What: The gazpacho
Where: Tinto, inside the Saguaro, 1800 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs
How much: $11
Contact: 760-322-1900; www.jdvhotels.com/restaurants/california/riverside-dining/tinto
Why: The smoothness.
A friend recently told me that she has thus far avoided Tinto—the Iron Chef-owned “Basque wine bar” restaurant inside the Saguaro Palm Springs—because she finds the menu “a tad scary.”
I am blessed (or perhaps cursed, if you consider my waistline’s perspective) with the ability to eat and enjoy almost anything (as long as it’s … y’know … good). However, I do understand that not everyone is like me, and a menu featuring all sorts of unfamiliar words that seem loaded with unnecessary x’s (like “pintxos” and “gatxuxa”) may be a tad scary to some.
However, to this friend and any others who may be intimidated by Tinto’s menu, I say this: You have nothing to worry about, because one of the best things on said menu has a name that we’ve all heard before—gazpacho.
There may be no better time and place on Earth to enjoy chilled soup than Palm Springs in August, so I highly recommend this glass of deliciousness. Other than a bit of bread (for consistency and flavor) and spices, this gazpacho is vegetable heaven, with tomato, peppers and a bit of fresh avocado leading the way. It’s so tasty and refreshing that you may find yourself engaging in a Pavlovian bit of drooling when driving by the multicolored former Holiday Inn that is the Saguaro.
I’ll now give you a home-cooking tip: When we were trying to re-create the gazpacho ourselves at the Independent test kitchen (i.e., our apartment), we stumbled across a video on The Desert Sun’s website of Tinto owner/chef Jose Garces making the gazpacho.
In the video, Garces doesn’t share the exact proportions he uses, and gazpacho he makes is not the exact version on the current Tinto menu. Nonetheless, the video was helpful enough to lead us to gazpacho joy. In fact, by tweaking the gazpacho to our own preferences, our home version tastes even better than Tinto’s version, at least to us.
But one thing we haven’t been able to replicate successfully is the smoothness (even though we have a serious blender at home). The gazpacho at Tinto is creamy, silky, yummy.
So, friends, don’t be afraid. Tinto’s gazpacho is there to cool you and comfort you. Go.