The next morning we went out to breakfast at Kelly's on Central, it's a microbrewery with a huge space filled with big long tables. Maybe it was a car dealership or something like that in a previous life? We met our friends who made me the 1000 paper cranes. It was so cool to finally meet them in person! Kids eat free on weekends so they each got the kid breakfast of one egg (Z. skipped that), a pancake and bacon. The other Z. (my friend's 10 year old boy) got a side of green chile for his. A., J., and myself all got the huevos rancheros covered in green chile, with J. getting extra chile. It was great jumping right into the NM hot stuff. Funny how I don't really eat food that is quite that hot at home, but when in NM I go for it.
After spending a couple of hours hanging out with our friends at Kelly's we left and went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. We walked around the museum, the art galleries and saw a dance performance in the courtyard (and actually we participated in a snake dance which A. and I enjoyed while Z. complained the entire time since at 10 years old she already has the "I'm too cool for this mom" thing going on). We decided to eat lunch before we drove to Santa Fe (late, it was about 3pm or so) at their restaurant, the Pueblo Harvest Cafe. Z. ordered a grilled cheese and fries and while she didn't eat it all she liked it and thought it was the cheesiest grilled cheese she'd ever had. A. ordered the Jemez Enchiladas- they took a flour tortilla and stuffed it with cheese and then rolled the whole thing in red chile powder and baked it. It was very good. I had the Tiwa Taco which wasn't like any taco I've had previously. It was a round of Indian fry bread on the bottom with beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato and red chile sauce and another round of Indian Fry bread on top. Messy but good! A. and I shared both dishes. Z. got a gigantic peanut butter cookie from the little bakery case they have at the entrance of the restaurant for dessert. A. and I shared an order of pinon pumpkin bread. It was a dense and chewy bread, not real sweet and warmed up, topped with a ton of whipped cream. After the first couple of bites I found it addicting and ate more than I probably should have, but yum!
We drove up to Santa Fe and checked into our hotel, the Casapueblo Inn. It's owned by the El Dorado Hotel (a big expensive hotel a few blocks away) but has the advantage of free parking (without valet, you drive up and park outside the rooms, like a motel) and we got a suite room so had a separate bedroom for A. and I and the fold out couch for Z. and a small efficiency kitchen with microwave, stove, sink, fridge, cabinets with dishes, pots and pans, silverware etc. I also had gotten a great deal on the room $116/night, less than half the rate it usually goes for in August. We could walk to the Plaza area easily and there were many restaurants within walking distance. The only negative is that the management is at the hotel from 7am to 7pm and outside of those hours you have to call the El Dorado for service.
After checking in we were all pretty tired so we decided to drive to Whole Foods (just a few minutes drive) and buy bottled water for our week and pick up something in the prepared foods for dinner. Before we left A. called the hotel manager and asked for a few more pillows (I needed them for sleeping & positioning especially with my back hurting). A. got a piece of fried chicken, I got a piece of turkey meatloaf, we shared a balsamic lettuce, tomato and mozzarella salad and a piece of Chocolate Maven chocolate mousse cake (OMG, that was really good!). There wasn't anything in the prepared foods that Z. wanted so I broke down and got her an Ian's frozen kid's meal, a few chicken nuggets, a few curly fries, some apple pudding stuff and maybe something else. Z. wanted some milk chocolate so we got her a bar for dessert (which she ate over the course of the week). We also got wine at Whole Foods. A. was so excited to see good, cheap wine there! We live in a state store system state so can't buy wine anywhere but a state store, so this was a novelty. He found a $4 bottle of red wine that was actually really good!
When we got back to the hotel it was 7:15 and as we pulled in we saw the manager and the trainee he had been training when we checked in and they waved to us as they left. We got to our room and no pillows. A. was pissed! He called the El Dorado hotel and they said sure they could give us pillows but that we had to go over there to get them. A. drove over there and got them while I heated up the meals. After dinner we all collapsed in bed and went to sleep.
3 comments:
You're making me hungry for green chile! I told my farmer last week that I was already missing it - unfortunately, his chiles won't be ripe for a few more weeks. I have a couple plants in the backyard, but they only have a couple chiles each. Sigh...
I love that first picture! What great pictures.
mmmmm.....
One benefit I didn't know about eating at Los Cuates was they participate in UPromise so we got a few cents for our dinners there (we ate at the one on Menaul on Monday night - had to go those yummy sopapillas one more time).
I have to say that I did NOT prefer the salsa in NM at the restaurants we went to, but I did like the salsa they had at the hotel - it's more like what we like.
did i really order extra chile? i don't remember. but yum. if i remember correctly, a friend told me once that kelly's used to be a garage...hence the garage doors.
we miss you guys. it was so fun to hang out with you.
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