Timbuctu Bistro – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

The Timbuctu Bistro is on the southeast corner of the Mariposa Information Center

Growing up in bucolic Peñasco back when fires were still started by rubbing two sticks together and mastodons roamed the Earth, I distinctly remember hearing playmates uttering the term “going all the way to Timbuktu.”  Considering we all thought Albuquerque was a million miles away, we couldn’t imagine just how far away Timbuktu must be.  Some of us reasoned it  existed only as a figment of the imagination similar to Oz, Neverland and Atlantis (Hogwarts, Narnia and Jurassic Park for you Generation Yers).  Even adult teachers whom we asked dismissed it as a distant land in deepest, darkest Africa though it was obvious they weren’t quite sure where it actually was…or if it existed at all.

Though seemingly synonymous with “some far away place,” Timbuktu does exist and imaginative children of all ages do visit it on occasion.   Timbuktu is a city of some 50,000 citizens–the most remote city, in fact, in the country of Mali, the crown jewel of West Africa.  It’s located between the southern edge of the mighty Sahara and the great bend of the Niger River.  Not only is it far away, it is difficult to get there, the only reliable route in or out being by chartered aircraft.

Restaurant impresario and Timbuctu Bistro owner Nico Ortiz (far right) discusses the daily menu

When you visit the Timbuctu Bistro in Rio Rancho, it’s pretty obvious how the restaurant got its name.   It’s about four miles north of the Santa Ana Star Center which even most of Rio Rancho’s citizenry erroneously believe is as far northwest as you can go and still be in the City of Vision.  There’s a vast expanse of sage and sand as far as the eyes can see on both sides of the two lane Unser Boulevard on the way to Mariposa, the environmentally-responsible master-planned community in which the Bistro is located. The Bistro is housed in complex which was previously home to the much-missed Outlook Cafe.

Its perceived distance will likely make the Timbuctu Bistro a true destination restaurant, an  exclusive enclave far away from the bustling well-beaten and well-eaten path that defines the Rio Rancho’s dining scene. In truth, however, from the intersection of Rio Rancho’s Unser and Southern Boulevards, the Timbuctu Bistro is almost equidistant to the Cottonwood Mall. There are far fewer traffic lights, no traffic snarls and once you’re past the turnoff to Northern, virtually no other traffic and only a couple of residential neighborhoods.

French Toast: two slices of locally-made Challah bread battered with a spiced orange liqueur, grilled golden brown and topped with vanilla whipped cream and fresh berries; served with warm syrup

There’s another reason for the name Timbuctu Bistro.  The charming restaurant which opened in May, 2002, is owned by Rio Rancho restaurant impresario Niko Ortiz, proprietor of the Total Mountain Brewing Company and the Fat Squirrel Pub & Grille.  The first letters of each word in Turtle Mountain Brewing Company (TMBC) are virtually an acronym for Timbuctu, ergo the name.  The Bistro is ensconced in a 1,200 square-foot corner space in the capacious two-story business center, a modern edifice with plenty of glass to take advantage of wondrous panoramic views.  From the ground-level cafe, your views are of the Sandia, Sangre de Cristo, Manzano and Ortiz Mountains, views which seem even more spectacular from the patio.

As of our inaugural visit a week after the Bistro’s opening, the only online confirmation of its existence was an information-poor page on Urbanspoon (my sources (my dear readers) are much better).  The Bistro also did not have a beer and wine license, but it does offer Villa Myriam Specialty Coffee, a start-up franchise owned and operated by Juan and David Certain.  The hand-picked Colombian Arabica bean is hand-roasted in Albuquerque.  It’s an excellent coffee, best described on the Villa Myriam Web site: “A very intense fragrance and aroma with an exotic flavor and a medium to heavy body, very balanced cup with a strong character and very pleasant after taste. With nutty cacao and hints of caramel smokiness notes. With the richness and flavor that makes Colombian coffee famous.”   Only at Cafe Bella have I had a better Cafe Au Lait in New Mexico.

