I was going to make dinner tonight, but John texted me at the last minute to invite me to Harry’s Roadhouse, the nearest restaurant to his place, for dinner. Why not?!

It’s another restaurant with a colourful history and is very quintessentially American with a diner feel. We ate at a counter on stools and behind us were 1950s Formica tables with matching chairs. John says that it’s not the best food in Santa Fe, but it’s very popular because of its location and the price is right.

The menu was really eclectic, everything form New Mex food like burritos to burgers and pizzas to… Moroccan stew. Seriously. I was impressed by the selection and the reasonable prices.

It was really hard to decide so when John suggested the blue corn turkey enchiladas, that was it. I thought it would be interesting to compare Mexican enchiladas to New Mexican ones. John said that I would be asked if I wanted red or green, as in the chile sauce, and I surprised him by responding, “Christmas!” Another item off my travel bucket list, ordering something Christmas in New Mexico! 😀 That means you want half red sauce and half green.

New Mexican enchiladas are more substantial than Mexican ones, which are a meat filling in corn tortillas with some consomme over top and maybe a dollop of crema and some rice and beans on the side.

These were smothered in cheese (which, if you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you know is NOT a problem *g*) and had sour cream, guacamole (SO GOOD!), tomatoes, and whole beans on the side, plus a flour tortilla for mopping up your plate. Excellent! There was a bit of kick to the green sauce, but I really can deal with that now, and, besides, the sour cream is there to cool things down if you need to. The portion was generous, but there wasn’t quite enough to make two meals and at $10.50, the price was right even if I didn’t take home leftovers.

I’m thus far really impressed with the culinary offerings in Santa Fe!

Work was going surprisingly well this morning and by noonish, I was where I’d expected to be around 3:00. It was a gorgeous day, the first in about a week, and the last in about a week, so it was hard to stay focused. I decided to go hiking in an area that John recommended and thought about having lunch first, to have something to walk off.

The eternal optimist, I Googled ‘santa fe falafel’ and got a link for Cleopatra’s Cafe, an Egyptian/Mediterranean restaurant with two locations, one of which, on Cerrillos, was barely a detour from my destination!

Off I went and found the cafe in a little mall downtown. You order at a counter, but the server brings your food to the table on real china, not like a food court at all. I ordered the ‘Moses’ platter, with two (actually three) Egyptian-style falafel balls, chicken, garlic sauce, hummus, salad, and pita, for just under $12. Right now, $12 feels like a lot of money since I’m still coming off the high of my Mexico budget, but I will say before before I get into details that if I was going to spend $12 on a meal on this trip, I bought the right one!!!

Clockwise from the top left, we have salad with lemon vinaigrette and feta, marinated chicken, falafel (both covered with garlic sauce and paprika), and hummus with olive oil and more paprika.

Greek (thick/pocketless) pita.

Egyptian falafel is made with fava beans and is bright green!

Oh!

I won’t say this is anywhere near the top best Mediterranean meal I’ve ever had, but Cleopatra’s was an oasis in the desert and there is a very good chance I’ll be eating here again before I leave! I do have to say I’ve never had Egyptian food, so the seasonings were not as familiar to me as Greek or, my favourite, Lebanese. Cleopatra’s borrows from all these cuisines, though, so the salad, hummus, and garlic sauce were all as expected and pitch perfect.

The falafel were interesting. I actually had a choice of Lebanese or Egyptian, but have wanted to try Egyptian forever. They are made with fava beans rather than chickpeas, so they are green. They are also more mushy than crumbly. I didn’t find these nearly as flavourful as the best Lebanese or Syrian chickpea falafel I’ve had, but they had good flavour. I wouldn’t order them again, though, given a choice.

The salad was simple and perfect, with very fresh and crisp veg, a tangy lemon vinaigrette, and lots of salty feta.

The hummus was pretty basis, but the high quality olive oil that actually tasted like olives really dressed it up. The pita was very fresh and the perfect mop for both hummus and garlic sauce.

The chicken was moist and flavourful, although I did get a few bits of gristle. Really, it was just a conduit for garlic sauce, which did not disappoint!

The restaurant was doing a brisk trade at lunch today. I would like to go try the Zarafanos location as reviews for it are good while those for the Cerrillos location are middling, so I’d like to see if they are that different. Regardless, I had a dang good and satisfying meal and now know there’s no excuse for not being able to find decent and flavourful Mediterranean food south and west of the Montreal-Ottawa corridor! Santa Fe residents are dang lucky!