Wide-open wonders abound in El Paso
Ample cuisine and culture put this border town on the map.
Iforgot my passport, but that didn’t matter. I was in El Paso, technically not Mexico, but close enough.
I knew that Mexico was over there — the country felt like a portrait whose eyes were always following me — but it was also here, on this side of the fence. (One constant reminder of the shared boundary: U.S. Border Patrol vehicles parked along Interstate 10 and helicopters flying overhead.) Signs in restaurant windows advertised menudo soup, and not just for Sunday supper; girls dressed in their quinceañera best posed for photos in San Jacinto Plaza. At H&H Car Wash and Coffee Shop, a waitress returned my morning greeting with a “buenos dias” before setting down a heaping plate of huevos rancheros.
At bars around town, I learned that a chile is the cocktail condiment of choice. Two customers at Love Buzz introduced me to the paleta shot, which evokes the chilefied watermelon lollipops of their Mexican youth, and a bartender at Cafe Central rimmed a mescal-filled glass with ground-up crickets, chiles and salt. Note to high school Spanish teachers: Add the phrase “sal de grillos” to your lesson plan.
Of course, the southern Joneses aren’t the sole influences on this sun-broiled city in the Chihuahuan Desert. El Paso is in the United States, after all, which means the Spaniards left their mark, as did — and still do — the Pueblo Indians. A shopkeeper at the Tigua Indian Cultural Center shared her recipe for traditional oven-baked bread. I’d need flour, water, salt, lard and an horno, she told me, or I could throw down six bucks for quicker loaf gratification.
And then there is the Texas connection. To feel it, I could look up at the 459-foot-long illuminated star set in the Franklin Mountains, or down at the pair of Rocketbuster cowboy boots that taught me how to walk the El Paso walk. --The National Border Patrol Museum, a nonprofit attraction started by retired agents and open since 1984, is full of “who knew?” moments. For example, did you know that the government created the earliest incarnation of the agency in 1904 to apprehend or deter Chinese and European immigrants who had failed their inspections at Ellis Island? (The BP as we know it arrived two decades later, on May 28, 1924.) That the enforcers accompanied James Meredith, an African-American student, when he registered at the segregated University of Mississippi? And that illegal immigrants affix horseshoeshaped wood blocks and sponges to their shoes to avoid detection?
The information at this compact museum comes at you faster than the “Miami Vice”-style jet boat that was seized in the Miami area and used by Buffalo’s station to police the Great Lakes. At the gift shop, stock up on Border Patrol souvenirs such as beer koozies, a necklace-and-earring set, T-shirts and baseball caps, including two styles that require credentials to purchase.
Franklin Mountains State Park, the country’s largest urban park, resembles a rocky mohawk parting El Paso. The nearly 27,000-acre sanctuary stretches to the New Mexico
state line and incorporates the Wyler Aerial Tramway (one-way ride time: four minutes) and more than 100 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. Choose your entrance wisely.
The Tom Mays Unit contains campsites and a diverse network of treks, including the easy-onthe-knees Nature Walk and the moderate Aztec Cave Trail, which ends with caverns that once held pottery sherds and yucca mats and sandals.
At McKelligon Canyon, pick up maps and advice, including a reality check on rattlesnakes and the heat, at the small visitors center and gift shop. (The park is building a new headquarters and visitors center at Tom Mays to replace the old facility; ETO is next summer.)
The challenging Ron Coleman Trail, which inches along Franklin’s spine, departs from here and requires rock-scampering skills. With the exception of a sliver of coverage on the West Cottonwood Spring Trail, the park has scant shade and no taps, so visor on and water up before setting out. --First things first: How to pronounce Hueco Tanks State Historic Site. Repeat after me, “Waco.” The Spanish noun refers to the hollows in the igneous rock that, after a good rain, transform into watery cradles for tadpoles and fairy shrimp. (New visitors must watch an orientation film and learn about the dire consequences of stepping in the egg incubators.) The 860-acre park ranks as one of the world’s best spots for bouldering, so don’t be surprised to see climbers hauling mattresses to cushion their falls. However, you don’t need to leave desert firma to view a sampling of more than 2,000 pictographs, including hundreds of masks; a handful of petroglyphs; and a subway car’s worth of historical graffiti.
The drawings and carvings range in date from 10,000 years ago to the 1990s. In Newspaper Cave, one inscription reads, “Francisco Avila 4-6-69.” Park superintendent Ruben Ocampo mulled the year: “Even though it says ‘69, is it 1869? 1969?” If only the rock walls could talk.
