Backroad Pizza - Day 1 - Labor Day Trip to Tif's

Earlier this week I was watching Diners, Drive-In's and Dives and they covered Backroad Pizza in Santa Fe, NM. Since I knew I was coming down to Tif's this weekend, I decided to see if I could make it to Santa Fe (since I was leaving in the afternoon) and try it out. An adventure!

Trip south was pretty good, until I came up over the pass. Its always exciting to see what Northern NM has to offer. Sometimes the mountains stop the weather and you top the pass and its all clear blue skies. No such luck! I could see big storms in the south. The kind where you can see the rain falling to the ground in big black strips! But there was blue spots too and the road is all curvy, so you never know. I'd be heading for the storm, then head towards the blue, then back again. This kept up for about 30 or 40 minutes - and then I could see lightning and it was pretty obvious, by the cars heading towards me with their wipers going; that I was going to hit it. So when the first few drops hit; I pulled over and put my gear on...


OK... had to give those folks that know me a minute to recover. Yes - even though it wasn't *pouring* yet; I actually pulled over and suited up. Everything... helmet, pants and the jacket! Good thing too because in another mile or so it started raining. Not hard. Not the kind that makes you want to pull over and hide; but the kind that makes you glad you have a helmet on (so you can see) and a suit (so you are dry). The drops weren't too hard, and then the rain started hitting a little harder... That was when I noticed it was actually striking the ground and bouncing - and that it was little white balls. Yup - it was hailing. But not the golf-ball size stuff, more like peas. Not too bad really. Just enough to make you know you are alive! This lasted for 30 or 40 minutes... probably Springer down to north of Las Vegas. And from there it was clear all the way into Santa Fe.

As I got close to Santa Fe I toyed with the idea of heading into Albq.... but given I really wanted to try this place out, I decided better to stop while it was light out and I could actually rest up and stuff, rather than just pushing on.

So - I looked the place up online (yes laptops come in handy on the road) and it was about 10 minutes from my hotel. Woo hoo! I went there and it was pretty busy. I was standing in line with this family (grandparents, parents, little kids) and the dad says "I saw this place on food network so we decided to try it out!" and I said, "Me too!" and we talked a bit about Harleys and stuff. Then I ordered (walk up, not at your table) and went to sit outside and wait for them to bring me my food. I had my gear on and figured it would be warmer outside. Well... there was no place to sit. All 8 tables or so were full! I'm standing there looking around and this woman sitting at a table for four with her husband said, "Good luck!" and I said, "Yeah, looks like they are all full." The man then said, "You can sit with us if you want." And so I did!



Yes... more waiting for Kristi to recover from falling off her chair! ;)

So I sat with them and I asked them if they had ever eaten here before. "No, we say it this week on the food network!" Wow! :) The wait was probably 30 minutes or so at least; just because the place was so busy. So we just sat there are drank beer and talked. Their food came about 15 minutes before mine. They said the meatballs were very good - worth coming back for! I had a small pizza with homemade sausage (which has green chilies in it) and black olives. Plus a dinner salad and a Nut Brown Ale. It was all very good. And while the small was only 12 inches, and I hadn't eaten much since breakfast (other than some dill pickle sunflower seeds while I was driving down the road), it was hanging off the plate and so I brought 3 slices back to the hotel for breakfast! :) So - all in all I would definitely recommend this place. And because we had so much time to talk, they told me about 3 other good places:

• Horseman's Haven Cafe - little dive cafe with good breakfast in Santa Fe (just down the road from my hotel) if you like hot green chili. I'll probably pass since I'll be having pizza for breakfast!
  
• Buckhorn Tavern, San Antonio, NM - another little dive, with probably the best green chili burgers around - and they have good homemade fries too. Not on my trip on the way down to Tif's (since I'm taking 40), but definitely on the way on the trip back. And being south of Socorro... I might hold out and go there for lunch!
  
• Gabriel's - north of Santa Fe. Great Fajitas and they make the guac at the table.

