Santa Fe’s own super-gyro!
Power up on Mediterranean classics
When our pal The Good Doctor makes culinary comments, we listen. He’s a gourmand, a superb chef, has dined in every sort of establishment in every part of the world (in short, he should be writing this column), and so when he mentioned a little gyros place out Eldorado way, Oasis Café, we made a date.
As even amateur restaurant-goers know, some of the finest, most pleasurable eating experiences occur in some of the most unprepossesing of places. That incredible sushi place in a strip shopping mall near O’Hare airport; that panini and beer at the counter in a tiny cafe in Rome jammed with plaster-covered workmen.
And so it is that Oasis Café in La Tienda complex in Eldorado joins that jolly list of places that don’t look like much, then blow your socks off. Tucked in the sunny southeast corner of a walk-in commercial building, a cheerier spot you couldn’t find. Less is more as the minimalists say, and this is the m.o. at Oasis, with a dozen or so tables inside (plus a few outside in the interior hallway and several available on a sunny outside patio, weather permitting), vintage travel posters on cool, Mediterranean blue walls, nice architectural touches of corrugated metal, compact, gleaming kitchen right behind the counter — microwave, small oven, efficient little grill — a real potted palm or two and the real kicker, the unmistakable sax of Hank Mobley and one of his mid-’50s quintets swingin’ on the sound system! An oasis indeed.
Wife and husband team Rebecca and John Conlon opened Oasis Café three years ago (if the name rings a bell, John is the son of the late Bunny Conlon, a great lady of the New Mexico art and business communities) and, as I had to ask The Good Doctor later, what took me so long?
Hailing as we do from Chicago, we know from Halsted Street and gyros, or “gyro,” which is from the Greek and means literally “to turn,” and love it. The meat — pork, chicken, beef, veal and lamb, you name it — is cooked on a rotating, vertical rotisserie, pieces shaved off and served on pita flatbread with tomatoes, onion and tzatziki sauce, a creamy dressing of yogurt, cucumber, olive oil, garlic, salt, etc.
As the Mobley quintet segued into a Red Garland number, we stepped up for a Street Oasis Lunch Special, with chips and drink ($8.95), a straightforward gyro with tomatoes and tzatziki served with a little cup of chickpeas and spicy sauce (delicious and good for you); one Deluxe Oasis gyro ($8.50), with hummus, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, onions, feta cheese and tzatziki sauce.
I will say, served on warm pita bread, sitting in a sunny Mediterranean corner near the 1972 Seeburg jukebox (yes, an actual record-playing phonograph jukebox with Gladys Knight and the Pips, et al. still in there), we could have been at one of the finer spots on Halsted Street just west of the Loop, or in Athens. (BTW, that’s where gyros was introduced by immigrants from Turkey only after World War II! Bet you didn’t know that, and don’t tell any Greek friends).
The Oasis tzatziki sauce is delicate and not overpoweringly cucumbered, and the serving of gyros, which is in this case is a combination of lamb and beef prepared and purchased from a Chicago company (perfect) and given a little grilling by Mr. Conlon before served, is almost preposterously large. Plentiful is an understatement and, ever the wag, T.G.D. advises not the best spot perhaps for a first date, as we smeared the tzatziki off of our face. Incredible. The real deal.
And if possible, the superb gyros were nearly topped by the muy picante, muy fabuloso Green Chile Con Carne ($3 cup; $5 bowl) with pinto beans, some red chili tossed in to liven things up, a touch of cumin and a touch of Texas in there amongst that green chile. Wow! As T.G.D. said, “Those chiles explode in your mouth as tastes, not in your solar plexus as indigestion!” Sadly, not on the menu every day; we just got lucky.
Oasis has the gyros down so perfectly that we suspect the grilled sandwiches and salads are superior, as well, and we are going back ASAP to find out. Meanwhile, I give the last word to T.G.D.:
“Oasis Cafe is an oasis of Mediterranean calm and soul-building food, and imaginative and solid soups. The only way to get a better gyros is a trip to a small island off Greece or Turkey.”
So says the doctor!