Tune-Up Café

Food is this magical, diverse necessity that will - for the rest of my life - never cease to bring me joy. Each dish can have infinite variations, infinite possibilities for new flavor pairs and ideas. Often times food is an expression of something else; a deeper (or more shallow) meaning behind each dish brings with it fresh taste and renewed soul. Maybe we sit down to eat some pancakes at the local breakfast favorite; these moist disks of syrup-sponge are now the foundation upon which you will build your day, or perhaps even your entire weekend. The butter-ball slowly melts as you ready the Canadian maple syrup, and as you drizzle that liquid gold evenly across the fluffy disks and sliced strawberries, you think to yourself how lucky you are to be sitting here today, eating with your friends and family a humble breakfast, ready to take the world by storm.

Food has the potential to be transformative, given the right context, the right cook, and the right technique. This is a form of artistic expression that everyone can enjoy, no matter where one might hail from. That being said, forms of expression show themselves in different ways; sometimes that means an explicitly bold dinner at a fine-dining restaurant - a place where the chef builds an experience around carefully crafted dishes, ambiance, and service, maintaining a high level of rigor in each pillar of expression. Other times, that expression is more humble, but delicious all the same. Such a place might be a quick local joint with specific dishes they are known for, with a more robust, upbeat atmosphere. This is the kind of place that can warm your soul, and bring you down to Earth. A kind of place where everyone feels connected in a human kind of way. Stepping into Tune-Up Cafe was transformative for these reasons and many more, and I do hope that anyone reading this who gets a chance to eat there if they find themselves in Santa Fe.
Oh, and they were awesome enough to give me their recipe for tres leches cake to try myself. How awesome is that?