Category: Brunch

AmericanBrunchCorralesDog FriendlyNew MexicoRated 23

Indigo Crow Cafe – Corrales, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Now I lay myself down to sleep I pray oh lord my soul to keep Cause if I should die before I wake I hope up in Heaven they’ve got lobster and steak It’s a sin if Heaven ain’t got an Indigo Crow Best food down here up there they’ve gotta know. A Sin if Heaven ain’t got an Indigo Crow But if they don’t then why the hell should I go. Now I’ve tried every joint around here I’ve had green chile stew, I’ve had had my root beer But when I want to treat my taste buds right I know this place is drop-dead tight It’s a sin if Heaven ain’t got an Indigo Crow Best food down…

AmericanBreakfastBrunchDog FriendlyNew MexicoSanta Fe

Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

My friend Schuyler jokes that because the diet of my formative years was mostly beans, chile and tortillas as well as chile, tortillas and beans, I’ve developed an insatiable curiosity and appetite for anything that isn’t beans, chile and tortillas (although I still love those). “No one else,” he claims “is equally enthusiastic about  bacon-infused decadence one day as he is the healthy paleo foods  the next.  Schuyler calls me  “the anti-Mikey” (the little boy in the Life cereal commercials who hated everything, except of course, Life cereal).  He argues that I like everything. In his eyes it doesn’t count that I loath, abhor and detest  cumin when it desecrates the purity of New Mexico’s sacrosanct chile because I love…

AlbuquerqueBrunchClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew MexicanNew Mexico

Cantina Nueva – Garduños – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Garduños just can’t seem to keep up with the Joneses, at least in terms of familial propagation. The 2010 United States Census indicates more than a million instances (1,425,470 to be precise) of the surname Jones, making it the fifth most common among the 6.3 million surnames recorded. In comparison, the surname Garduño belonged to only 6,912 individuals, ranking it as the 5073rd most common surname under the spacious skies. Almost 93 percent of the individuals answering to the surname Garduño listed their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino. It’s inherent in possessing a relatively scarce name that my Kim and I are often asked if we’re related to other people sporting that mellifluous patronym, usually Dave Garduño and his family…

AmericanBrunchCaliforniaDog FriendlyRated 25

JAKE’S – Palm Springs, California

Gil Garduno

“Now i lay me down to sleep And pray the Lord my soul to keep If i die before i wake, feed Jake He’s been a good dog My best friend right through it all If i die before i wake, feed Jake.” ~Pirates of the Mississippi “On one hand,” my Kim tells me, “you’d make a great politician.” “You maintain a perfect deadpan expression while telling the biggest whoppers.” She had just watched me convince a gullible millennial (okay, she was your stereotypical California blonde valley girl) that the Jeff Bridges character in the movie The Big Lebowski was named for our debonair dachshund The Dude. Never mind that our Dude was born sixteen years after the 1998 comedy…

AmericanBrunchChickenDog FriendlySouthernTexas

Lucy’s Fried Chicken – Austin, Texas

Gil Garduno

“I‘m only eating the skins, so the chicken’s up for grabs.” ~Joey Tribbiani Several of my earliest memories of growing up in agrarian Peñasco, New Mexico involve chickens.  Some of those memories–such as getting viciously pecked by my Grandma Piedad’s cantankerous old rooster–were rather painful.  Other memories, however, were of mischievous fun my brothers and I had with our friends Estevan and Gabriel Lopez.  Once, for example, we emptied the contents of an entire can of beer onto the corn and grain mixture fed to the chickens.  It was hilarious fun watching drunken chickens stumble about and especially seeing the old rooster become overly amorous with the young chicks but not being able to do anything about it because he…

