Salt and Board – Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Five years ago, everyone was making beer in their bathtubs, and now everyone’s making charcuterie in their garage!” ~Brian Malarkey, Chef When my friend Carlos, a punctilious polyglot conversant in four languages, asked what my Kim and I ate over the weekend, my poorly-pronounced beginner’s French response was “une assisette de charcuterie et de fromages.” “Oh, you had cold-cuts and…

P’Tit Louis Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” –Ernest Hemingway I’ve often wondered if Ernest Hemingway would have felt at home in Taos during the “roaring twenties,” a period of dynamic artistic, societal and…

La Madeleine – Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour.” ~Charles Maurice de Talleyrand–Périgord On Wednesday, November 3, 1948, at Auberge La Couronne in Roule, France,  Julia Child ate what she later declared to be the “most exciting meal of her life,” a veritable feast she shared with her husband Paul: six Brittany oysters, Dover sole meuniere,…

Crepe Crepe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Richard Olney, a cookbook author best known for his books on French country cooking described crepes thusly: “their greatest pitfalls derive, no doubt, from their versatility — not in itself a fault, but a quality that teases many a cook into overstepping the boundaries of sense and taste. One should never lose sight of the fragile and delicate, thin, tender thing…

La Quiche Parisienne Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexican

Who can ever forget Fred the Baker, the haggard, perpetually exhausted Dunkin Donuts baker and his iconic lament, “time to make the donuts?” Every morning an annoying alarm clock would rouse Fred from his deep slumber and he would wearily utter his trademarked catch phrase as he prepared for the rigor of the day. For fifteen years—from 1982 to 1997—Fred…

La Crêpe Michel – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

FROM THE LA CREPE MICHEL WEBSITE: We have decided to permanently close La Crepe Michel.  I want to thank everyone for making more than 30 years possible.  We will miss you all and we have wonderful memories that will last forever.  Again, thank you.  – Claudie and all the staff at crepe michel The crêpe is, at its essence, not…

Cafe Chloe – San Diego, California (CLOSED)

From your seat on the sidewalk patio of Café Chloe, you can see Petco Park, the open-air home of the San Diego Padres. You’ll have a front row view of a veritable cavalcade of motorized and foot-powered conveyances—from swanky Maseratis to sleek inline skates. Passers-by on foot include some of the city’s most downtrodden as well as its captains of…