Zia Green Chile Company

We finally made it out to Smorgasburg in Williamsburg this weekend, which meant we had the opportunity to try a bunch of food vendors that aren't at the other smaller Smorgasburg locations or other food fairs. One of those was Zia Green Chile Company, which specializes in the amazing green chiles that come out of New Mexico. Our only exposure to these green chiles so far (since we haven't yet made it to New Mexico, but it's on our list) has been from canned chiles from the grocery store (which are good, but we're sure not as good as the real thing) or green chile cheeseburgers (which are good, but not that plentiful around here).

Zia was actually our last stop on this Smorgasburg visit, so we're posting about this a little out of order. By this point, we weren't that hungry but just wanted one more thing to finish off our eating adventure for the afternoon. We were also desperately in need of a drink. The day was supposed to be mostly cloudy and/or full of showers, but instead it was blue skies, lots of intense sun, and pretty high (around 75%) humidity. We were drenched, had already gone through multiple bottles of water and iced tea lemonade, and were extremely dehydrated. That was another reason we ended up at Zia, besides the fact that the green chile food items sounded great. They were advertising a drink that sounded perfectly thirst quenching.

Zia's drink of choice was a prickly pear cactus limeade ($4).  This was a very refreshing drink for a hot day. Bright pink, it was pretty mild in flavor, and not overly sweet like some drinks. It also wasn't very tart despite the lime. It was great for that afternoon with its light sweetness.

For our final Smorgasburg snack, we got the green chile Frito pie ($6). Somehow, after all these years of wanting a Frito pie, this was the first one I ever had. Basically it's a bag of Fritos topped with cheese and chili or some other form of meat, which was in this case topped with a layer of green chiles. We really liked these green chiles. They had great flavor, and it made us want to go to New Mexico even more to try them there. There was a good subtle heat to them, but they weren't painfully spicy or anything like that. The Frito pie itself was good, but a little bit hard to eat and mix up in the bag since it wasn't cut open on the side like some Frito pies are. Overall, it was a nice snack.

We enjoyed what we got from Zia Green Chile Company, and would recommend a stop by their stand at Smorgasburg if you want to try some good green chiles. Next time maybe we'll have stomach space for the sopapillas, or if it's in the fall, the posole. (Too hot for posole right now!) Right now though, could really go for a green chile cheeseburger...