Category: American

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2009

Hurley’s Coffee, Tea and Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:01 PM

“May you have food and raiment, a soft pillow for your head. May you be forty years in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead.” — An Irish Blessing Cynics who used to deride Irish food as the worst in the planet would have cautioned you to say a prayer before you ate it, but not necessarily in Thanksgiving for what you were about to receive.  For years the Emerald Isle has captured the imagination with its numberless shades of lush greens, smooth as silk whiskey, stout Guinness beer and poetry that can bring you to the depths of desolation or the heights of alacrity.  What the land of saints, sinners and poets had not, until recently, ever been known…

BarbecueBreakfastClosed in 2010New MexicoRated 23Rio Rancho

Mad Max’s BBQ – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:44 PM

NOTE:  In March, 2010, Max and Fran Montano entered into a lease to buy agreement with an enthusiastic owner who continued to use the recipes which made Mad Max’s the very best barbecue in the Albuquerque area.  By September, 2010 the restaurant was closed.  Max and Fran will continue competing in competitions throughout the region and will also cater events.  They will be missed as much for their warmth and great humor as for their outstanding barbecue. Since the discovery of fire, man has viewed his domain as the great outdoors. The outdoors is from where man brought home the day’s victuals for early woman to prepare.  As the centuries progressed, descendents of troglodytic man (many of whom haven’t evolved…

BurgersClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Village Grill – Moriarty, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:53 PM

Since the mid 1920s, New Yorker magazine has been providing insightful commentary on popular American culture in all its star-spangled idiosyncrasies.  One of its most popular features in the 1970s  was the “American Journal” written by the inimitable Calvin Trillin who traversed the continent in search of where real people ate.  The “Walt Whitman of American eats” chronicled his dining experiences with the same enthusiasm with which he ate the native cuisines most appreciated by locals.  Peppering his reviews with humor, he culled a reputation as one of America’s best food writers. Trillin was adamant that America’s most glorious food was not the culinary fare proffered at the uppity upscale restaurants he cynically referred to generically as “La Maison de…

AmericanBakeryBreakfastClosed in 2011Gone But Not ForgottenLos Ranchos de Albuquerque

Calico Cantina & Cafe – Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:22 AM

The first time my friends and I visited the Calico Cafe at its original Corrales location, we wondered if the restaurant suffered from an identity crisis. Exterior signage read “Calico Cafe” but the menus indicated we were dining at “Cowgirl’s.” Apparently the restaurant was initially christened Cowgirl’s, but a name change was court-ordered after a naming dispute with Santa Fe’s long-established Cowgirls BBQ restaurant. On December 2nd, 2004, the popular and intimate lunch and breakfast restaurant owned by Corrales residents Vernon and Angel Garcia, was consumed by fire. In 2006, the Calico Cantina & Cafe launched in a new and much expanded location, the 19,000 square foot Village Shops at Los Ranchos–in the heart of the original Route 66. Coupled…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2012Gone But Not Forgotten

Johndhi’s BBQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:45 AM

With the wafting aroma of smoked meats, Johndhi’s, a charming smokehouse restaurant on picturesque Rio Grande Boulevard welcomes you to Bar-B-Querque, a well-earned and time-tested sobriquet. Known as Geezamboni’s since its inception in 1988 until a name change in 2005, Johndhi’s is a North Valley institution popular all year round. Owned and operated by John Nellos of Albuquerque’s first family of barbecue (the philanthropic Nellos clan owns three Quarters restaurants in the Duke City), Johndhi’s has an ultra hip, mega casual feel to it that belies the converted home structure in which it sits.  The artsy ambience includes French posters, multi-hued Mexican ceramic masks and pictures adorning the walls.  Strewn about the restaurant’s many nooks and crannies are interesting accoutrements such as an antique…

ArizonaBurgersClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenUnited States

Delux Burger – Phoenix, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:07 PM

