Category: New Mexican

AlbuquerqueBreakfastClosed in 2010Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

Blue Cactus Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:26 PM

In the early 80s I tried to impress my very traditional grandmother by taking her to a recently opened restaurant on Academy Boulevard.  What was not to like?  The restaurant shared the mellifluous name she had proudly worn for over fifty years.  It was a locally owned and operated and had earned several awards.  It boasted a multi-page menu.  Surely Garduno’s of Mexico offered something she would like. It turns out the restaurant’s name was the only thing she liked.  One nod of disapproval after the other ensued as she meticulously perused the menu, a compendium of Mexican and New Mexican appetizers, entrees and desserts.  Scanning the descriptions carefully, she dismissed the contemporary interpretations of the foods on which she was raised and had prepared for more than eight decades. My mind floods with sweet memories of my cherished Grandma Piedad every time I visit a restaurant offering contemporary twists on traditional New Mexican food.  Such was the case when my friend Bill Resnik and I first visited the Blue Cactus Grill, a modern and attractive new restaurant on Albuquerque’s West side, just north of Paseo del Norte on Coors Boulevard. Bill reminded me that the Blue Cactus Grill is situated at…

AlbuquerqueAnnouncementsNew Mexican

Mary & Tito’s Recognized as an American Classic

Gil Garduno7:01 AM

The pinnacle of achievement in the culinary world. That’s what a James Beard Foundation award signifies. Deemed “the Oscars of the food world,” by Time magazine, The James Beard Foundation Awards are the country’s most coveted honor for chefs; food and beverage professionals; broadcast media, journalists, and authors working on food; and restaurant architects and designers. Considered the “Dean of American Cookery,” Beard established a legacy of culinary excellence and became a household name to generations of home cooks and professional chefs. Today, the James Beard Foundation, a national not-for-profit organization is dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and nurturing America’s culinary heritage and diversity in order to elevate the appreciation of our culinary excellence. In January, 2010, Mary & Tito’s was announced as the 2010 recipient of the Foundation’s “America’s Classics Award,” a prestigious accolade honoring “a restaurant with timeless appeal, beloved in its region for quality food that reflects the character of its community. The establishment must have been in existence at least 10 years and be locally owned; preferably it is also informal and moderately priced.” Each year, only five America’s Classic Awards are bestowed. So that honorees can make arrangements to attend, the America’s Classics Award is the…

BernalilloClosed in 2011Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Coronado Grill – Bernalillo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:06 AM

In 1540 while searching for the fabled seven Cities of Gold, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado camped with his soldiers near the ancient Pueblo of Kuaua on the western banks of the Rio Grande where the city of Bernalillo exists today. Coronado never did locate the mythical Cities, finding instead a thriving agricultural village inhabited since 1300. Only the partially reconstructed ruins of Kuaua (a Tiwa word for “evergreen”) remain today, but the “City of Coronado” still celebrates the Spanish explorer whose legacy has been somewhat tarnished by revisionist history. The conquistador’s namesake restaurant is situated just south of the ruins in a sprawling 5,000 square foot complex sitting on three acres overlooking the Rio Grande. For ambience, you can’t beat the spectacular Rio Grande riverside vistas, especially on a crisp autumn evening when the moon is coming up over the Sandias. It’s one of the most spectacular vantage points in the entire state for luminous lunar gazing. Weather permitting, diners can take advantage of the spectacular vistas by dining al fresco under a canopy of stars where they can breathe in New Mexico’s salubrious night air.  The exterior patio is a popular venue for parties and golfers alike.  From two…

New MexicanRating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Tabla De Los Santos – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:31 PM

Professor Larry Torres, the brilliant historian, linguist and writer From Arroyo Seco is incomparable at spinning a yarn, especially when doing so in “Spanglish,” the without-a-pause blending of Spanish and English so prevalent among Latinos in the Land of Enchantment.  A few years ago in the Taos News, he told the story of a little South American boy staying with a family in Northern New Mexico who called home rather frantically begging to return home.  The little boy explained that New Mexicans are barbaric after overhearing that they cook and eat “chicos. Obviously the little boy didn’t know that chicos is not only the literal translation of little boys, but a delicious favorite food of Latinos throughout Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.  Chicos begin as an ear of field corn which is tied into ristras (strings) and hung to dry or alternatively roasted in an horno.   The kernels are then removed and stored until cooking time.  When cooked (boiled in water), they swell up to their former size and taste like freshly smoked corn.  In combination with pinto beans, they are magnificent! Chicos were a staple in bucolic Peñasco in Taos county where I grew up.  Much of…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

