Western Bar and Cafe

(505) 682-2445

Cloudcroft, New Mexico, is up around 9,000 feet in the Sacramento Mountains. So, chances are good that when it’s brutally hot down in the valley around Alamogordo, up here it will be crystal clear and cool. Of course, if it’s anytime near winter, it’ll be downright cold and raining, but that just makes the coffee taste better!

The Western Bar and Café is a picturesque joint right in the middle of old downtown Cloudcroft. It’s just a one street town, so don’t panic about getting lost. Half the building houses the café, the other half is a cool, dark, old-time bar that invites you to stick your boot on the foot rail and order up. The walls are covered in old, historical black-and-white photos, mixed in with colorful beer posters featuring great-lookin’ gals.

Early in the morning, most folks opt for the café. The room is usually packed with locals at the crack of dawn, or even before, depending on the time of year. The coffee is hot and plentiful, and the meal portions are enormous. Every plate that goes by is filled to overflowing.

As always in New Mexico, Mexican food is a specialty, and you’ll have to choose when the waitress asks, “Green or Red?” She is simply asking if you want your order topped with green or red sauce. Ask nice, and she’ll bring you some of each.

The huevos rancheros are the star of the menu. That means two eggs served over easy, atop corn tortillas that have been bathed in homemade sauce. There is also a big dollop of freshly made frijoles (refried beans) and extra crispy hand-grated hash browns. There is not an inch of plate left uncovered. Hash browns are a little bit of departure when ordering Mexican food—yellow rice would be more traditional—but that often seems to be the case in New Mexico. Maybe it’s a nod to the gringo ranchers. Either way, the hash browns taste great when combined with some beans and egg and rolled into a warm tortilla.

I find huevos rancheros an indication of the kitchen in general—a benchmark, as it were—because most of the ingredients should be homemade to start with. If the huevos are good, usually everything else follows suite. And these huevos ($7.25) are great!

Fred Scot, the chef, indicates that everything is indeed made from scratch. Sauces, beans, you name it. And he takes great pride in how fresh everything is. He makes his red sauce with Chimayo pepper powder, produced in the town of Chimayo just north of Santa Fe. It has a very distinctive taste, and gives the sauce a deep, complex flavor and a dark red tint. The green sauce is made by taking green chilis from a tub he buys at Wal-Mart, of all places, and mixing them with a little flour and oil to form a roux. “Tend it constantly,” he warns, “so that it doesn’t burn. Mix in a little salt, and serve it up steaming hot.”

The trick to Fred’s frijoles is using a pressure cooker. It keeps the beans firm, and the taste very fresh. There is nothing else in there except a little salt.

For less traditional Mexican fare, try the breakfast burrito ($5.25): meat, cheese, and scrambled eggs spilling out of a flour tortilla.

The Texas-size French toast ($5.50) includes 3 huge pieces of toast coated in a thick batter. Add a giant piece of thick ham for forty-five cents. If you are in the mood for pancakes, be careful how many you order. These moist, fluffy discs are an acre in size, and will hardly leave room for coffee!

After breakfast, stroll the boardwalk and check out some of the old town. Then head west out of town until you get to Route 244. It’s a wonderful narrow, winding road that heads north through the mountains, and is spectacularly pretty. When it dead ends at Highway 70, you’ll be on Billy the Kid Trail. Follow that east until you hit Route 48, just outside Ruidoso. If you are clever, you will take that road towards Carrizozo, New Mexico, where you can purchase ice-cold, homemade cherry cider. It’s a Carrizozo specialty, and you can visit the orchards just south of town.

P.S. Mix some vodka with the cherry cider, serve it ice-cold, and treat yourself to a delightful adult treat. It’ll taste a lot like a cherry Popsicle, only better!

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