“I ordered a cheeseburger at lunch the other day. I had never eaten at this particular restaurant before, and whenever I am unsure about the quality of the food at a place, I always order a cheeseburger. How many ways can you foul up something as simple as a cheeseburger? The bread can be too hard, or the meat might not be cooked to your liking, but that can be fixed quite easily. After I ordered my cheeseburger – medium well with a soft bun – the waiter asked me, “Do you want a plain cheeseburger or one of our specialties?” There is such a thing as a specialty cheeseburger? A cheeseburger is a piece of hamburger meat with some cheese on top of…

AmericanArizonaClosed in 2014Gone But Not ForgottenRated 25United States

Orange Table – Scottsdale, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:22 AM

There are several scenes in the delightfully heartwarming animated Disney movie Ratatouille that resonate with all gastronomes who delight in the sensual pleasures of the dining experience–those for whom food is an enchanting adventure in the discernment and love of its subtle nuances and overt fragrances, tastes, textures and colors. France’s preeminent chef Anton Gasteau, a pivotal character in the movie, describes this sensual adventure best: “Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you. You need only be aware to stop and savor it.” The scene which may resonate best with this gastronome is when Remy (a provincial rat with a heightened sense of smell and with aspirations of becoming…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2013Gone But Not Forgotten

Coyote Diner – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:04 PM

Restaurant critics, whether we write online reviews or are published in print somewhere, must think we’re so smart.  We use polysyllabic (there’s one) words when a more prosaic (another one) word will do.  We endeavor (yet another one, but you get the picture) to wax eloquent every time we describe something we obviously like or disdain. Here’s one critic who’s eating humble pie courtesy of Erica Ruth, an erudite (I can’t stop myself) Duke City diner who, in recommending a favorite restaurant, gave me one of the best reviews I’ve read in a long time. When Erica wrote to me and told me of an “amazing hidden treasure in the Heights” serving the “best burgers I have had in Albuquerque,”…

AlbuquerqueCajun

Mardi Gras Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:47 PM

Over the centuries, Mardi Gras has evolved in America from a sedate French Catholic tradition to a hedonist’s holiday in which revelers indulge–and overindulge–the day before Ash Wednesday.  Every year Mardi Gras celebrations lure millions of rollickers and revelers to New Orleans where Mardi Gras is celebrated in grand scale.  Extravagant parades, masked balls, raucous convivality and copious consumption are hallmarks of the Crescent City event where shouts of “Laissez les bon temps rouler” (Let the good times roll) resound from rooftops and alleyways. Laissez les bon temps rouler is also now the resounding sentiment from Albuquerque’s South Valley where in February, 2009, a new Cajun restaurant opened for business.  Now Duke City diners can celebrate “Fat Tuesday” five days…

AlbuquerqueBuffetClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenSalad

Sweet Tomatoes – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:26 AM

In the early 1980s, Albuquerque native and Tokyo Olympian Buster Quist (whose brother Terry I worked for at the time) launched within the Coronado mall, one of the Duke City’s very first salad bars.  The salad bar concept was a few years ahead of its time and the restaurant venture went belly up—a condition portly Americans have, not coincidentally, experienced en masse (no pun intended) over the years. Salad has been a popular dietary staple for a long time, but only in recent years have creative cuisine crafters added imagination, flair and flavor to what used to be bland and unimaginative greenery.  The lack of imagination in crafting salads has always reminded dieters that the word “diet” is simply “die”…

AlbuquerqueSoul Food

Almost Gourmet Soul Food – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:01 PM

NOTE:  Although the Almost Gourmet Soulfood restaurant is now closed, owner Genice Monroe remains in the catering business, working out of a commercial kitchen in the city.  She is working on a Web site from which you will be able to order the fantastic soul food you fell in love with at her restaurant.  Call Genice at (505) 353-0799 for all your catering needs. One of my favorite catechism words, concupiscence, might best describe my passion for soul food.  Concupiscence of the body, I was taught, is “the blind tendency of your feelings and animal appetites to seek satisfaction, regardless of intelligence and reason.” Having lived for nearly eight years on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and within short driving distance of…