Regional Cuisine or Bust?

Green Chile Stew @ the Blue Corn Cafe
Sorry, this picture is a little dark!

One of the things I really love about going on vacation is trying new restaurants. I always look for local restaurants (or, if in a bind, chains that we don’t have in Sorta’ Cosmopolitan), hoping to indulge in local regional cuisine. You really can’t get to the heart of a culture until you’ve tried the food. Needless to say, I was really eager to head out to the southwest so I could eat one of my favorite foods: tamales.

I probably have high expectations because I travel to Louisiana quite a lot. You just cannot find bad food in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or Lafayette (unless you eat at a national chain). Unfortunately, The Coach and I did not have the same experience on this trip. We had three good meals as we traveled through Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona. My best meal came from one of the places you would least expect: a gas station on (or near – I am not sure which) an Indian reservation in Laguna, New Mexico.  This was not a gas station associated with a casino or anything like that. It was just a hole-in-the-wall gas station that had a small takeaway grill with five or six seats. If I hadn’t been so hungry from hiking around Bandelier and Petroglyph national monuments, I probably wouldn’t have even ordered the food.

But, I am so glad we did. I went for the Laguna burger which was loaded with toppings including this wicked green chile. It had just the right amount of kick; warm enough to tell your taste buds that you’re eating a chile, but not so hot that your nose runs. I am telling you, this is the best hamburger that I have eaten in years. I’m not bullshitting you here – it was so good that I would have stopped in Laguna on the way home from Arizona if we weren’t running so far behind. In addition, the gals who were working the cash register at the gas station were so damn friendly and polite that they even showed us a shortcut to Phoenix.

I did manage to have decent tamales at two different places. The first place, The Blue Corn Cafe and Brewery, was in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I had the red chile pork tamales with a cup of the green chile stew. The stew was freakin’ awesome, very earthy with chiles, pork, potatoes and something called posole. Now, being a southern girl, I thought the stew had hominy in it, so I Googled posole to find out what the hell it was:

Posole corn is prepared by soaking hard kernels of field corn (traditionally white, although blue is sometimes used now) in powdered lime and water – a method thought to mimic the ancient preservation of corn in limestone caves. After several hours, when the corn kernels have swollen, the liquid is allowed to evaporate and the kernels to dry.

Posole is different from hominy, another kind of processed corn, which tends to be softer and more bland.Compared to hominy, posole’s flavor is intense and earthy, its consistency more robust. Since posole corn can be difficult to find, hominy is often used as a substitute in posole stew. (source)

Now, I liked this stew so much that I am going to attempt to recreate it at home. I’ll have to use hominy, of course, but I bet I can get pretty damned close. I’ll have to keep you posted on my progress.

The other good tamales were from a local chain in Oklahoma City … but the name of the place alludes me now. The Coach stopped there because the parking lot was packed; when we got inside the restaurant, it looked to be mostly contractors and construction guys. The food was cheap and good; in fact, the tamales were heartier than the ones in New Mexico. The only problem with the restaurant was that the wait staff was incredibly eager to bus our plates … and I am a contemplative (i.e., slow) eater.

Unfortunately, our other meals pretty much sucked. What is it with Americans? Every exit seemed to be loaded with the same three choices: McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell. Yes, Taco Bell in the southwest. How freakin’ lame is that? Occasionally we came across chains that we had never seen before: Braums (gross breakfast food), Alotaburger (adequate hamburger, but good green chile and pretty good onion rings), Whataburger (we didn’t stop here), and Carl’s Jr. (which, quite frankly, gave me a horrible case of … well, you get the point).

In an attempt to find some good road food, we did drive Route 66 into Albuquerque — approaching the city from the Nine Mile Hill, driving through Old Town, Downtown and the University District. We had a map of Central Avenue that pointed out all of the coffee shops, the old motor court hotels, the neon signs, and restaurants. The map included a place called the Pig Stand, but it’s either closed or we passed it. Later, when I looked at the date on the map, I realized that it was seven years old. I’ve tried to Google the “Pig Stand” but nothing comes up, so I suspect that it’s actually closed.

Finally — and I blame the Food Network for this one — The Coach and I went out for a nice (re: expensive) dinner in Los Alamos and I ordered the kobe beef hamburger. According to the Food Network folks, Kobe beef is supposed to be so tender that it melts like butter. Yeah, my burger was tender but it tasted horrible; in fact, the first bite actually tasted like salmon. After gagging a little in the back of my mouth and making a nasty face, I managed to convince The Coach to trade entrees with me. He claims that only half of the burger tasted fishy, so I suspect that someone fucked up in the kitchen. I probably should have sent it back, but I was tired, the odds of me eating in that restaurant again are slim to none, and it just wasn’t worth the effort.