Albuquerque Tortilla Company Family Restaurant and Carry Out – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:15 PM

Fearful that her dim-witted and loose-lipped husband would tell everyone in the village his good fortune in having found three bags of gold, the woodcutter’s wife concocted a plan.  She had her husband buy her a one-hundred pound bag of flour and when he returned with the flour, she told him to lay down and rest for a while.  While her weary husband slept, the woman made tortillas from the entire one-hundred pound bag of flour, so many tortillas the stacks climbed to the ceiling.  She then carried the tortillas outside and threw them all over the ground. When the woodcutter woke up the next morning, he was amazed to find tortillas covering the ground.  His wife told him it must have snowed tortillas during the night.  When he wouldn’t believe her, she sent him to school to learn about the phenomena of snowing tortillas.  While in town, he blabbed far and wide about the bags of gold, something  that didn’t escape the notice of two robbers who showed up at his house demanding the gold. The woodcutter told the robbers that his wife had hidden the gold to which his wife retorted “what gold, I don’t know anything about…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009New Mexican

Quesada’s New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:52 AM

When we get together, native New Mexicans of my generation who grew up in the state’s mountainous regions sometimes reminisce about trudging a mile or more in feet-deep snow to get to school.  We wonder how we survived the furious snowstorms which killed  reception for weeks to all four (yeah, four) Albuquerque television stations in the dark, pre-historic days before color television (not to mention, cable), the Internet and iPhones. Mostly, we trumpet the fact that we were  weaned on chile–and not just any chile.  We grew up eating the most gastronomic distress-inducing, tongue-searing, sweat-arousing chile possible–the type of chile which embodies the axiom that with some New Mexican food, pain is a flavor.  Listen to us and we’ll  have you believe that in comparison, the  stuff served in most  New Mexican restaurants today is as wimpy as ketchup and as piquant as spaghetti sauce. Thankfully, the Internet has provided visual–albeit Photoshop image manipulated–evidence of the incendiary stuff on which we were weaned. A frequently forwarded image on many computers depicts a jar of Gerber Picante Sauce, but instead of the familiar cherubic baby with the tousled hair, pursed lips and smiling eyes, the red-faced baby on the manipulated image is in obvious and alarming…

Closed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew MexicoRio Rancho

Seferino’s – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:32 AM

One of the first things you notice when you step into Seferino’s New Mexican Restaurant is the large portrait hanging just above the hostess station of an avuncular bearded gentleman with an air of dignity and class.  Though he’s been gone for about a decade and a half and the restaurant which bears his name is in a new location, you can almost feel the comforting presence of Seferino Perea looming like a charming host bidding you welcome to his restaurant. Seferino’s daughter Cathy sports the same snowy white halo as her father, dignified argentine locks everyone should be fortunate enough to age into.  Cathy, who along with her husband Joe Guitierrez own Seferino’s is a frequent presence at the Rio Rancho restaurant her father helped start. The family patriarch, Seferino managed Perea’s restaurant with his son in Albuquerque before helping Cathy start up the restaurant named for him.  For nine years, Seferino’s was located on Rio Rancho’s main north-south thoroughfare, Highway 528.  A move to Southern Boulevard placed them in another heavily trafficked area and in an edifice nearly twice as large (4300 square feet) as their previous location (2400 square feet). Those comfortable confines served Seferino’s very well for years,…

Closed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Roque’s Carnitas – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:04 PM

