La Hacienda in Old Town is (“temporarily”) kaput. Pretty much every time I see temporarily on a close notice, it’s for good. Sorry.
Apparently we don’t grow enough of our own chile here…. that’s a shame. “The New Mexico Chile Association said countries like China are trying to corner some chile markets. Currently, imports account for 82 percent of the U.S. consumption of chile, officials said.”
And….. after a much hyped waiting period, the former Bumble Bee’s Baja Grill has been taken over by yet another set of Santa Feans and again as a Mexican joint with tacos and such. It’s owned by Mark Kiffin of The Compound. The Compound. That’s serious cred. I hope that Zacatecas Tacos & Tequila does ok, in the end. The talent is certainly there, but is the execution? (And that “Z” looks a little too much like the Getrude Zachary Z…. or is that just me?)
Sounds like we might need to seduce his band to come out (again?) and play the Sunshine or something local and then ply him with tons of the good green stuff. Or, Mary & Tito’s for some mind-blowing red. I know he already gets it, but hey, more chile is always better, right?
I love to hear when folks that “get it” with the chile thing talk publicly about their addiction after they’ve moved to another city. He’s very disparaging about Tex-Mex, which is awesome:
“You can’t find [New Mexico Chile] anywhere else in the world, let alone the southwest, and it always gets overshadowed with, you know, like Austin bragging about their fucking breakfast tacos like it was the biggest invention of the century and that kind of thing.”
. . . but the folks at the NM Tourism department still think that that’s what can and has been done.
Seriously. Choose your SINGLE favorite Green Chile Cheeseburger from a list of well over a hundred places, and then, list them all out for the entire state and culinary tourist nation to behold.
How to pick the best, if you were choosing all over again? Do you go by pure flavor, the size, the cheese, the spiciness of the chile, the condiments (or not), the price, the ambiance, the overall experience? Tough call, but with tons of foodie-driven voices already all over this list, you now have some great specimens to check out and evaluate – did they pick correctly?
Weigh in and tell me YOUR fave, and which one is on this list that really doesn’t deserve it. I’m sure there are a few.
Today is the LAST day to get your vote (or votes) in for the best Green Chile Cheeseburger in the entire gosh-darned state of the Land of Enchantment. The Land of Enchilement.
Whatever you want to call it, your voice must be heard, crying out in the wilderness of yellow processed cheese and canned chiles – choose the best, and vote as many times as you can ethically stand. Get creative and remember that amazing burger you had in some little dive in a tiny town, or just pile the love on to something BIG and inspiring and well-known.
“Allow me, then, to play the game: if we’re going to have a regional burger chain invade our county and go up against our In-n-Out’s and TK’s, why couldn’t it have been Blake’s Lotaburger, the country’s most-ardent proponent of what’s perhaps burgerdom’s greatest manifestation: the green chile hamburger?”
(Note, I have received a couple of emails from Five Guys reps asking me to come in and try their stuff. I absolutely will, but it is a rare chain restaurant that eventually gets a formal review. Maybe they’ll be one. Who knows.)
But Lotaburger gets Lotalove for its fries, the chile cheeseburgers, and just the fact that it is local and pretty gosh-darned good. Not utterly fabulous, not the best in the world, but just plain good.
How often do you get to enjoy something that is unpretentious, local, and good in that way? Enjoy your chile cheese fries and that strangely addicting shake flavor (that Blake’s claims is blackberry but always tasted very odd to me).
Closings, Openings, Happenings all over Albuquerque