AmericanBrunchDog FriendlyTexas

Contigo – Austin, Texas

Gil Garduno

There are a phalanx of “best of” lists online and in print publications that celebrate restaurants deemed true stand-outs worthy of accolades.  Such lists are obviously very subjective though by no means definitive.  That holds true as well to the concept of restaurant review ratings, a mere snapshot in time valid really only to that reviewer at that very specific date and time of a visit.  Still, when we travel, I study the restaurant scene at our intended destinations, taking the pulse of what lay diners and cognoscenti have to say and yes, how they rate a restaurant.  When we visit a restaurant in a city to which we travel, we’re unfailingly well armed with information and know full well…

AlbuquerqueAsianBrunchClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenHawaiianLatin AmericanNew MexicoRated 25

POKI POBLANO FUSION LOUNGE – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Starting with a raucous concert in 1954, the idiom “Elvis has left the building” was uttered at the conclusion of many of Elvis Presley’s concerts to encourage rabid fans to accept that no further encores were forthcoming and that they should go home. Today, those five simple words are an oft used catchphrase and punchline used in a humorous or sarcastic vein to refer to virtually anyone who has made an exit or vacated a premises, especially in dramatic fashion. The phrase was later co-opted in the Kelsey Grammar sitcom “Frasier” which ended with a play on the line—“Frasier has left the building.” For many Duke City diners, the term “Elvis has left the building” recalls June 1, 2017, the…

AmericanBar & GrillBrunchClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRio Rancho

The Point Grill – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“Get to the point!” Archie Bunker, the irascible curmudgeon on the 70’s sitcom All in the Family frequently chided his doting wife Edith with the epithet “Get to the Point, Edith!” One of the series occasional and most memorable bits depicted Archie’s pantomime suicides, carried out while Edith rambled on and on in her nasal high-pitched voice, wholly oblivious to his dramatic gestures. In one episode Archie did himself in by tying a noose and hanging himself as Edith prattled on incessantly. Archie also play-acted suicide by Russian roulette, overdosing on pills and slashing his wrist. His facial expressions at the moment of death were priceless, often portraying him with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Some visitors to…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBrunchDog FriendlyNew MexicoRated 23Steak

Seared – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

While you might not be able to judge a book by its cover, sometimes a book title will resonate deeply and you know you’re going to enjoy reading it very much. That’s especially true when a book title warmly reminds you of nostalgic memories long buried in your past. Such was the case when I espied Where There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner: Stories of a Seared Childhood by award-winning raconteur Regi Carpenter. That title aptly described daily life for the long suffering Peraltas, our childhood neighbors in Peñasco. Mama Peralta, one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, was such a scatterbrained cook that she used the smoke alarm as a timer. She didn’t sear meat, she cremated…

AmericanBreakfastBrunchCaliforniaDog FriendlyUnited States

Cheeky’s – Palm Springs, California

Gil Garduno

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is widely credited with the aphorism “England and the United States are two nations divided by a common language.” My Kim and I had no idea just how different the Queen’s English is from the English spoken by the colonists until we were assigned to Royal Air Force Fairford. As part of the newcomers orientation, we were required to attend a course in which those vast differences were explained. Many of those differences were rather comedic, but we were warned, “if Yanks aren’t careful, we could perpetuate the dreaded “ugly American” stereotype widely held in some parts of Europe.” We learned, for example, that if an American serviceman walks up to an English lady and…

AlbuquerqueBrunchDog FriendlyFine DiningItalian

Scalo Northern Italian Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

CAVEAT EMPTOR:  The following review is based on visits prior to 2019 when Scalo shuttered its doors.  Scalo has since reopened. When we moved back to New Mexico on May 15, 1995, our first priority wasn’t where to live, but where to eat. Having been away for the better part of 18 years, there were so many old favorites with which to reacquaint ourselves and so many exciting new prospects we just had to try. By year’s end, we had visited 75 different restaurants (no chains). One of our favorite sources on where to eat was Albuquerque Monthly, a very well written publication which celebrated the Duke City’s culinary scene with an Annual Restaurant Guide and a “Best of Albuquerque”…