Albuquerque...A Quick Revisit Driveby

Since we're spending the summer in Santa Fe, one of America's small town food capitals, and since our anniversary was coming up, we decided to head down the hill, as we say, and drive the 60 miles or so to Albuquerque for a revisit of a couple of favorite places, Zinc Wine Bar and Bistro  http://zincabq.com/about-us/ and The Grove  http://www.thegrovecafemarket.com/philosophy/ . Go back to October, 2011 (in the right hand column...over there...to the right...see it?) to get more details about these two stellar Albuquerque mainstays. The good news is that nothing much has changed in five years (actually, we have been back to both in-between times...just haven't written about it), and, in fact, they both might even be better! Let me just interject here that Albuquerque continues to spiral upward as another way better than average food town too, just like it's smaller cousin to the north, Santa Fe. We are threatening to just hit it for a week or so sometime to dig deeper, like we've been doing again in Santa Fe (stay tuned for that). At The Grove we sat at one of our favorite indoor tables (they do have a great patio too!), I proceeded to dig in to my plate of perfect thin pancakes that are topped with a little honey, creme fraiche, and about half a cup of fresh berries and apples...heaven. I had picked up the latest copy of Edible Magazine, and there they were on page 12, with a great story on them and their successful operation, owners Lauren and Jason Greene. The story features a large picture of the couple, and as my eyes looked away from the magazine I noticed someone walking by the table with her little boy in tow.

Lauren's little guy, Bryce, keeping an eye on mom!

I looked at the magazine picture again. I looked up again, and there she was...Lauren, asking how everything was. Well, the conversation that ensued was fun, and we could both tell that she was one big reason why The Grove are two big buzz words in town and have been since they opened the doors in 2006...and why we keep coming back when there are so many other great restaurants nearby. Lauren's in charge of the hospitality and concept pieces. We meet owners and managers of places all the time and a few leave lasting impressions. Lauren is one of them. "So what's so special," you ask. First, the space The Grove occupies is very cool. Then, they serve Intellegencia Coffee from Chicago. We are coffee nuts. Intellegencia's are high end beans for coffee nuts. If you've ever had it, you get it. The coffee is expressive of the rest of the food offerings at The Grove. Jason (who we haven't met yet) handles the chef part of the team. The locally sourced ingredients are high end and the results taste like it. 

Pancakes smothered in fruit...eggs on their amazing muffins

The Grove is open every day for breakfast and lunch, and it really ramps up at peak times. There are two lines that move pretty quickly, and nobody really seems to mind the wait since it's a fun people watching scene at all times.

The line forms at the rear!

The place and The Greenes deserve all the praise that people (us included) heap on them. It's always one of our first stops when we hit town and it will continue to be!

  Zinc Wine Bar and Bistro was our anniversary dinner destination, and, as always, it didn't disappoint either.

Zinc's located on Central Avenue which is old Route 66

We usually look for Kevin or Keith, the two brothers who, along with their invested chefs, own the place. Turns out that they were at their two other terrific restaurants that night, so we were in the hands of Chef Chris Pope.

Chef Chris Pope of Zinc

It had been awhile since we'd been in and chef was busy with his line people, working lots of orders, when we bellied up to the high chairs that line two sides of the open kitchen...dinner and a show for us. Even though we both love to cook, it's fun almost being in the busy restaurant kitchen, listening to "order in...." and watching the organized chaos. Six or eight plates at a time, lined up, waiting for each ingredient on a three to four item plate to fill with over the top food. Mary Ann ordered, and I quote..."WILD MUSHROOM CHINESE BROCCOLI POTSTICKERS – Hand made dumplings with yuzu – tamari glaze,then served alongside a warm salad of napa cabbage, tatsoi, slivered vegetables &  toasted cashews, all tossed in yellow curry – miso vinaigrette." 

Look at the plates waiting to get finished in the kitchen!

  An unusual and creative dish, to be sure. I ordered one of Chef Pope's off the menu specials, the Branzino or European Sea Bass. It was served on a bed of creamed leeks and purple potatoes...delicioso! We ended with one of several unique desserts. Zinc's offerings in this category always match the rest of the menu, over the top wonderful. No run of the mill choices are anywhere in sight. A blueberry tart, maybe four inches deep, with a layered, buttery crust, and topped with a scoop of buttermilk gelato. All made in-house. All wonderful. Two great choices for anniversary eating (no chances were taken here!). 

  We did manage to check out one other new venue before we headed back up the mountain to Santa Fe. The Green Jeans Farmery  http://www.greenjeansfarmery.com/  is an example of a concept we've been watching for a little while now. It's sort of a coop of small store fronts, mostly occupied by restaurants, breweries, bakeries, and the like, where rents are lower, and food choices can be interesting. So far this one has what looks like eight or nine dining and drinking places. You could call it a free standing food court of local places, not attached to a mall. Or it could be described as a startup food location, anchored by a few well known places to draw people in. Here's how they describe it on their website:

Green Jeans Farmery* is a community-oriented commercial plaza constructed entirely with repurposed shipping containers as modular, architectural building blocks.  The Farmery functions as an indoor/outdoor gathering place that builds on ingenuity, fun and localist choices with the message of healthy living and neighborhood. We've seen smaller versions in East Orlando and a larger one in Dallas. It's always fun to see something new, and it'll be interesting to see if the idea , in one form or another, takes off in more places...

