Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1188 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 11,500 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
You might think that the food truck industry is an ultra-competitive dog-eat-dog business in which purveyors aren’t very gracious when discussing fellow food truck operators. Considering how they often jockey for a limited number of …
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Thank you, Mighty Mike! Thank you for restoring our faith in barbecue just one day after my Kim declared “I don’t want to have barbecue for a long time.” Readers might find it hard to …
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Urban Dictionary, that oft hilarious, veritable cornucopia of slang, jargon and streetwise lingo, defines “lush” as “someone who drinks a lot.” (Actually, there are several pages of similar definitions for “lush” in the “peoples’ dictionary,” …
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A case could be made that “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” the name of a 1977 hit by Santa Esmeralda, could well be a lament about New Mexican cuisine (in addition to being the background …
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About halfway between Truth or Consequences and Hatch on I-25, you may have espied a billboard audaciously proclaiming “world’s finest green chile cheeseburger.” That billboard has always piqued my curiosity and prompted such questions as …
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“Are you going to explain how to pronounce “bosque?,” my Kim asked when she espied me working on this review. Though her Spanish vocabulary is rather limited, she pronounces the five or six hundred Spanish …
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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, …
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Cowgirl” is an attitude really. A pioneer spirit, a special American brand of courage. The cowgirl faces life head-on, lives by her own lights, and makes no excuses. Cowgirls take stands; they speak up. They …
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In its eighth season, the brilliant sitcom Seinfeld helped introduce casual comic book fans to the concept of Bizarro world, a setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite of expectations. In other words, a Bizarro …
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“I think we love bacon because it has all the qualities of an amazing sensory experience. When we cook it, the sizzling sound is so appetizing, the aroma is maddening, the crunch of the texture …
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6 October 2020: From the Abq Grill n Que Facebook page – These unique times have forced us to make the very difficult decision to shut down our operations for the foreseeable future. We did …
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Texas, the Lone Star State slogan tells us, is “like a whole other country.” Everywhere we turned during our weekend in Ruidoso, we espied oversized pickup trucks sporting Texas license plates. It almost made us …
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When we pulled up to the order window at the Oso Grill’s drive-through lane, Misty, our sweet server handed us a menu and contritely explained that the restaurant had run out of shrimp. “Why,” I …
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Tia Betty. If the name conjures images of a dowdy old woman, a face etched with wrinkles and thinning grey hair pulled back neatly into a bun, you’re probably not alone. Not even the youthfully …
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If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Ask a physicist and you’ll get an earful about quantum theory, wave function, subatomic particles …
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“I don’t know why men like to barbecue so much. Maybe its the only thing they can cook. Or maybe they’re just closet pyromaniacs.” ~Cecelia Ahern, P.S. I Love You Whether or not the dubious …
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I first sampled Rudy’s Country Store & Bar-B-Q’s products in 1993 in Leon Springs, Texas, a San Antonio suburb on the fringes of the magnificent Texas Hill Country. At the time Rudy’s was just beginning …
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Family owned restaurants have been called the heartbeat of a community, its pulse and its roots. Beyond the tintinnabulation of silver spoons on ceramic coffee mugs and over the hum of conversation, restaurants become living …
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Archaeologists in Spain claim to have unearthed the original man cave. What is most remarkable about this finding is how very similar Neanderthal man and contemporary man are. Men, it could be said, have not …
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In the 60s and early 70s, movies and television programs would have you believe all spies were hard-drinking, fast-driving, woman-chasing playboys as good with their fists as they were with a gun. They were worldly, …
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On our journey to together forever, my Kim and I have shared meals at thousands of restaurants. Even when we haven’t enjoyed those meals, without exception we’ve enjoyed our times together. We share everything…almost. Maybe …
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“It’s when I reach the city limits that my sense of security ends and my sense of adventure begins.” ~Anthony T. Hincks Author: Verbs in Storyland Why is it the term “city limits” conjures the same type …
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“Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing– for a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth boil and …
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It’s not all parents who can give birth to two children in a six week period, but that’s precisely what Harrison and Violet did. In early October, 2019, they welcomed into the world a beautiful …
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“If you need good hot grillin’, Try my burger stand. If you need a slice of thrillin’, I’m the baddest in the land. Any way you want it baby, I am your burger man.” ~Burger …
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My friend Bill Resnik has and will always be one of my favorite dining companions. He’s a brilliant conversationalist and one of the very funniest people you could ever hope to meet (two hours after …
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“I’m not telling you, ‘Never eat a hamburger.’ Just eat the good ones with real beef, you know, like the ones from that mom-and-pop diner down the street, … And it’s so good that when …
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Several years ago, Major Larry Abraham (God rest his soul) of the Village of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque called me out, reminding me that such restaurants as Sadie’s of New Mexico, Casa de Benavidez and …
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Tim “The Toolman” Taylor just didn’t get the concept of “low-and-slow.” During barbecue week on Taylor’s “Tool Time” television show, his buddies from NASA told him the secret to quickly igniting a grill was to …
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In 1940, Thomas Wolfe penned You Can’t Go Home Again, a novel whose deeply existential title prompted more than water cooler conversations. It prompted profound philosophical discourse, internal reflection and pangs of nostalgia about better …
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck …
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Vincent: And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris? Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese? Vincent: No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn’t know …
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To its detractors, there are a lot of things about which to criticize California, but even detractors will give the Golden State its due when it comes to a national obsession–the hamburger. California is the …
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My high school football coach used to call his team “chiquitos pero picosos,” a Spanish term meaning “small but piquant” (like New Mexico’s chiles). At 6’1” and a svelte 175 pounds in full uniform, I …
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In Mark 6:4, Jesus instructs his disciples that “a prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” Theologists and Bible scholars have translated this to …
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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 …
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