Category: New Mexico

Diners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicoPizzaRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Back Road Pizza – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:37 AM

My brother George has the right idea! Rather than braving the motoring madness that is traversing New Mexico’s highways at breakneck speeds and risking life and limb contending with America’s worst drivers (according to a 2014 report by Wallet Hub), he’ll take the back roads every chance he gets. Not only does he avoid frazzled nerves and minimize potential encounters with distracted, drunk and demolition derby caliber drivers, he gets to enjoy the scenery of enchantment and arrive at his destination unscathed. His blood pressure is better than mine. George will enjoy Santa Fe’s Back Road Pizza and not only because he doesn’t have to spend much time on Cerrillos to get there and not only because the street on which it’s situated has a posted speed limit of only 25 miles-per-hour. The pizza is very good, maybe even “worth risking rush hour to get there” good. Who says it’s good? The pizza-loving denizens of the City Different seem to accord it “best pizza” honors perennially in the Santa Fe Reporter‘s annual “best of” polls. It’s been one of Santa Fe’s “top 40 favorite restaurants” for more than eleven years running according to The Reporter who has also designated it…

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Firenze Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:44 PM

“We’ve got a wood-burning pizza oven in the garden – a luxury, I know, but it’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made.” ~Gwyneth Paltrow There really is a lot of veracity in the axiom that “your eyes are the mirror to your soul” because eyes truly do provide visual clues as to what we’re thinking. Some psychologists would have you believe that your choice of pizza toppings is also a window to your soul. So what do your favorite pizza toppings say about your personality and behavior? One psychologist and longtime pizza lover would have you believe people who adorn their pies with pepperoni are “good team players, prepared to sacrifice their personal interests to those of the majority.” Another purports that people who prefer pepperoni have “been shown to “forget” obligations on occasion and miss out on opportunities at work and home.” Hmmm, contradictory assessments by two so-called experts. Perhaps such assessments say more about their creators than they do about the personality traits of subjects they claim to understand so well. Extending the premise that an accurate personality assessment could be discerned from your choice of toppings, why not a personality assessment based on your preference…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2017Diners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenItalianRating: Outstanding

Torinos @ Home – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:18 PM

On Monday, October 21st, 2013 in a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives episode entitled “Aces of Authenticity,” the Food Network introduced Torinos @ Home to the world. Just four years earlier–on 22 December 2009–i was one of, if not the very first critics to see greatness in what was then a tiny Italian eatery coaxing amazing flavors from its humble menu. Then ensconced in diminutive digs, it was obvious Torinos @ Home was destined for far better things. During my many return visits over the years, Torinos has never ceased to impress–even amaze–me. Quite simply it’s one of the very best restaurants of any genre in the Land of Enchantment. So what makes Torinos @ Home stand out from among so many Italian restaurants in New Mexico. It starts and ends with owners Chef Maxime and Daniela Bouneou who are absolutely passionate about what they do. They have a sincere desire to please their patrons with the very best food they can prepare and they strive to present it as a work of edible art. They relish the challenge of knowing that they have to win over each guest one meal at a time and recognize they can never have an…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2015Food Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRestaurant Impossible

Shade Tree Customs & Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:17 PM

For at least the past seven years, the most famous “biker cafe” in the Land of Enchantment has been the fictional Maggie’s Diner in Madrid on the Turquoise Trail. Constructed in 2007 for the made-in-New-Mexico comedy Wild Hogs, Maggie’s Diner was frequented by bikers of all ilks, whether they be white collar executives in the throes of mid-life crises or the stereotypically rowdy, raucous bikers who terrorize the Madrid’s citizenry and demand food and adult beverages gratis. After January 14th, 2015 when the Food Network aired a Restaurant: Impossible episode entitled “Revved Up,” New Mexico’s most famous biker cafe probably became the Shade Tree Customs & Cafe in Albuquerque. Chef-host Robert Irvine and crew spent a couple of days in October “transforming” the restaurant. The premise of Restaurant: Impossible is that within two days and on a budget of $10,000, Irvine will transform a failing American restaurant with the goal of helping to restore it to profitability and prominence. To make the show entertaining, any existing dysfunction or drama in the restaurant’s day-to-day operations is spotlighted in the fashion of all reality shows. If anything, what the show revealed is that when two worlds—a motorcycle shop and a restaurant—collide, issues…

