We don’t know about you goobers, but over here in Forkopolis, breakfast is the most exciting meal for which to eat out. Dinner is always this whole production, and generally very meat-heavy at most restaurants. Plus, quaffing a nice cup of coffee with buds and going to town on a brekkie b or the like is always in style—it’s a great way to start the day, right? That’s why we love places that serve breakfast all day and that’s why we’ve got a current list of spots to hit when the sun rises and we realize that we once again must leave our Forktress of Solitude and do work stuff or whatever. Nothing softens the blow like a nice bite.
217 W San Francisco St., (505) 995-1191
We’ll start with our newest favorite, Henry & the Fish, a new (by Santa Fe standards) Plaza-adjacent counter service joint from former Atomic Grill owners Kelly and Joe Garcia. They do breakfast all day long, including a knockout egg sandwich with avocado and sriracha mayo, plus the eggs done just right all scrambly and folded like a little envelope of love. The brekkie b is no slouch, either, and the real champions know they can get a solid cookie for after (we like the sea salt chocolate chip, but the oatmeal raisin is a stunner). Hitting the eatery a little after your normal breakfast hours? Find all kinds of smoothies, salads and bowls that lean more lunchy. Our best advice is to pop by and snag a little something before you hit a downtown museum—that’s what we did the other day and it was a pretty sweet afternoon.
730 St. Michael’s Drive, (505) 780-5263
Yeah, yeah—we’ve probably mentioned this place before, but the house that Edwin and Walfre Sagche built maintains its place on our top three list for a number of reasons: The coffee’s great and available in bean form for when you wanna drink it at home, the breakfast menu is indeed available all day and, last but not least, it’s fast and tasty. Plus, staff remembers you if you’re a regular. In fact, last time we were there, a very nice man behind the counter said, “Thanks for coming so much!” You got it, buddy, because not only do we find Sagche’s breakfast sandwich on a long roll one of the best in the biz, we’re down with a fresh fruit cup and maybe even some of the best fries in town. Don’t even get us started on the breakfast burrito (we wanted to say “brekkie b,” but felt like y’all had earned a break), a masterwork of red and green chile co-mingling in glorious gorgeousness. Toss in some savory crepes (turns out green chile works in pretty much anything) and a burger that one friend described as, “so freaking good I don’t even care what happens to me the rest of the day,” and you’ve really got something. Yeah!
1820 Cerrillos Road, (505) 986-0022
Look, we realize we’re not telling you anything you don’t know here, but we’re considering this one a freebie to anyone not local who needs to know. We’re also what you might call a recent convert, all things considered, which is to say we were firmly on team Tecolote until that Day Without an Immigrant thing in 2017 that found oodles of Santa Fe restaurants closing in solidarity with immigrant workers. Why, you ask, did we become un-down? Well, Tecolote threw up a letter in their window that was disrespectful to our fellow human beings. Now, that restaurant is a thing of the past. But we’re on a tangent, and here’s the point: The OG Pantry slaps. And we’re actually not here to convince you how good a brekkie b with curly fries on the side might be, or how the buenas dias dish that’s pretty much just an amazing pile of eggs and potatoes and chile and such is the best thing since the invention of things; we’re here to talk about the buttermilk pancakes, that brilliant two-stack of fluffy, not-too-thick goodness that eschews most other restaurants’ decision to churn out dense and doughy circles of too-much-ness. No, The Pantry does ‘em just right and you need to know that. OK, and the chile is pretty good, too.
Where are your favorite brekkie spots, Santa Fe? Bonus points for a place we’ve never heard about (as if that exists). If we’re honest, we kind of want to break out of our breakfast rut of mainly eggs inside other things, y’know?
Also
-If you’ve seen this week’s SFR, you know it’s crammed with so much food stuff it’s kinda nuts. But we’ve got even more info for our Fork Frenz in the form of some numbers sent our way by the New Mexico Restaurant Association. Didja know, according to the NMRA, that 80% of restaurants in New Mexico report increasing their menu prices in recent months, or that 51% report changing up their menus? We also know that 49% of New Mexico restaurants changed their hours, 34% closed on days they were usually open and 23% pressed pause on upcoming expansion plans. Nearly a quarter—23% if you are keeping score—report a cessation of full capacity operations; 23% were forced to cut staff and 9% entered a hiring freeze era; 94% experienced supply chain issues over the last six months; 74% report shortages in supply for other service items (we assume this means to-go containers, dishes, et al.)
