Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1,325 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 13,400 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
A few years ago, my friend Bill Hanson, a gastronome of the first order, was hosting several of his Costa Rican employees at Intel’s Ocotillo (Arizona) plant. Like me, Bill delights in introducing his friends to new culinary adventures. Unfortunately, not all our colleagues were similarly inclined (despite one of Intel’s corporate values being “risk-taking”). One of them convinced the…
If one measure of success is having the wherewithal to pursue those things you love most, Frank Willis has led a very successful life. A towering skyscraper of a man, Frank has had four great loves in his life: family, basketball, music and chicken and waffles. They’ve been his passions and his raisons d’être. Maybe that’s why he’s done them…
The Food Network’s television cameras just love Chef Marie Yniguez who’s been showcased on not one, not two, not even three, but four of its prime-time programs. Aficionados of her cooking will tell you that in three of those programs she even upstaged Guy Fieri, the spiky-coiffed chef-glitterati. Marie is a larger-than-life personality whose irreverent sense of humor, Burque pride…
“Last night I broke the seal on a Jim Beam decanter That looks like Elvis.” ~George Jones Having spent much of his career in an inebriated state, Country music icon George Jones actually lived the life experiences that inspired much of his music. After one of his four divorces, Jones sat alone in a rather empty home, his ex-wife having…
Pasqual Baylon’s devotion to the Mass and the Holy Eucharist was so fervent that even when assigned kitchen duty, he remained so enraptured in adoration of the Eucharist that angels had to stir the pots to keep them from burning. It’s deliciously ironic, therefore, that San Pasqual is the recognized patron saint of Mexican and New Mexican kitchens, a beloved…
Set in Albuquerque, Breaking Bad, AMC’s critically acclaimed television series may have left viewers with the impression that the Duke City is a haven for meth cookery and fried chicken joints. Had the fair city been more accurately typecast, it would have have been portrayed as a mecca for microbreweries. The Albuquerque Beer Scene blog says it best: “It’s like…
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…
NOTE: In March, 2018, Sophia’s Place reopened. Please click here for the updated review. Picture yourself as a first-year marketing student assigned by your professor to perform a marketing analysis of Eli’s Place and its enigmatic chef-owner Dennis Apodaca. Essentially you’ve got to figure out the rhyme and reason behind the restaurant’s success. “Easy assignment,” you think to yourself, “Eli’s…
Although we pride ourselves on keeping a pulse on the local dining scene, it took a nationally syndicated Food Network cable program called Food Finds to introduce us in 2003 to the Golden Crown Panaderia, an Albuquerque fixture for nearly three decades. In an episode entitled Viewer’s Choice filmed entirely in New Mexico, hostess Sandra Pinckney visited several small-town shops,…
Everyone knows the most sagacious of all creatures in nature is the owl. The owl is to whom all other creatures go to get some of life’s most pondered questions answered–questions such as “how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” After having posed the question to a cow, a fox…
From the Standard Diner Facebook Page: It is with great sadness that Standard Diner will be closing its doors for good after dinner service on Monday, September 7th. On Friday the 11th, our doors will reopen as The Range Cafe. While New Mexico is most assuredly the Land of Enchantment, most locals also accept that it’s also the “land of…
