Golden West Café
It's tough to nail down a place as eclectic as Golden West Café. The place where New Mexico meets the Far East has a whole lot of thrift-store paintings on the walls and menus that arrive in old record album covers, with food that ranges from Frito pie to warm Vietnamese noodle salad (aka the Mental Oriental). Weekend breakfast-time waits can be long, but are worth it--the kitchen churns out righteous huevos rancheros and hot cakes (three crucial words: real maple syrup), though our perennial favorite is the blueberry Bismarck. (“If butter offends you, do not order this,” the menu intones.) Lunch and dinner bring burgers, green chile soup, and other Southwestern treats, plus amazing homemade layer cake for dessert. Best of all, the Golden West's addition of a bar means, at long last, margaritas with that quesadilla.