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The Fork

Steak!

We’re tired of talking about them, too, but the steak we just ate at Market Steer was so good we couldn’t not mention it

by

Regular SFR readers are likely about to roll their eyes and think, “Market Steer again?!” when we get into this week’s topic, which is—get this—Market Steer Steakhouse. We know, we know, we know, we know that the paper has covered Kathleen Crook/Kristin Goode’s downtown monument to meat a few times in recent memory (both when it first opened its current location in 2024 and then again last June), but it’s because of the last time they appeared in SFR that we ate there one recent winter night, and because the bar menu is just that good. 

In short, La Forkette read about the killer burger in that June review of The Tack Room bar at Market Steer, and she was all like, “Listen up, Fork, because I want that effing burger and we’re doing it.” So we were all like, “Dang, we can go, why are you so mean to us?” And she just laughed and laughed. Then the next thing we knew, we were in that bar perusing the menu and waffling between the burger and the steak. 

We got the steak frites. And it was kind of next-level, so let’s talk about that. For a mere $30, we got a perfectly sized little steak. We say “perfectly” in this instance—and we try not to speak in absolutes—because this little cut was enough to sate our appetite without us feeling like we’d eaten half a cow. It was also cooked to perfection (there’s that word again) because we asked the server what chef Crook would recommend. He said medium, a little pink on the inside. We said, “word,” and the next thing you know, we were in steak bliss. The sear on the outside made for a truly excellent crunchy crust, and the inside was so buttery and tender we almost couldn’t believe someone could cook a steak so well. In case you’re just tuning into the world of Market Steer, this is likely because Crook comes from a ranching family near Artesia, and this means that things like sustainable beef and ethical sourcing top her list of reasons she rules. We’d also like to note that the frites (or “fries” for our mono-linguist friends) added a bit of salty flavor that just plain worked with the meat, and included ramekins of housemade steak sauce and chimichurri meant that no two bites tasted quite the same. Even better? No gristle, baby, which we find incredibly gross; and there wasn’t really a wait to get into the bar.

Oh, and La Forkette totally did have that burger ($28), which she described as “the best she ever tasted,” which is a pretty strong statement. Still, a green chile smashburger sounds good any way you think of it, and when a beef champ is on the grill, of course it’s going to rule. Market Steer’s Tack Room also does happy hour deals on the regular, and the hostess even said we could order from the full-on dinner menu if we wanted. This is a smart move. You get people in there, and the bar is plenty comfy, and it’s not the whole fine dining hoopla of the main dining room. It’s gorgeous in there for sure, but The Tack Room feels a bit more cazh and quick, and we like that when we’re taking our partner someplace with a gun to our head. Just kidding, we were thrilled to go and will likely return. Yes, we get that even the bar is a bit of splurge for some folks, but when it’s wintery outside and you’re looking to go ham on some beef, we can no longer think of any other place we’d rather go. 

Also

  • We hear As Above So Below Distillery has a new whiskey crafted by owner/master distiller Caley Shoemaker herself. Dubbed Mars in Scorpio, the new bevvie was mashed, brewed, distilled and aged by Shoemaker across a six-year period, and it’s limited as hell. That means that if you want the stuff, you’ve gotta go into the tasting room and ask for it specifically, so…y’know, know that. 
  • Speaking of distilleries, Santa Fe Spirits is offering a special cookie/cocktail pairing event at its Read Street Tasting Room on Saturday, Dec. 20, and it’ll only set you back $35. At the tasting, you’ll get spirits, you’ll get cookies and…well, that’s all, but that is, frankly, more than enough. To reserve your spot, click here. 
  • BREAKING: We just had a carne asada and pollo street taco at Oasis Ice Cream Shop & Mexican Food in the Design Center (505 Cerrilos Road) where our offices are located, and for $8-and-change, we were into that; like, we were just, like, really into that. You get a roasted serrano on the side, plus marinated onions and diced onions and guacamole and…do we actually need to get two more tacos right now?
  • We hear that local proto-Grubhub Dashing Delivery is looking for drivers, and we understand from the Facebook ad that came our way that some drivers are making between $18-$25 an hour. Alright, that sounds alright. Plus, it’s local and apparently all the cars are electric according to a guy we know who told us that. You must be at least 23 and have a clean driving record, the ad also says, and you can apply at dashingdelivery.com. 
  • Reminder that if you’re ordering pies or cakes or buches de Noel or whatever from local bakeries for Christmas, you might want to get on that or check when their cutoffs are. Every year we get harried emails from people like, “Why did we wait so long?” to which we reply, “Are you saying there will be no cake at your house, because that’s literally the whole reason we’re coming over there, and we’ll cancel so fast your yule log will spin!” Same goes for tamales. You might already be too late, honestly. Make the calls. 

More Tidbits

  • In not just local news, researchers from some place that isn’t here (though we don’t know from where you’re reading The Fork, so we want to be clear we mean Santa Fe when we say “here”) have developed an antimicrobial food wrapper that can apparently detect spoilage in certain foods across a variety of criteria. We feel this would give us specifically a panic attack, but Food and/or Wine-dot-com points out that it could improve transparency with date labeling. Sadly, however, we’re some years out from its mainstream existence. 
  • If you’re making sweet treats for the season, including chocolate chip cookies, All Recipes-dot-com has a nifty little piece about what chocolate chips professional bakers prefer. Apparently Ghirardelli has the best, at least according to the panel, though Nestle is all up in there, as are a few others. Great. Now we need a cookie. 
  • Lastly in not-just-local news this week, we don’t know why we never thought to see if the sometimes insanely weird New York Post has a food section, but it does, and it’s as chaotic as you’d expect! Naw, not really—it’s like most other food sites that talk about viral this and brand name collab that and Dunkin’ Donuts swag hit me with a whiffle ball bat. Still, we saw a photo of Martha Stewart over there, and we love her, so it can’t be all bad. Point is, if you’re like us, you’re always trying to find food news on various websites, so add this one to the list. 

In Summation

We know that nobody is coming to The Fork in search of thoughts about Rob Reiner after he and his wife were murdered earlier this week, but we loved his work and in front of and behind the camera, so let us just say that we’re sad to learn of his death, and we’re going to link a little retrospective video from the Today Show right here. We’re not loving how so much of the coverage about his son allegedly being involved leans into the narrative that anyone who uses drugs is dangerous—and we won’t even get into the flabbergasting social media post from Trump, save to say it’s the ramblings of a madman. Instead, we’ll point out that The Princess Bride rules and note that the world is a little poorer having lost such a titan of an artist. Thanks, also, for making us laugh on 30 Rock and New Girl and…this is tough. Rest in power, Rob Reiner. You made a lot of people very happy. 

Oh, and by the way, your old pal The Fork is hitting a holiday break next week, so we shan’t be around Dec. 23. We’ll be back after the holiday, however, and we hope everyone has a nice time in the coming days. Happy Holidays and all that! 

Steak’d up,

The Fork