Food Find

As I frequently write, dining in Albuquerque is not usually a rewarding experience. Nothing like my trips to Chicago or Southern California. But every once in a while we get something really good. We are awash in New Mexican style cooking which is variant of Tex-Mex. So a new restaurant of that variety wouldn't be cause for celebration. However our local paper recently wrote a review on a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place called Lupes and extolled it's 'real' Mexican menu. I had to give it a try.
I dragged my partner Ken down on Friday. The review had given me some clues as to what to order. There were lots of things you don't see in your typical American Mexican restaurant. I had a Molcajete. This is named after a Mexican cooking vessel - a rough basalt rock mortar used for grinding things. In this case they actually heated it up and served food in it like a super fajitas.

The version I had featured lots of nopales (cactus leaves, used a lot in Mexican cooking - kind of like a green bell pepper without the bitterness), grilled chicken and beef, and a big hunk of Mexican cheese.

Molcajete Azteca

De-I devouring Molcajete Azteca

It was scrumptious. My friend had barbacoa, a stewed lamb that is then crisped up. There was also a soup with chickpeas with that. He raved about both.

I will definitely be bringing more folks around here. A great find...though not necessarily the place you want to come for dinner after dark.

The parking lot

Short Stuff:

AinA - I am almost 50% done with the speculas!