All The News That's Fit To Eat

Have you ever tried to eat a sopaipilla the size of a down comforter? Well, maybe not down comforter size but how about … almost as big as a medium pizza? Our indefatigable interns brought one of these monsters back from Delicia's, a café tucked into a blink-and-you-missed-it strip mall between the Rio Grande river and Atrisco (3915 Central NW, 833-0488). Delicia's staff is very friendly, the kind of friendly that makes East Coast émigrés suspicious. (Why are all these people being so nice? What do they want?) The food is pleasantly unambitious, good New Mexican grub done very well. An entrée of pork chops smothered in onions, tomatoes and jalapeños tasted like it was home cooked by somebody's grandma. In fact the cook looked like somebody's grandma as she called across the dining room to ask me, “Hon! Do you like onions?” Yeah, I do like onions and I like Delicia's. I bet you will too. They're open for breakfast, lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday and until 3 p.m. on Sundays.

Java junkies can now get a fix at the new Satellite Coffee over on Montgomery East of Wyoming (296-7654). The third Satellite in the city, it is the first to have a drive-up window so you won't have to expend a single calorie in picking up your Java freeze. In case you just dropped in from outer space, Satellite is the name of the funky coffee shops owned by Mark and Jean Bernstein. The Bernsteins also own Albuquerque's Flying Star restaurants so it should be no surprise that Satellite also offers Flying Star's Grabburito breakfast burritos, stuffed breakfast croissants, panini sandwiches and soups. Like Flying Star locations, all of the coffee shops have wireless Internet access—meaning they function as the de facto office of half the city's students and self-employed. But hey, who's complaining? I go there for the free Wi-Fi myself.

If you, like I do, eat a steady diet of Hot Pockets, Otter Pops and bacon-wrapped bacon (when you're not supping on pâté, grilled venison and tea-steamed asparagus, that is), then you should know that Wendy's is finally making a truly decent salad. It's a bed of mostly Romaine with some spinach, topped with tasty but oddly-textured chicken, grape tomatoes, chopped egg and bacon. It's the dressing that makes the salad, though, sweet and sour bacony vinaigrette with 2.5 grams of fat. Most low-fat dressing tastes like hair gel. This stuff is pretty good! I give Super Size Me full credit for scaring fast food restaurants into offering a couple of nonlethal dishes alongside the triple-bypass size fries.