New Year’s Eve – Last Day in Santa Fe

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Today was a very chill day, nothing really on the itinerary except pottery shopping. We slept until 9, so did Tarragon. After that we got ready and headed to Tia Sophia’s for our last New Mexican meal (dinner is anything but New Mexican.) Tia Sophia is a breakfast and lunch only hotspot. Fortunately, the wait time was on 15 minutes, as opposed to the 1 hour wait at Pasquals. It is nothing fancy, pretty much a New Mexican Diner. The food is anything but diner food.

All the traditional dishes were on the menu, Green Chile Stew, Huevos Rancheros and so on. Chicken Enchiladas were the Friday special so of course that is what Jerry had, with red sauce. The sign out front said “not responsible for too hot chile”, it was spicy but certainly not as hot as the red chile at Tomasita’s.

I had the Tia Sophia’s Frito Pie Supreme. Yes, there were corn chips (I think they were house made corn chips not actual Fritos; I know a Frito when I taste one.) It was loaded with ground beef, lettuce, beans, cheese, Fritos, and onions. It was served inside a sopaipilla and I had Christmas Chile. The Green was much hotter than the red.

We also had a side of chips, salsa and guacamole. Probably the best guacamole of the trip but needed garlic and some salt. The waiter was full of very bad jokes but it was an enjoyable meal.

There is a Winter Storm Alert for Santa Fe all the way to Denver. To prepare we went to Whole Foods, to make sure we had water and some food for the drive tomorrow, just in case we might get stranded. The storm has not yet materialized, they keep pushing back when the snow will hit, but we are prepared either way.

The rest of the day was pottery shopping, which I let Jerry do on his own. I am not much of a shopper and I would just interrupt is shopping process. In the end he went back to the very first shop and bought the one I first picked out. Hmmm, could have saved a lot of time looking, but he enjoyed the hunt.

Tonight’s dinner is a bit of a gamble, we have gotten mixed reviews for various waiters in town. Tonight’s menu is a special 4 course NYE menu and it looks pretty Asian/French Fusion. Could be great or it could be a total miss. We shall see.

Tarragon did not go on his walk tonight, he was all ready to go out, took a few steps out the door, sniffed the air, and turned around and came right back in. I think he smelled the pending snow.

I have enjoyed our time in New Mexico, yes there were some food misses and other frustrating experiences, but overall, it was a very successful real vacation since the Pandemic hit. It is not over, we have a final dinner in Santa Fe and two nights in Denver, then the flight home, assuming flights don’t get cancelled due to weather or covid.

New Year’s Eve Dinner

I am writing this part of the blog on January 2, so a bit after the actual dinner. Opening comments, Restaurant Martín is in a very nice adobe style building, probably a home at one time. The owners support a horse shelter for abused and abandoned horses. The regular menu is inventive an Asian/French fusion. Over all impression was it was good, not outstanding, not horrible, but just ok.

There was a special 4 course (really 3 ½ courses) NYE menu, I will get to that in a bit. The service was rushed, we barely had a sip of our cocktail, before the first course was set before us. Two bites into the first course, course two arrived. That is when I put a halt to it. We are not paying the price we are paying to be rushed out like we are eating in a diner. I was firm, but polite (no lawyer voice). We both explained that we hadn’t finished our cocktail, barely touched the first course and they needed to slow down. The interesting thing (ok not really interesting but very exasperating) was that all the straight couples were not treated that way. Classic two men, in a nice restaurant get treated very differently than a straight couple. The owner did finally come over and apologize and from that point forward the meal proceeded at the correct pace.

This was a prefix, dinner with options for each course, astonishingly if you wanted bread that was another $3 per person, for what we paid for dinner, I think they could have thrown in the bread (which was very good.) Final comment before I tell you what we had. If you’re going to have an 8:30 seating on NYE, then don’t turn the lights up at 9:45 and start clearing the tables. It was clear that they wanted us out. We were not the last to leave, there was one couple after us, and they had no intention of being rushed out the door. Bottom line here and my travel tip, do not go here on a holiday, the food is not worth the price or experience.

Now to the food. It was all good, cooked properly but nothing jumped off the plate as outstanding. It was a good meal, nothing more nothing less. Certainly nothing special. If you’re a trendy fusion person, then you might like it. Our tastes run to more classic, traditional presentations that don’t try to do too much. Jerry had to continually refer to the menu to figure out what he was eating. There was not too much happening on the plate with each course. I am all for being creative and inventive, but less is more, you don’t need 5 different flavors hitting you with each bite. The menu is presented as we had it.

Cocktails: Jerry had a red chile old fashion (no hint of red chile), I had a Rosemary French 75 (gin, sparkling rose, lemon and rosemary sprig.) Both were nice.

Amuse Bouche: Yellow Fin Tuna Tartare (avocado-wasabi purée, puffed rice toasted Nori), the wasabi could not be tasted, but the tuna was nice. Wild Mushroom-Fresh Mozzarella Risotto Sphere (other wised known as Arancini.) This was risotto with oven dried tomato-calabrain chili aioli and argumato Oil (whatever that is). If there was suppose to be chile in it, you certainly couldn’t taste it. Fairly bland.

Appetizers: Jerry had the pan seared duroc pork cheeks (Caramelized Onion-Apple Butter, delicata squash, green onions (which you could not cut) Kinome Smoked Matsutake-sudachi glaze (again whatever that is.) I had Blackened Gulf Prawns (Spanish Chorizo-Crispy Rice cake, black tea smoked carrots, citrus Supremes, preserved lemon rouille.) This was one of the more outstanding dishes of the night, but still too much was happening on your tongue at the same time.

Entrées: Jerry had the Manhattan cut prime New York beef strip loin. I have no idea what a Manhattan cut is, lived in Manhattan for 7 ½ years never experienced any cut of steak that was unique to Manhattan. This was served with Braised Cheeks Cassolette (no it was not even close to a cassolette, but the beef cheeks did melt in your mouth) Yukon Potato Mille Feuille (completely flavorless) Young carrot, Fermented black Garlic (not even on the plate.) I had the Maple leaf farm duck Brest. The duck was perfectly cooked, could have been warmer. This was served with a Hot and Sour Glaze (of which it was neither), duck leg confit tart (it was not confit) spiced Anjou pear-ginger compote, glazed Tokyo turnips, lapsang souchnong-duck reduction (again whatever that is).

Dessert: Jerry had Babba au Rhum (which is one of his favorites) he was very disappointed, the cake portion was dry and there was no rum at all. The exact description from the menu is: Almond-blueberry praline, mascarpone Chantilly, orange-rum syrup, white chocolate banana ice cream. I had been looking for the dessert I was having for two days, since I first saw it on the menu. We fell I love with semi Freddo on our last trip to Italy, what I had on NYE was not it. I had the Valrhona chocolate and espresso semi-freddo (they missed the mark here.) Description on the menu: Matcha-chocolate sponge cake, chocolate almond sable, raspberry marshmallow basil, rum raisin ice cream.

As you can see from the detailed descriptions, which I purposely put in, they just did to much on each plate. The essence of the main component on each plate was just lost in all the fluff. They have very lovely descriptions for each, but the execution did not match the words.

Needless to say, no dish of the day as nothing jumped out at us.

Tomorrow on to Denver (snow storm a coming)

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Photos

Gucamole
Tia Sophia's

Frito Pie
Tia Sophia's

Chicken Enchilada
Tia Sophia's