Some Food Reviews

If you're ever in Moab or Santa Fe, how does the rest of the song go?

If I have a failing, it is trying to do too much. And holding myself to impossible standards that even a robot couldn't maintain. And trying to be perfect in every way. And being lazy even while trying to be perfect in every way, so that I do not put in enough work and yet still hate myself for not being the fastest reader, greatest mountain climber, chef, and music lover in the world. And also I sleep too much, and eat too much, and am a crummy selfish person who should volunteer more. And I am too positive and it allows me to go whole months without trying to improve. And I can never focus, and also, I am a bad boyfriend and am too moody and am a hypochondriac and baby myself too much. If I have a failing.

I tried to do way too much while Camila was around and only tonight lamented again how we did not get to bake any blue cornbread or make a fine pizza with many kinds of flour so she could tell me if my pizza crust that I wrote about months ago is indeed too bold, too audacious, too much of a good thing, or if it is the best thing ever. Other than cocoa-chardonnais cheese and apple smoked gouda and provolone cheese and blueberry stiltons and fine green soft roqueforts. And October ales and vanilla porters and hazelnut waffles and oh well a lot of things. I also like too many things, which is another of the things that is wrong with me. If anything is wrong with me. We did eat out at some fine restaraunts though, which I should do more often, even though I am cheap, and a simple peasant at heart, for at least six days a week, and it literally gives me gray (not literally gray but you know, lighter chestnut brown or Scottish-peat-ale-red or whatever color my hair is) hairs to eat out at ordinary restaraunts. I need a place that is really top notch and also won't cost an arm and a leg. And since we found a few of those places on our recent roadtrip, I am sharing the information here on your trusty favorite food blog so you will know where to go when following the itinerary step by step while acting our our travels in the soon to be released "Bountiful Fun from Arches and Ice Caves to Fried Zucchini: Or How Andrew and Camila learned to love Pedialyte and Smile Two Miles Above Sea Level on the way to Santa Fe: A Polygamist's Guide". Look for it on Lulu.com.

If you are in Moab, there is only one place to start, and that is "Pasta Jay's". Now okay, Moab is the only town in Utah where you can get a beer and not be treated even by your waiter before you give the tip like the next Hitler, and where your waiter won't throw the beer in your face when she or he brings it to you and there are lots of mediocre breweries and pubs all around. But "Pasta Jay's" is a very good Italian restaraunt. The red potato gnocchi are seriously to die for. I mean if you eat it all you will die: did you know there was something better than a good thick creamy terrible-for-your-heart alfredo sauce? There is. A perfect pesto stirred into that same alfredo sauce to make this creamy, bubbling, baked miracle and to bury your round potato dumplings in after hiding them beneath shivers of mozzerela and hard flakes of parmesan cheese. The fact that these are red potato gnocchi is inconsequential of course, since the skin is removed and inside red potatoes are just white potatoes, and since the sauce, so rich and mesmerizing and perfect that you won't care what other flavors it hides, will hide the taste of the gnocci, but dip that crusty cut of garlic toast in to that sauce and try not to moan with pleasure in a way that will convince the other patrons your girlfriend has a hand under the table where it probably shouldn't be with children at every table around you. The stuffed shells are passable, but should be passed up. For one, the spiced beef, ricotta and spinach are not to die for, and two, red sauces can be mastered at home with ease by almost anyone, and three, you only get three shells which is not much pasta after a day of hiking and sun trust me. Any pizza will come on a crisp, thin, perfect crust and with fine thin layers of cheese. You cannot go wrong. For a first visit sampler, the Linguine Neopolitan comes looking like Italy's famous flag, with healthy dollops of green pesto, red sweet marina and in the middle where it belongs, a fine white alfredo. Oh Saint Alfredo, if it is wrong to kiss your feet every time I pass the totem of you atop my fridge, then I apologize, but I will not stop. Baked Lorenzo is divine too, crispy and warm baked noodles and sausage and sauce. We haven't even begun to cover the nightly specials, and did I mention that "Pasta Jay's" is the restaraunt that merely by my reading the menu inspired my "Eggplant Domonoske" and my "Maroonara" sauce? Or how about how this is a restaraunt where you can spend as little as $10 for a gourmet meal and where almost every item on the menu is vegetarian unless you choose to pimp your ride with chicken?

