Category: American

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2021Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Rosemary – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“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 bubble.” Anyone who’s read Shakespeare’s Macbeth will recognize this incantation by three witches as they stir a boiling cauldron replete with the ingredients needed to conjure ghosts into their world so they can manipulate Macbeth, the future king.  Even among those of us who may have been required to memorize this famous stanza, the ingredients seem so malevolent.  Little did we know that most of those ingredients were actually rather innocuous.  Eye of newt, for example, was actually (depending upon which herbalist you consult) a daylily or mustard seed. Most of the ingredients imbued with magical properties which we ascribe to witchcraft are also used by chefs to conjure delicious aromas and flavors in their kitchens.  Among the most magical of those ingredients is rosemary, an incredibly versatile herb for which a very popular Duke City restaurant is named.  A sprig of rosemary hangs over the restaurant’s name like an accent mark used to emphasize the three words subtitling the name “Rosemary” on the restaurant’s…

AlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2021Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoSanta FeTaos County

The Burger Stand – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:44 PM

“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 Man by ZZ Top Those of us invited on occasion to judge competitive food events try to follow a few very sensical but ironclad rules to ensure our evaluations are fair, balanced and accurate—or at least as accurate as any largely subjective matter can be. Though we commit these rules to memory, it’s very easy to forget about them and give way to unbridled desire, especially when you’re judging what has been deemed the best of the best, the most delicious of its genre. Such was the case when I was invited to serve as a judge at the 2018 Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown on September 8th, 2018. Before embarking on my delicious task, I went over my mental checklist of those rules. (1) Arrive hungry, but not too hungry. Check. My breakfast consisted solely of a banana and two cups of coffee. (2) Pace yourself and take small bites. With seven full-sized green chile cheeseburgers presented to us in ten-minute intervals, it’s important that…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBurgersClosed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Brixens – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

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 my appendectomy he had me in more stitches than the actual surgery). Back in October, 2017, he asked if I wanted to go to “the restaurant opened by the love child of Vixen and Blitzen” (two of Santa’s reindeer). It didn’t immediately dawn on me that he was talking about Brixens, the very highly touted new downtown restaurant in the heart of Central Avenue. Brixens is not named for the love child of any of Santa’s reindeer. Nor is it named for Brixen, a town in Northern Italy. Brixens is named for the brick accents, particularly on the west wall of the venerable Yrisarri building built in 1909. Located on the southwest corner of 4th and Central, the Yrissari building has cast its shadows on both the historic original route and the rerouted path of Route 66. For three decades, the bottom floor corner of that edifice was the home of Nick’s Crossroads Cafe after which it was occupied by the short-lived Cafe Bien whose…

AlbuquerqueBurgersRating: Very Good

The Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:16 PM

“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 you take a bite out of that burger, you just know somewhere in the world a vegan is crying.” – Homer Simpson America’s favorite everyman philosopher may have had The Grill in mind when uttering that pithy pearl. What, after all, is a burger if not the celebration of meat, a pulchritudinous beef patty sandwiched between glorious golden orbs and festooned with ingredients intended to bring out flavor combinations that dance on your taste buds? Made properly–personalized for taste to your exacting degree of doneness and with your unique choice of ingredients–a burger can elicit tears of rapturous joy among burgerphiles. Though the corporate chains offer convenience and consistency (a boring sameness), few would argue that their copycat burgers could elicit raw delirium when bitten into. Cynics, like me, would argue that chain burgers aren’t even made with real meat, USDA definitions for meat be damned. No, my friends, it’s solely the bounteous burgers at your local mom-and-pop diners down the street that elicit the…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Nexus Blue Smokehouse – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:33 AM

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 use rocket fuel (“liquid oxygen with a skosh of hydrogen and for fun, a little soupcon of cilantro for flavoring”).  Predictably, the grill fired up in a world record time of 2.6 seconds.  Also to be expected, the grill exploded like a rocket, flying off into the wild blue yonder.  That was par for the course for the accident-prone Taylor who once installed a jet engine on his lawnmower. Thankfully the pitmaster extraordinaire at Nexus Blue Smokehouse, understands the sweet, smoky, seductive low-and-slow science and art of grilling succulent meats.  That intersection of art and science occurs at just the optimum point.  Art doesn’t start where science stops.  Rather it’s a symbiosis of both.  Tim Taylor well understood the science, but could never grasp the intricacies of the art of barbecue.  Discerning Duke City diners pining for succulent smoked meats understand both. If you didn’t already know, the name “Nexus” certainly cued you in that the Smokehouse comes from the Nexus Brewery family, a burgeoning…

AlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2023Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Santa Fe Bite – ABQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:49 PM

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 days remembered.  Readers pondered if it was true that “you can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood.”  Realists concluded the novel’s title meant you can’t return to a place of another time and expect that everything would be exactly the same.  Optimists  took it a bit further, positing that while some things may change, other things don’t change and some things might actually be better. Wolfe’s novel came to mind when we first heard a legendary Santa Fe institution had licensed a franchise in Albuquerque.  That institution, the Santa Fe Bite had itself once provided evidence that you can go back home.  For six decades, that institution–then known as the Bobcat Bite–earned every accolade conceivable before relocating to the Santa Fe Plaza area in 2003.  There was a lot of charm in its Lilliputian digs where you sat elbow-to-elbow with other diners who, like you, had waited eagerly for one of the Bobcat Bite’s 26 seats to become available.   The…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Seasonal Palate – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:58 PM