So... I'm all set for Road Food in this area! Woo hoo!

And since Kristi gave me homework when I'm out on the road... info to prove I actually *talked* to these people and not just about food!

• Leroy and Melanie
  
• He is from this area (grew up here his entire life) and she is from South Africa
  
• They are going to their family cabin for the week
  
• He worked at Pizza Hut when he was in college
  
• He is a liquor salesman
  
• They go skiing at Wolk Creek and stay in Pagosa Springs
  
• They want to do a cruise to Alaska (not a motorcycle trip!)
  

There - I'm such the extrovert! ;)

105 Trip - Day 4 - Annawan, IL - 1512 miles

Only did 300 miles today, but took pretty much all day. Did some river road (Mississippi and Illinois rivers) and scenic rides. Very peaceful and cool. Again - heartland of America stuff. Totally enjoying it.

Ate lunch at Fast Eddies. It was as cool as the hype. Just one of those things you have to experience. If you are ever in the area, check it out! Food was great and the beer is claimed to be the coldest in the area - and it seemed to be. Had a Landshark beer! I'm trying new beers on this trip. :)

Tomorrow up early and try to make it to Milwaukee in time for Ted and Christi to drop luggage and get to the museum by noon. So I guess that's it for now!

105 Trip - Day 1

Left home at about 6:15, running a little late but got to Pueblo about 7:10 and we headed out. It was a good first day. I got tired in the afternoon and pretty sleepy, but once it cooled off I was fine. Got 11 ABC pictures today!

Stopped in Kinsley, KS for lunch. Asked a fireman doing the "boot for MDA" thing where was a good place to eat. He directed us to a Mexican place that was pretty good. Food wasn't very spicy, but alright and the quality was pretty good.

Had one car passing a lane of traffic, heading at us, and we had to slow down (and so did the lead car) to let him in w/o hitting us. :( - Other than that (and it wasn't close or anything), no mishaps or potential ones.

Radio is acting up. Didn't come on twice. Will have to have someone look at it later.

Dinner, after dark, in Emporia, KS, was at the S & S cafe. Little tiny, "Good Food - Open 24 hours" place. VERY LOCAL. Old time mid-west type salad bar... radishes, green onions, cucumbers and onions in vinegar! Young waitress - a little attitude. Chicken fried steak was homemade. Meat was good. Gravy was good. Hashbrowns "done crispy please" were PERFECT. This was definately my kind of Road Food place. Just what I wanted in all aspects - even the locals smoking (not too much smoke) wasn't bad. It all screamed road food diner, and the quality and taste was exactly what I was looking for.

Time to hit the hay soon. We made it over 1/2 way to Ted & Christi's on day one, so should get in early enough tomorrow to go to the dealer party. Plus did 11 ABCs today and only plan on 9 tomorrow... But some are standard letters so if I don't get them all, no big deal.

Oh - and one more thing. There is nothing like going down the road at 65 MPH, cool breeze rushing past you, worship music on the iPOD, across the plains of CO and KS, looking at the farms, green, streams, trees, etc. - to bring God's creation into focus and clarity.

Day 1 was a great start to the trip!

Durango Diner

Went to the 4 Corners Rally last weekend. More on that later. But as you know, I'm always on the lookout for some great "road food". Got in Friday night and Saturday morning we were meeting in the Denny's parking lot before heading down to Ignacio. The small group we were with wanted to go to Starbucks, which I'm usually up for but: a) I'm not doing carbs and needed some protein, and b) I was on a bike trip and so was on the lookout for road food. We headed down Main Street and passed a few places that looked good on our way to Starbucks. Once there I told the others that Tina and I were going to look for somewhere to get breakfast and we'd meet up with them at Denny's at the appointed time.

Heading back up the street I was looking at store fronts where I saw a number of bikes parked. Numerous bikes parked in front of a building early in the morning is either an indication of a place to sleep or a place to eat. :)

I almost missed it, but there was a sign that said "Durango Diner" about a small store front wedged in between two other builds. I said "There we go" and Tina said, "Where?" She hadn't even see it, the front was so small. "Diner" mixed with the look of it screamed "road food" to me. So we stopped and went it.

