Category: American

AlbuquerqueAmericanDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Excellent

The Kosmos – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:22 AM

Even though New Mexico’s license plates have been graced with the sobriquet “Land of Enchantment” since 1941, it didn’t become the state’s official nickname until 1999. For much longer than that, the more derisive epithet “Land of Entrapment” has also been in use. In 1955, the New Mexico Motor Club began using it because state highway police were perceived as being overly “aggressive and deceptive” in ticketing motorists. That infamous Land of Entrapment nickname is sadly still in use, primarily by malcontents and miscreants who wouldn’t recognize enchantment if it gave them 280 days of sunshine a year. Those of us with unbridled state pride prefer to think that New Mexico enrapts you with its enchantment; it doesn’t entrap you. For us, New Mexico truly is the Land of Enraptment…er, Enchantment. No matter the length of time away, every time we set foot back in the Land of Enchantment, we just “get it” the same way we got it the first time we stepped onto its enchanted soil.  Perhaps more accurately, New Mexico gets to us. It weaves its preternatural spell and stirs something deeply in those of us open enough to its calling. English writer D. H. Lawrence said…

BurgersDog FriendlyNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Santa Fe Bite – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:29 PM

“This burger is a wonder. It’s thick, it’s perfectly cooked, juicy and covered in cheese… If eating a burger is a sin, this burger is like going to Vegas with a hooker who you kill, stuff in your trunk, and push off into a canyon.” —The Amateur Gourmet Glass-half-full nay-sayers will tell you it shouldn’t have worked. Housed in a ramshackle building some might describe as being “in the middle of nowhere,” it defied the number one rule for restaurant success: location, location, location. It was Lilliputian in size, incapable of accommodating everyone clamoring to get in. Long waits were common with only a small porch and limited eating as a “waiting area.” Seating was in personal space proximity. in winter and rare rainy seasons, the dirt and gravel parking lot could become rather messy. From a debits and credits perspective, these were the debits, the factors which worked against the Bobcat Bite ever becoming a success, much less a legendary dining destination. Fortunately the Bobcat Bite was frequented by diners with a glass is half full perspective, not by accountants and their ledgers. The Bobcat Bite was not beloved in spite of the aforementioned debits; it was beloved because…

AmericanDog FriendlyNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Bar Castañeda – Las Vegas, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Northern New Mexico’s highways and byways are incomparable for their scenic beauty.  From the historical High Road to Taos with its remnants of Spanish occupation to the spectacular Enchanted Circle which circles New Mexico’s highest mountain peak, this region is replete with awe and wonder.  Desiree Aguilar, my friend and former colleague at the University of New Mexico shares my opinion that even these two world-famous byways are eclipsed by a lesser known stretch of road.  We both believe the drive between Las Vegas, New Mexico and Taos is the state’s most enchanting.  Taking this route, you’ll traverse past ramshackle adobe homesteads, small villages and a pine-studded mountain pass through the Carson National Forest.  This nameless route (State Highway 518) continues past the “Rock Wall” ( built by the Works Public Administration (WPA) after World War II) onto Taos. Sadly in 2022, the combined devastation of the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fires, the largest and most destructive wildfire in state history consumed 341,471 acres–including a large swath along my favorite byway and its villages.  Portions of San Miguel, Mora and Taos counties were impacted.  While the fire was devastating, the heart of the community beat with compassion.  Signs expressing “We are…

BurgersNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Big Mike’s Burgers & More – Belen, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 2014, Epicurious compiled a list of  crimes against burgers:  Hockey-puck patties, pressing down with a spatula, over-flipping, unmelted cheese and hard-as-a-rock buns.   For decades most burger aficionados followed these commandments as if their souls depended on them.  We cringed and bristled when burger flippers smashed down burger patties on a grill.  “There goes all the juices” we bemoaned.  “Here comes another dry as a New Mexico dust devil burger” we lamented.  Of all the felonious assaults against our beloved burger, pressing down the spatula was the most grievous, a crime that should be punishable by years of hard labor. Then in the 1970s a Kentucky restaurateur “invented” something we know today as a “smash burger.”  To hasten the preparation time and sate the throngs queued up to be fed, he placed a large bean can atop the beef patties.  By “smashing” the burger with a heavy object, he discovered the meat had greater contact with the griddle.  Not only did this lead to a better flavor, the resultant beef patties developed a “crust” that sealed in juices.  Smash burgers are super model thin compared to thick quarter- or half-pound beefy behemoths.   The thinner burger has a much darker,…

AlbuquerqueDiners Drive-Ins and DivesDog FriendlyFood Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSoul Food

Frank’s Famous Chicken & Waffles – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:30 PM

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 all well. You might remember Frank Willis as a heavily coveted recruit who played basketball for the University of New Mexico Lobos, then the only game in town. At 6’8” and 260 pounds, he was a physical presence down on the post, helping the Lobos win the Western Athletic Conference championship in 1994. Knee injuries kept him from achieving the promise he showed as a high school senior in Los Angeles. After his playing days ended, Frank remained in Albuquerque where he pined for the soul food—especially chicken and waffles–so readily available in the City of Angels. When he couldn’t find the foods he coveted, he began preparing them himself. While he cites his mother, grandmother and aunt as formative influences on his cooking, Frank also waxes nostalgic about his frequent visits to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, a beloved Los…

BurgersDog FriendlyNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009Rating: Very Good

Burger Boy – Cedar Crest, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:17 AM

The vividly hued threads that comprise a beautiful community tapestry are its diverse and unique characters. Some are quirky and eccentric, some are brash and loud, others are indistinct and don’t stand out, but all are essential in weaving that beautiful community tapestry, that compendium of personalities that make up a whole. One of the most vivid threads in the rich and diverse tapestry that is the alpine community of Cedar Crest, New Mexico was prolific artist, carver and tinkerer Ross Ward. Before settling in New Mexico, Ross was a show painter for carnivals, traversing the country for more than three decades. It was in Cedar Crest that Ross built Tinkertown, a folk art environment replete with an impressive array of miniatures and memorabilia of all kinds. Note: The next best thing to visiting Tinkertown is learning all about it on New Mexico True Television (Season 3, Episode 3) which is thankfully still available online even though the wonderful program no longer airs. Tinkertown is his legacy, the manifestation of his belief in self-determination and freedom. Now a roadside attraction, it welcomes thousands of guests each year. One of Ross Ward’s most well-known artistic endeavors hangs not on a wall…

AmericanBar & GrillColoradoDog FriendlyRating: N/R (Not Rated)SteakUnited States

The Rock Inn Mountain Tavern – Estes Park, Colorado

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

During my years at St. Anthony’s in Peñasco, I frequently tried the patience of the saintly nuns.   Thankfully capital punishment was not permissible or you wouldn’t be reading this.  It’s bad enough I wore out a few rulers and hopefully one elderly nun’s knuckles which often found their way to my head (that may explain a few things).  I wasn’t a malicious student, just one who didn’t always conform.  It wasn’t the age of “doing your own thing” though I certainly did my best to be an individual.  Albeit, I was an individual who didn’t do his homework or study for tests (but still managed to ace them all). My antics were never deliberately destructive.  In some ways I was like a gangly newborn giraffe trying to get my legs under me.  Unusually tall for an elementary school student in Northern New Mexico, I was a poster child for clumsiness.  Fellow students feared my lack of coordination would result in injury.  When the nuns insisted on having us square dance, the girls feared my do-si-do more than they did an impromptu math quiz.  My dancing resembled a combination of roller skating on ice and steer wrestling.    My Kim…

AmericanChickenColoradoDiners Drive-Ins and DivesRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