-But wait! It isn’t all bad! In better news from the NMRA, 6% of restaurants report incorporating new tech into their businesses (we believe this means, like, bussing robots and point-of-sale consoles and such); 14% report dropping delivery apps, which is probably a good thing all told. In even better news, if you check out the print edition of SFR this week, you’ll find 13 pages of restaurant listings, plus a number of vignettes from local eateries (and drinkeries) that are making big moves. Those listings are online, too.
-Even though Le Fork mentioned that formerly just-a-truck biz Craft Donuts would be opening a new brick and mortar location on the Southside ages ago, we now know that they’re looking at this summer for opening. We don’t have a precise date, but a very nice guy from over there said “conservatively, July,” to us, so...don’t assume that’s ironclad, we’re just saying don’t assume you’re getting into that donut place this week. Word? Word. In the meantime, you can still catch ‘em in truck form on Old Santa Fe Trail. In fact, y’know what? Here’s a link.
-Seattle-based bakery Piroshky Piroshky is, for some reason we don’t quite fathom, hitting the road for a tour...y’know, like a band. And said tour will bring the reportedly popular baked goods biz to Santa Fe on Monday, April 10. If you want to learn more, including how to order, click that link just above the sentence you’re currently reading (see it up there?) and do that. Then on April 10, you go to...wherever it is they’re gonna be and pick it up. Now isn’t that easier than just buying from a bakery that’s already here? We’re kidding, it sounds like buying baked goods with too many extra steps, though we’re not even sure where one would get a piroshky around here. What even is that, you might be asking? Well, it’s a like a bun, bro; it’s like a little bun with stuff in it. Like all pastries, it’s a baked thing stuffed with other things. IT IS ALL THINGS. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THINGS. If you’d like to learn more about Santa Fe bakeries, get your life together and work that out.
-According to a survey from website FeastGood-dot-com, New Mexico’s corn chip pie is America’s 18th most-loathed food, by dieters, anyway. Now, keep in mind we’ve never once heard of a corn chip pie until this very moment, but it apparently made the list somehow. How is one pie an entire state’s fault? The internet truly is a wild and wooly land of lawlessness. Word? Word. Here’s a little link to an infographic from the FeastGood folks. We think it’s a weird survey, but we’re full of rage this week, so our feelings about surveys are certainly suspect, and—oh, wait, we get it now! The survey is like, “What foods are dieters mad about?” kind of, because number 1 is ice cream, and ain’t nobody SINCERELY mad at ice cream (not counting ice cream factory workers, the lactose intolerant and people who hate fun and frienship).
-In other “according to a website,” news, according to website Pricelisto-dot-com, New Mexico is the 10th most Starbucks-obsessed state in the union. Isn’t that great news, people who are too weird to not just go to Ohori’s or Iconik or Java Joe’s or Crash Murder Business or any number of local coffee shops with superior products that are either similarly priced to Starbucks or cheaper? Yeah! GOOD FOR YOU, BUDS! YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM!! Anyway, the researches from Pricelisto (which sounds like the most boring fucking robot ever around) found that, despite New Mexico Starbucks only accounting for 0.71% of the Starbucks stores found throughout the country, we go nuts for ‘em here. Yawn. Snooze. Call us when New Mexico’s obsessed with something a lot cooler. Furthermore, we—oh, God...is that...IT’S PRICELISTO! THEY’RE HERE AND THEIR CHAINSAW ARMS ARE HEADED STRAIGHT FOR US! NO, PRICELISTO! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
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-We won’t bore you with the absurd details of our battle against Pricelisto, but now that we have regained control, we have more food news for everyone. For example: Surely you’ve heard Jambo Bobcat Bite is open now. In short, the OG Bobcat Bite went dark when original owners John and Bobbie Eckre moved their biz into the city with the new name Santa Fe Bite. Then, some other people bought the building and took an earnest stab at doing something, but ended up never getting things off the ground out there. Enter Jambo owner and celebrated chef Ahmed Obo. He’s happy to own the building now and is doing a whole cool and crazy menu that includes burgs for all, plus, probably, some other exciting options. The supervillain to our superhero, being Santa Fe New Mexican writer Teya Vitu, has more.
-While we’re not about to sit here searching out a list of places serving ham or whatever for Easter, we do want to highlight the Indian Pueblo Kitchen at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. We’re talking pan-grilled salmon, roast beef with mashed potatoes, carrot cake, a strawberry and spinach salad and so many other things. Yowza!
-Lastly in local news, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture released its annual chile report, and it’s full of interesting tidbits. For example: Total chile production in the state in 2022 was 53,000 tons—a 4.5% increase over 2021 (when, you might recall, everything everywhere sucked all at once). Of that tonnage, 49,125 tons was green while 4,175 was red (which is weird, because we love us some red, although maybe since it’s more often found in sauce form versus the chopped green-ness, that explains it). Now then, let’s talk about sales. According to the report, 91.2% was sold for processing, while 8.6% was sold for fresh market reasons; 0.2% wasn’t sold at all (probably greedy farmers adding to their own stash!). The overall value of 2022 chile was estimated at $46.2 million. That’s a lot of awesome burritos and stews, right?!