It was awesome! :)

The building is pretty narrow. A small set of tables up front, all full, and then a long counter. On the right are all the grills and cooking areas, running about 1/3 the length of the building, with about 3 feet for the cooks to work and then the counter running the length of the cooking area, and then a few tables in back. Just enough room between the wall and the counter to get by, and then enough room between the counter and the grills to cook. So we grabbed a seat at the counter, right across from where all the action (cooking) was going on.

There were at least 3 cooks. One making hash browns (to our left), the owner cooking the main ingredients (right in front of us) and another cook plating the dishes - putting them all together, smothering them with green chili, etc.

The hash brown cook just cooks hash browns... continuously. He has a big bowl with peeled potatoes (restaurant baked potato size) and a grater. The kind that looks like a box with a handle on top, opening on the bottom, and different size grates on the 4 sides. He grabs a large potato, grates it holding the grater towards the grill, and then dumps the entire grated contents onto the grill, pilling the hash browns next to the last order. This creates a single "order" that is about 4x2x8. We are talking a large plate covering of hash browns. Not doing carbs anymore... but I could definitely appreciate it. :) The main cook then takes this plate of hash browns, covers it with a helping of scrambled eggs (more like a flat omelet that is about 8 inches around, flipped in half), throws 4 strips of bacon on the top, and hands it to the next line cook who covers it in green chili and then sets it up to be served to a customer. Yeah... we're talking heaven. :)

So I asked for 2 eggs over medium, 4 bacon and smoother it.

Sitting there, talking to the locals (fireman on one side of us talking about the local goings on, teasing Tina about the rally, etc.), folks coming in, the owner turning around and yelling "Hey Joe, your usually", other folks, "Hey, hows the coffee today?", etc. The place had a great feel, and I just sat there, drinking cups of coffee with cream from the kind of creamers that all the restaurants used to have - the metal kind with real cream in them, not little individual containers.

The waitress slide our food to us and it was great. Chili wasn't mild, but wasn't too hot. Could of sat there for a while, but we had to make the meeting at Denny's, so ate up the food, and off we went.

If you're looking for road food and our in Durango, I highly suggest it. As their home page says:

"The Diner" is well known for their nostalgic no-frills meals, local buzz, and the Green Chili, Southwest Salsa, and Enchilada Sauce sold through-out the country.

It was awesome. The best road food find I've had in quite a while. I'll definitely go back next time we are down there, and would have gone again if I could have worked it out with everyone else's schedules.

I'll have a Betty with cheese

So we are up in Victor this weekend because it was beautiful out and we just wanted to do a ride. We rarely stop in Cripple Creek, but prefer to go on to Victor. This summer I was out there with Ted and Kristi and stopped at the Fortune Club (I think it was called). A little place to eat that sells sodas, shakes, rings and fries, burgers and hot dogs.

Due to some diet issues lately, I'm really watching the carbs. We mainly stopped for a diet soda, but were sitting at the counter and the burgers smelled so good I decided to have one without the bun. There were two people working the counter, a young female and an older guy would actually owns a place a few doors down (Buck) but comes over to help out during lunch. Yeah - how cool is that. Very small two.

Me: I'll have a cheese burger, no bun.
Female: What?
Me: I'll have a cheese burger, with no bun.
Female: starts laughing.
Me: What?
Female: That's just so cute.

Female: turns to Buck. Can you write up a cheese burger, and turning to look at me, with no bun.

Buck: A what?
Female: Cheese burger with no bun.
Buck: Oh... we call that a Betty!
Female: A Betty?
Buck: Yeah - there is a woman named Betty that is a friend of ours, and she has no buns.

Tina: That's awful!
Buck: What... we say it to her face. She knows she doesn't have any buns...

