Santa Fe Up All Night: Late Night Bites in the City Different

Ok, let me just put this out there.  Santa Fe is not a late night town.  It's just not.  It's difficult to find a restaurant that serves past 9 pm. And on a weekday?  Fugeddaboudit.  Those coffee shops filled with students cramming for tests in the dead of night?  They're not a thing here.  So what's a hungry girl to do?

All hail The Flying Star Cafe!  A relatively new place in the Railyard, the Flying Star is a local chain.  They're all over Albuquerque but the Santa Fe one stands alone.  The Flying Star is open and serving food until 9pm Sunday - Thursday and is open until 10pm on Friday and Saturday.

I accompanied my darling High Desert Dude over there last week for a late dinner and some reading/study time.  The Flying Star has free internet access and a well-stocked magazine rack and is an inviting atmosphere for those of us who like to study/read/play board games/do sudoku/blog/mindlessly surf the internet while in public.  In other words, just my kind of place.

Here's the interior, with another patron studiously reviewing his fantasy football team statistics:

The food at the Flying Star is nothing to write home about.  It's mostly sandwiches, burgers, fried chicken, and other American home-style cuisine.  When we were there last, I had a surprisingly tasty salad.  It was like a taco salad but with shrimp and a citrus dressing.

It was listed on the specials board (located immediately in front of the paper menus at the start of the ordering line) as "Acapulco Tostada.  If you're just in for a coffee and a pastry, the Flying Star has this ridiculous baked goods case filled to the brim with goodies- pies, cupcakes, cookies, scones, cakes (by the slice and whole), sweet yeast breads, and brownies.

Other advantages: good for large parties as the dining area is spacious with tables suitable for pushing together, good for families with kids because of their kids menu & aforementioned spacious dining area, good for cheap eats (get their small mac & cheese or just a beverage and you're set), good for breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast types, friendly service that allows for "public solitude", good for people watching & eavesdropping (especially the emo-teens), good public bulletin board in the entryway & bookcrossing shelf in the back.

Disadvantages: not my choice for anything New Mexican, sometimes noisy, food is middle of the road (but still adequate & fresh).

The Star is generally my choice for weekday evening snack-study sessions.  If you go, be sure to sign up for their rewards program.  It's free of charge and once you accumulate a certain amount of points, you get free coffees, pastries, and other such coupons.  Ez-pz!

Get Your Nosh on at Jambo Cafe

Ok, so Jambo Cafe is delicious- no doubt.  While I love New Mexican food, sometimes a girl wants to mix it up.  Enter Jambo Cafe. Jambo came on the scene a few years ago in an unassuming strip mall in a space next to Hobby Lobby.  (For you locals, it is by the intersection of Cerrillos & St. Mike's.)  The cuisine is labelled as "African Homestyle" which could mean anything.  My impression is that it trends towards the Caribbean.  According to the website, the chef is Kenyan.   However you want to label it, it's go-od.

I was there most recently two weeks ago with a gal pal of mine vising from Albuquerque.  We lucked out and snagged two seats at the very small bar with minimal waiting.  Apparently, I am not the only one who likes Jambo and other recent attempts at eating there were thwarted by 45 minute + wait times.  But do not be deterred!  We peered into the storefront next door which was under construction for additional Jambo Cafe seating.  My impression was that it would nearly double the amount of dining room space.  Huzzah!

For starters, we shared Coconut Shrimp and Phyllo Triangles.

The coconut shrimp was not that sickly sweet garbage you usually find as an appetizer.  It was pleasantly coconutty and the sauce was sweetened with citrus.  The phyllo triangles were an unexpected departure from the regular spinach and feta fare- they had a cumin flavor and contained garbanzo beans.

For dinner I opted for the special of the day, which was beef, okra, and vegetable stew.

It came with rice and a huge slab of grilled pineapple.  The portion was generous.

I've had other things here- goat stew, lamb sandwich, jerk chicken- and they were all consistently delicious meals.  The atmosphere is casual and intimate and the prices are very reasonable. All entrees are less than $15 a pop, sandwich platters are less than $10, and they serve wines by the glass.  Drawbacks in the past have been wait times and poor waiter service although I did not have any of these issues the most recent time I went which means it's pretty much near perfect.

Early Season Skiing at Wolf Creek

This weekend we hit the road and headed up to Wolf Creek, a ski area really close to Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  From Santa Fe, it is only about a three hour drive.  Wolf Creek has been open for a couple of weeks now due to a huge quantity of autumn snow.  Right now, it has had over 100 inches of snow since September!  For comparison, Ski Santa Fe only has had 14 inches of snow since September and Crested Butte a mere 36.  What I'm getting at here is that the conditions up at Wolf Creek are amazing.

The drive from Santa Fe is pretty scenic; you wind your way through Espanola, Abiquiu, Chama, Chromo, and Pagosa.  Here's a photo of Cumbres Pass from El Vado, NM.

We arrived at the 1st ski lift of the season at 9:30am and skied until lunch and then a bit more.  There was plenty of snow to go around.  All lifts and runs were open.  The only catch was that some runs on the Alberta side of the ski area weren't fully groomed (and very few people had been over there) which made for some slow going.

(click for a larger trail map)

After some hours of rocking the steeps, K had the brilliant idea of checking out the cross country ski course.  Shockingly, we had had the foresight to pack our cross country gear so we made our way to the side parking lot for access.  The trail begins with a long downhill (whee!) and then flat/small uphilling around Alberta Lake, thickly iced over and picturesque, up through sylvan wonderland, around the Alberta ski lift, and then up a rather long hill back to the parking lot.  It took me 1.5 hours and a  couple of awkward falls with a goodly bit of flailing about, but it was really a lovely trail, especially with light snow flurries to cool me off.  About 1/2 of the trail was groomed.

Some non-skiing related highlights included the impressive array of local beers available in bomber sizes (25 fl. oz / 750 ML) at the cafeteria and dinner at Kip's in Pagosa.  Kip's has some serious tacos:

The ones pictured above are the Dos Diablos: corn tortilla inside of a flour tortilla (best of both worlds there), stuffed with a whole cheese-stuffed green chile pepper, beef, cabbage slaw, topped with avocado slices.I can also highly recommend the jalapeno poppers.  The bacon-wrapped jalapenos are grilled rather than breaded and deep fried which makes a world of difference.  Also, bacon.

This trip has gotten me pretty darn excited about this upcoming winter.  Please please please let it snow here in Santa Fe!

Our beloved High Desert Dude has also posted about our trip up to Wolf Creek and he has included a map of the cross country ski course & additional (way better) photos.  Check it out here.