Nuevo Mexico

Pretty sure they’re closed, or not at this pod any longer. We liked the food, though the sopapillas were not quite like we were used to in New Mexico. The irritating thing was that they would take catering jobs and close for the day with no notice. They were also just closed for no reason once when we went there.

I ordered their Breakfast Burrito ($ 6): a flour tortilla is stuffed with hash browns, cheese, eggs, bacon, pinto beans, and green chile. Their breakfast items are usually served until 1 p.m.
From the first bite to the last, I got overwhelmed with the starchiness of the pinto beans and hash browns. The flour tortilla didn’t do any favors on that front. I will say that the potatoes were cooked nicely. While the scrambled eggs and gooey cheese made cameos every now and then, the green chile was disappointingly lost in the sea of fillings. I did not care for the two or three strips of softened bacon in the burrito (I prefer crispy bacon). Basically, the burrito lacked spice and needed more seasoning — and textural contrasts would have been nice. It also wasn’t the most beautiful burrito ever. A lack of vibrant colors here, and the burrito just seemed too one-​dimensional. Perhaps rice (Mexican rice?) could have helped this burrito for taste and texture. In short, this meal felt little more than a bean burrito with potatoes in it.
There are people that like Nuevo Mexico’s carne adovada and green chile stew, so I might go back to give that a try.
The young man running the cart was very friendly and did a great job. While I would not have expected Nuevo Mexico to blow me away like Pepper Box did, I expected a better product.

2.5 if I could.
I’m always up for trying New Mexican food, particularly because the opportunities for me to eat it are more seldom now. I’ve known about this food truck in Portland for a while, and I’ve been waiting to try it. The food we were served had little relation to traditional New Mexican food other than the fact that they use New Mexico chiles.
I tried the carne adovada burrito, which is a red chile marinated pork that is marinated for long periods and roasted as whole chunks with potatoes. However, their version was more like a pulled pork that was topped with a red chile sauce. The flavor of the meat was mild, but it did taste good. The chile sauce that smothered the burrito lacked the transformation and depth of flavor that is indicative of traditional New Mexican food. The portions were fairly large, but the sides were very plain. All and all, an imperfect substitute for New Mexican food, which in my opinion has room for improvement.

Great food. HUGE portions. The chicken was nice and super spicy. Lots of flavor. If you’re hungry give this place a go.

Walked 8 blocks expecting to eat a Monte Cristo at the Big Egg. Due to the 45 minute wait there I wandered over to Nuevo Mexico and tried the breakfast bowl. It is a green chili stew with generous serving of eggs and cheese. Very nice alternative and worth a walk as well.

Good and cheap! My partner and I shared the combo plate which was tasty and the owner knocked $ 1.50 off the price because we went sans tortilla (gluten intolerant). Made it a steal at $ 6.50 (usually $ 8). Good rice, plain beans a little blah but the meats (chicken, pork and beef with beans) all had great flavor — with the first two packing a bit of chili but nothing outrageous. Wash it down with a $ 2 Mexican coke and you’re good to go!

My vote as one of the most overrated carts in the city. This, based on three visits.

Reading these other reviews, I am thinking people from Portland are a bit culinarily spoiled! I came in from the Midwest for a visit this week, but I grew up in Arizona. As soon as I heard there was a New Mexican food cart, I knew I had to have it and it did not disappoint. I would deem the red chile carne «authentic» New Mexican (as others have written, this is NOT the same as Mexican, take note). It was nice and spicy, which pleased me greatly, and the fry bread was deliciously chewy, as it should be. The only complaint I had was having to wait half an hour for someone to show up to make the food. But, really, that just meant I got to drink a beer at prost! next door, so no worries.