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 up that which is planted; ~Ecclesiastes, 3:1-2 Not that very long ago, a “seasonal palate” meant humankind consumed foods only during the season in which they were grown. Today, we can walk down the aisles of our neighborhood grocery stores in January and find a veritable horn of plenty overflowing with the same kinds of fruits and vegetables we were enjoying when they were “in season” back in June. That’s what progress–refrigeration, preservatives, processed foods and a worldwide distribution system–has wrought. Alas, that “progress” may have come at the expense and delusion of our taste buds. While genetic engineering has fooled our eyes by making those “out-of-season” fruits and vegetables appear fresh, ripe and delicious, our taste buds are more honest, discerning those fruits and vegetables to be flat, bland and uninspiring. They may look good, but the real proof is in the eating. Aside from discerning seasonally optimum flavors with our olfactory senses and taste buds, our memories tend to associate fruits and vegetables…

AlbuquerqueBrewery-PubBurgersClosed in 2022Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Toltec Brewing Co. – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:01 PM

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 what the #%*&! a Quarter Pounder is. Jules: What’d they call it? Vincent: They call it Royale with cheese. Jules: Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac? Vincent: Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac. ~Pulp Fiction 265 “f-bombs,” copious racist slurs, torrents of extreme language and some of the most weighty dialogue ever spoken in an American movie. That was Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 apotheosis Pulp Fiction, a low-brow pastiche the cognoscenti consider one of the most quotable movies ever made. The clever banter and witty repartee between hitmen Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is particularly memorable. It was their dialogue which introduced this review. It was what immediately came to mind when I espied the “Royale” on the “Breaking Bread” section of Toltec Brewing Co.’s menu. While no self-respecting gastronome would ever order a Quarter Pounder…er, Royale with cheese in Paris (or anywhere else, but especially not in Paris), Toltec’s Royale is…

AlbuquerqueBurgersNew MexicoRating: Good

Mac’s Steak in the Rough – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:43 PM

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 mean “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” While certainly not as venerated as prophets, this verse could also apply to some of our local restaurants. If ever you’ve heard a disparaging word about one of our local restaurant institutions, you’ll know of what I speak. Think of all the times you’ve heard such august Duke City institutions as Lotaburger and Mac’s Steak in the Rough disparaged by locals who didn’t grow up with these sacrosanct traditions. For every one of us who revere and frequent these local treasures, there may be as many (if not more) nay-sayers with antipathy toward those lionized local treasures. Some yearn instead for such big city sophisticates as In-N-Out-Burger and others of that ilk. Forgive me if my retort and admonishment to locals who would deprecate our local treasures sounds too much like the jarring and insensitive statements used by some parents to get persnickety children to eat.…

AfricanAlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2021Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenIndianNew MexicoRating: Excellent

The Safari Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:29 PM

“The wild dogs cry out in the night As they grow restless longing for some solitary company I know that I must do what’s right Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve become.” ~ Africa by Toto Shrouded in mist and steeped in myth and mystery, Mount Kilimanjaro attracts visitors from all over the world. Often called “the roof of Africa,” the towering, snow-capped, conically-shaped mountain is the crown jewel of the United Republic of Tanzania. At 19,340 feet, the magnificent freestanding peak commands the skies, looming over the plains of the bushveld savannah like a majestic sovereign keeping vigilant watch over her people. Majestic as it may be, Mount Kilimanjaro is far from Tanzania’s sole travel destination. The country boasts of dozens of beautiful white sandy beaches such as those found in the island of Zanzibar. A number of national parks, conservation areas and game reserves allow visitors to get up close and personal with lions, leopards, elephants, cheetah, giraffes, zebras, jackals and thousands of migratory birds. Tanzania is also one of Africa’s most popular safari destinations. Now, safaris need not entail hunting animals…

AmericanBernalilloBrunchClosed in 2020Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Freight House Kitchen & Tap – Bernalillo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:36 PM

Many of us look at an unused and timeworn historical building and a wave of nostalgia sweeps over us as we imagine what life was like when that building teemed with activity. Some see such a building as a pig in need of lipstick, nothing a coat of paint and a few nails can’t fix up. Others see that same edifice as having served its purpose, a structure which should be razed to make room for a modern complex. Still others view a weathered building as a thing of beauty from which they draw inspiration. For restaurant impresario Matt DiGregory, driving by the Santa Fe Freight House nearly two decades ago planted the seed for an idea that took years to germinate. The long-time owner of The Range Café and Standard Diner drew inspiration from the two story Mission-Revival façade, envisioning it as the potential site of a restaurant with the thematic look and feel of the railroad industry which once thrived in Albuquerque. Because of the historical nature of the building, DiGregory was unable to realize that particular dream at that particular location. In 2015, he did the next best thing, launching The Freight House Kitchen & Tap Room,…