We drove up to Las Vegas, New Mexico yesterday to go to the Tapetas de Lana weaving shop on the Plaza. It is a wonderful place with woven items made by people in the Mora-Las Vegas area, subsidized by a government grant to provide jobs in this depressed area. Well, it WAS a wonderful place. The whole store had been transformed - practically no local woven items, but other additions to the store - souvenir stuff shipped in from all over the world, a coffee bar-cafe in the back, and even a woman in the front of the store giving chair massages. The girl operating the cafe said they had run into "some hard times" and most of their weavers had stopped producing. She anticipates things might pick up in the coming months. We were very disappointed.
Since we didn't want our trip all the way out to Las Vegas to be wasted, we stopped for lunch at Charlie's Spic & Span Restaurant and Bakery. Ridiculous name for a GREAT place. It was packed which was a positive sign it was going to be good. It was my first visit to a restaurant since I got sick after eating in one in Santa Fe, and ended up in the hospital, so I was a little nervous. But -- oh this food was GOOD!!! I had cheese enchiladas which were smothered in green chile sauce which was perfect. John had a chicken sandwich with green chile on top and onion rings which were fantastic. No wonder there was such a crowd in there.
They make their own tortillas in the back of the restaurant and they have a wonderful bakery - we didn't buy any baked goods but we admired all of it in the bakery cases. The long Johns looked too big to eat, and the cinnamon rolls, well .. yummmmm...
We had heard it was a good place to eat, so we were glad we tried it. It will go on the list for a return visit the next time we are in Las Vegas.