Like all of us New Mexicans living here in wet Northwestern exile, I flocked to Jesse’s little bundle of dreams just about as soon as we all heard he’d opened up shop. You see, talk of a new New Mexican joint in Portland is like dropping spicy blood in a shark tank. The problem is that each drop over the years has been somewhere around nine parts cherry Kool-​Aid, one part blood. A shame. Encanta (first the downtown farmer’s market, then the full on restaurant in NE), The Adobe Rose Café and this cart are the attempts I know of to offer something approaching a fair and accurate representation of our proud cuisina so far from home. Each have failed on account of, essentially, one thing:
Compromise.
Encanta went from modest (and reportedly good, but never personally sampled) beginnings at a farmer’s market to foo-​foo Portland-​New Mexico fusion and actually managed to fit an entire sacrilege on a single plate for months before retreating back to the milquetoast, snooty depths from which it came.
The Adobe Rose has served lowest common denominator mush for at least five years, riding the novelty of the cuisine all the way to the bank on the backs of customers who simply don’t know any better.
Both use (d) Bueno Foods chile, the largest distributor of New Mexican chiles in the state, by their own admission. Bueno is, ironically, a name which has taken on special perjorative status among NM foodies. It is the diet coke of chile. (Hatch Brand products do not even merit description. Watch the company’s promotional videos to see nothing short of the routine sodomization of several mispronounced dishes.) They knew well enough to expect the question from discerning diners, and could only apologize for the *compromise* that the use of such inferior ingredients constitutes when asked about it. They flatly claimed there was no way they could afford real, unprocessed, farm-​direct chile and maintain a profit margin.
Meat Cheese Bread and Nuevo Mexico are the only two Portland establishments to have claimed using «Hatch Green Chile» in any of their dishes, as in from the town of Hatch, NM or elsewhere in the Hatch Valley, but that name has been appropriated too often to remain a reliable guarantee of quality on its own (think Champagne). When put to the test, the level of spiciness at both MCB and NuMe is considerably toned down to appeal to a wider, whiter, frailer palate, and there is a noticeable lack of robustness to the flavor. Meat Cheese Bread throws a few lukewarm strips of green in an unseasoned, unsmothered, meat-​free burrito and calls it a New Mexican breakfast burrito. Nuevo’s offerings circa late Spring 2010 were bland, served cold, filler-​heavy (the same beans problem) and generally would have had a hard time standing up to my little league’s concession stand. I’m going back for one more shot, but recent reviews don’t have my hopes up.
The consensus among fellow statesmen is that our ship has yet to come in, despite years of initial hopefulls turned impostors, Nuevo Mexico being no exception. If it’s good New Mexican food you’re after, ask a New Mexican where to go in Portland. The answer will almost certainly be «nowhere.» All pretension and purism aside, just serving up tasty, well-​thought out food happens to also be too much to ask. That’s 0 for 2.

Best sopapillas I have had in a long time!

I wanted Tacos Sandy, but they were closed so I made my way over to Nuevo Mexico. The Juggalette working the cart saw me walk up, grab a menu, and start to peruse it. I was on my phone, and so as not to be rude, I sat down in her eyeline with the menu while I made my decision. She immediately throws a «back in fifteen minutes» sign up and books it out the back door.
I would’ve called it there, but I was starving and so was my sick lady at home, and all the other carts were closed so I waited. After twenty minutes she comes back, rudely takes my order, then spends another fifteen minutes making two burritos. I brought the green chile chicken burrito and the red chili pork burrito back to my emaciated lover, and we dug in.
Two seconds into eating, my burrito’s water breaks all over my pants. We tried to slough through the disgusting, dripping mess of our respective burritos with no luck. DISGUSTING.
Here is their secret burrito recipe in case you’re curious:
1. Pour Full can of pinto beans (DO NOT DRAIN) onto a flour tortilla
2. Stir in Alpo brand dog food
3. Drop in grease dip and let cook for fifteen minutes
4. Serve with scowl.
PLACE SUCKS

Raised in New Mexico, there is a pride in our food that is hard to play it cool about, food is huge in New Mexico — and it’s New Mexican food, not Mexican food — please respect the distinction.
With that said this cart does the best I think you can do to represent (out of a food cart). The green and red chile are authentic, flown in from Hatch, NM — and while the food isn’t the best I’ve had, it rings true with its theme. I could live off Sopapillas, both stuffed and as a dessert with honey, soooo glad to have a place like this here.
That said, been pretty bummed about the hours there. I’ve been several times when its the only cart not open on Mississippi, come on now.