Crab Cake Benedict: Two green chile crab cakes topped with poached eggs smothered in house-made Hollandaise and served with hash browns

The Timbuctu Bistro is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday from 11AM to 3PM and for dinner Tuesday through Sunday starting at 5PM.  Brunch is served Saturdays and Sundays from 9AM to 3PM.  The menu is surprisingly ambitious considering the Bistro’s tiny confines, though it’s not an especially large menu (four appetizers, three salads, seven lunch entrees, six dinner entrees and eight brunch entrees).  It’s a menu wholly unlike that at either of Niko Ortiz’s other restaurant ventures and it has a distinct New Mexican influence.  Burgers and sandwiches dominate the lunch menu while more sophisticated offerings (including a red chile bourbon glazed salmon) are available for dinner.  Aside from the salads, the most vegetarian-friendly items on the menu are a quesadilla (flour tortilla with Monterey Jack, tri-colored bell pepper-onion mix served with guacamole and sour cream) and a hummus cups (red chile hummus piled into crisp cucumber cups, each garnished with diced tomato, a pita chip and fresh basil) appetizer.

Brunch is the best of two worlds–not quite breakfast and not quite lunch, but the best of both. It’s a leisurely weekend repast which makes you feel you’re getting away with something, as if you’re defying your mom’s mandate not to have dessert before the main entree.  The Timbuctu Bistro has some of the standard New Mexico brunch favorites such as a breakfast burrito and French toast, but some are distinct enough not to be classified as the “same old, same old.”   Take the French Toast, for example.  Two slices of locally-made Challah bread are battered with a spiced orange liqueur then grilled golden brown and topped with vanilla whipped cream and fresh berries.  The spiced orange liqueur adds a nice citrusy touch and it’s hard to dispute that Challah bread makes the very best French toast.

Classic Breakfast: Two fried eggs over easy, two slices of bacon, a tortilla and yogurt with fresh fruit

For a uniquely New Mexico twist on a traditional favorite, you can’t beat the Bistro’s Crab Cake Benedict, two green chile crab cakes topped with poached eggs smothered in house-made Hollandaise and served with hash browns.  My friend  Larry McGoldrick, the professor with the perspicacious palate, contends “green chile is strictly forbidden” on crab cakes, but I believe these would make a convert out of him.  The crab cakes are fashioned from jumbo lump crab meat which is impregnated with the incomparable flavor of New Mexico roasted green chile–only enough to be discernible, not to dominate.  For good measure, the house-made Hollandaise is lightly dusted with red chile.  Only at the Gold Street Caffe will you find a comparable Southwest influenced Eggs Benedict dish.

If you’re not in an adventurous mood, the Bistro offers a Classic Breakfast option (two eggs any style with your choice of bacon, house-made chorizo (cumin added) or Canadian bacon served with hash browns and sourdough toast).  You can also substitute a tortilla and yogurt with fresh fruit for the hash browns and sourdough toast.  The yogurt is sweetened with honey, a nice contrast to the tangy, fresh berries and the creamy, pleasantly sour flavor of yogurt. 

Timbuktu has long had the connotation of a place so distant that going any farther is inconceivable.  The Timbuctu Bistro may someday be known not for being the furthest away (at least from the city’s population center) of Rio Rancho’s restaurants, but for being a viable, delicious dining option worth the drive from anywhere in the area.

Timbuctu Bistro
2500 Parkway Avenue Map.13c819a
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
505-369-3550
LATEST VISIT: 12 May 2012
# OF VISITS: 1
RATING: *
COST: $$
BEST BET: Crab Cake Benedict, Classic Breakfast, French Toast, Coffee Au Lait

Timbuctu Bistro on Urbanspoon

Posted in American, Brunch, New Mexico, Rio Rancho | 1 Comment

Just A Bite! – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Just A Bite! Bakery Cafe

Just A Bite! Bakery Cafe

An April, 2009 article in the Taos News reveals just how much cultural attitudes have changed in the county in which I grew up toward men in the kitchen.  The article profiled a Taos High School culinary arts team–comprised of three boys and one young lady–which triumphed over 16 other New Mexico schools in a state-wide cooking competition to earn a berth on the national stage.

In the dark ages when I attended high school, any male student deigning to admit to enjoy cooking would have been dismissed as a (select your own pejorative) and might even have incurred physical harm.  When I enrolled in Home Economics as a senior, I spared myself merciless taunting and possibly painful beatings by telling my friends it was solely so I could eat the food prepared by the female students (not surprisingly my pals thought it was a good idea, too).  As if by malevolent design, the first semester of the class was dedicated to sewing, a torturous ordeal for which my profound lack of interest proved an early undoing. I quit well before semester’s end.

My next flirtation with participating in the culinary arts came when I enlisted in the Air Force.  With vocational aptitude scores higher than the average bear (thank you Jim Millington for that line), I naturally believed the stereotype that the military makes mechanics out of accomplished chefs and cooks out of brainiacs like me (obviously I had no appreciation for just how much intellect it takes to be a good cook).  It was not to be.