Buck: Turning towards the grill, yells out One Betty with Cheese.

Well... there ya go, next time I know what to order.

Work hard, play hard.

We were down in AZ last weekend. Kian's one month birthday. How cool. He's such a cutie and it was go good to go down and see Tif, Brian and him. I am extremely blessed that I can work off-site. We went down Friday, got there that evening and stayed till Tuesday. Didn't get off as early as I had hoped, and ended up getting home about midnight that night - then up at 5:00 the next morning for work and had tons to get caught up on. Worked remotely - but there is a lot going on right now so had to do numerous meetings.

And then this week I've got quite a bit going on, meetings, getting some deliverables caught up, and then it is off to DC the following week.

My boss, Hans went to UofA in Tuscon, and suggested we go to eegees, so we did. Very good. Had a lemon eegee and the pastrami sandwich. Yum.

Anyway - been busy and lots going on, so not much blogging of late. Expect it to be a very busy week this week - then like I said, off to DC. Leave Monday and get home late Thur - and Fri morning (7 AM) we leave for a bike rally in 4 corners. I think there are 14 of us going! We are going with some friends and they are setting it all up, so I don't know the exact details. Staying in a condo - so I don't think I'll have internet which means no connectivity for several days. How weird.

Anyway - its all good.

Road Food, Restaurant or both?

As I've said before, I like the whole "label" concept that Blogger uses. I use it quite a bit. Today I mentioned Sauce in a post, and I didn't want to label it "Road Food" so created a new label for "Restaurant" and then went back and relabeled a few of my past entries.

So what's the difference? They are both places to eat, and a place to eat is a restaurant. Well to me, road food is a bit more like a diner. Some place regional, not too fancy. Not sure burgers and fries, but maybe Mexican as well - as different locations have their own "road food". Whereas a place listed as a Restaurant might not be so "colorful" or "local". Not a place you might just pull in off the road and grab a bite.

So that's the difference - perhaps not always obvious, but some distinction in my mind. :)

Byron's Hot Dog Haus

When Tif was 17, we went on a mission trip with Pastor Mark to Chicago. While there we ate at Byron's Hot Dog Haus. Pastor Mark is out there now, and called me and I googled it, found it, and gave them directions (while they were looking at a map) so they could find it. So - they'll be eating a Chicago Dog there today. Very cool. :)

Byron's Hot Dog Haus
1017 W Irving Park Rd

Take the LSD north past Lincoln Park, turn West on Irving and its about 4 blocks down. If you hit two cemetaries, you've gone too far. On the corner of Irving and Sheridan. Sheridan is also one of the side streets for Wrigley, so its about 4 blocks north of there.

If I ever get back to Chicago, I *have* to eat there!

Technology is cool. :)

Love ya Pastor Mark. Hope the dogs are still as good as when we were there!

Trip to Red River

We had discussed going to Red River and had made hotel reservations in Taos - the closest hotel we could get. But then on Wed we were both feeling kind of sick and the weather wasn't looking too good - so we called and cancelled the room. Still have to pay for one day that we could use some time in the next 6 months - so we said that was fine.

Friday morning - sun is shinning, we both have the day off and the road is calling. We decide to go, so I call the Best Western in Red River - and they had one room free up for the full 3 days. Woo hoo.

We leave town at noon. Stop south of Pueblo at a Taco Bell to grab some food and decide to get gas. We see 8 other bikes. We gas up quick, pull up behind them and ask if they are going to RR. They are and say we are welcome to tag along. So we travel with them all the way to Cimarron. They traveled as a group pretty well (stagged, hand signals, etc.). Its always nice to travel in a group - just feels safer - like people can see you, etc.

Weather was looking wicked bad when we hit Walsenburg (towards the west), but they were heading south, so we stuck with them. We eat in Trinidad, then head to Raton. Hit rain, but not bad. Going south towards Cimarron it got worse and one bike stopped so we all pulled over. Just sitting in the cold rain/sleet, letting it pour down. Its all about the adventure! 10 minutes later it stopped and we broke off from them at Cimarron and headed up to Red River. *Beautiful* ride. Stopped to put on my leater jacket ('cuz I had rain gear on), as it was getting very ccld.

