February 1, 2024 Breakfast - Eggs with a chocolate Croissant and a Blackberry Cream cheese Danish. Lunch - seafood and Pinot Noir event at the Ski Basin at Noon. Dinner at Suchness

February 1, 2024 Breakfast - Eggs with a chocolate Croissant and a Blackberry Cream cheese Danish. Lunch - seafood and Pinot Noir event at the Ski Basin at Noon. Dinner at Suchness

Suzette awakened at 8:00 and dressed went to drink coffee in the restaurant. I followed at 8:45. Today’s breakfast was wonderful. I took some fluffy scrambled eggs and chocolate croissant and a really lovely blackberry and cream 

cheese Danish with a cup of fresh orange juice and a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Suzette took eggs and a potatoes that were highly seasoned with garlic and drank a cup of coffee.

After breakfast we returned to the room and rested until 11:00 when we drove to the Ski Basin for the annual, salmon, Aji tuna, and oyster lunch, which we always enjoy.  This year was excellent. 315 made lovely seared Aji tuna steak garnished with a wasabi sauce served with beet and potatoes, another good Restauranr did grilled salmon cubes served on cheese polenta with a Demi-glacé sauce (absolutely fabulous), and Joseph’s table shucked 650 oysters on the half shell with hand cut potato chips cooked in oil with duck fat. There were three sauces for the oysters: a mignonette, a cocktail, lemon wedges, and a chili sauce.

There were three wines that were wonderful also, Brickhouse Oregon Pinot Noir, Flowers Pinot Noir, and a newly released 2023 Matanzas Creek Chenin Blanc were my favorites.

I must have eaten three or four tuna plates, three salmon plates and 28 oysters in the 2 hours we were in attendance. It was a feast.

And I felt good afterwards and not terribly full, amazingly.

We drove back to the room and rested until 4:30, when we drove to the Plaza and went to a craft show in the La Fonda Hotel on the Plaza and then at 6:00 to Suchness Restaurant for dinner. We had studied the menu and Suzette definitely wanted to try the Cassoulet and we both wanted to try the Escargot with spinach and  puff pastry.

Suchness is just starting and only got its beer and wine license this week, so the wine selection was limited. After the seafood feast we passed on the yellowtail tuna appetizer and shared escargot and cassoulet. We each drank a white Southern Italian wine with the escargot that were served in a bowl with creamed spinach on which was a puff pastry surrounded by lemon foam, a dramatic presentation.

The cassoulet was too rich for our taste with its thick heavily reduced rabbit sauce flavored with thyme and rosemary. We had trouble finishing it although the problem was we split a glass of red wine and we should have had a bottle of red wine to absorb all the complex flavors of rabbit, sous vide pork belly, duck, croutons, and beans.  The end result for me was heavy and greasy but rich with complex flavors.

After dinner we were thrilled to see Venus in the proximity of a Crescent moon.

We drove to Sagebrush Inn to listen to Vanilla Pop, an Albuquerque band play to a full house. 

Suzette drank a beer and I drank 1/2 of a Strongbow apple cider and we left after about an hour at 8:30 and drove back to the Hacienda.  

I made a cup of chamomile tea and ate several biscotti and a square of chocolate with it. Suzette went to bed and I watched the rerun of Wolves beat Aston Villa 2 to 0 to possibly escape relegation.

And at 10:00 I blogged this entry and went to bed.

It was another 3900 step day and during the night that I was using my solar plex’s muscles to breath in and out that created less stress on the rest of my body. I guess I am gaining some core strength.

Bon Apetit

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January 31, 2024. Breakfast - corundas, egg and green chili cupcakes, and yogurt. Lunch - Chokola. Dinner - Aceq, Arroya Seco

January 31, 2024. Breakfast - corundas, egg and green chili cupcakes, and yogurt. Lunch - Chokola. Dinner - Aceq, Arroya Seco

Breakfast is served from 8:00 to 9:30.

We  went at 8:00. The hot dish today was a moist tamale wrapped in a corn husk that instead of filled in the middle with meat had scattered kernels of corn and bits of green chili.  I immediately was reminded of the traditional Uruapan corundas we ate at its annual craft fair celebration in Uruapan. There was also a tray of cupcakes filled with eggs and green chili. The best part of the breakfast was fresh orange juice made with an orange juice machine like those in Spain.  I also took a plain yogurt.

After breakfast we returned to the room and I napped until 11:30 to catch up on the sleep I lost from getting used to firm mattress last night.

We then drove to the gorge bridge and walked around the parking lot where it had been shoveled. There was approximately 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow everywhere we went today and men and tractors shoveling snow to provide access and parking everywhere we went.

 As we walked the scenery of the mountains that line the east side of the high valley next to the deep gorge and the massive bridge was impressive.