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Wise Pies Pizza – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:55 AM

NOTE:  In 2017, Wise Pies converted from a brick-and-mortar operation to one that offers frozen foods. It is the first and only frozen pizza business to come from New Mexico.  Over the years, Wise Pies has sold more than 2 million units since its restructure. Available in thousands of grocery stores nationwide, but primarily in the Southwest, WisePies’ products include a portfolio of pizzas, calzones, sauces — and now, WisePies Mega Bites. The connection between the Mafia and pizza is hardly novel. Throughout the fruited plain you’ll find any number of pizzerias sporting Mafioso names, including Godfather’s Pizza with which Duke City diners are well acquainted. It can be debated elsewhere that the Mafia-pizza connection is an offensive Italian stereotype, but no public outcry seems forthcoming as there was when the “Frito Bandido” was used to sell corn chips. In any case, if stereotypes have any basis in truth, the “pizza connection trial” in the 1980s helped perpetuate those stereotypes. That trial centered around the use of independently-owned pizza parlors as Mafia fronts for narcotics sales and collections. In January, 2014, Michael Baird, the impresario who brought us Vernon’s Hidden Valley Steakhouse and Prime launched the first of several planned…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico Culinary Treasures Trail

Mr. Powdrell’s Barbecue House – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:50 AM

If you believe in forever Where baby backs are never bland If there’s a barbecue heaven Well you know Mr. Pete is lending a hand, hand, hand. Shortly after Arthur Bryant died in 1982, the Kansas City Star published a cartoon depicting St. Peter greeting Arthur at the gates of heaven and asking, “Did you bring sauce?” A quarter of a century later, I can imagine St. Peter asking Pete Powdrell if he brought the secrets to his extraordinarily tender brisket. What the legendary Kansas City barbecue giant Arthur Bryant was to sauce, Pete Powdrell was to beef. Albuquerque’s indisputable king of barbecue was called home on December 2nd, 2007, but he left behind an indelible legacy that extended far beyond serving some of the best barbecue in the west. Pete was a second-generation sharecropper who in 1958 escaped the small town racism of Crosbyton, Texas to start a new life in Albuquerque. Fifty years later, Pete’s circle of friends and mourners included most of New Mexico’s political power brokers as well as tens of thousands of customers who loved his barbecue and the gentle man perpetually attired in overalls who prepared it. To chronicle Pete’s life (and someone should)…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenVietnamese

Viet Q – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:55 PM

“When helicopters were snatching people from the grounds of the American embassy compound during the panic of the final Vietcong push into Saigon, I was sitting in front of the television set shouting, ‘Get the chefs! Get the chefs!’” Calvin Trillin, American writer, New Yorker Magazine It’s unlikely Trillin, a humorist renown for his love of food, was entirely serious about his seemingly callous reaction to the poignant imagery of thousands of South Vietnamese fleeing their besieged city. In his own inimitable way, he was using his sardonic wit to express appreciation for the exotic cuisine he loves so much. In fact, he considers the influx of Asians into American restaurant kitchens divine intervention of a sort: “God felt sorry for us because we lost a war to such a small country as Vietnam and sent the Vietnamese to us–where they were really needed.” Three decades after the evacuation of Saigon, the Travel Channel’s articulate bon viveur Anthony Bourdain, wrote about Saigon: “I think I’ve gone bamboo…I’ve gone goofy on Vietnam, fallen hopelessly, hopelessly in love with the place.” For Bourdain, that’s rare, unfettered praise. Most viewers recognize that Bourdain’s approach to his culinary adventures is antithetical to the burbling…

Bar & GrillBrazilianClosed in 2017Gone But Not ForgottenRating: OutstandingSanta Fe