Pulled into town and there were bikes *everywhere*. All down the middle of the street and on both sides. Vendors everywhere.

Ate quail for dinner at Texas Rob's and called it a day. Of course... it is a rally - so folks blow-drying their hair at midnight and bikes up and down the road all night - but they, that's part of the deal.

Beautiful Saturday morning and we're off to find food, check out vendors and do some rides.

Good Pizza!

Went to Oregano's Pizza Bistro last night with the kids. Yum! Nice atmosphere - casual and big band maybe? Swing music, early 60's black and white TV shows. Comfortable. They have an extensive menu! We got some UFOs for appetizer:

These hand-made Unidentified Frying Objects are lightly seasoned, breaded artichokes filled with an out-of-this-world cheese!

And then I got a Chicago Stuff Pizza for dinner. The Numero ONE-O:

This ain't no wimpy pizza! A traditional combo of homemade sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions & green peppers makes one incredible pizza!

Yum... and since I got it on a whole-wheat crust, I didn't feel so bad about having pizza. Its at least an inch thick (of ingredients, not crust) and packed full. Very much the pizza taste I was craving, w/ no "white flour" issues. Or very little. Tina got a "made to order" thin crust pizza and the kids got a huge salad and a pasta dish. We all brought some home.

While this isn't a "local" eatery - they have 8 restaurants across AZ - it had a local feel to me. So - if you are in the mood for some slightly different (or even traditional) Italian food - especially Chicago Style pizza - check it out!

Mi Chante, Los Lunas, NM

Had dinner at Mi Chante in Los Lunas.

We were driving down the main road, Route 6 - the "Historic Route 66", towards town and away from the interstate - just looking for some fast food place, when I noticed a "Best homemade food in town." Says you... but maybe. So we swung around and parked out back.

Nice little Mexican restaurant. A converted house. Cool - blue corn, green chili chicken flat enchiladas. Yum. Trying to stay away from rice - so got the "Calabacitas". Tina said, "No rice please" and the waiter said, "Do you want the calabacitas or pappas instead?" Never heard of either of those before. I'd already spotted them on the menu so figured I'd try one of them. After all, if I've never heard of it, I have to give it a shot. Kind of like an infant that way I guess... "Hmm... never seen this thing before. Guess I'll throw it in my mouth to see what it is." :) - Turns out it calabacitas is zucchini and corn with cheese melted on it. Yum.

First bite of the green chili... oh - this is Chavez/TeresaMiller type green chili - not gringo green chili. Tina's comment, "Well duh - you're in New Mexico." A bit of a fire... but *very* good flavor. Not too hot - just a surprise. :) - Had to get a side of sour creme to cool it down a bit. Yeah... wimp. But it was good and not too hot, I'd order it again.

So - if you are ever in Los Lunas and looking for some good Mexican food - try it out. Its on Route 6, right side of the road heading into town from the interstate. A block or two before the 314 intersection.

O'Malley's Steak Pub

As noted yesterday, we stopped at O'Malley's Steak Pub in Palmer Lake. Here is the ChefMoz review.

Informal. Usually a number of Harley's out front, but also locals, fire-fighters, etc. You cook the meat: NY, Rib-eye, burger or chicken; yourself on their grill. Price is pretty good. 12oz NY for 10.99 - including salad bar (pretty simple - but it is all youc an eat) and fries or a baked. Not bad.

JoAnn's Ranch O Casados Restaurant

As I mentioned in a previous post, JoAnn's Ranch O Casados Restaurant was very good. They are right on 285, which is the main road from Santa Fe to Taos. So they aren't hard to find. Like I said, great chicken enchiladas. Get them with blue corn and covered in green chile. Some of the best green chile I've had. Not too hot, and very fresh tasting.