Turns out this isn’t about breakfast per se, but we’re down with it.
SHOUT-OUT FROM A READER!
“I would like to flag a fabulous food truck, Master Food Truck, an eye-catching red apple vehicle on Airport Road/corner of Country Club. I am always delighted with my weekly visits to Master Food. I don’t know how [the owner] prepares traditional and not-so-traditional Mexican favorites—an amazing leap above the other trucks—but she magically performs culinary wonders in a flash. In a town of superb food truck options, Master stands out like a gem on the way to the Airport. A ruby in the rough.”
Oh, reader Anthony G., you really get what we’re trying to do here! This is perfect, thanks so much!
More Tidbits
-We’re very much here for this piece from Food & Wine-dot-com’s Laura Itzkowitz which queries whether pizza is becoming too big for its britches. As faithful readers no doubt know, our boss has a bud who is a well-known pizzamaker, and that guy instilled a very important thought in our head way back when: People aren’t looking for crazy pizza that’s like some sort of baffling challenge, they just want to get something tasty and familiar. Anyway, gourmet is such a nebulous term, and we fear most use it as a means by which to vex those who don’t know any better. The moral? You’ll have to decide for yourselves, but pizza shouldn’t be so hard.
-Some jabroni in merry olde England offered a cardboard Burger King crown to King-née-Prince Charles last week while the monarch was sauntering around London like some kind of commoner. Now, we weren’t there, of course, but we can only logically assume that Charles said, “Fie and foo, thou ruinous butt! A pox upon thine house and thine false crown! For lo, doth prophets lie and urchins beg, and sure as the sun shall shine should shy shysters shoo themselves verily. Begone, I beseech thee! Begone!” Like, we assume he said that VERBATIM, by which we mean that he didn’t wear the dumb hat.
-Whilst we all know the internet can be a tricky place on April 1 (though we’re weirded out it’s the only day a year that people question what they read on that dang universal network), it turns out an announcement from the Cup Noodles people was not, in fact, a joke. Turns out the soon-to-be-released breakfast version of Cup Noodles’ ramen is very real, and we can only imagine the impact to college dorms across the land. As for Dole announcing it had created a pineapple that people could peel like a banana? Tragically fake. Our best pineapple advice is don’t lie about knowing how to cut them, because it WILL come up and you WILL fail. The weird thing is that we scoured the internet for a story about that joke (Dole emailed it to us directly) and found nothing, so we guess it just wasn’t as good or believable as, oh, say, corn cob pizza.
-PepsiCo, being the co that makes Pepsi—which is a weird word to say a bunch of times in a row; no, seriously, try saying Pepsi, like, 50 times and see how it makes you feel. We’ll wait...
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Did you do it? Cool. Weird, right?—announced a new logo and branding plan that kind of looks like its old logo and branding plan. Our take? Who gives a shit? Our favorite thing about Pepsi is the weird urban legend that the old “Come alive with Pepsi!” slogan was mistranslated in China as something like, “Pepsi will bring your dead ancestors back to life.” While internet veracity watchdog Snopes-dot-com was unable to determine whether this is true or not, we choose to live in a world wherein that totally happened and life is weird and beautiful. It’s like, either you learned something from Roberto Benigni and you think the slogan thing happened, or you’re just, like, one of those Droopy Dog kinda dorks who hates fun and friendship and slogan-based misunderstandings.
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-Lastly in not-just-local news this week (we actually had more we could have included, but we feel the length of this edition getting away from us), Reader’s Digest has compiled a list of things people shopping in grocery stores do in the belief that they are being polite, but that actually drives staff up the wall. Not that we’re saying it’s a glamorous job being the writer who found the story and is now telling you about it, but it seems extra wack to be the writer who actually had to compile that story. Anyway, find a link to that information riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight here.
We bet at least one of the people in this VERY ‘90s commercial loves the song “Lightning Crashes” by Live, and that is just mind-blowing because that song is horrible.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
In the print edition of SFR this week, it’s pretty much all food stuff, baby!
Number of Letters Received
41
*Seems no one was going to eat that corn cob pizza even if it had been real.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“Would it be OK to come to your house?”
*Not a tip, bud, and also no, it wouldn’t be OK.
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
No tips, but plenty of nice readers saying nice things.
*And we really needed it this week.
Pepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsipepsi,
The Fork