In more cosmopolitan metropolises it isn’t uncommon to see sidewalk vendors plying their trade over chuck wagon stands and proffering high quality fast food such as hot dogs, tacos, gyros and sundry quick meal items. Some of the best food in cities such as Portland, Oregon can be found near city parks where enterprising street vendors concoct culinary magic on portable kitchens and what we typically deride as “roach coaches.” Roque Garcia has made such a business an art form–a very successful one. In fact, Roque claims carnitas paid for his home outside Puerto Vallarta in Mexico and for the Mercedes Benz automobiles he likes to drive. Roque’s cart is stationed on the southeast corner of the Santa Fe plaza where the irresistibly smoky aroma of sizzling, marinated beef draws repeat customers and tourists like a siren’s call. Despite posting a sign explaining what carnitas are, Roque is unfailingly patient with tourists who don’t necessarily know what it is they’re ordering; they only know they can’t resist the intoxicating aromas wafting from the strange cart. During the past decade or so, national publications including the New York Times, Gourmet Magazine, National Geographic, Roadfood and others have waxed poetic about Roque’s…

Food Network Eats New MexicoJames Beard Foundation Americas Classic Award WinnerNew MexicanNew MexicoNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailRating: OutstandingSanta Fe

The Shed – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:50 PM

In the culinary world, the name James Beard is revered perhaps above all others. Considered the “Dean of American Cookery,” Beard established a legacy of culinary excellence and became a household name to generations of home cooks and professional chefs. The cookbooks he authored between 1940 and 1983 are considered “a slice of American history” because those tomes span America’s culinary regions and served as a premonition of the global epicurean expanse to come. Today, the James Beard Foundation, a national not-for-profit organization is dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and nurturing America’s culinary heritage and diversity in order to elevate the appreciation of our culinary excellence. Earning a James Beard award signifies the pinnacle of achievement in the culinary world. It’s the restaurant world’s equivalent of the Academy Award. In 2003, The Shed restaurant earned the Foundation’s “America’s Classics Award,” a prestigious accolade honoring locally owned and operated regional restaurants that have withstood the test of time and are beloved in their communities. The Foundation’s Web site describes The Shed as “A restaurant begun in a burro shed on a dusty alley in a then-sleepy little town might not sound as if it would be – 50 years later – hailed…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009New Mexican

Sabroso’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:37 AM

From the moment they first set foot in the Land of Enchantment, some people just “get it” or perhaps more precisely, New Mexico gets to them.  It weaves its preternatural spell and stirs something deeply in those open enough to its calling.  D. H. Lawrence said it best, “In the magnificent fierce morning of New Mexico one sprang awake, a new part of the soul woke up suddenly, and the old world gave way to a new.” Other people don’t get it–and maybe they never will.  In the early 1980s while attending the University of New Mexico, I encountered several “dormitory rats” who whined incessantly that “there’s nothing to do or see in New Mexico.”  I befriended some of them, determined to help them discover the Land of Enchantment they were perhaps too close-minded to see.  That usually entailed a day trip or two to the north-central mountains of New Mexico, but not to tourist laden Taos or Santa Fe. Northern New Mexico is a spectacular canvass on which God painted perhaps the most awe-inspiring scenery in the state.  Two break-taking drives, the High Road to Taos and the Enchanted Circle–are well known, but an even more wondrous peregrination starts…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

The Chili Stop Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:12 PM

Over the years it’s been my experience that almost invariably, New Mexican restaurants which violate traditional New Mexican grammar don’t prepare the object of their grammatical faux pas very well.  The grammatical transgression of which I speak is forgetting the “i” before “e” rule and committing the piquant peccadillo of spelling New Mexico’s official state vegetable with two “i’s” and no “e’s.” It’s entirely forgivable that chile is technically a fruit, albeit one which packs an incendiary capsaicin punch, but like many New Mexicans, I feel personally insulted when presented with a menu offering “chili.” That grammatical malapropism wasn’t lost on Calvin Trillin, a legendary American journalist and novelist known for his humorous writings about food and eating.   In an October, 2002 article on Gourmet magazine entitled “Bowlful of Dreams,” he described a visit to the New York City “New Mexican” restaurant Los Dos Molinos: “One of the places I’d heard about, Los Dos Molinos, seemed to have been designed for citizens who have gotten about ten years past spring break at Daytona Beach but had not lost their taste for specialties like a “Kick-Ass Pitcher” of Margaritas. Although the red and green chile served as a dip with the…