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PECOS TRAIL CAFE´
The Pecos Trail Café is probably not the first place you think of when you’re pondering dinner, if you’ve heard of it at all. By Santa Fe standards, it’s a trek — head north up Old Pecos Trail and drive until you hit the Pecos Trail Inn (with which the café is good friends, though they are not related). The restaurant has an unmistakably Old Santa Fe vibe to it, with the kind of funky, authentic atmosphere you hope to discover on a road trip — homey and unpretentious, with a few totally unironic Mexican cowboy hats and lariats on the walls.
The menu runs the gamut of local cuisine, from the norteño to the gringo to the Mexicano. The appetizer list includes nachos, quesadillas, and the intriguingly named “flauta rack.” The Populares sampler includes them all: nachos topped with two miniature beef chimichangas, two mini chicken flautas, and two mini quesadillas. A steal at $9.50, this easily served two and would probably please four people as a starter. The flautas were the best part, flavorful, crunchy, and downright fun to eat. The chimichangas, seasoned beef rolled in flour tortillas and then pressed, were serviceable, though the beef was a little grainy. We also tried the queso and chips appetizer, which came out gooey and filled with pleasantly hot green chile — having tried almost every bowl of queso in town, I give this one a thumbs-up.
The Santa Fe Favorites section of the menu has all the bases covered in terms of New Mexico’s distinctive local cuisine: carne adovada, enchiladas, even a Frito pie. We tried the Las Vegas (New Mexico, not Nevada) combo for $10.95, which came with a chile relleno smothered in green chile and a beef enchilada smothered in red. Norteño food is not Pecos Trail Café’s strong suit. The whole presentation had an oldschool, homespun quality to it, and everything tasted fresh, even down to the shiny crispness of the obligatory iceberg-and-tomato garnish, but the ground beef had the same grainy quality as the chalupa, the relleno’s breaded exterior was lacking in crunch, and the flavors in general were a bit muted.
The burger, which we tried piled with bacon, cheese, and avocado, was better. The patty was juicy and tasted like a far better quality of beef, and the bacon was sweetish, smoky and perfectly al dente
(those who bemoan overdone or floppy bacon will know what I mean). The cheese was a standard American single slice, but one doesn’t always want organic Manchego on a burger. American cheese plus bacon plus beef, properly done, can become something greater than the sum of those parts. Accompanied by the crispy, fresh diner-style fries, Pecos Trail’s burger is a joy to consume.
The restaurant prides itself on its chile, so much so that they serve it to you straight, with a Green Chile Lovers bowl and a Red Chile Lovers bowl. We tried the red chile version, which was, as advertised, a large bowl of pure red chile sauce served with strips of steak within and topped with cheese and corn chips — something like a red chile steak soup. The chile is, in fact, pretty savory, although it was very much on the mild side, but the dish was oddly satisfying, like a concoction you’d make at home for yourself if you just wanted to unapologetically eat condiments and meat for dinner. Just be sure to ask for tortillas or sopaipillas to sop up all that red.
Old Pecos Trail Café has an unmistakably Old Santa Fe vibe to it, with the kind of funky, authentic atmosphere you hope to discover on a road trip.
Another odd, someone-in-the-kitchen-made-this-up-for-themselves item was the Shrimp Monterrey, which consists of grilled shrimp smothered in chile con queso and a calabacitas enchilada smothered with tomatillo sauce. The idea of serving queso (the same queso from the appetizer) with shrimp was a head-scratcher, but the results were undeniably yummy, and the shrimp were fresh and fat. The enchilada was uninspiring but might have been more fun if the tomatillo sauce had a little more zing.
A few items were standout gems, however. The Mexican albondigas soup (a rarity on menus in Santa Fe) was filled with toothsome, lightly spiced beef meatballs in what tasted like a homemade broth, topped with perfectly done zucchini and a sprinkle of tortilla chips. The $5 cup was what most joints in town call a bowl, and would have made a hearty lunch by itself — just the thing for snowy spring days.
We tried the flan on one visit as well, which was light and airy, the custard perfectly creamy, and the caramel had an ideal toasty bite to it.
Also on the appetizer menu was a Mexican-style shrimp cocktail, which was described as “served with ketchup, seafood broth, orange juice, and pico de gallo.” While this does not sound terribly appetizing, the item that emerged from the kitchen was a theatrically large margarita-style glass filled with tangy, spicy, drinkable tomato broth and fresh avocado. And while many restaurant shrimp cocktail servings can be a bit on the stingy side, this is the opposite, the glass filled to the brim with more of those hearty shrimp and saltine crackers on the side. Was it haute cuisine? No. But, like almost everything else at the Pecos Trail Café, it was an awful lot of fun to eat.