If New Mexico is
the Land of Enchantment than Santa Fe is the summit of surreal where nothing
turns out as expected, especially when it comes to food. I know now why Zagat does not review the culinary cuisine there where the Cute Gardener and
I ventured recently for an end of the summer wedding of a friend and were
looking forward to experiencing a land of indigenous Southwestern cuisine.
Instead we found a bizarre landscape of restaurants stuck strangely somewhere
between the 1980s nouveau fusion scene and a quasi-limbo of the perpetual "close but no cigar" James
Beard nominee.
We were hopeful
on night one when we walked into La Boca to check out the local tapas scene by
a three time Beard nominee after being seduced by a picture of tuna carpaccio
on the website. Of course, this buzz was heightened when we sat down and saw
exactly that dish being touted as the evening’s special. I quickly perused the
menu which looked pretty creative and listed a stream of about seven things
that I was anxious to try. We even stayed
upbeat when the bocquerones arrived on a plate; tiny white anchovies smothered
in olive oil and way too much citrus zest, hoping that the flavor saturation
was indeed meant for that dish.
But everything
went downhill when the tuna arrived as dense and bland slabs of okay grade fish
but ruined by the thick and room temperature (supposed) blood orange (but that
tasted more like strawberry mayonnaise – I know gross ha?) aioli. I couldn’t
eat more than one bite and sat back and watched as the CG wiped all the fish
clean and doused it in olive oil because he was really hungry. Our waiter
didn’t seem to flinch when we asked for our check about thirty minutes after
sitting down but that was probably because the place was absolutely packed with
other tourists who must be the same ones who keep the restaurant open searching
for nothing more.
I won’t even go
into the eggplant mess that came next but it had me on the phone, in the restaurant,
calling other restaurants to find out who was still open to sate our ever-craving
appetites. Finally, Restaurant Martin said they would wait for us until nine
so we hit the streets, literally, and started to run/walk through the strange
early-to-sleep town to the cadence of my iPhone’s blinking GPS towards what we
hoped would still be dinner.
At Restaurant
Martin we were greeted by a very nice waitress into a pretty empty dining room
that reminded me of Michael’s in Santa Monica, and like Michael’s boasted
contemporary art straight out of the 1980’s when abstract digital photography
in lurid colors were appearing on giclee canvases from the DIY portfolios of
every major interior designer in small and chic desert towns. The food also
seemed to stem from a twenty year-old-menu but we were so hungry at this point
that everything was bound to taste good like the East Meets West; a strange
concoction pile of crab and lobster and fried onion things. Of course by now we
were downing wine like it was going out of style anxious to get our calories
from somewhere while simultaneously numbing our taste buds. And that only
continued post-dinner as we made our way downstairs at the Matador bar only to
be served a stand-in whiskey instead of what we ordered.
(Strike up
Twilight Zone music here)
We only had one
more opportunity for a meal before the onslaught of wedding activities that
ensued so we decided to be brave and give one more restaurant a try. The
Compound, through our research, actually had a James Beard winning chef and it
was a supposedly an expensive and dress up kind of joint and we were hankering
for something savory by this point.
We were the most
dressed up people in the place and the CG mentioned that by this point,
anything was going to taste great because we were so desperate to like
something. And that phenomenon actually did take hold as the corn soup was
delivered in neither puree nor chunky style but somewhere in between. But it
tasted like fresh corn and at that was good so we went on to enjoy our lunch
relieved that at least we didn’t have to stand up and leave.
Being newly
banned in eating foie gras in California we jumped on the dish here with
sweetbreads and mushrooms but it all swam together into an unremarkable brown
stew.
I liked the
shrimp risotto even though it was more like a pilaf and went heavy handed on
the dill. Again, at this point I was just happy to eat something I recognized
as tasting decent.
A redeeming
moment was delivered with dessert in the form of a stone fruit cobbler that was
simply fruit warmed under a crumble crust and left to sweeten in its own
natural juices.
Strangely enough,
after all the disappointment we ended up enjoying the food at the wedding
rehearsal dinner (a Mexican chafing dish buffet) and wedding (regional elk and
trout) ten times better than any of the so-called better gourmet restaurants.
Go figure.
The entire time
we were in Santa Fe we kept thinking that it would be a waste to not try out
all the aforementioned places in lieu of just cheating and eating Mexican food because
we can get such great Mexican food back home in Los Angeles for dirt cheap.
This is why we chose to stay away from the oddly French named but Mexican
breakfast serving CafĂ© Pasqual’s. Apparently, according to just about everyone
I know whose ever lived in or visited Santa Fe in the past decade, that was a
huge mistake to overlook a meal there.
No comments:
Post a Comment