Cheeks gentleman’s club—seems the biz was issued a building permit just the other day. And though we strongly believe that a city losing its strip clubs and porn stores and such strips away its character (we mean that sincerely—if you wanna live in some weirdo Disney world where no one has sexual feelings, well...maybe do that, Thomas Kinkade fans), we’re down with a good cup of coffee. Of course, we’ll probably keep it more local, but that’s just us.

-Maybe you saw a new sign go up on the cursed location that recently housed the criminally underrated La Tour Experience French eatery at that weird corner of Cerrillos Road and Sandoval Street? Sadly, La Tour didn’t make it, but mayhap the Dumpling Tea Chinese restaurant can break the bad vibes in that spot? Restaurants never seem to survive there, but here’s hoping. If you never popped by Dumpling Tea when it existed on/beside/adjacent to the Plaza, have you ever really lived?

Y’know, because all these places are taking breaks. *This is not a Limp Bizkit endorsement, this is a joke in video form*

More Tidbits

-The people from Tate’s Bake Shop, being the cookie brand that comes in the green bag—you know the one—want us to tell you how the company has a new product called cookie bark. Basically, it’s bits o’ cookie covered in chocolate, and we don’t hate the idea. We do, however, hate Bit o’ Honey. What monster invented that garbage?

-Since people who are roughly 35-40 have no choice but to cling to the things from their childhoods because they’ll never own houses or get out of debt, Pizza Hut is bringing back its 1990s-era Big New Yorker Pizza. It’s pretty much just gigantic pizza, so...yeah. Did they also do the Bigfoot? Was that Little Caesar’s? Aw, who cares? Learn more here. We can only imagine some of you will order this, take a bite and then turn to your family and say, “I’m walkin’ here!” And though no laughs will come, you can be certain your children will never again respect you. If your spouse even stays with you, it’ll be sheer luck and/or pity. Why don’t you watch a movie or something? Learn about how comedy works. And culture. You make us sick.

-Doritos has a new flavor, we guess, and they’re on the lookout for people to star in a commercial of some kind—a Super Bowl commercial, to be exact. We’ve not had Doritos Sweet and Tangy BBQ, but we did once eat enough Cool Ranch chips that our heart technically stopped for several minutes. Anyway, you can learn how to engage with these Doritos concepts here, but fair warning that you’ll need Tik-Tok if you wanna do the do, so...tough blow, olds.

-Danish restaurant Noma (which has been rated the best restaurant in the world by people who think they’re better than you) is slated to close next year. According to its chef, René Redzepi, it’ll reinvent itself as a “giant lab,” whatever that means. If you saw the recently released (and pretty awesome) movie The Menu, this has big vibes of that. Also, how is one restaurant the best? We’re sure it’s great, and we like a fine dining thing as much as the next poor person who sometimes gets to go because of work, but can’t it just be “one of?” We think so. Not that anyone asked us.

-Ummm, Reese’s is releasing an entire line of frozen desserts? Yes. Yes, indeed. We are so so down, especially for the peanut butter ice cream sandwiches. Oh, God, we want them. In a related note, have you seen that television program “The Food That Built America”? It’s one of the most unintentionally hilarious things in the world, and the episode about the guy who invented Reese’s cups (we think his name was Hieronymous “Chocotastic” Reese) is fucking GLORIOUS.

A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence

It’s food-light in the print edition of SFR this week, but might we recommend visiting sfreporter.com/food for tons of food stuff?

Number of Letters Received

25

*Better than 24.

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

“I like you.”

*We like us, too.

Actually Helpful Tip(s)

Someone told us there’s a whole world of goat caramels we can’t even begin to comprehend out there...

*Wanna eat ‘em like we’re some kind of caramel-propelled Pokémon trainer.

The worst food writer in the world,

The Fork