It’s pepper time: North Texas restaurants offer Hatch chile deals and drinks
For green chiles, go Blue.
The local Blue Mesa Grill and Blue Goose Cantina restaurants — unrelated except in love for azure — are also first to announce their Hatch green chile menu as the famed peppers arrive fresh from New Mexico.
The Dallas-based Blue Goose Cantina restaurants are serving Hatch chiles for the 23rd year, including a new huevos rancheros stack at weekend brunch.
New Mexico green chile is a year-round seller at many restaurants. Hatch alone can’t grow enough to meet the demand.
But mid-August is when the fabled peppers are fresh.
They arrive by the truckload for supermarkets and restaurants, ready to be roasted and served in everything from enchiladas to cookies, breads and ice cream.
Blue Goose’s Hatch menu also includes a Hatch shrimp taco platter with Hatch chiles and Hatch aioli; a steak with Hatch chimichurri; and the perennial Hatch chile chicken enchiladas.
There’s even a watermelon Hatch margarita.
Blue Goose has seven North Texas locations, including Fort Worth-area restaurants at 1612 S. University Drive; 2536 W. Interstate 20, Grand Prairie; and 2455 E. Grapevine Mills Circle, Grapevine; bluegoosecantina.com.
Blue Mesa Grill: Specials and buffets
Blue Mesa Grill’s big restaurant in the West 7th shopping district is always a Hatch go-to.
In this 29th Hatch chile festival, Blue Mesa emphasizes that its chiles are “fresh, never frozen.”
Menu items feature a chiles rellenos combo with two or three Hatch peppers stuffed with Jack cheese, smoked chicken or garlic-basil shrimp.
There’s also an appetizer combo with fried Hatch strips, Hatch mac-and-cheese balls and mango-glazed chicken wings.
Familiar entrees include a Hatch relleno-and-steak taco combo, the all-time favorite Hatch Santa Fe stacked chicken enchiladas, and a pineapple Hatch margarita.
Desserts include a cajeta Hatch brownie with ice cream.
Blue Mesa’s Sunday buffet brunch, one of the most popular in the Fort Worth area, will include Hatch items in August. So will the bargain $12 weekly Wednesday buffet.
Blue Mesa is at 612 Carroll St., one block off West Seventh Street; bluemesagrill.com.
(Yes, Blue Mesa used to be on University Drive where Blue Goose is now. Do not confuse the Blues.)