The Post Chicken & Beer – Estes Park, Colorado

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 1974 prolific author Stephen King and his wife Tabitha spent a night in Room 217 of The Stanley, a a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  The hotel staff was preparing to close the hotel for the season so the Kings found themselves the only guests in the place.  King wrote about the experience on his website: “Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect—maybe the archetypical—setting for a ghost story. That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in the chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind.” As you ascend the hill leading to The Stanley, you’re struck at the grandeur and immensity of the complex.  It’s hard to imagine Jack Nicholson demolishing a door with an axe,…

AmericanBreakfastBrunchDiners Drive-Ins and DivesDog FriendlyRating: N/R (Not Rated)United StatesWyoming

Cafe Genevieve – Jackson, Wyoming

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My friend and former Intel colleague Steve Caine will forever rue the day he asked me to help him with an expense report for a business trip he made to Portland, Oregon. His itemized expense report indicated he had dined twice at Chevy’s, a middling quality Americanized Mexican restaurant which wouldn’t survive in the tough Albuquerque market. I teased him mercilessly. Worse, when my boss saw what the commotion was all about, he immediately put Steve on double-secret probation. Steve has never lived down visiting a Chevy’s in Portland where he could have had some of the country’s freshest and best seafood. When the din died down, Steve admitted somewhat sheepishly that after two days in Portland, he was missing New Mexican food so desperately that he visited the closed facsimile he could find. It was either Chevy’s or a restaurant named Machissimo Mouse (seriously). In truth, I’ve been there, too…well, not to Chevy’s and definitely not to Machissimo Mouse, but at a point in my business travels where the craving for New Mexico’s inimitable cuisine strikes like an addict’s need for a fix. My Kim and I had been away from New Mexico for eleven days during our June,…

AmericanBreakfastDog FriendlyIdahoRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Bigwood Bread Cafe – Ketchum, Idaho

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Ernest Hemingway spent much of the roaring twenties in Paris, a city whose own liberal attitudes attracted poets, painters and writers from throughout the world. Paris was a vibrant city which drew many expats from the so-called “lost generation” of cynical young people disillusioned with the materialism and individualism prevalent in society at the time.  As a young writer penning “A Moveable Feast,” Hemingway observed: “You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris,” because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food.” An avid outdoorsman, Ernest Hemingway, was a Sun Valley habitué even before establishing a permanent residence in Ketchum two years before his death in 1961.  One of Hemingway’s favorite watering holes was The Sawtooth Club, a decidedly masculine appointed establishment where he would have been right at home.  While enjoying breakfast at Bigwood Bread about a mile north of The Sawtooth Club, I wondered to myself if Hemingway would have enjoyed that bread.  Surely after having experienced Paris and its incomparable boulangeries, he would have become addicted to bread.   Alas, Bigwood Bread, the…

AmericanIdahoRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

The Sawtooth Club – Ketchum, Idaho

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Our server Kara (who resembles Maggie Gyllenhaal but much more attractive) reasons that The Sawtooth Club is the number one restaurant in the country.  That was news to me so I asked how she arrived at that conclusion.  Her reasoning is that the Sawtooth Club has been the highest rated restaurant in the Sun Valley for five consecutive years.  The Sun Valley is currently rated the number one ski resort in the country.  Ergo, one highest rated restaurant plus one highest rated ski resort equals the best restaurant in the country.  That’s akin to fuzzy math, but Kara is so cute I was almost inclined to agree with her. From the balcony of our rental in Ketchum, Idaho we could almost make out the steep, grassy slopes which weeks before had been covered in snow.  What we couldn’t see at all was the craggy Sawtooth Mountains which backdrop the village of Ketchum and the fabled Sun Valley.  Most of the valley was shrouded in pea soup-thick soup with a persistent rain falling throughout much of our two day stay.  The Sawtooth Mountains hold a special place in my imagination as well as Hollywood’s.  Movies such as the visually stunning Jeremiah…