Canyonlands by Night will please the carnivore in you. This company will take you down the river if you like after a sumptuous (what a word) meal of Dutch oven specialties. Or just get the dinner. All you can slow roasted beef and pork and chicken, potatoes with carrots, onions, and spices, baked beans of every color- thick and hearty. This is a "rib-sticking" cowboy meal as the ad says, you know, if cowboys ever existed outside of movies. Technically you can get a vegetarian meal, but for the price, I do not advise it.

There are several other restaraunts I have wanted to try in Moab. Some of the finer establishments are open only in summer, such as "Center Cafe". This is a restaraunt that knows how to serve up creative gourmet southwest food, but it is expensive and their entrees will not appease any vegetarians. I find the contempt the gourmet industry seems to have for vegetarianism strange. As much as they enjoy overcharging for fish and chicken, shouldn't they be embracing the idea of very-over charging for green beans in hollaindaise? Why are they so protective of carnivores? Also, have the right company because $23 a plate is a lot to pay when you're sitting with someone who will complain the whole time they don't offer hamburgers even though she has ordered a f***ing hamburger three times that week already and does so in every kind of restaurant you go to and who cannot appreciate the appropriate elegance of a pumpkin-seed crusted baked trout flank. You will find all kinds of food anytime you go, though. Avoid Eddie McStiff's, and hey, did I mention the reason people go here is for the 2 National Parks and not for the town itself? But what a town.

Santa Fe disappointed me. I must be honest. I found the prevalence of seafood confusing and also, there was little embracing of southwesness except for a lazy option to put green chile on everything. Where is the flank of scorpion in habanero sauce? Why was my catfish in jalepeno sauce at Atomic Grille really a decent, even fine, adequate fillet breaded and fried with parsely with a cup of jalapeno mayo next to it? Jalapeno mayo is lazy. It is not a jalapeno sauce. It is not tasty or southwestern. Why does not a single restaurant (finally got that spelling right) have a fry bread hamburger? I can get white bread buns anywhere. I can get it at McDonald's. Offer me something unique Santa Fe.

Now, Bumblebee Cafe was Southwestern. Everything looked good. Camila's vegetarian tortilla was huge and oozing all kinds of nice things. The chicken tostadas come piled high with pico de gallo, guacamole, cabbage and lettuce, and plenty of white and dark meat chicken. After years of being force fed white meat chicken only, let me tell you, those juicy unexpected bites of moist thigh are very welcome. I cannot recommend these enough. The steak taco looked small. This won't break your bank.

Santa Fe Baking Company was a good breakfast option. Quick and painless, the only downside to their huge menu is that they took away blue corn tortillas. Still, you can't complain much when you can get an apple and raisin breakfast pie and tangerine juice freshly squeezed at the same place you can order huevos rancheros with both red and green chile sauces. The breakfast potatoes are dull and dry. Go ahead and skip them. And if you order pancakes you are a bore. I mean make them at home. They're the same everywhere.

If in Albuquerque, and you find yourself famished at say 10,378 feet above sea level, your best option other than licking the undersides of rocks for the slime and moss beneath, is "High Finance". Watch the sunset- sort of- from the comforts of a basic table where there are no illusions and plenty of allusions in the name of the joint about how much you will be paying. An appetizer or two is sure to make the foodie in your group orgasm loudly while sucking down her balsamic mussels with crusty pita chips. Don't double dip no matter how good the pairing of fried zucchini and blue cheese dressing are. Oh yes, you can do appetizers at home, but the wind on mountaintops is always in the plus 20 mph range and the air gets cold fast in the evenings. And that tram ride down from Sandia Peak might seem more graceful if you are swanned full of champaigne or zinfandel.

Between Moab and New Mexico, don't bother eating out. Just find a good campsight and break out your geniusly cheap bag of ramen noodles and dried vegetables and 6 species of mushroom or a fiery blend of potato slices and quinoa with dried vegetables and savor them in your tent. You'll feed 3 for less than $2 each and can rightly damn anyone around you with "Mountaintop" brand flimsy skinty dry boil in a bag dinners as a "bassBOWL" for paying $6 for a single serving of crappo oversalted food with no flavor.

Until next time my several fans, keep on trucking.