Once upon a time, SFR’s offices were located downtown on Marcy Street. It was the sort of thing that made getting to work tricky on some days, but workers always knew they had a parking space, even when the city got busy, and there was a coffee shop right next door. Even better? There were numerous lunching options within a few blocks at which the staffers ate, blissfully unaware that they’d one day be removed from their dining-centric little lives.
Now SFR’s offices are in Midtown, on Pacheco Street, behind Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen. And though that restaurant has been known to kick out some glorious-ass breakfast tacos on its brunch/lunch menu, lunching at any other location now requires us sad-sacks to get in our cars and travel or, worse, on busy days, order delivery and spend, like, $20 on a burger or whatever. But we’re trying to do better. We’re trying to make the time to get into the car and head out at midday to eat at nearby restaurants which, let’s face it, aren’t actually all the far anyway. You’re probably wondering if we’d consider making our own lunches and bringing them with us. WE WILL NEVER CONSIDER THAT!
In other words, we’re gonna try something here, and who knows if it will stick because we’re flighty and we do what we want. That new thing is a potential series about the better lunches we wind up eating while working; we’re kicking it off with a little ditty from Burrito Spot.
And it was kind of a perfect lunch. For a mere $12.47, we were beyond sated, it took two seconds and we didn’t have to travel very far at all; just up Pacheco, over to Cordova—and boom, baby, we were lunching.
As we’ve been known to do at the good ol’ Spot, we selected the three rolled tacos with guacamole and cheese—the chicken ones ($4.50). As dishes go, it’s a hell of a value and always comes hot n’ crispy and looking like what certain plebs might call taquitos. Slathered in guacamole, they’re a tasty treat, too, what with the shredded chicken just jam-packed/crammed all up in there. Bonus? They’re none too filling. They’re kind of the ideal size, actually. So, we order the side of fries ($2.25) to push us over the edge.
Would you like a little tip? Burrito Spot has been known to pull their fries from the fryer just a little too soon, but if you let them sit for an extra couple minutes in the little to-go container, they crisp right up. We’ve learned this the hard way. If we’d been super-starving, Burrito Spot has loaded fries (think nachos but with fries in place of chips), but the side was enough. We even added two extra sides of guacamole ($1 apiece), because grrrrrrrrl, have you ever dipped your fries in guac? It’s glorious.
To quaff, we obviously ordered the Orange Bang, a whipped orange bevvie that’s about the closest thing we’ve found to Orange Julius around here in a long time ($2.75). Granted, the Bang isn’t quite as frothy as the Julius, but taste-wise, it’s a home run. The whole meal scored, actually, and we’re giving this one a hearty endorsement.
Where should we go next that’s roughly in the Pacheco Street area? Send your recs to thefork@sfreporter.com.
The song that played in our heads when we saw them rolled tacos.
Also
-One of our spies tells us that George RR Martin and his Highgarden Entertainment brand, which runs his Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe and its many events, are set to open a bar on the edges of the Railyard, just behind the theater, called Milk of the Poppy. The name, of course, is a Game of Thrones reference to whatever opiate-like thing best soothes dragon burns or whatever in Martin’s fictional universe. We don’t have an opening date for the real-world bar yet, but we can likely expect the new spot to open some time this year.
-Speaking of new things we were going to tell you about, Santa Fe’s first cat café opened earlier this week in the Baca Street Railyard, which is that part of town in which there’s no rail, but, like, there used to be, bruh. Anyway, we thought we were all sly putting it in The Fork this week, but The Morning Word beat us to it on Tuesday (that’s two days earlier than us). Anyway, Turquoise Teapot is one of those cafés where cats roam around, and we love it already, sight unseen.
-Reminder that Valentine’s Day is in less than one week, so if you haven’t already made your reservations, you might be shit outta luck. That’s OK, though, as the whole V-Day routine at restaurants feels weird, and we say that as a former restaurant worker who watched countless couples going through the “this is what we’re supposed to do” motions on the big night while staring down the barrel of an underwhelming prix fixe menu. To soften the blow, though, you might think about how Gruet’s February Wine of the Month is a 2022 Reserve Still Rosé. Like, maybe you could get you a bottle and hang out at home? Seems cooler than eating a bunch of pasta and strawberry shortcake (which is somehow many a restaurant’s go-to V-Day desert) and ending up too bloated for sex, right? Check out that wine (and others) riiiiiiight here.
