Today on Food on Fridays we travel back to Sante Fe. Well, just on the blog, that is – Chris and I are still in Seattle right now. But last fall, Chris and I enjoyed  our visit to Santa Fe. In addition to the scenery — the light is really as enchanting as they say — the food was also pretty great. I’ve already raved about the red sauce, but there were other things that were equally worthy of note. The owner of our funky little vacation apartment in Sante Fe provided a very long annotated list of restaurants, a list which turned out to be pretty reliable.

I actually wrote this list up a while back, but apparently never posted it. But FWIW, here are some of the restaurants we tried in Sante Fe, in ranked order, with some of our favorite dishes. Almost all are (northern?) New Mexico style food. Thanks to Chris for typing up the initial list, to which I have added my own annotations as well.

1. Pasqual’s http://pasquals.com We went there twice for the cheese and green chile tamales, as well as a chile relleno stuffed with melted cheese and fried in a batter. At Pasquals it’s served sliced in half, “omelette style”.  Plus for one of the meals we also had a spicy egg and polenta dish, topped with lots of red sauce. (good, but not pictured below):-)

Chile relleno with red sauce, tamale, beans and rice combo platter

Chile Relleno with red sauce, etc. –  2nd visit

2. Tune Up   http://tuneupsantafe.com The apartment owner’s favorite little place, which served a combination of New Mexican food (we had a breakfast burrito with egg and beans and cheese and red sauce), as well as Salvadorean pappusas (essentially a thick tortilla stuffed with beans and cheese).

3. Counter Culture  http://www.yelp.com/biz/counter-culture-cafe-santa-fe – a real locals feel to this place, where you order at the counter and then they bring you the meal. We had a cheese grilled polenta dish that was outstanding, along with the requisite red sauce.    They were also reputed to have the best cinnamon rolls in town, so of course we had to try them.They were huge – each one was more like a loaf of cinnamon bread.

Cheese polenta with red sauce

Closeup of cinnamon roll

4. Jambo http://jambocafe.net (Afro-Carribean; the chef is from Lamu, Kenya)  OK, so this was our non-New Mexican food day. We had a lentil stew and also a goat stew served with a starchy porridge. Really tasty.

5. Maria’s    http://marias-santafe.com – kind of (to me) a standard mexican style place, with tacos and enchiladas.  The owner of our place commented that she’d only be there to drink Margaritas, as they have something like 100 different types of tequila. We also tried the food; the enchiladas were OK, but the  house-made chips and salsa were quite good.

Anyway, as you can see, we ate quite well during our stay in Sante Fe. So on an a-typically sunny afternoon here in Seattle, we celebrate the food of Sante Fe. But that’s OK. After all, Food on Fridays can take you anywhere.