Paradise under glass at Just A Bite!

Paradise under glass at Just A Bite!

Some people are destined to showcase their talents in the kitchen.  Some, like me, are obviously not.  At the opposite spectrum of this “would be chef” are people upon whom the culinary gods smiled–beatific bakers like Amy Markham-Sandoval, proprietor of Just A Bite! Bakery Cafe on San Pedro.  Before she launched her bakehouse business she worked at a police station where her peace officer pleasing pastries (and not just donuts) so enamored her work colleagues that they convinced her to open a bakery.

Talk about misnomer!  ”Just A Bite!” is, like the potato chips in the old Lays potato chips commercials, not something of which you can have just one bite.  Nor are the decadent and delicious baked goods something you will want to wolf down voraciously.  You’ll want to savor each morsel slowly and luxuriate in its sugary scrumptiousness.  Even among the “bite-sized” confections, you’ll want to take your time and drive your taste buds crazy with delight.

Just A Bite! is located in a characterless shopping center on San Pedro just south of Paseo del Norte.  It is situated just before the bend on the L-shaped complex, occupying one of the smaller retail spaces.  It’s not the type of store which will catch your eye, but it is the type of store which will earn a reputation strictly by word of mouth.  That’s how I found out about it.  Barbara Trembath, a fellow gourmand, told me about Just A Bite in her own inimitable way, “These are the best damn cupcakes on the planet. Little, tiny, deceptive mouthfuls of sugary happiness.  I might be persuaded to do just about anything for a dozen of their red velvet mini cupcakes.”

Small in size, humongous in flavor

Small in size, humongous in flavor

Just A Bite!’s cupcakes are indeed mouthfuls of sugary happiness with the “large” cupcakes (strictly by virtue of the increased number of bites provided) offering more happiness than the bite-size, irresistibly cute mini cupcakes.  Perhaps nothing epitomizes “lovin’ from the oven” better than a great cupcake or ten.  Whether your pleasure is the moist and marvelous triple chocolate cupcake (chocolate cake with a house-made fresh chocolate cream filling topped with chocolate frosting) or the intensely flavored cinnamon spice cupcake (made with cinnamon and cloves), Just A Bite!’s choices are sure to please.

Tiny though they might be, the mini cupcakes are often the inspiration for wedding cakes.  Just A Bite! offers bridal consultation by appointment, showcasing wedding cakes that don’t look as if they are constructed of plaster of Paris and taste like an overdose of sugar.  In fact, the inspiration for many of the wedding cakes are sometimes the cupcakes which can be turned into a wedding cake.  These cupcakes really do take the cake.

All baked goods–fresh pies, cookies, cheesecakes, brownies and oh, so much more–are made on the premises and are made fresh to order.  Not only will you be stuffed when you’ve sated your sweet tooth, the stuff which fills you up may also be stuffed.  Cinnamon roll spirals stuffed with a cream cheese mixture then baked and smothered with a butter cream frosting are a popular favorite, but an even more exotic offering are stuffed strawberries, huge strawberries stuffed with cheesecake then dipped in imported Belgian chocolate.

A Turkey Sandwich

Lest you think this is all about delicious decadence and scrumptious sweetness, Just A Bite!’s menu includes breakfast sandwiches served with fruit.  Box lunches are also available.  They include a sandwich, chips or pasta, salad, fruit and a cupcake.  Sandwiches are made with your choice of croissant, whole grain white, wheat or sourdough.  From an Italian inspired Italian sandwich (pepperoni, ham and cheese) to the rudimentary old-fashioned egg salad sandwich, the options are deliciously appealing.  A Veggie and Cheese sandwich (no sprouts or cucumbers) is also available.

Alas, as was my experience the first time I visited Just A Bite hoping to try one of the more “inventive” sandwiches on the menu, the only remaining options (at 12:15) were ham or turkey (and not the Albuquerque Turkey listed on the Web site).  It was a rather plain sandwich–turkey, Cheddar and lettuce along with a packet of mustard.  Luckily my disappointment was quelled by three mini cupcakes (two mini chocolate and one lemon curd).

Even my neanderthal classmates would find much to love at Just A Bite!, a bakery brimming with delicious options lovingly crafted by someone fortunate and talented enough to excel in the culinary arts.