-If you still feel weird about V-Day despite that awesome rosé suggestion, how about the Valentine’s Day Chocolate Making Workshop and Pairing at the Tumbleroot Pottery Pub downtown (we are NOT talking about the Agua Fría location)? OK, it’s $175 per person, which we get is not super cheap, but Santa Fe chocolatier Eileen Olivieri will be there to help folks make chocolates while Tumbleroot’s Jason Kirkman teaches all the nerds about good pairings for them sweets. Check out the info here.
-The Food Depot, being Santa Fe’s much loved and important food bank, will celebrate its 30th birthday in 2024. And though it’s too late to catch the documentary short Movement that screened just once at Violet Crown on Feb. 7 (being the day before this Fork dropped), we still thought you might like to know that The Food Depot distributed 7.4 million meals in 2023. That’s a lot of meals!
-Lastly, the Super Bowl is coming and we mentioned last week that we don’t care who is playing. But we urge you all to eat wild stuff and send us pictures if you make anything crazy. Sound good? Good.
Apropos of nothing, we see Krinkles every time we close our eyes. And something about how the red YouTube play logo/button covers his face makes it worse.
More Tidbits
-Speaking of the Super Bowl, food delivery app DoorDash has a new contest called All the Ads from which one winner will receive literally everything advertised during the big sports match between...those guys and those other guys. The company is keeping a running tally of things announced so far on its website, and it’s kind of absurd. Just know this. Can we make a Super Bowl suggestion real quick, too? We all had a lot of fun citing that What We Do in the Shadows’ “Superb Owl” joke from a couple years back, but if you go around acting like you’re all smart by still saying that, your family and friends will start hating you more than they already might. Get fresher material is what we’re saying.
-If winning is your thing, Burger King has a little something going, too, only this one is for the burger chefs out there. As of this week, you can submit ideas to the Million Dollar Whopper Contest, and if your burger becomes a real burger, you’ll get that $1 million.
-Oh, good, booze brand Truly has a new hard seltzer that reportedly tastes like hot wing sauce. Look, that was a real nice society we had there once, but we’ve proven we can’t just be cool and drink drinks that taste like drinks. Honestly, y’all, most people regard sports waaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously, which we say knowing a drink flavor is not specifically a sports thing, but, like, why the hell else would this exist?
-With Valentine’s Day coming up, the world is likely full of cowards who can’t look someone in the eye and say, “This relationship is bo-bo, son, and I don’t want to do this with you anymore.” If you are one of these dorks, know that Pizza Hut now has a “you dumped” pizza (that’s our title, theirs seems to be “Goodby Pie”). It works like this: You can send pizza to some chump you’re dumping. This seems all well and good, but we’d be pretty nervous about now were we a Pizza Hut delivery driver. Did the phrase “kill the messenger” ever occur to whatever garbage Pizza Hut exec came up with this nonsense? Though, if you were about to get dumped, it would probably be pretty cool to have a pizza ready to go about it. Of course, it’s spineless, but that’s life, little babies.
-Lastly in non-local food news this week, website Food Beast-dot-com has a pretty intriguing list of expert-sourced foods that are supposed to help you sleep better. Considering the last night we got restful sleep was in the late 1980s (MYSTERY AGE!), we’re kind of like, “Oh, yeah? Like what?” Well, peanut butter and string cheese are both on the list (not in the same item, mind you, as that sounds bad), as is popcorn, surprisingly. If you want to see the full rundown, click this link right here.
A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence
Number of Letters Received
20
*Most of these were auto-replies. What the heck?!
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)
“Keep trying, or maybe not.”
*Wut?
Actually Helpful Tip(s)
None of you helped us do a damn thing!
*Yeah!
Practically perfect,
The Fork