El Pinto, Albuquerque, NM

Thursday night before I left Albuquerque, I went to a place highly recommended by the hotel concierge called El Pinto. El Pinto is a "destination" spot located way out on the far northwest outskirts of town in a building which was actually new restaurant construction from the 1970s, but which was built to resemble (perhaps too much!) an old, grand hacienda. It's a really big place, and kind of reminded me somewhat of Casa Bonita in Tulsa, but on a smaller, more elegant scale.

The food there, though, was rather ordinary, I thought. The best things were the guacamole and the white cheese dip, but I was totally stuffed before my enormous serving of chicken enchildas in blue corn tortillas, rice, and beans arrived. The enchildas were somewhat disappointing, especially since I paid extra for the blue corn tortillas, since they'd over baked them a bit and some of the enchilda was dried out. For dessert, I had a flan, which was good once I could undig it from out of the mountains of sweetened whipped cream.