A Post Especially for Mitchell

 Ok, I cannot compete with Mitchell of Moving With Mitchell fame when it comes to blog posts, especially one about food or desserts or restaurants or cafés. Nevertheless I am posting this for Mitchell because I thought of him when Hubby Leon and I had lunch at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe on Thursday afternoon. 

Leon generally works Monday through Friday, has a one hour commute each way to work in Albuquerque and so it is not often we have an opportunity for a weekday lunch date. But he was able to work from home on Thursday morning and took the afternoon off for a doctor appointment and lunch in town.

After his noon appointment and my visit to the eye doctor to order a pair of prescription sunglasses (so as to get Leon's opinion on the correct frames) we decided to have lunch at Cafe Pasqual's. It's a small restaurant we'd never been to and probably never would have gone to if not for a gift certificate that my brother Mike and sister-in-law Claire gave us for Christmas. As mike and Claire live in Connecticut, I imagine he looked on line for restaurants in Santa Fe. I'm not sure how or why he chose this particular restaurant. Maybe he liked the wolf or coyote logo.

 

 

Anyway, it was a very generous $100 gift certificate. The note from my brother said "I know it's not much but it might buy you lunch"

 

I looked up Cafe Pasqual's on the internet and, well, judging from their menu, I figured lunch would be the best bet with maybe a few dollars left to spend in their gift shop. One hundred dollars is an amount we never in our wildest imagination would ever think of spending for a meal - anywhere.

The Cafe is very compact. It is not what one would call "posh" rather it is very Santa Fe shabby chic if I had to give it a description. Huge ristras of chili peppers hanging from the ceiling and strings of those Mexican cut-out flags, papel picado, strung across the room. 

 It's a small room with a, I guess you might call it a mezzanine...a half dozen tables up a few steps from the main dining area which probably had at most ten tables. I think the sign said "Seating capacity 47"

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 We had to wait for a table. 

I was looking up at the mezzanine and said to Leon, "That looks like Wendy." He got up to get a better look and as she turned around toward us I said, "That is Wendy."

A surprise and a coincidence, for sure. Wendy is a neighbor of ours in the tiny village where we live, population 500 plus or minus. Wendy was probably the first person to welcome us when we moved to Cochiti Lake... somehow scoping us out as we were unpacking the van and moving furniture and greeting us with hugs and excitement, "Oh, new gays in the neighborhood!" 

And Wendy is also the ONLY woman in the New Mexico Gay Men's Chorus. She was having lunch with a colleague and we all dished a bit before Leon and I got seated.

I said, now I feel like a real Santa Fean...running into a friend at a hoity-toity Santa Fe restaurant!

Finally, we were seated and looked through the menus for breakfast and lunch, both served till 3pm. I decided on the

 SOFT POLENTA WITH SPINACH & BALSAMIC GRILLED PORTOBELLOS ~ House-made Heirloom Tomato Sauce / Mascarpone / Blizzard of Fresh Parmesan Reggiano 19. Add Talus Wind Ranch Spicy Pork Sausage Meatballs 6.

 Organic Lemonade 5.50

 I didn't point out to the waiter that "Parmesan Reggiano" is a horrible mixture of terms. It's either Parmesan or it's Parmigiano Reggiano. But I did say to the waiter, "I'm very curious to see what a "BLIZZARD" of Parmesan Reggiano will look like. He was amused but non-committal. 

Leon ordered the

*HOT PASTRAMI SANDWICH, WOOD-SMOKED ON TOASTED RYE ~ Melted Jack / Roasted Green Chile Strips / White Wine Sauerkraut 21.

 Ginger Pineapple Juice 6.50

 My lunch arrived with something less than a BLIZZARD of cheese, more like seven or eight flakes of snow. It was an interesting dish, good, not spectacular, not bad. The polenta was soft and perhaps more like a cross between grits and creamed corn with an unusual spice, good spinach and a large portobello cap. The sausage meatballs were...basically Italian sausage without the casing. The dish was satisfying, filling, tasty.

Leon said his pastrami was good, better than the "New York Deli" on Rodeo Road. He even liked the green chile strips.

We had already dug in before I thought to take a photo. Mitchell would never be so thoughtless.

 We decided to splurge as this would be lunch and dinner. So dessert was next. I got the

Boca Negra Dark Chocolate Torte / Bourbon White Chocolate Cream ~ Julia Childs 13.

I took a photo before doing any damage

Leon ordered 

Warm Apple Turnover / Rum Ice Cream / Dominique Dark Rum Sauce 13.

 I thought about ordering a coffee or espresso for 7.5 but decided that the chocolate was plenty of calories and caffeine. We will be sure to serve ice cream in Martini glasses from now on, however. Our guests will be impressed and think we are real Santa Fe sophisticates. 

So the check, with tax came to $92 and some change. We were given change back from the $100 gift and we left a $25 tip. So lunch came to a bit over $117!!! OMG. What a splurge. 

But we laughed and cajoled with Wendy and with each other and enjoyed the craziness of having lunch in a hoity-toity Santa Fe restaurant that we will likely never set foot in again.

It was a fun, and dare I say "romantic" lunch treat, even without a BLIZZARD of Parmesan Reggiano.

P.S. Mitchell, Sorry I didn't get photos of us or of Wendy and her friend. And for not taking a photo of our meals before we started eating. I'm just not that conscientious about such things. Maybe I'll do better next time.

Addendum: After my brother read the post he sent me this email:

Glad you enjoyed lunch, but here's the thing...

The gift card was only supposed to be $50, and they only billed me $50. So, I guess you made out pretty well. After reading your review, I probably should have sent you a $100 card after all. I didn't think $50 was quite enough for lunch, and I wanted to make it $75, but they were out of $25 cards - it was either $50 or $100. Maybe they ran out of the $50s and said What the heck, and sent what they had left?

Anyway, I'm glad you guys had a nice lunch.

Mike