Monthly Archives: June 2011

One of our favorite Santa Fe gourmet dining experiences is The Old House inside the historic Eldorado Hotel & Spa.  We discovered this treasure many years ago, back when world-renown Chef Martin Rios headed the kitchen.  Indeed, this restaurant sparked our interest in wines when we selected an excellent Pinot Noir to go with our rack of lamb on our first visit there.  Martin has moved on to other culinary ventures in Santa Fe, but Executive Chef Anthony Smith still maintains excellent quality at reasonably affordable prices.

The wine this evening was one I’d never tried, Petite Petit 2009.  It’s an excellent blend of Petite Syrah and Petit Verdot that is much more complex and full-bodied than straight Petite Syrah.  I highly recommend this wine if you can find it.

The best deal in the house, as is usual for gourmet eateries, is of course the prix fixe menu.  Ursula selected a Caesar salad with white anchovies; miso glazed salmon served with baby bok choy, a wakami-sushi rice cake, and ginger vinaigrette; and for desert a chocolate lava cake.  I started with the Wedge—baby iceberg lettuce, grape tomatoes, pan-crisped pancetta, with a gorgonzola dressing.  My main course was the bistro steak with pomme frites, garlic spinach, and pan jus, and for desert I had an excellent crème brûlée.  Unfortunately, neither dessert lasted long enough to get photographed, but I did manage to capture the rest of the meal as well as some shots of the restaurant and its décor.

Here is a link to the current menu.

Try not to gain weight looking at the following photographs:

Ahhhh.  Santa Fe and Taos.  We make the journey to Santa Fe several times a year, and Taos perhaps once a year.  And never are we disappointed.  It’s like another world.  This year, for Father’s Day, Ursula took me to Taos, New Mexico, for some whitewater river rafting and dining at one of our favorite restaurants for traditional New Mexican cuisine—Orlando’s New Mexican Café.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and, after photographing the magnificent and rather intimidating Rio Grande Gorge, including from atop the unnerving Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (and, yeah, you can feel it shake when traffic goes by), we stopped at Orlando’s for dinner.  My entrée was the combination plate—a chicken taco made with a blue corn tortilla, cheese and onion enchilada with red sauce, a New Mexican-style red pork tamale, beans, and posole (hominy cooked in chili sauce).   Ursula had the shredded beef chimichanga, beans, and posole served with caribe sauce (a very spicy red sauce made from the entire chili pod, including the seeds and ribs) on the side.  Desert for me was apple pie à la mode, while Ursula opted for one of her favorites, the frozen avocado pie.

So, today’s photographs document the Rio Grande Gorge and dinner at Orlando’s.  Enjoy!