Category: New Mexico

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2017ColombianGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew Mexico

Panchito’s Restaurant & Bakery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:35 PM

“Let’s get one thing straight: Mexican food takes a certain amount of time to cook. If you don’t have the time, don’t cook it. You can rush a Mexican meal, but you will pay in some way. You can buy so-called Mexican food at too many restaurants that say they cook Mexican food. But the real food, the most savory food, is prepared with time and love and at home. So, give up the illusion that you can throw Mexican food together. Just understand that you are going to have to make and take the time.” ~Denise Chavez, A Taco…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2017Diners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

The Cube – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:45 AM

Timon: [singing] Luau. If you’re hungry for a hunk of fat and juicy meat Eat my buddy Pumbaa here, ’cause he’s a tasty treat Come on down and dine on this tasty swine All you gotta is get in line Are you achin’… Pumbaa: Yup, yup, yup. Timon: For some bacon? Pumbaa: Yup, yup, yup. Timon: He’s a big pig. Pumbaa: Yup, yup. Timon: You can be a big pig, too. Oy. From Disney’s Lion King Succulent swine. Porcine perfection. Bodacious baby backs. Pulchritudinous pulled pork. Every serious barbecue aficionado should go hog wild at least once in their lives…

BreakfastBurgersClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011

Badlands Burgers & Tortas – Grants, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:00 PM

Out through the back door of Rosa’s I ran, Out where the horses were tied. I caught a good one. It looked like it could run. Up on its back and away I did ride, Just as fast as I could from the West Texas town of El Paso Out to the badlands of New Mexico. ~El Paso by Marty Robbins From the Texas cowboy immortalized in the Marty Robbins ballad to Walter White, Albuquerque’s favorite meth maker, through time immemorial whenever circumstances in the wild and rugged west have been at their most grim and perilous, even the most…

AlbuquerqueBreakfastClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenMexican

Rey’s La Familiar Restaurante – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:30 PM

Many similarities exist between writing beautiful lyrics for a memorable song and developing a great recipe for memorable food. Great lyrics involve putting together the right words so that they flow easily around a meaningful topic. Great recipes involve putting together the right ingredients so they coalesce into a delicious whole. There are no real rules to writing great lyrics or recipes, but not everybody can do it. You’ve got to have the right combination of talent, dedication and inspiration. Great lyrics and great recipes often require extensive trial and experimentation over a long period of time until they can’t…

AlbuquerqueRating: ExcellentSteak

Rancher’s Club of New Mexico – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:51 AM

While the Ranchers Club of New Mexico may evoke images of J. R. Ewing holding court with fellow oil barons and business magnates in Dallas, this magnificent milieu is, at its core and essence, unabashedly New Mexican in its attitude and spirit. Don’t let its ostentatious trappings–a sophisticated big city opulence meets a decidedly westernized look and feel–fool you. Sophisticated doesn’t mean haughty and ostentatious doesn’t mean exclusive. The Land of Mañana’s well-renowned inclusiveness means more than just the one-percenters will feel at home. It’s been that way since the Ranchers Club opened in 1985. More than half the dinner…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2013Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: Outstanding

Paco’s International Smoked Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:01 PM

“If salt is the odorless spice, smoke is the ephemeral magical invisible spice. You can’t feel it, you can’t touch it, but you can taste it.” ~Chef Seamus Mullen, Tertulia Restaurant, New York City. Have you ever wondered why some people drool when they pass by a computer displaying a fireplace screen saver? They’re not thinking about romance. They’re thinking about barbecue. There’s just something about smoked foods that has excited humans across the millennia. It’s been that way since a lightning bolt struck a mastodon and rendered its flesh delicious. Since then humans have been genetically predisposed to crave…

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…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2018Gone But Not Forgotten

Milton’s Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:11 AM

“Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes You might think that a world-famous cookbook author and New York Times food writer who dines at four-star white-tablecloth restaurants and routinely drops $200 or more for a meal would be ecstatic about his culinary opportunities. Instead, Mark Bittman appears to have had too much of a good thing and longs for, of all things, a restaurant which feels like home (ostensibly without having to do the dishes). Bittman laments “I want “my” place, don’t you? A place with a working…

Closed in 2017Fine DiningGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

The Corn Maiden – Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:30 PM

First cultivated in Mexico around 5000 BC, corn has since been a ubiquitous staple among American Indians throughout the fruited plain. A resilient, versatile and nourishing crop also known as maize, corn allowed Indians to develop the complex social structure and village life which unfolded from the parched valleys of the southwest to the lush eastern woodlands. Along with squash and beans, corn constituted the three main agricultural crops among Indians and was considered the most sacred of all foods. Throughout the millennia, corn has been the focus of countless rituals and legends among Native Americans, all of whom associate…

AlbuquerqueAsianClosed in 2019Gone But Not Forgotten

Street Food Asia – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:51 AM

What is street food? An informal poll of friends and colleagues generated some interesting answers. One colleague equates street food to road kill– the flattened fauna, car-crashed carrion and furry Frisbees found on and along the highways and byways throughout the fruited plain. (Hmmm, that answer might explain his halitosis.) To another, street food is synonymous with hot dog carts while yet another colleague answered simply “roach coaches” (a pejorative for food trucks). The most interesting answer, provided by a geriatrically advanced friend not quite contemporaneous with Charles Dickens, was “chestnuts” with which not everyone in my focus group was…

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,…