It was somewhat surreal to be ordering food for my now four-​year old daughter from Jesse Sandoval who was in the band that released her first ever favorite song, Phantom Limb, soon after she was born. A sure bet for a fun filled drive ending in a blissful, for dad, nap.
The food was as good as the song. As dad promised, «the best quesadilla ever.»
For you foodies who disdain upon the quesadilla, there was excellent chicken stew for mom and pork tamales for dad.
It simply doesn’t get any better than that after basketball practice and romping in the fountain at Peninsula Park.
Score points with your wife, bring home some Nuevo Mexico.

I like this place. The Latin American subcontinent is large and would have encompassed TX to CA but for a few historic fate twists. So New Mexico is firmly in the meld of native peeps and Euro-​Spanish arrivers. If you can get to that part of the country, do so, they are our mirror: many people relating to, and preserving, the native environment, just more arid, different vegetation and wildlife.
Nuevo Mexico is the foodchild of a Portland Albuquerqueian. It has filled and fried sopaipillas, traditional in NM and down into South America. But I always go for the green chile stew. It’s a small serving, tasty, ideal to take home and dash over rice and vegies.
They have Jarritos there (and Mexican Coke). Tamarind, a Jarritos flavor, is the secret ingredient in the secret Coke formula. That’s the key.
Limited hours. Not gut bomb cheap. It’s good and unique.

Gotta agree w/​Stephen C. here.
I first visited the MS carts when they first began and this cart had yet to appear so upon my second visit, with the location of this cart and the smell of (Nuevo) Mexican hitting me in the face, had to give it a try.
My friend was expecting standard Mexican burrito fare so we were both delighted to discover a unique menu with different offerings.
I opted for the Navajo taco ($ 6) and he ordered a chicken burrito.
Though I ordered mine first, his came out 5 minutes in advance. He wondered why and I began bragging, saying that the fried sweet bread for my order was being cooked to order (which is dope).
Never having a Navajo taco, I imagined it would be served ‘tostada’ style and was correct. I began munching on our walk back to my place and have a few things to say:
I don’t believe you get a meat choice — I was given deliciously flavored ground beef. The fried bread was amazing.
Thing is, it wasn’t entirely a lot of food — which is OK — but there were barely any beans and the rest of the toppings, just as Stephen C. had said, were Taco Bell quality. I mean generic chopped iceburg lettuce and plastic Taco Bell yellow cheese.
My comment to my friend was like it’s some marriage between Taco Bell and ‘Nuevo Mexican’…whatever that means. It was OK… not worth $ 6 in my opinion but worth a try and flavorful.

It was a cold Saturday afternoon, and we were hungry for come cart grub. Almost all the Mississippi Marketplace carts were open– and Nuevo Mexico didn’t have a line for once so we went there. My carne adovada had some good flavor in the meat, but there way too many beans and too much lettuce. I think if there was more flavor in the beans then it would have been more satisfying.

Maybe I should have gotten the green chile stew, but neither the Adovada Pork nor Chicken red chile burritos were satisfactory. Too much bean, not enough meat, not enough flavor, cold wrap and for $ 6???
Not impressed. In fact, depressed.

Apparently the owner is also the former drummer from The Shins:

Jesse is an amazing drummer, but an ever better cook.
I’m a true wuss when it comes to spice, but today I decided to give the Adovada Sopapilla a shot. I have to say — I could not be happier. The spice from the pork is brilliantly offset by the sweetness of the Sopapilla and between all the ingredients involved this is about the perfect balance of flavors. I’m actually tempted to go back for a second — right now.

Ever the cart adventurist as of late, I took a stroll down 3^rd & Stark with my friend J who is from New Mexico, and we hit up Jesse’s New Mexican cart.
The menu was brief and the Carne Adovada burrito was an easy choice. The sauce the pork was cooked in was absolutely delicious. It was a welcomed deviation from standard taqueria fair. The smokey chili flavor was absolutely fantastic. My only complaint is that I’d like it a bit spicier.
I’d recommend this place for something a little different than the norm. They even carry Mexican imported Coca-​Cola for that pure sugar rush!