El Rancho - Saugerties, NY

The trip to NJ to DC leaves much to be desired as far as scenery, speed (aka sloooow thanks to traffic), and food.  Yes, the new Delaware House is pretty snazzy (it looks like an airport terminal), but I wouldn't call it a destination.  On the other hand, going from NJ to upstate NY leaves lots of options if we can't make it all the way home.  North Jersey?  Hudson? Rhinebeck?  Poughkeepsie? 

J hates making decisions about restaurants on the spot.  After lots of prodding, we narrowed down our wishlist.  Pretty fast, Asian or Mexican.  We'd overloaded on Italian and pizza generally lately, and plain old American pub fare seemed too boring. Yelping + Googling led me to positive reviews for El Rancho in Saugerties.  It's not in the "town center" (if there is indeed a town center), but was conveniently right off the highway.

Wed is Marg Night, clearly.   Dang was it dark outside. 

J had the Dos Chimichangas--one chicken, one beef.  Shreddy and delish.

I had steak fajitas.  I felt like I wanted something sizzling.  It was freezing outside, and I'd eaten vegetarian for two days in a row.  I needed some iron, stat.  Notice it looks a little shiny--it could have used a little toweling off, it was a bit oily for my liking.  Overall it was quite tasty, though.

The salsa was very fresh-tasting and zesty.  Service was friendly, but a little slow.  My only other complaint about El Rancho is that no one bothered to de-ice the parking lot.  At all.  It was basically a skating rink.  Step carefully, folks.

El Rancho*
2904 Route 32
Saugerties, NY

Apparently eating at El Rancho was good luck for the J-E-T-S JETS, because soon after we got in the car post-meal, we heard on the radio that they were nearly finished beating the Patriots.  Well done, New [Jersey] York.