This was my second visit to Bobcat Bite. The Bite has weird hours and days of operation, and although the details are a little fuzzy now, I’m sure that we actually planned our trip around their schedule - the burger is that good.

Bobcat Bite

above - Bobcat Bite, from the parking lot. Bobcat bite is about 4 miles outside of Santa Fe (which as a city is about 15 minutes in diameter - it’s almost creepily small seeming). It’s easy to find, and both times I’ve been there it has been packed. This time we were there right after they opened, and it was full of diners. Last time, we were there right before they closed, and there was a long wait outside, and it was raining. That’s a good sign.

Inside the place is maybe 300 square feet, being generous. It’s tight, but cozy, not crowded, and the staff is all family, a really nice bunch of exceptionally helpful people. Eating here, you really feel like a guest.

The restaurant is located at the mouth of the larger Bobcat Ranch, and there’s a guest house where you can stay on site.

Bobcat Bite burger - plated

above - the Bobcat Bite Burger, plated. As you can see, there’s nothing complex about this particular animal, and that’s at the heart of its greatness. Like a street taco, it represents how food is often best at its most basic, where quality ingredients and careful cooking accomplishes what fancy plating or “clever” ingredient lists often fails to do. I order everything in New Mexico with chilies, as that seems to be the rule here, and any excuse to eat a heaping pile of chilies is a good one in my book.

The menu at Bobcat Bite has burgers, in four basic combinations, plain, with green chili, with cheese and with cheese and green chili. You can also get bacon on your burger, which Michele got last time we were here, and it was very good bacon. They also serve steaks, but I’ve never had one, nor can I recall seeing someone order one. That’s not to say that their steaks aren’t likely to be exceptionally good, it’s just that their burger is so damn good.

Sides consist of basic salads, potato salad and home fries. I’m neither a basic salad or a potato salad guy, so I order the home fries. They’re basic, well cooked and don’t distract from the burger. Eating at the Bite is really all about the burger - all other items appear to be secondary. I’m pretty sure the reason they don’t serve fries is that the kitchen, which is about 6′x 8′ in size, couldn’t possibly accommodate the addition of a fryer. The lone cook’s attention is solely on the grill in front of him.

Bobcat Bite burger - in progress

above - rareness. There’s no bending over to idiotic fears about contamination at Bobcat Bite - they’ll serve pretty close to alive and kicking. Personally, I’m suspicious of burger joints that won’t serve rare - it tells me that they won’t stand behind the quality of their meat.

The reason I eat here is the meat. Not only are the tomato, lettuce and bun of exceptional freshness and quality, but the meat is exceptional. If I had to give sub-category awards to America’s great burger joints, Bobcat Bite would dominate in the “Best Meat” category. Eating here is simply an opportunity to enjoy a tremendously good beef chuck mix, cooked well and accompanied by the right notes. Just check out this burger close-up, if you need further proof.

The flavour of their burgers stays with you. I could taste the quality of the chuck for a good thirty minutes after leaving the building. Last visit, I had a half of one of their burgers cold, the next day and it was better than most of the burgers I’ve eaten in my life when they were hot and steaming on the plate.

The Damage - A burger and side will set you back about ten bucks, and a steak will cost $16 - $18. Not what you’d like to spend on lunch everyday, but not bad coming from LA, where I recently spent $14 on a burger at The Counter. If you go through Santa Fe and don’t eat here, you might as well convert to rabid veganism and start working on that whole raw food thing, you cheap bastard.