Just A Bite! Bakery Cafe
7900 San Pedro, N.E.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 822-5001
Web Site
LATEST VISIT: 9 May 2012
1st VISIT: 11 April 2009
# OF VISITS: 2
RATING: 19
BEST BET:  Cinnamon Spice Cupcake, Triple Chocolate Cupcake, Chocolate Chip & Oatmeal Gooey Bar, Eclair, Turkey Sandwich

Just a Bite on Urbanspoon

Posted in Albuquerque, Bakery | 5 Comments

Cafe Castro – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Cafe Castro on Cerrillos in Santa Fe

The rich folklore of the Hispanic culture of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado is preserved largely through cuentos and dichos passed down from one generation to the next. Cuentos are stories, legends and myths, the type for which Aesop is renown. Dichos are pithy folk sayings or proverbs much in the style of Confucius. Both cuentos and dichos are replete with the wisdom of the ages expressed in simplistic terms even a child can easily comprehend. They offer words to live by.

One of my favorite dichos goes, “A la primera cocinera se le va un chile entero,” which means “To the best cook goes the whole chile.” This dicho recognizes that the best cooks know how to maximize the flavors of chile to bring out its full complement of deliciousness. It also expresses the sentiment New Mexicans have for their favorite purveyors of chile, whether they be the growers which harvest fecund fields for the staple of New Mexican cuisine or the innumerable restaurants which serve it.

One of the two dining rooms at Cafe Castro

While chile is a ubiquitous offering in the Land of Enchantment, its preparation is as widely diverse as opinions are as to what constitutes the best chile. Even among traditionalists, there are wide and disparate opinions as to how to prepare chile, a frequent point of contention being whether or not cumin should be used. Purists like me will argue that chile is one of nature’s perfect foods and that it requires absolutely no amelioration whatsoever. To many of us the addition of cumin is a desecration, a defilement of a sacred food. Regular readers of my reviews know my stance on cumin, that foul despoiler of flawlessness and they’ll forgive me if I make this point ad-nauseum.

Some of us believe the addictive piquancy of chile must bring sweat to our brows, tears to our eyes and blisters to our tongues. If chile doesn’t have these effects, it may as well be chili, that Tex-Mex offering some self-respecting New Mexicans deride. Pepper spray has nothing on chile for some of us capsaicin addicted masochistic diehards. Combine a pure, earthy chile with the capsaicin heat of a piquant chile and you’ve got the bet of both worlds.

Con Queso, Salsa, Guacamole and Chips

When it comes to New Mexican red chile, many of the restaurants which most meet my criteria for great chile seem to be clustered in Santa Fe where the chile is reminiscent of the chile on which I was weaned. Santa Fe’s purveyors of chile, unlike many of their brethren in Taos and Albuquerque, have not “anglicized” their chile for tourist tastes. Santa Fe chile tends to be potent; it bites back.

Santa Fe restaurants offer a chile which tends toward being a dark red, characteristic of not employing corn starch or other thickening agents. It is more “earthy” and suggestive of nature in all its fresh and delicious purity. It is the essence of New Mexico chile the way it is meant to be. There may be a lesson here for Taos and Albuquerque restaurants which have “dumbed down” their chile in catering to unacculturated tourist tastes.

A trio (cheese, ground beef, chicken) of enchiladas served Christmas style and with an egg on top

Compared to some of Santa Fe’s venerable New Mexican food restaurant mainstays, some of which have been delighting generations of locals and tourists alike, Cafe Castro is a relative newcomer to the Santa Fe restaurant scene.  Owners Julia and Carlos Castro had a winner in their hands from the onset with a winning formula of unadulterated chile purity, generous portions and some of the most friendly service in town.  The Castros’ first restaurant venture in Santa Fe, the defunct older sibling Castro’s Restaurante, on Rodeo road was ensconced in secluded Rodeo Road which made it an off-the-beaten-path dining destination.  Cafe Castro is situated on Cerrillos, one of Santa Fe’s most trafficked streets.

The menu is replete with traditional favorites prepared in the manner in which abuelitas and cocineras have done so for generations. The restaurant is almost directly across Cerrillos from Jackalope, but if you’re driving a bit fast you might miss it. It is a homey little restaurant with limited parking and short waits are not uncommon. Its walls are festooned with very eclectic New Mexican and Mexican art including one wall depicting Dia de los Muertos (day of the dead) skeletal figures in various poses, for example, a sombrero attired caballero kneeling at the feet of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Massive vigas on the ceiling, terra cotta floors and amber and white stuccoed walls lend to the ambiance.

