Menudo, other New Mexican cuisine, and New Mexico Wines

After probably 8 hours of heinous travel, I arrived today in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a conference for work. So, this trip is not really a vacation, and I'm traveling alone this time. Nonetheless, I'm trying to make the best of it and enjoy myself as much as I can and experience the local cuisine and wines.

Today, I visited three tasting rooms for New Mexico wines. Gruet, arguably New Mexico's best known winery, produces amazing sparkling wine. Their wines deserve their reputation, and the experience in their tasting room was extraordinary. Their still wines are OK, but not particularly to my taste. Two other wineries that I visited were, frankly, horrific. OK, the wineries themselves were OK. Their wines, not so much. Who got the idea of blending chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon?!? And why? How can a Rhone-style blend be "off-dry" with at least some RS? Who could manage to overdo a cabernet sauvignon more than California producers? And how on earth is a blend of syrah, cabernet sauv and tempranillo a "Spanish style red"?

Two Gruet sparklers just sang: a 2004 vintage blanc de blancs had all the classic acid, minerality and toasty notes you'd want. Their grapes grow in southern NM, on a bed of limestone like subsoil, so I gather that explains the slight chalky minerality that was so exquisite. The tasting room staff compared it to Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label; I find it far mroe exciting than the VC in recent years. This is some seriously good juice, at a reasonable price. And then there's their "old style" grand reserve, done in the Bollinger and Krug style with large oak vats and so on. So much complexity, tons of lemon and almond and a bit of toast--incomparably exciting. Their "baseline" blanc de noirs was excellent as well, as were their brut and demi-sec (which, thankfully, was not over-sweet). A vintage rose that blended still barrel fermented pinto with chardonnay was, in my mind, rather disjointed. It brought incredible fruit from the pinot, some oak-driven notes, the chardonnay richness, and yet a rather acidic crispness. All the components were there, but it just didn't, in my mind, work together.

Dinner tonight was some seriously local New Mexican cuisine from a diner type place. What an experience, in the best possible way. It's this small little "hole in the wall" in a rather industrial part of town, named Mary and Tito's. Now, it just seemed like the kind of place you might find some good, honest local "home-style" greasy spoon cooking. ANd it lived up to that, and then some. I thought I was ordering a small cup of menudo (something I have been itching to try), and a main of enchiladas. Well, each was an immense main course size serving by itself. So a lot of food did not get eaten. But if I could've, I'd have finished it all.

So, menudo is not one of those dishes everyone can easily get their mind around. It's a soup made from broth, I think created by the cooking of the meaty ingredients--two or three types of tripe (cow stomachs), sometimes cow feet, and hominy. Mostly, it's the stuff few of us seem to want to eat. In the case of this place, they topped it with your choice of red or green chili. Indeed, they top everything with red or green. And this is not chili as us northerners think of it--beans and beef with some chili powder and onions. This is chili made from peppers and perhaps tomatoes or tomatillos. The green that I had in the menudo was hot. Very hot. Indeed, I'm still sweating it out two hours later. But, oh, was it GOOD. There was very little of the funk you often associate iwth tripe. The broth was unctuous, the hominy an amazing textural contrast with the slightly sponge-like honeycomb tripe. The meat had cooked, and cooked, and was tender, but not rubbery. The chili spiced it up and took it to another level. Now, I think I might've liked it even better if the traditional accompaniments of lime, cilantro and so on had come with it. But still, WOW!

A real disappointment came in talking to my server, though. He was young, maybe just out of high school, 4 piercings in his lower lip. A really nice guy, and very talkative. And he positively hates menudo. So did a young woman working the floor. They think it stinks, can't stomach it. Only the old time greeter/owner (I"m assuming Mary) seemed to think that yes, in fact, menudo is great cuisine. I hope we are not seeing the disappearance of this wonderful, if odd, soup from menus in coming years, as the new generation moves toward more modern and arguably affluent choices in food.

The enchiladas were also well done. The amazing thing to me was the complete lack of gloppy, sticky sauce and cheese. These were onions, and beef, and an egg over easy, with red chili to top. It was good, it was incredibly filling, and there was nothing "americanized" about it that I found. The red is more flavorful and less hot than the green. Is the the wimp's chili? I'm not sure. Both were good, and worked wonderfully with their individual foods. I am SO glad I tried out this hole in teh wall. What a great experience. And, all for $12.