Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [212]
Duran, by the way, is a full-service pharmacy.
The Eagle
220 W. Route
66 505–722–3220
Gallup, NM
BLD | $
With its pea-green walls, high ceiling, and décor consisting of cutout images of a taco, a chicken basket, a hot dog, a hamburger, and French fries, the Eagle is a humble place favored by locals and visitors who come to buy or sell at the venerable Richardson’s Trading Post next door. The menu is Southwest-café cuisine, including hamburgers, Navajo tacos, and enchiladas. And lamb. Lamb is part of the culinary heritage of this region, primarily thanks to Navajo shepherds who have raised it for millennia, but it isn’t all that common on café menus. That is why we felt compelled to order a bowl of Eagle café lamb stew one afternoon for a snack.
“It’ll be kinda huge,” the waitress warns. Huge it is, and unforgettable. A stark dish with hominy and spuds on the side, it is little more than a bowl full of seasoned meat, much of it still on the bone, soft and tender and rich as cream. The bones necessarily make it finger food, so there is no way to eat this meal fast. To work through it at the ancient porcelain counter with the big neon “Welcome” sign on the back wall and the beveled mirrors that look like something from an Edward Hopper painting is to have a dining experience that could happen only on Route 66.
El Farolito
1212 Main St.
505–581–9509
El Rito, NM
LD | $
El Rito is a long way from almost everywhere, and we never would have come across El Farolito had it not been for a great Roadfood tip from Michelle Sullivan, who wrote to praise the green chile. The trip from Santa Fe was an adventure in itself, a drive through a glorious landscape of awesome rock formations, sagebrush, and grazing cows. The town is little more than a single street with a general store on one side and El Farolito on the other. It’s a small restaurant, hardly bigger than a house trailer, with seven picnic tables up front and the kitchen in back.
For native New Mexican food, you won’t find a better place at a better price. Chiles relleños, tacos, enchiladas, and green chile cheeseburgers are featured on the menu (which also offers ordinary hamburgers and hot dogs for chilephobes). The green chili is especially excellent: a luxurious stew of bite-size pieces of pork, tomato, and slivers of ultra-hot green chile. Red chile is more a sauce, nothing but puréed chiles and spice, and it is used on burritos and enchiladas. But if you’d like a “bowl of red” as a meal, the Trujillos will add beef and/or beans to create a thick, powerhouse stew.
We cannot resist El Farolito’s Fritos pie. Dominic Trujillo, son of founders Carmen and Dennis, told us that some customers who get their pies to go have the corn chips packed separately so they don’t get too soft by the time dinner is ready to eat. The way it normally comes from the kitchen, there is a thick layer of relatively mild-mannered red chili spread atop a foundation of corn chips, the chili garnished with melting shredded cheese, lettuce, and tomato. It’s the whole food pyramid in a single bowl!
El Rancho Restaurant
1000 E. Route
66 505–863–9311
Gallup, NM
BLD | $
Built by D. W. Griffith’s brother so early Hollywood filmmakers would have a place to stay when shooting westerns on location, the El Rancho Hotel has been revived and spiffed up and is a nice place to stay, albeit rather rugged and modest. The lobby is loaded with western artifacts and movie colony memorabilia that includes autographed pictures of the stars who stayed here.
Aside from celebrity connections and colorful non-chain accommodations, El Rancho earns its place on the Roadfood map for an excellent hotel restaurant. The menu is a mélange of western Americana, New Mexican standards, and a bit of Tex-Mex thrown in. For breakfast, we have enjoyed huevos rancheros and swell plates of steak and eggs with crunchy hash brown potatoes, and a lunchtime chicken enchilada was lovely. The bar is especially inviting, considering