Carne Adovada with two fried eggs and papitas

At most New Mexican restaurants salsa is not always a barometer as to the piquancy of the restaurant’s chile. In many cases, the salsa is the sole dish with any piquancy. The salsa at Cafe Castro has a nice bite to it. It is about as thick as ketchup, but you’d never make that mistake in terms of flavor and piquancy. This salsa is potent, a sassy mix of chile, garlic, onion and rich, red tomato. Our only complaint is that it’s not complementary, an increasingly frequent trend in New Mexican restaurants.

As piquant as we found the salsa, we were somewhat disappointed in the guacamole, the sole discernible flavor of which was mashed avocado. While avocado is the key component in the construction of guacamole, its flavor is usually complemented with salsa, garlic or even lime. If you like buttery, unadorned guacamole, Castro’s will accommodate you.  The con queso is much better, the piquant influence of green chiles apparent in every bite.  Chips are low in salt.

Sopaipillas served with real honey

The menu is not a compendium of everything New Mexican. Rather, it is a limited selection of New Mexican treasures prepared exceptionally well. All the standards are there–enchiladas, tacos, burritos, stuffed sopaipillas, chile rellenos, combination platters and even a New Mexican steak. The only item on the dinner menu which might be argued is not New Mexican is the chalupa (a specialty of the states of Puebla, Guerrero and Oaxaca) dinner.

If excellent enchiladas are the true measure of a New Mexican restaurant’s cuisine, Cafe Castro has enchiladas for everyone–blue corn, cheese, chicken or ground beef. You can also have them all by ordering the triple enchilada, a bounteous platter featuring one cheese, one chicken and one ground beef enchilada, rolled and smothered with your choice of red or green chile (or both) and served with Spanish rice and beans.

Apple pie a la mode

The green chile is merely delicious, chopped finely and unspoiled. The red chile is as described by the Albuquerque Journal’s Anne Hillerman, “some of the best in town–smooth, thick, spicy and irresistible.” It is also pleasantly piquant with the type of burn some of us leather-tongued aficionados love. It is a dark chile almost the color of kidney beans and you get plenty of it on your plate.  New Mexicans might be tempted to lick their plates while tourists will likely say “no mas” to its bite.

The triple enchiladas are triply terrific when topped with a fried egg over medium so that the yoke is easily punctured by your folk to allow it to run over the enchiladas. Melted Cheddar cheese and a garnish of lettuce and tomato add contrast and flavor. The beans are excellent while the Spanish rice is, well, it’s Spanish rice. This is a humongous plate you might not be able to finish, but you will want to make sure you finish off every bit of the chile.

The carne adovada is some of the very best in Santa Fe, if not the Land of Enchantment.  Picture tender tendrils of shredded pork marinated in red chile so rich and delicious you’ll want to make out with it.   Picture it served with two eggs prepared any way you want them and served with a side of papitas.  Picture a pinto-pony colored char on the tortilla which you’ll use to sop up all the chile.  The cooks at Cafe Castro exemplify the dicho with which this review began.

The portions are prodigious at Cafe Castro, but you’ve got to save room for the sopaipillas. I’ve heard children refer to sopaipillas as “sofa pillows” and these might be, in terms of size only, the closest I’ve seen to matching that description. These sopaipillas are enormous. Cafe Castro delivers a basket of steaming warm sopaipillas immediately after bringing the entrees to your table. That’s a good practice for a couple of reasons. You can eat these puffy pillows of deliciousness before you’re too engorged to eat another bite. Secondly, with a little bit of honey, the sopaipillas will cut the piquancy of the chile for folks whose tongues aren’t lined with asbestos.

Cafe Castro offers several other menu options–chocolate brownie, flan, apple pie, tres leches cake–and most diners won’t have room left to enjoy them.  The apple pie a la mode is probably pretty good, but with every bite my thoughts were of the old Alka Seltzer commercial in which an overstuffed diner repeatedly uttered “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

Cafe Castro understands the concept of “getting the whole chile” and they sure know what to do with it. This is a very good New Mexican restaurant which adheres strictly to traditions, especially when it comes to chile. That’s the way I like it.

Cafe Castro
2811 Cerrillos Road
Santa Fe, NM
(505) 473-5800
LATEST VISIT: 6 May 2012
1st VISIT: 3 October 2008
# OF VISITS: 2
RATING: 22
COST: $$
BEST BET: Triple Enchiladas, Chile Rellenos, Salsa and Chips, Sopaipillas, Horchata, Con Queso, Guacamole, Coffee

Cafe Castro on Urbanspoon

Posted in Breakfast, New Mexican, New Mexico, Santa Fe | 5 Comments