Category: New Mexican

AmericanBarbecueBurgersNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Taos County

The Alley Cantina – Taos, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:04 AM

In April, 2014, Gallup conducted a poll to determine state pride across the United States. More precisely, the Gallup poll surveyed people in all 50 states to find out what percentage of residents say their state was the very best or one of the best places to live. Sadly, New Mexico was rated the six worst state to live with only 28 percent of respondents indicating the Land of Enchantment was one of the best places to live. New Mexico was the only state among the bottom ten either not bordering or not East of the Mississippi River. In recent years it seems every quality of life survey conducted lists New Mexico near the very bottom where we compete with Mississippi and Arkansas for “worst” in virtually every aspect of daily life. So, what does it say about New Mexico when it is rated number one…that’s first…in the auspicious category of being “absolutely absorbed by the abnormal?” To arrive at this rating, the Moveto Real Estate Blog actually used Facebook data to determine what percentage of each state’s population had an interest in the paranormal, psychic phenomena, conspiracy and shadow organizations and mythical creatures and mysterious beings. Research indicated that…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Patricia’s Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:00 PM

For nearly twenty years–from 1954 to 1972–newspaper, magazine, radio and television advertisements for Winston cigarettes deliberated whether American smokers wanted good grammar or good taste. This was in response to catchy jingles (and if you’re over 40, get ready for an ear worm) claiming that “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” Grammarians took umbrage with the solecism, arguing that the word “as” was more appropriate than the word “like.” From 1974 to 1991 the advertising world introduced another vexing debate: “tastes great” or “less filling.” To entice “Joe Sixpack”‘ to Lite Beer from Miller, television ads featured retired athletes, coaches and celebrities in spirited debate as to the primary benefit of the less caloric, but ostensibly still great-tasting alternative. Using the term “light” instead of “diet” appealed to the two-fisted drinkers seeking to avoid the metamorphosis of their six-pack abs into a keg-shaped beer belly. For much longer than the advertising world has manufactured good-natured debates intended ultimately to sell a product, residents of and visitors to the Land of Enchantment have been asked to declare their preference for “red or green.” So much so that several years ago, a state legislator submitted a resolution to declare “red or…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicanRating: Very Good

Leroy’s New Mexican Food – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:23 AM

As with any city of comparable size, many of Albuquerque’s most popular dining destinations are clustered in neighborhoods bustling with commerce and activity. You could say there’s a well-beaten–and well-eaten–path to these neighborhoods. Chain addicted diners know they can find their favorite Madison Avenue sanctified corporate megaliths on the frontage roads flanking I25 as well as in the Coors Bypass area. For a more vibrant and roguishly in-vogue dining experience, Duke City residents head for Nob Hill where swanky upscale restaurants and venerable cafes co-exist harmoniously on America’s Mother Road. Downtown Albuquerque purports to be the “economic, social and cultural center of New Mexico.” With more than 70 restaurants and cafes and a night life as hot as Hatch green chile, it has become a popular destination for more than dining. For culinary diversity, it’s hard to beat the University of New Mexico area in which restaurants with a broad socioeconomic appeal are congregated. Aside from academic enrichment, this area is nurturing a refreshing open-mindedness toward the cuisines of the world. Strewn throughout the Duke City’s vast expanses are also pockets of edible excellence–restaurants of all types which don’t necessarily fit the neighborhood template of “x” number of restaurants clustered…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Weekdays Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:55 PM