 When we left the parking lot we noticed that the car dash was showing low pressure in the tires so we drove slowly the ten miles back to Silvia’s tire shop on the Camino Pueblo and had the tires filled from 30 to 40 lb. Apparently sitting in the deep snow overnight caused the tires filled from pressure to fall.

We continued back to downtown and parked in the parking lot between  Bent Street and the Plaza and walked toward the Plaza to Chokola, shop that features chocolate items. We bought a cup of French vanilla hot chocolate and an 8 oz. cup of half coffee mousse and half chocolate mousse. Both were delicious but I noticed that the mousse was smooth and creamy that for me is the sign to me that the person who made the mousse knew how to handle the chocolate so it did not curdle. This was a wonderful lunch and it reminded me of the famous coffee houses of the 17th century in Europe such as the famous elegant Cafe Gerbeaud in downtown Budapest I visited. 

After lunch we walked under the portal on the north side of the Plaza back to the parking lot and drove back to the Hacienda del Sol and rested until 2:30 when we soaked in the hot tub.

After the hot tub we showered and dressed and at 4:00 we drove to the Cellar wine shop next to Cid’s and bought four bottles of wine, two Savennieres, the Cheverny blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, and one other wine plus a bottle of herbal liquor.

We then drove to Aceq in Arroyo Seco at 5:00 but they would not let us in until 6:00, so we drove to El Salto, a famous restaurant and bar after few blocks from the center of Arroyo Seco and shared a sweet red French Vermouth.

When we returned to Aceq at 6:00 it was filling up with wine dinner guests and we were seated at a chairs lining a long table in places reserved for us. Seated next to me was Bruce who was a Bedrock aficionado whose knowledge and collection of Bedrock wine was encyclopedic. On the other side of the table on Bruce’s side was a lady we had met before who Suzette spoke to and at the end of the table on the other side were a younger couple named Allison and Phil Romero who were locals.

It took until 7:00 for everyone to arrive and be seated and for the table service to begin because there must have been over 50 attendees.

Then Morgan Peterson the Bedrock co-owner and winemaker talked a bit about the food with emphasis on the Boer goat being served. 

Soon the first course and wine was served and I initially gagged on the oakiness of the Sauvignon Blanc blend and was disappointed that the small pile of bay scallops had been tempura battered and deep fried to the point that they were tough, although the blood orange coulis was lovely.

Things started getting better with the second course, a Mourvèdre blend rose that was nice and a Dover sole roulade stuffed with spinach sauced with a cranberry Beurre Blanc sauce.

The third course was the goat served with a thin sheets of vegetables like carrots, beets, and Winter squashes lightly cooked and layered into a Mille Feuille and a chèvre croquette. I was put off by the toughness of the goat that was over grilled and tough and the misspelling on the menu. Dover Sole was spelled Dover Soul and the croquette was spelled chive instead of chèvre.

But the goat was served with an old vine Zinfandel that was lovely and the stack of thin sheets of lightly cooked vegetables was the best part of the meal so far.

The fourth course was the most interesting and successful dish of the meal, four thin slices of venison grilled to rare and sauced with a five spice-coffee-and soy reduction sauce, which sounded awful but tasted wonderful because it was a lightly seasoned Demi-glacé that was creamy and did not overpower the tender venison as I had feared when I read the menu. The venison was served with a lovely salad of fresh tomatoes, cooked sweet peppers, edamame, and thin threads of fried noodle and carrots and lots of sunflower sprouts. The wine paring was a lovely Syrah  that Bruce informed me was the most expensive wine poured this evening and that he had a couple in his cellar. Bruce must have a massive cellar because he kept referring to a long list of coded entries, that put him in a category in my mind that went well beyond aficionado.

The fifth and final dessert course was lovely also, a warm fried beignet, called an empanada on the menu, covered with lightly sautéed cubed fruit in a light caramel sauce served on a bed of creme anglais with a spritz of whipped cream. Allison, who had not eaten the goat or the venison, loved this dessert and declared she loved empanadas. So when the served came by with two plates of dessert I asked for them and gave one to Allison and took one for myself. The late harvest honey colored Gewertztraiminir with a hint of botrytis and 136 parts of sugar to liter and a strong citrus finish was my favorite wine of the evening along with the two reds.

So overall I did not think the dinner was worth $175.00 plus tip because it failed on the first and third course, but I liked the Bedrock wines and Morgan Peterson’s energy and creativity that went into his wines.

So on balance it was a pleasant experience, greatly improved by our pleasant conversation with the Romeros.

It was 10:00 when we returned to the Hacienda, so the meal was about 2 1/2 hours, or 3 1/2 hours if one counted the hour wait before it started, a pretty leisurely pace that added to the pleasure with extra pours of wine to top off our glasses along the way.

We are looking forward to the salmon and oyster lunch at the Ski Basin tomorrow and dinner at a new restaurant named Suchness.

Bon Appetit