Omira Bar & Grill – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:59 PM

HOLLY: I can’t believe you’ve never taken anybody here before. JERRY: Well, I’m not really that much of a meat eater. HOLLY: . . . You don’t eat meat? Are you one of those. . . JERRY: Well, no, I’m not one of those. ~ Seinfeld “One of those!” Around my Chicago born and bred Kim and her family, that term fits me to a tee. As with many Midwestern families, my in-laws are rapacious carnivores. Their dining room table is a pantheon of pork and a bastion of beef. It’s a Bacchanalian feast of multitudinous meats. Similarly, meals at Windy City restaurants are veritable meat-fests where diners unleash their innermost meat-eating-machine. In the city’s chophouses (what every other city calls a steakhouse) heavily marbled flesh is displayed under glass, trophies of edible excess. Is it any wonder the city’s defining foods include humongous Italian beef sandwiches, slabs of Flintstonian-sized ribs and steaks the size of manhole covers. This obsession with meat isn’t solely a Midwestern phenomena. People throughout the world are eating more meat and fat than ever with worldwide meat consumption expected to double by 2020. In the western world alone, the per capita consumption of meat is…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBar & GrillClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

The Stumbling Steer – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:01 AM

There are ranchers throughout New Mexico who might not think there’s anything even mildly amusing about a brewery and gastropub called The Stumbling Steer. These robust ranchers would likely equate the term Stumbling Steer to the clumsy gait exhibited by their precious livestock after they consume locoweed, a poisonous plant found in every one of the Land of Enchantment’s 33 counties. Ultimately leading to paralysis and death if not controlled, locoweed accounts for millions of dollars in livestock loss each year. The name Stumbling Steer obviously has nothing to do with the bane of ranchers throughout New Mexico. According to the gastropub’s Web site, the name has everything to do with a commitment to a farm and table approach. All the spent grains used to craft the brewery’s (ostensibly delicious) beers are fed to locally grown cattle which purportedly gain fat…or flavor. Those selfsame cattle provide the beef which graces a very imaginative menu. It’s a menu which changes with the seasons, keeping things fresh and fun. The Stumbling Steer is no ordinary brew pub. It’s a gastropub, a British term for a public house (pub) which specializes in high-end, high-quality food. The term gastropub, a portmanteau of pub and…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenMediterraneanNew Mexico

Ali Baba – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:56 AM

Legends recount that in his quest for immortality, Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh visited a tavern where a divine barmaid gave him the advise: “Eat and drink your fill, Gilgamesh, and celebrate day and night. Make every day a festival; day and night dance and play.” Because of the fecundity of their land, the people of Mesopotamia could indeed afford to eat, drink and be merry until they died–even if they were denied immortality. The rich culinary legacy of ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) can be traced back more than 10,000 years when the comparatively lush and fecund land constituting the fertile crescent gave rise to the cradle of civilization. The availability of water and agricultural resources allowed some of the world’s earliest human civilizations to flourish from both a societal and technological perspective. This region is credited with the development of writing, glass, the wheel and the use or irrigation. Tablets found in ancient ruins throughout Iraq document recipes used in temple festivals, including a 3,700-year-old recipe for a meat pie baked in an unleavened crust. In what are essentially the world’s very first cookbooks, these tablets reveal a very large and gastronomically advanced civilization. A cuneiform script on 24 stone tables…

Closed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanRating: ExceptionalSanta Fe

EPAZOTE ON THE HILLSIDE – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:37 PM

Epazote. That’s a word that can make an intrepid chef’s toque blanche resemble the white flag of surrender. If you’re a culinary savant and haven’t heard of epazote, it’s probably because the chefs at restaurants you frequent might just be afraid to use it. Would you want to use an ingredient also known as “skunkweed” and “wormseed”…a word derived from a Nahuatl term for an animal with a rank odor…an ingredient perhaps best known for reducing the after-effects of eating beans? When Chef Fernando Olea chose to name his fabulous new world restaurant Epazote, it signaled a bold departure from the stereotype too many diners have of Mexican restaurants. In the Chef’s inimitably gentle manner, he was declaring his passion for the cuisine of the pre-Columbian peoples of Mexico, signaling his embrace of historically authentic ingredients and preparation styles. At Epazote, he marries Mexico’s indigenous culinary traditions with those of New Mexico, especially its agricultural bounty. Oh, and he’s daring and talented enough to incorporate epazote into several recipes. Originally from Mexico City, Chef Olea has been enthralling savvy diners in Santa Fe since 1991 with his sophisticated interpretations of contemporary Mexican cuisine. In nearly a quarter-century, the Chef has…