Famed
tenor Luciano Pavarotti once said, "One of the very nicest
things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we
are doing and devote our attention to eating."
Hola!
I'm Gil Garduņo. Welcome to Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Web
Site. I chose the site vanity "nmgastronome"
because it truly reflects my passion for the cuisine of the Land of
Enchantment--and hopefully describes the level to which my palate has
evolved after having visited and evaluated more than 1,000 restaurants in the past
ten years or so.
Gastronome
- A connoisseur of good food; someone with a refined palate; a person
devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink);
an epicure.
In the Web site's nomenclature,
there is hopefully an implicit reflection of the continuous improvement
of this Web site. In the past eight years, this site has evolved
from a rudimentary HTML version of an Excel table to a site in which
you'll now find detailed, one-page reviews of many of your favorite
restaurants in New Mexico.
To navigate to and
through my reviews start with one
of four menus--Duke City
Dining,
Dining New Mexico,
Dining Santa Fe and
Dining
Across America--all
of which include an easy-to-use alphabetical index providing a
short synopsis of each restaurant and a link to the page in which that
restaurant is reviewed. Each menu also includes either an index by
location or an index by cuisine. There
are also alphabetical indexes for restaurants which are no longer in
business.
A
fourth menu, NM Smorgasbord, is where you'll find an explanation of
my rating
system, a listing of my
most
recent
restaurant visits and more information about
this Web site.
This Web site now lists
only restaurants I've visited this century (since January 1st, 2000).
I have deleted the short synopses of restaurants (such as the dreadful Chinese buffet
restaurants in Albuquerque) I have no intention of ever visiting
again. I also eliminated most reviews on corporate chain restaurants,
partially in
the spirit of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything
at all."
As much as possible, my
reviews will begin to incorporate images of the restaurants we
visit. Mastering HTML has been easier for me than remembering to
remove my camera's lens cover before I shoot a picture.
Fortunately, much
better photographers than I have shared some of their wonderful images.
The photo of the
Sugar Nymph's Bistro in Peņasco, for
example, is courtesy of the brilliant
Deanna Nichols.
Please note that a
caption will display when you run your cursor over any
image.
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Please
feel free to peruse my reviews with an understanding of what they
are--one guy's impressions (ruminations and opinions) of the restaurants
in which he's dined. My opinions may not
necessarily reflect yours and in the end, it is your opinion that
matters, not anyone else's.
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Although imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, copying
my reviews and posting them on your Web site is a shamefully heinous
thing to do and is certainly not condoned, particularly if you try
to pass them off as your own. The only place my visitors
should find my reviews is on Gil's Thrilling Web site which you are
most welcome to link to, but please, please don't copy my reviews.
I work very hard on (hopefully) making them utilitarian and fun for
you to read, but they are intended for publication only on my site,
please.
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All
opinions are exclusively mine--and I want to reemphasize that in rating
and describing the restaurants in which we dine, I am expressing
opinions (my impressions) about those restaurants. So, if I say a
restaurant's food tastes like yesterday's garbage, that's my opinion,
obviously not empirical evidence.
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I
caution against using this or ANY Web site as a definitive
"guide" in that things change so quickly and often in the
restaurant world that it's impossible to keep up with restaurant
dynamics. With over 1300 restaurants in Albuquerque alone, my last
visit to a specific restaurant may have occurred years ago and in the
interim, many changes may have transpired. Restaurants not only
decline or improve in quality, many of them are driven out of business
by corporate chains, others are unable to retain superb chef talent and
still others evolve thematically.
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My reviews are based
on a point in time. Your experience, based on one or more
visits, might be wholly different than mine. The only true measure
of a restaurant's quality (good or bad) is over time--how consistent
it delivers over a long period of time.
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Speaking
of chains, don't expect to find too many reviews of national chain
restaurants on this site. Unless a chain restaurant occupies
a niche (such as fried chicken and ice cream) in which local restaurants are
unavailable, I generally will not visit it. For more
ruminations on chain restaurants, please see my ratings
page. |
