{"id":10807,"date":"2007-06-27T09:01:05","date_gmt":"2007-06-27T16:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/06\/27\/restaurant-review-el-nido-santa-fe.html"},"modified":"2007-06-27T09:01:05","modified_gmt":"2007-06-27T16:01:05","slug":"restaurant_review_el_nido","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/06\/27\/restaurant_review_el_nido.html","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: El Nido (Santa Fe)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Overall<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Food<\/td>\n <\/td>\n Service<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ambience<\/td>\n <\/td>\n Prices<\/td>\n <\/em><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

El Nido<\/a> touts itself as an old-style steak house, and that fits perfectly.  Nothing trendy here, nothing avant’garde or challenging — just big chunks of food, well prepared, served they way they would have been served decades ago.<\/p>\n

Food<\/strong>:  The menu is pretty simple.  There weren’t any starters that caught our eye (except for their traditionalism — how long since you saw Oysters Rockafeller on the menu?), but there was a long line of steaks, roast, lamb, and sea food, which all came with veggies, a salad (Margie’s house salad was tasty; I upgraded to the Caesar which was both large and very garlicky, yum) and a side potato.  You could also get specialty upgrades to the meats — I went for the green chiles<\/a>, which were nicely sauteed and added a pleasantly spicy (but not hot) flavor to my New York.  Margie went for roast beef and scallops, and had no complaints. <\/p>\n

The specials were all sea food, and looked good.<\/p>\n

The wine list was of moderate size, but had a wide varety, priced non-exploitatively, including Silver Oak ($95) and Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin ($28, our selection).<\/p>\n

We passed on the desserts, as we were full.<\/p>\n

Service<\/strong>: We were greeted nicely, and the staff were friendly and fairly attentive.  Been a while since we had a separate cocktail waitress from our “regular” waiter.  Glasses were kept full, food was served and cleared promptly.<\/p>\n

Ambience<\/strong>:  The exterior is a nice, low-slung adobe style, but the interior looks like a very mellow 1970s New Mexico decor — nothing garish, but nothing very interesting.  It neither detracts nor adds to the experience.<\/p>\n

Prices<\/strong>:  Two sizable entr\u00e9es (with some upgrades) and a lower-end bottle of wine set us back about $100.  It felt like pretty good value for the food quality.<\/p>\n

Overall<\/strong>:  The place is supposed to be a favorite of Santa Fe opera-goers, and it certainly is a location we’d return to again.  It’s not wildly creative or distinctly Santa Fean or a place where all the
in crowd and hot celebs are going to hang, but it’s good, well-cooked, well-served food, which is frankly mostly what we’re looking for.<\/p>\n

El Nido is part of the 999Dine<\/a> network of New Mexico (and Durango) restaurants, which lets you buy discounted vouchers beforehand.  We got a $40 voucher online for $26 (with a day-of-week limitation), which was a nice discount.<\/p>\n

El Nido is located north of Santa Fe about 5-7 minutes on Bishops Lodge Road, just a bit beyond Shidoni Foundry.<\/p>\n

El Nido Restaurant<\/a>, Tesuque, NM – Located at County Rd. 591 at Bishops Lodge Rd. 505-988-4340<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overall Food Service Ambience Prices El Nido touts itself as an old-style steak house, and that fits perfectly.  Nothing trendy here, nothing avant’garde or challenging — just big chunks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-drink","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10803,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/06\/27\/restaurant_review_osteria.html","url_meta":{"origin":10807,"position":0},"title":"Restaurant review: Osteria d’Assisi (Santa Fe)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Jun-07 9:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Recommended by my folks in their various peregrinations to Santa Fe, this Italian restaurant is located north of the Plaza, just across the street from the Federal Courthouse. 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