Model Pharmacy

Lomas at Carlisle,
Albuquerque, NM
505-255-8686

Not just another kitschy restaurant in a pharmacy place, where one usually finds nursing home quality cuisine: runny eggs, skinny burnt bacon, over buttered wonder bread toast. This pharmacy actually serves really good FRESH food.

Set up like a typical diner, a bar full of stools, and a handful of tables to match, Model Pharmacy sells typical fountain drinks and malts as well as freshly baked cobblers and pies. I don't know if they have a grandma in the kitchen hand baking everything, but there were three cobblers on deck right out of the oven the last time I went- a peach, blackberry, and cherry! I had the blackberry cobbler served with whipped cream, unbelievably delicious! The food here is MADE WITH LOVE, and after days of eating in a town where all the restaurants have a theme of pre-frozen re-heat sometimes served on plastic, I am thankful. The Reuben, Brisket sandwich, tuna salad, and chicken salad plate have all proved satisfying. For those that can't go a day without eating New Mexican cuisine, they always have a pot of green chili stew brewing in the back. Most sandwiches are served with a pickle, homemade apple/blueberry sauce, and a seasonal pasta salad.

When you're done eating walk back through the pharmacy and purchase any of the fine fragrances they sell, along with a fancy fountain pen, novelty hair brushes, postcards, and then...get your prescription filled. Leave looking and feeling like a true model.

Steakout

Located on Outlaw Hill
101 Stakeout Drive
P.O Box 453
Ranchos De Taos
NM 87557
Tel: 505.758.2042

So you drive down HWY 68 in Taos until you start to feel like you're in the middle of nowhere, then you'll see a small sign that says "Steakout". You turn in and drive for about 3 minutes up a dirt road-until you reach a white spaceship adobe-like structure.
It's a surf and turf type place with a few local delicacies offered. Unlike most every northern New Mexico restaurant it was more than just some "green chili on top"-Steakout has unique local treats like an Elk Carpaccio (raw Elk) appetizer-which, sigh, I now totally regret not trying. The problem was everything was a bit overpriced for taste testing-but people pay not really for the food but for the sunset. This restaurant has one of the best views, perched high up on Outlaw Hill, great for watching the sunset as you eat.

One funny thing I had never encountered before was a half bottle of wine. You would think perhaps that this would come in a carafe, or would be a bottle of wine half full-but it actually was a midget sized bottle of wine. Alas it was the perfect amount to give a happy couple a slight buzz-but still okay to drive back down that dirt road.

We ate crab filled ravioli and rib eye steak(sadly, not the best piece of meat I've ever been served) and watched the sun turn the mountains purple at 7:38. If you want to enjoy the sunset check the local sundown time and make reservations for the window seat if you can-or try to sit out on the patio...but the patio is where the couples that ordered the full bottle of wine go out to smoke and make out.

The Steakout has a little bit of a grandma/grandpa supper club feel-so try to show up classy-in an 80's sort of way...perhaps sunglasses and white breathable pants.


(Interesting side note about the Steakout: I recently read on a blog that the infamous "Taos Hum" (phenomena involving a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming noise not audible to all people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum) came from the Steakout's large meat cooler.
more info: "A heating contractor replaced the roof top unit of the walk in cooler at the Steak Out Restaurant on the hill above Taos. The unit has been on the roof for twenty-five years. The new owners wanted one more efficient and Earth Friendly, so they had it replaced last month. Since then there has been no more Taos Hum. The restaurant is up on the hill East of town with kind of an amphitheater of mountains in back of it. The unit had no vibration isolating pads, and every time it turned on the vibration went down into the Earth and was amplified somehow by the mountains behind the restaurant. The hum was always intermittent and some people thought it was some kind of signal from outer space. Turns out, it was the cooling unit turning on and off. The new unit is installed correctly and is very quiet. No more Taos Hum.")