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.” That weight loss axiom subtitles the signage at Weekdays Restaurant. As its name implies, Weekdays is open Monday through Friday, but only for breakfast and lunch, making it easy to live up to the aforementioned axiom. Located on Fifth Street just north of Lead Avenue, Weekdays occupies the site which previously housed Cafe Green, a 2012 casualty. Weekdays has been in business for more than two decades, but isn’t widely known outside the downtown area south of Central Avenue. Because it’s not open on weekends, it’s not as much a “destination” restaurant as it is a “neighborhood” restaurant, the type of which has a home-away-from-home feel. Or at least that’s the case if playful banter is part and parcel of your homelife. To say the wait staff has personality is an understatement. From servers to cook, these folks make having a good time an inclusive process. Another likely reason Weekdays isn’t the destination restaurant it should be–especially considering its quality and ambiance–is that its former home was within PNM’s Alvarado Square office complex on Silver Avenue just south of Central. Lifelong Duke City residents can’t tell…

AlbuquerqueBetter Call SaulNew MexicanRating: Good

Taco Sal New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:58 PM

Rachael Ray, the hyper-bubbly kitchen diva recently divulged that casinos pipe in the fragrance of cumin because it causes gamblers to lose their inhibitions and gamble without guilt. Cigarette smoke and cumin…that doesn’t sound like an olfactory arousing aroma combination to me, much less one which would lure anyone to a purlieu of poker and slots. Now, if casinos figured out how to pipe in the intoxicating aroma of chile being roasted, New Mexicans might never leave. Marcia Nordyke, the Public Relations Director for the Hatch Chile Festival believes the aroma of chile being roasted would make a wonderful air freshener. My friend Bill Resnik says it would make a great aftershave, albeit one which would leave anyone within range perpetually hungry. There’s no disputing the incomparable fragrance of of roasting chile is absolutely intoxicating, a veritable aphrodisiac to chile lovers everywhere. Why hasn’t the state legislature it adopted it as New Mexico’s official state fragrance? Alas, only in autumn is the Land of Enchantment’s clear, salubrious air perfumed by the wondrous wafting of chile being roasted. It’s the essence of enchantment for our nostrils–coming to a roadside stand or parking lot near you from late August through mid-October. For…

Food Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: Very GoodSanta FeThe Secret Life Of

Horseman’s Haven – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:12 PM

I know several native New Mexicans who have accepted the dumbing down of political office in America as a consequence of living in these times and who have shrugged apathetically at the attenuation of educational standards. These same individuals, however, become as agitated and vociferous as scalded cats when served chile that has been “Anglicized”–that is, chile which doesn’t bring sweat to their brows, tears to their eyes and blisters to their tongues. Pepper spray has nothing on chile for these capsaicin addicted masochistic diehards. I spoke with one of these chileheads several days after the January, 2006 airing of the Food Network’s “The Secret Life of Fiery Foods.” He was still laughing at the segment in which host Jim O’Connor thought he was man enough to try the green chile burrito locals call “the devil” at the world famous Horseman’s Haven in Santa Fe. One bite had O’Connor red faced and sputtering, an experience shared by many people, including many locals weaned on incendiary chile. According to O’Connor, the “devil” is the hottest burrito in the world with a chile that rivals the habanero, a pepper at the extreme level of the Scoville scale. For New Mexicans frustrated with…

BurgersNew MexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

El Milagro New Mexican Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:31 PM

Believing “there was a void in our menu vis-a-vis the adult who wanted a higher ratio of meat to bun,” a former Vice President of product development for McDonald’s invented The Quarter Pounder in 1971. As a marketing ploy, the name Quarter Pounder quickly became a resounding success. Clever advertising campaigns convinced American consumers they were purchasing a large, beefy burger they would be challenged to finish. Had the burger been given the far less formidable christening of “Four Ouncer” we wouldn’t be talking about this McDonald’s staple forty-some years later. When it comes to burgers across the fruited plain, size does matter. Despite the caloric overachieving revelations of Supersize Me, supersized Americans seem to gravitate toward larger, meatier burgers. Burgers tipping the scales at a half-pound or more are now considered puny. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, since the 1950s, the weight of the average fast-food burger has grown more than threefold, from 3.9 ounces to 12 ounces. That’s three times the size of the Quarter Pounder. The burgers at El Milagro New Mexican Restaurant in Santa Fe would kick sand in the face of the Quarter Pounder. They’re the proverbial musclebound bodybuilder to the…

New MexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

The Pantry Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:09 PM

“Although the skills aren’t hard to learn, finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat, is what makes a really good restaurant.” In 1948, just three years removed from the second “war to end all wars” Santa Fe was hardly the sophisticated and cosmopolitan tourist haven Conde Naste Traveler magazine readers have named one of their favorite travel destinations for 21 consecutive years. With a population of around 25,000 citizens, Santa Fe’s art, cultural and architectural attractions weren’t nearly as well known as they are today, but then, the world wasn’t nearly as interconnected and small as it is today. For a bit more perspective on life in Santa Fe in 1948, consider that the state capital was yet to observe daylight savings time. 1948 was a leap year with 366 days and February 29th falling on a Sunday. The hottest day of the year was July 14th when Santa Fe hit a high temperature of 94 degrees. February 12th saw the coldest day of the year with a low temperature of -10, about 35 degrees below average for the day. Santa Fe saw 55 consecutive days with no…

New MexicanRating: N/R (Not Rated)San Antonio

San Antonio Crane Mexican Restaurant – San Antonio, New Mexican

Gil Garduno5:28 PM

Though I’m widely credited as being the “godfather of Albuquerque food blogging“(or the “Yoda of food” as the great Jenn Wolhetz once called me), before there was a Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Web, there was another voice calling in the wilderness to alert diners to the Land of Enchantment’s culinary offerings.  Before there was a Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Web, there was John W. Shipman food page and it was the most prominent and highly respected online source of independent restaurant reviews in New Mexico. John Shipman, a software engineer at the New Mexico Institute of Technology, called himself a “gourmand in the dessert.”  His reviews were very well written and highly descriptive, reflecting the culinary savvy of a diner who understands food very well: its composition, its provenance, its flavor profiles.  To say John was an inspiration to me is a vast understatement.  He was the “everyman critic” whose prose and style I emulated (though he was much more successful than I at getting right to the point).  Some of his reviews can still be found online though he doesn’t update them very often. To me John W. Shipman commands the type of respect given E. F. Hutton on…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2013Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew MexicanRating: Excellent

Rey’s Place – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:00 PM

Rey’s Place has relocated and now shares space with La Familar, the terrific Mexican restaurant owned by Michael “Rey’s” lovely bride Luz.  La Familiar is located at 1611 4th Street, N.W.  Its menu includes all the wonderful foods you’ve loved for years at Rey’s Place: gorditas, enchiladas, caldo de rez and so much more.  Whether you visit for excellent Mexican food or Michael’s mellifluous guitar and sensational singing voice, Rey’s La Familiar will soon become one of your favorite restaurants.    Call Rey’s La Familiar at 808-242-9661 for more information. Human brains are wired so that the way we perceive the flavor of food is actually a synthesis of how it looks, tastes, smells and feels.  Four senses are actively engaged as we’re masticating, licking, sipping or sucking our food.  The one traditionally recognized method of perception apparently not crucial to enjoying the dining experience is the sense of hearing.  Until rather recently, the effect music has on the enjoyment of our food hadn’t been thoroughly studied scientifically.  In 2011, the Journal of Culinary Science & Technology determined through a series of experiments that food tastes best when served with quiet classical music in the background.  If the music was…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2013Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Prickly Pear Bar & Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:37 PM

Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield offered the following advice to his son: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, focusing on a singular task was not only a practical way of structuring one’s time; it was a sign of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”  In university life as in the workforce of the 21st century, the notion that to work efficiently we have to focus on one task at a time is fairly well understood.  To understand that notion, however, is not necessarily to abide by its wisdom.  Students eat lunch in front of the television with their laptops open as they cram for a test, taking frequent breaks to tweet and post on Facebook while sending emails and chatting online, too.  The same research which has borne out that multi-taskers are most certainly not being more productive, reveals…