Category: Seafood

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoSeafood

Down N Dirty Seafood Boil – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Seafood boil in the Duke City! If the notion conjures visions of heading to Tingley Beach and embarking on an unappetizing repast of catfish, rainbow trout and silvery minnows boiled together in a large pot of green chile seasoned broth, you’re in for a treat. As of September, 2013, it’s possible for expatriates from any of America’s coastal regions to indulge in authentic seafood boil…and it’s very good.  So good, in fact, that since its launch, copycat restaurants have spawned throughout the Duke City. Down N Dirty Seafood Boil was the first–often duplicated but never replicated.   Albuquerque’s very first seafood boil restaurant launched to very little fanfare. The event should have been celebrated with ceremonial splendor and rejoicing. Think…

Dog FriendlySandwichSeafoodUtah

Freshie’s Lobster Co. – Salt Lake City, Utah

Gil Garduno

The best lobster in the world?  In Salt Lake City?  That’s as improbable as the Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl, as unlikely as drivers in New Mexico developing the motor skills to use turn signals, as far-fetched as a conservative NRA member driving a Subaru in Santa Fe.  As a landlocked state some two-thousand miles from the cold New England waters that produce the world’s most delicious lobsters, the notion that a Salt Lake City restaurant would be acclaimed as home of the “world’s best lobster roll” seems quite implausible indeed.  Even the concept that a lobster restaurant (other than Red Lobster) would experience wild success in Salt Lake City could be construed as rather fantastical.  Utah isn’t exactly…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyNational ChainNew MexicoSeafood

Storming Crab – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Archaeologists believe there’s a scientific explanation for contemporary  humankind’s  predilection for seaside vacations and trips to the beach.  Evidence–stone tools used to cut through animal flesh–seems to support the theory that the first humans migrated out of Africa by following the eastern coastline.  This, the theory posits, would have led to Australia being discovered before Europe.  As noted by Professor Chris Stringer, the head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London: “The earliest evidence of modern humans in Europe is 40,000 years old whereas we find evidence dating to 60,000 years ago in Australia.  This (migrating along Africa’s eastern coastline) provides a possible explanation.” In addition to the tools used by our beachcombing ancestors, the archaeologists found…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoSeafood

Salty Catch – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

As children growing up in landlocked and agrarian Peñasco, my siblings and I led a very sheltered life. Our extremely provincial experience with “seafood” was limited to Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks which we dipped in Kraft’s sandwich spread (we didn’t know about tartar sauce) and (gasp, the horror) Mrs. Paul’s fried shrimp. Sure, we snared the legal limit (yeah, right) of German brown trout, cutthroat trout and rainbow trout in the cold, rocky waters of the mountain streams in our backyard, but that wasn’t “seafood.” That was fish! One commonality among the “seafood” and even the “fish” we experienced was that it was all fried. Okay, so the Mrs. Paul’s seafood was already breaded and fried when we removed it…

AlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2020Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenRated 23Seafood

Flamez Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Hold the pickles Hold the lettuce Special orders don’t upset us All we ask is that you let us serve it your way In 1974, Burger King introduced its most successful and long-standing advertising campaign, the heart of which was “Have It Your Way,” a catchy jingle designed to contrast just how flexible Burger King is compared to its largest competitor, the ubiquitous McDonalds. The earworm-inspiring jingle told us we could have burgers made especially for us—tailor-made, customized, prepared any way we want them. It implied that unlike its rigid and inflexible competitor, Burger King recognizes our uniqueness and they celebrate it with burgers that reflect our individuality, lifestyles and dietary considerations. There are, Burger King tells us, 221,184 ways…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyNew MexicoSeafood

Slapfish – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Every year, a jolly, bearded (some might also say fat) gentleman leaves the comforts of his home to celebrate an event that comes only once a year. Throughout the year he’s visited good little mom-and-pop restaurants across the Land of Enchantment and rewarded them with kind reviews wrapped in polysyllabic words and alliterative phrases. On this special day, my Kim’s birthday, the bearded gentleman isn’t quite as jolly for as faithful readers know, once a year I agree to take my cookie-baking bride to the Olive Garden. It’s a deal we have, albeit one that makes me feel like Faust in the Christopher Marlowe play. Faust, for the non-English majors among you was a scholar who sells his soul to…

CaliforniaDog FriendlySeafoodUnited States

Shanghai Reds at the Fisherman’s Market & Grill – La Quinta, California

Gil Garduno

For years, fish tacos have been one of those popular, almost faddish obsessions which have garnered more attention and affection than cynics like me believe is warranted (much the same way some of us feel about Beyonce and anything Kardashian).  It’s always been well beyond my capability to understand why fish tacos have been so highly regarded.  Sure, my Kim and I have had a number of good to very good fish tacos, but we’ve never had a truly transformative, eye-opening “now I get it” fish taco.  Not even in San Diego.  Certainly not in New Mexico.  Apparently, we’re not the only ones. Legendary gifted raconteur Anthony Bourdain didn’t get fish tacos either (or for that matter, Nashville hot chicken). …

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoSeafood

Crackin’ Crab Seafood Boil – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

There are certain notions people find too implausible or preposterous to believe. Case in point: during a recent lunch with my friend Bill Resnik, our waitress asked what we did for a living. Bill told her I was an actor, a premise our waitress found entirely credible—even to the point of recalling she may have seen me in an episode of Breaking Bad. When, however, I told her Bill was a porn star, she couldn’t contain her laughter. She practically fell over in hysteria at the image of my towering (6’5″) friend performing in a porno as if it was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. After she composed herself, she told me I was full of sh… er,…

CaliforniaRated 23Seafood

Schooners Coastal Kitchen & Bar – Monterey, California

Gil Garduno

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” ~John Steinbeck Cannery Row, 1945 During basic military training in the Air Force, several of us who could speak multiple languages were asked to take the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB), the test the military services use to measure aptitude to learn a foreign language.  Fewer than five percent of people who take (or retake) the DLAB pass it.  Somehow I managed a high score and was extended an opportunity to attend the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey.   My response, one borne of ignorance and stupidity, was “I…

Las Vegas, NevadaSeafood

Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

“Stone crab is probably what God eats every night of the year, but in Florida we mortals only have it from mid-October to mid-May…” Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement Whether or not stone crab is really what God likes for dinner might make an interesting literary debate, but there’s no disputing that ordinary and not-so-mere mortals have loved the captivating crustaceans of citrus country for nearly a century.  In 1913 Joe Weiss discovered that stone crabs were not only edible, they were delicious–so much so that his small lunch counter in then backwater Miami Beach became an epicurean epicenter.  High society–everyone from Will Rogers, Gloria Swanson and Emelia Earhart to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2013Gone But Not ForgottenSeafood

Desert Fish – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

If you were entertaining a visitor from Seattle or Portland, would you take them to Long John Silver’s, Captain D’s or even  Pelican’s to show them how the seafood in land-locked Albuquerque measures up to the seafood in those two bastions of fresh, succulent seafood?  Not likely!  You’d probably want to take them to a restaurant which showcases New Mexico’s red and green chile.  For some reason, however, during business trips to Seattle and Portland, my well-intentioned colleagues insist on taking me to Mexican restaurants.  Perhaps they assume that with my Spanish surname and place of residence, I would want to try their Mexican food.  That makes as much sense as expecting me to stay at La Quinta and drive…