Yummy New Mexican Food

At the beginning of the summer, while we were driving from Maryland to New Mexico, we were unfortunate enough (or stupid enough, depending on how you look at it) to eat Mexican food in Brinkley, Arkansas, population ~4000. In our defense, we were tired and the restaurant was right next to the motel we were staying at for the night. I ordered my standard chiles rellenos, but the only thing I got resembling a green pepper was about an inch big - they seemed to have forgotten to give me what I ordered. Instead I got a plate full of cheez whiz - literally! It was the most disgusting Mexican food I had ever eaten and cheez wiz does not count as cheese as far as I am concerned. The enchilada that Nate ordered was just as gross.

So when we got to New Mexico, we were very excited to try real New Mexican food, which is basically a mixture between Mexican and Native American cuisine. We found a terrific little restaurant near our hotel called Los Cuates, that we ate at twice and loved. New Mexico is famous for their green and red salsas, made from their natively grown chiles, and we were able to try our meals Christmas style (with red and green chile), before deciding that we both liked their green chile best. Nate got blue corn enchiladas (notice the Native American influence on a standard Mexican dish) and I got delicious chilies rellenos. Even the chips and salsa was terrific because instead of standard salsa, it came with a fiery, roasted red chile sauce.


Another of the Native American twists on Mexican food was that each meal came with two sopapillas and honey:-)


Here are my chiles rellenos. It looks greasy in the picture, but it was scrumptious!