The 9-mile El Paso Mission Trail strings together two missions, one chapel and more than 335 years of history as dramatic as a Larry McMurtry novel. Moving from north to south, the silver-domed Ysleta Mission, which the Spaniards and Tigua built in 1682, is the oldest mission in Texas. The adobe structure survived Rio Grande floodings, fires and a transfer of sovereignty from Mexico to the United States. The altar stars the usual suspects, plus a statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American to receive sainthood from the Catholic Church. At the Socorro Mission, look heavenward to see the oldest relic in the state, painted cottonwood ceiling beams (or vigas) from the original 17th-century church. Finally, the Presidio Chapel at San Elizario (established 1877-1882) served as a revolving spiritual door for troops stationed at the garrison. Since the Mexican American War, peace has reigned in San Elizario. “Alleluia” to that. --Like Proust, Octavio Zavala taps into the time-machine powers of food. Instead of madeleines, the chef-owner of Valentine’s Kitchen & Bar boards the bone-marrow bus to his El Paso adolescence. “That’s a hardcore childhood memory,” he said of bobbing for the meaty bits in his grandmother’s beef broth.
For his modern take on nostalgia, he pairs a whole femur with tortillas, pico de gallo, sea salt and lime. He also draws on his more recent memories as a student at the French Culinary Institute in New York and an intern for such celebrated chefs as JeanGeorges Vongerichten, Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud and David Chang. The pork belly tacos, for instance, riff on Momofuku’s pork buns. “They were delicious,” said Zavala, who with his wife opened the current location of Valentine’s in March. “But it doesn’t need a bun; it needs a tortilla.” Once home, Zavala could finally liberate the pork belly.
Cafe Mayapan feeds a movement: Garment workers created its mother organization, La Mujer Obrera, in 1981 to fight for the rights of female factory workers in El Paso, many of whom were mistreated and later displaced when the textile industry relocated to Mexico. The group added
the restaurant in 2001 to offer the women new skills as well as sustenance.
The menu embraces the Mexican cuisine of their forebears. “We are pushing ancestral foods because we have lost that connection to who we are and to the earth,” said Hilda Villegas, the nonprofit group’s community organizer. The kitchen staff integrates ingredients — cactus, cilantro, tomatoes, chiles, lettuces, herbs — grown at its nearby garden. Several dishes are vegetarian and all are empowering. The grilled cactus stuffed with asadero cheese and mushrooms with chipotle, for one, can seemingly make the world a better place. --On a recent weekday, the morning rush at H&H Car Wash and Coffee Shop included a businessman in a suit and tie, a grayponytailed doctor, a regular in a University of Texas at El Paso sweatshirt and a white pickup. At the hybrid establishment, open since 1958, you can wash down breakfast or lunch while your ride receives the salon treatment.
The space is as cramped as a gas station convenience store, with a row of orange stools lining a teal Formica counter and a few tables and chairs pressed against a wall littered with photos of customers and the owners’ family members. You can also take your meal outside and watch the car-cleansing show from a chair that folds up — or rocks. The menu specializes in Mexican classics (flautas, carne picada, chile rellenos), with a dash of Denny’s (two eggs with bacon or sausage, oatmeal). And no dish is more than the price of a wash.
This year, Cafe Central will celebrate its centennial, including its early years in Ciudad Juarez, across the border, as a social hot spot for patrons fond of cigars, gambling and cabaret. The restaurant’s founders moved the joint to El Paso after Prohibition, and in 1991, the current owners refined the dining experience with a European-inflected menu and decor borrowed from a wedding reception hall. The restaurant has not completely abandoned its roots, however. Most of the dishes contain some Southwestern pixie dust: The Chilean sea bass, for instance, comes with a dab of chipotle lime butter, and the beef tips are spiked with jalapeño au jus. For its anniversary, the bar will prepare a celebratory cocktail with mezcal, chipotle syrup, bitter chocolate, pineapple slices, lime juice and sal de grillos imported from its birthplace. --The co-founders of Paradigm Texas could wallpaper Anna Wintour’s closet with their résumés. Robert Lomnicki and John Zimmerman, who opened their lifestyle store two years ago, have worked at Bergdorf Goodman, Armani and Prada, to name a high-fashion few. So, when the partners suggest any of their wares — Italian glassware from Vietri, a black resin skull with a crystal mohawk or a pet toy labeled “Chewy Vuitton” — you can trust their taste. “If we wouldn’t put it in our home,” Lomnicki said, “we wouldn’t have it in our store.”
You will need to take a few laps around the artfully stuffed store to uncover all of the surprises and delights, which include reclaimed brass and horn jewelry by Kenyan artisans, hand-loom throws from Colombia and large-scale photographs by Peter Svarzbein, a local politician. If your energy starts to wane, stop by the Sugarfina station and pop a champagne gummy bear or Kir Royale cordial in your mouth — the candy of champions.
At TI:ME at Montecillo, a four-year-old development with nearly 10 stores, behold the wonders inside shipping containers. Chuco Relic packs its repurposed structure with El Paso-centric items such as handmade drums by tween wunderartist Chance Bailey Johnson; cheery landscapes by Patrick Gabaldon, a prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office; and fanciful postcards of toads and lizards by graphic artist Andrew Candelaria, the store’s manager.
The retailer features a T-shirt design of the month; April was the retro El Paso Sunrise Tee. Texas political insiders will understand the real message behind the “I Love El Paso” shirt: Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat challenging Ted Cruz for his U.S. Senate seat, wore a similar one as a kid.
Next door, at Trendy:Decor,