Category: New Mexican

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Cafe 6855 – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

The cover page of the May 20, 2013 edition of Time Magazine depicts a twenty-something woman sprawled on the floor taking a selfie. In large type above the photo is the caption “The Me Me Me Generation” subtitled with “Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.” If you believe the monolithic label “millennial” (typically assigned to a person born between 1981 and 2001) defines all young people and that popular characterizations and stereotypes about millennials are accurate, perhaps you’ll be interested in an oceanfront piece of real estate I’m selling in Arizona. If your perceptions of young people skew toward the negative, let me introduce you to Victoria and Julian Gonzales. Victoria and Julian are among…

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Rollin’ On In Food Truck – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

While their brick-and-mortar counterparts can afford to have multi-page menus to please a wide variety of palates, mobile food kitchens (that’s food trucks to you, Bob) are somewhat at a disadvantage. By sheer necessity, food trucks must be limited, well-defined, maybe even singularly focused.  The advantage the successful ones have is that they can concentrate on creating memorable dishes around their concept using a few common ingredients.  Rollin’ On In, for example, lists only four entrees on its menu: three tacos, a quesadilla, three enchiladas and a burrito. With those four entrees, however, there are an infinite number of “build-your-own” possibilities.  Your construction options include four fillings (shredded chicken, shredded pork, ground beef and potato and veggie mix), eleven fresh…

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Copper Canyon Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“The Copper Canyon of northern Mexico–a place so huge and desolate that even today there are still some native people who have never seen an automobile.” ~Victor Villasenor Beyond Rain of Gold If you’ve ever watched the classic Humphrey Bogart movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre or read Victor Villasenor’s spell-binding tome, “Rain of Gold,” you’ve got at least a passing acquaintance with Mexico’s awe-inspiring Copper Canyon. Hidden in the Northern part of Mexico lies an astonishing system of gorges comprised of six vast canyons wider and deeper than the Grand Canyon. Although copper is mined in parts of the canyon, this geological wonder is named for the bronze-like patina of the canyon walls. The magnificent Copper Canyon landscape stretches…

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Tortilla Flats – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold.” ~John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat In his 1935 novel Tortilla Flat, John Steinbeck introduced the literary world to the downtrodden denizens of Tortilla Flat, an impoverished barrio on the shabby hillside just outside the respectable city of Monterey, California. The quirky inhabitants of the ramshackle community were a dichotomous lot–hedonistic drunks, adulterers and thieves on one hand; on the other, paisanos with surprisingly kind-hearts who asked nothing more from life than loyal friends and a little wine. Unlike their stodgy, orthodox counterparts in Monterey, the men of Tortilla Flat defied social mores, conventions and expectations. They rebuffed the notion of holding down steady employment or paying rent. They had no qualms about cadging…

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Little Anita’s New Mexican Food – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

My friend Scott Pacheco may never forgive me for dining at Little Anita’s New Mexican Food in Old Town. Scott hates Little Anita’s, but not because of its food, ambiance or service.  He hates Little Anita’s for what he considers a traitorous act on the scale of Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot. To understand why Scott hates Little Anita’s so much, it might help if you know that there are two things in life he’s passionate about–the Denver Broncos and New Mexican green chile. If this isn’t making sense yet, recall that on February 2, 2014, the Seattle Seahawks demolished the Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII. Not only was this the largest margin of victory for an underdog, it…

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Stripes Biscuit Co. – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

NOTE: While the Gibson location of Strips Biscuit Co. has closed. Stripes Biscuit Co. can still be found at 8050 Academy Rd NE # 101. Additionally, there are a number of Stripes Burrito Co. throughout the city and in Rio Rancho. Southern humorist Jerry Clower once quipped “One of the saddest things is the sound of them whomp biscuits being opened in more and more houses these days. Whomp! Another poor man is being denied homemade biscuits. No wonder the divorce rate is so high.” There’s more than a bit of underlying truth to Clower’s humor. Southerners take their biscuits seriously. “Whomping” or “whacking” biscuit cans on the kitchen counter to open them is akin to parents letting their children…

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Las Ristras Restaurant – Corrales, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Based on interviews conducted with Hollywood luminaries who’ve starred in movies or television shows shot in New Mexico, you might think our state either doesn’t have a symbol of hospitality or that symbol is something as poorly representative of the Land of Enchantment as crack (Josh Brolin), tire stores (Jonathan Banks), shirtless drivers (Seth McFarlane), Walmart (Jessica Alba) or loudness (Tommy Lee Jones). With all the tax breaks and enticements afforded film production companies, shouldn’t its most visible beneficiaries at least have something nice to say about New Mexico? While New Mexico doesn’t have an official (as in legislatively decreed) symbol of hospitality, most of us recognize a ristra hanging on a doorway as an invitation to visitors, ergo a…

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Casa Chimayo – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Chimayó is one of the most mythologized, misunderstood— and, some would say, maligned—places in New Mexico. On one hand, it holds a place in popular imagination as the Lourdes of America, a reference to the annual Good Friday pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayó, a nineteenth-century church. New Mexicans and visitors from afar also celebrate Chimayó’s weaving tradition, the potently flavorful chile grown there, and the local restaurant, where margaritas compete with the church’s holy dirt as a tourist draw. ~ Postcard From New Mexico: Don Usner’s Chimayo Named for the Tewa Indian word describing one of four sacred hills overlooking the verdant valley on the foothills of the Sangre De Cristos, Chimayó may be only 26 miles from Santa…

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Teofilo’s Restaurante – Los Lunas, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Several years ago award-winning Albuquerque Journal columnist Leslie Linthicum (since retired) penned a wonderfully evocative column entitled “Spanish Names Fade into History.” Leslie observed that if you frequent the obituaries, especially those published on the Journal North and Journal Santa Fe, you may have observed and lamented the passing of another great Spanish name. The lyrical names with which the scions of Coronado were christened–Leocaida, Elfido, Trinidad, Pacomio, Seralia, Evilia, Amadea, Aureliano and others– have become increasingly rare in the Land of Enchantment. Leslie noted that “just about every day in New Mexico, another great old Spanish name passes on as a family loses a viejo.” Former state historian Estevan Rael-Gálvez believes the disfavor which has befallen once-honored given names…

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Chile Time Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.” ~Ecclesiastes 3 Autumn in New Mexico is indisputably chile time. The high mountain air is at its most crisp and salubrious. Foliage is adorned in a vibrant panoply of color. Magnificent cottonwoods and aspens gleam in the evening sun like the fabled cities of gold sought by Spanish explorers. Hazy smoke plumes waft upward from giant rotating drums. These irresistible smoke signals beckon hungry masses to roadside stands where flame-licked chile tumbles in steel-meshed drums. Those chiles blister then seem to hiss and spit in protest as their…

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Matanza New Mexico Local Craft Beer Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“At school, whenever I heard the word matanza, hog butchering, My face warmed up with joy and my heart beat a happy sound. It was a heavenly time for me. Images of sizzling chicharrones, crisp, meaty cracklings and Fresh, oven-baked morcillas, made my mouth water.” ~Hoe, Heaven and Hell by Dr. Nasario Garcia For young boys growing up in rural New Mexico in the 60s, one of the rites of passage signifying our transition from childhood to young adulthood was being asked to participate in the matanza. As one in a succession of life’s progressions, working a matanza was an even more important milestone than being allowed to order the “Teen Burger” instead of the “Mama Burger” at A&W. Among…