Harvest Cafe, Albuquerque, NM

We were wrapping up our last day of business discussions, and our group opted to go to lunch together at the Harvest Cafe at the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center. I do like that place—went there the time before last when I was in Albuquerque. We got the big corner table and all ordered our own things. I ordered things for "courses," but everything arrived all at once.

My intended "appetizer" was corn fries. These are French-fry looking things served with a green chile ranch dressing dipping sauce. They weren't potatoes, though.....they were made as though they had prepared a thick cornmeal mush, rolled it out, then cut French-fry sized pieces that were then deep fried. They were quite good, with an interesting flavor, even though it's not a "traditional" food.

Next, I had a cup of mutton stew. The mutton and vegetables were tasty and fork-tender, but I would have liked the rather thin broth to have been a bit more flavorful....this broth tasted as though it hadn't stewed long enough that morning.

My main course, though, was absolutely delicious. I had the "pueblo rellenos," an Indian version of the more familar chiles rellenos on many Mexican restaurant menus. Rather than the Mexican poblano pepper, they used a great big, traditional, New Mexico pepper called a "Big Jim," which was stuffed with cheese, then breaded in blue cornmeal and fried. Two of these big peppers were presented on a bed of red chiles which were redolent with a hearty, smoky taste and a bold but not unpleasant heat bite. Oh, my, the rellenos were so good!

Other people at the table had various things including the posole (spicy hominy and pork stew), big bowls of the mutton stew, chicken quesadilla-looking things, enchiladas in green chiles, and great big, plate-sized pieces of fry bread.