We spent the Memorial Day weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico, mostly ate, visited an ancient native American village called Taos and soaked in some mineral enriched warm springs.

Santa Fe is beautiful, set amidst the towering Sangre De Cristo mountains, full of structures built in the adobe style and offering flavourful and spicy south western food.  The high altitude desert seems to stretch on endlessly, stark in it’s beauty and the never ending expanses offering some brilliant views of lightning strikes.  Add to this, the relaxing experience of soaking in a private mineral springs under the stars, the weekend was perfect in every way.

The food though, was the highlight and that shall be the focus of my post. This was our first taste of New Mexican food, it is the most flavourful local cuisine we have had in the US so far, the use of chilli being a key contributor to it’s excellent taste.

Cafe Castro

Chili Relleno

On our way to Santa Fe from Albuquerque, we stopped at Cafe Castro for a late lunch. We picked the place based on excellent yelp reviews.

It was homely, diner like and  had amazing chili releno. The chilies themselves were spicy, the batter light and fluffy and the ancho chili infused red chili sauce super spicy, though all very flavourful.

A delightfully new  thing to us were the sopapillas,  soft, puffed, fried corn dough very similar to the Indian batura. This was to be torn into little pieces, honey added to it and eaten.

Sopapillas

La Boca

La Boca is a tapas restaurant, small with closely placed tables, lots of chatter and a general air of fun and well being.  The blood orange sangria was good, fruity though a bit dilute from the ice.  I don’t recollect  the exact tapas we ate, but I do remember some cheese with pickled peppers which was excellent, good patatas bravas, an excellent eggplant puree with really soft pita and a salad with mejdool dates which was also very good.  We finished with an excellent dessert wine,  one of the ports on the recommendation of our server.

Chocolate Maven

We found this place based on a list of restaurants that Giada Laurentis had visited during a weekend getaway.  They do serve good hot chocolates, but otherwise it is hardly all about chocolate as it’s names suggests. The place is predominantly a bakery with a cafe serving lunch and dinner.

Blue Corn Enchiladas

We ate here on two occasions, the first of which I had blue corn enchiladas with a green chili sauce, spicy and quite excellent.  The next time I had the New Mexican tofu scramble which was flavoured with red chili and I could go so far as to say the tofu had really absorbed the flavour.  Sunil also had a cheese sandwhich on their rye bread which he liked.  From the bakery we tried the cherry tart, buttery flaky crust, thin layer of custard and tart cherry compote, simply wonderful.

The cafe has an area overlooking the bakery,  so you can watch pies, rolls and breads being prepared as you eat.

Bakery

La Casa Sena

Excellent ambience, open air dining set in a courtyard enhanced by  a brief thunderstorm with hail.  We had an excellent Spanish wine from the Rioja region. I had a southwestern vegetarian sampler with blue corn enchiladas and quinoa and Sunil had Mahi Mahi. Dessert was a lavender cream brulee, spectacular.

Tia Sophia’s

We had breakfast at this homely cafe in the heart of the touristy area of Santa Fe.  It was a simple huevos rancheros with hash brown and green chili. Everywhere, the chili was spicy and so flavourful.

Kakawa Chocolate House

Kakawa Chocolate House

Serving both Mesoamerican, Mayan and European hot chocolate drinks,  this place is a real gem.  I had the Aztec Warrior Elixir,  unsweetened cocoa mixed with fragrant herbs and spices, mixed only with water, truely elixir and unsurpassed in it’s complexity of flavour. Sunil had the Mayan Full Spice Elixir, unsweetened cocoa, mixed with spices, chili and sweetened with agave nectar, even better than the Aztec Warrior Elixir.

We spent an afternoon in this cafe sipping these divine drinks and eating chili flavoured dark chocolate.  This has been the best hot chocolate that I have ever had.

This is their website : http://www.kakawachocolates.com/.