Green Jeans Farmery in Albuquerque

Colorado Springs...In The Garden of the Food Gods!

On Friday, July 29th, Mary Ann decided she needed a visit with her friend, Ann, so we headed up I-25 for a little 300 mile jaunt in Smartyn...to Colorado Springs. We last visited, or should I say..did a quick one night drive by, in 2009. Then, we vowed to come back to dig a little deeper because we could tell it was a place that had a lot of potential for us. Our hunch proved right based on this revisit. We pretty much hit the ground running Friday. Right after checking in to our hotel we were hungry, and after doing some quick online research, we found a place on Open Table that intrigued both of us, Till Kitchen http://tillkitchen.com/.

Here's what an 18,000 sq. feet, $13,000.000 restaurant looks like.

Turns out it was lucky to find it since it only opened about a month ago, and there's not much info on it yet. Judging from the crowd already there at 5:30 pm, and the fact there were no reservations available, the place doesn't need much in the way of PR help. It's an 18,000 square foot bustling market/restaurant that serves, as they call it, hyper local food, mostly sourced from within 50 miles. This is healthy food for people like us or those who could care less about eating healthy. The point is that it's all very well prepared...and delicious. A couple of examples off their menu, "Colorado Sourdough Pizza" (four to choose from), " Oak grilled trout with freshly dug potatoes, pole beans and herb butter," " Buttermilk shrimp with remoulade, cocktail sauce, potato, and cole slaw," "BLTA with our pullman bread, bacon, heirloom tomato, avocado, sharp cheddar, roasted pepper and local bibb." Many of the menu items and much more to take away are available in the adjoining Mercantile, where you also find fresh breads and bakery items, a coffee bar, a cheese counter, and gourmet items. As I mentioned, 18,000 square feet. That's a big space!

We sat at the long counter so we could have a good view of the open kitchen and all the activity. Dinner and a show for us! Our food was way above normal, service was efficient, and when we left our stools at the counter, we went over and picked out a small round piece of brown sugar pound cake to take back to the room. It was off the chart wonderful. Plain, yet very rich. I'm sure all of their other items are equally yummy. I know, Till Kitchen will be added to our must stop list of stellar places around the country!

On Saturday, after M A caught up with her friend, we went exploring around town, and we hit some of the must see places around, like The Garden of the Gods. 

 The Garden of the Gods

Well, touring around builds the appetite, right? Right! So of course we already had our dinner destination planned. A far cry from a place like Till Kitchen, the night  before, but not really any less interesting, is The Skirted Heifer http://www.skirtedheifer.com/#story in downtown. Colorado Springs has one of the more active ones we've come across lately. The streets are lined with eating places, shops, and bustling sidewalks, filled with mostly happy young, old, and in-between aged faces. Reminds me of old movies where you'd see similar scenes in downtowns  (only people were dressed very differently then). A lot of downtown Colorado Springs has very well preserved buildings, some going back 100 years or so, and just outside it, going mostly north, well preserved old, stately homes. That Turner Classic Movie vibe is definitely there. Okay, back to our food! This place might be familiar since it's been featured a lot, especially on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. We don't always agree with Guy Fieri but respect his ability to hunt down cool places in a given town and give them exposure. His assessment of this place was "rightous," and he did "knock it out of the park" this time! So a little burger joint owned by a couple who also own a well known Italian place in town. What's the big deal? What makes their burger different from any good, totally grass fed and finished burger? All you have to do is LOOK at this one. You will not be able to resist if you're a hamburger specialist, like me. From their website, When making burgers at home, they would melt a mound of cheddar cheese around the beef and grill it until it resembled a “skirt”. They always called the burger the “Skirted Heifer”!

Another way to describe it would be to marry a chewy grilled cheese with an incredible  hamburger. The cheese is grilled to form a kind of crust. It is too fun. Couple it with great skinny fries or fatter sweet potato wedges...hamburger nirvana! Mary Ann, the semi vegetarian, even broke rules and gave it an A+!! They even make all of their sauces, including Ketchup, from scratch. This place rocks hard!

We tried the frozen custard, with not quite as stellar results. The line was so long at The Skited Heifer, we went around the corner to their Bambino's Pizza http://www.bambinosurbanpizzeria.com/#!restaurant/crrl to see if they served it too. They do, so we ordered a cup of vanilla and chocolate together. The chocolate was great and rich, but the vanilla tasted flat. We're thinking it must have been an off batch, and we'll want to go back to try it again. We're betting that with the quality of everything else, it'll be better next time. By the way, at Bambino's, you go through a line and pick out your pizza toppings before they bake it. It's kind of like a pizza version of Chipotle! A clever and inventive way to do pizza!

There were several other places we wanted to try, but we chugged back to Santa Fe the next morning, our bellies very satisfied by finding not one, but two terrific eating places and catching some cool mountain sights too. Since there's nothing to eat in Santa Fe (TOTAL sarcasm!), it was a welcomed relief. Guess I'll have to do a refresher on our summer home here in Santa Fe soon...stay tuned.