Category: New Mexico

BrunchFine DiningFood Network Eats New MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta Fe

La Casa Sena – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:55 AM

He was an academic prodigy, one of the first two persons admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico. He had a distinguished military career in the Union Army before being mustered out with the rank of Major. He served as sheriff of Santa Fe county for more than ten years and was a political power broker for both the Republican and Independent parties. Despite such an impressive pedigree, Civil War-hero Major Jose Sena might have been forgotten by the annals of history had it not been for his fabulous Territorial-style adobe house a…

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Cafe Phenix – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:02 PM

“A mythical bird that never dies, the Phoenix flies far ahead to the front, always scanning the landscape and distant space. It represents our capacity for vision, for collecting sensory information about our environment and the events unfolding within it. The Phoenix, with its great beauty, creates intense excitement and deathless inspiration.” – Feng Shui Master Lam Kam Shuen, The Feng Shui Handbook It’s only appropriate that a cozy little restaurant named Cafe Phenix would be part and parcel of a neighborhood revitalization effort being spearheaded by a close-knit community of artists. Much like the advent of Soho, a New…

AlbuquerqueBetter Call SaulClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenSteak

Paul’s Monterey Inn – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:02 AM

The year was 1971. Albuquerque’s population had reached a quarter of a million. The San Juan-Chama project, a system of diversion structures and tunnels for trans-mountain movement of water from the San Juan River Basin to the Rio Grande Basin, was completed. The area’s three military installations: Kirtland, Manzano and Sandia Bases merged under Air Force jurisdiction. Civil unrest was in the air in pastoral Roosevelt Park where a riot ensued that saw more than 130 arrested and more than 2,000 armed men called in to quell the situation. Albuquerque ballooning pioneer Sid Cutter took his first balloon flight. Paul’s…

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The Black Olive Wine Bar & Grill – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:42 AM

Perhaps in time, the Albuquerque-Rio Rancho metropolitan statistical area will be thought of in much the same vein as America’s two most famous “twin city” metroplexes–Dallas-Fort Worth and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Don’t be surprised if Rio Rancho winds up being the Dallas to Albuquerque’s Fort Worth, the Minneapolis to Albuquerque’s Saint Paul. People have been selling Rio Rancho short for a long time, but that’s starting to change. By 1980, the end of its first decade in existence, the fledgling city which in 1970 didn’t even have a measurable population by U.S. Census standards had more than 10,000 residents. Ten years…

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Gold Street Caffe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:51 PM

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely You can always go – downtown When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry Seems to help, I know – downtown Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty How can you lose? The lights are much brighter there You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares So go downtown, things’ll be great when you’re Downtown – no finer place, for sure Downtown – everything’s waiting for you. Just a few years ago, the…

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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…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2010Gone But Not ForgottenSteak

Duke’s Steakhouse – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:36 PM

“Did you ever see the customers in health-food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They’re dying, of course, but they look terrific.” -Bill Cosby Bill Cosby probably didn’t have actor Robert Mitchum in mind when describing the type of people who visit steak houses. Heralded by movie critic Roger Ebert as “one of the greatest actors of all time,” the masculine Mitchum was certainly robust (evincing strength and vigorous health) and ruddy (inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life), but he wasn’t the…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2010Gone But Not ForgottenThai

Lotus Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:15 PM

Balance. The Diné, or Navajo, of America’s Four Corners Region have a word for it: “hózhó.” The word embodies the idea of striving for balance and harmony along with beauty and order. Every aspect of Diné life–whether spiritual or secular–is connected to hózhó, maintaining balance between the individual and the universe and living in harmony with nature and the Creator. Balance. America’s favorite everyman philosopher Homer J. Simpson might define it as “a donut in each hand.” Obviously politicians discussing the budget should definite it as something unachievable, an ephemeral concept, a meaningless and baseless promise uttered simply to mollify…

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The Pink Adobe – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:31 PM

Culinary historians credit the advent of the modern Santa Fe fine dining scene to a painter who moved to Santa Fe shortly after World War II to join the burgeoning art community. Having to support herself and a young daughter, Rosalea Murphy turned to something else at which she excelled–the culinary arts. As with most rags to riches success stories, Rosalea did not immediately set the Santa Fe dining scene on its ear, but then this wasn’t the “City Different” now widely recognized as a tourist Mecca. Good things take time. Great things take longer. When she first launched 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…

AmericanBreakfastClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009

Harla May’s Fat Boy Grill – Belen, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:22 PM

Many of us who grew up in small town America during the 60s sometimes pine for the more innocent days of our youth–the days before cable television gave us hundreds of channels (and nothing to watch) and video games became the only form of exercise (albeit, of their thumbs) our children get. Back then, the movie theater was the town’s cultural center. It was where small-town America congregated to see Hollywood blockbusters (about two years after they hit the big cities) as well as movies which introduced our innocents to the Hell’s Angels, Bruce Lee, Godzilla and campy Sonny and…