Category: Gil’s Best of the Best

Welcome to Gil’s list of my favorite dishes in 2025.   These dishes were selected not for complex culinary preparations and exorbitant price points, but for the simple preparation of dishes that taste as if they were prepared by a chorus of angels in a celestial kitchen. These are the dishes most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2025. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: February, 2025 Mena’s Burger From Ramona’s Mexican Cafe in Albuquerque: By any other name Mena’s burger (tortilla burger with American cheese, green chile, lettuce, pickles, tomato and a special secret sauce) is a green chile cheeseburger, albeit not constructed within traditional burger buns.  Somehow Ramona’s kitchen staff manages to create a tortilla pocket that limits spillage (otherwise the special sauce would have been all over my shirt).  To say this is one of the best green chile cheeseburgers in New Mexico would not be an understatement. Green…

Welcome to Gil’s Taylor Swift-free list of my favorite dishes in 2023. These dishes were selected not for complex culinary preparations and exorbitant price points, but for the simple preparation of dishes that taste as if they were prepared by a chorus of angels in a celestial kitchen. These are the dishes most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2023. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: January 2023 You can’t get any more simple than a fried SPAM sandwich ((SPAM, Cheddar, lettuce, mustard on lightly toasted sourdough bread), a staple for those of us who grew up in rural New Mexico like Chef Marie Yniguez and I did.  Marie’s fabulous home-cooking–showcased at My Moms on 4th Street–isn’t pretentious.  It’s the type of cooking all the moms in her life have been doing for generations.  Eating fried baloney sandwiches and fried SPAM sandwiches will transport the ruralites among us to…

You might think that my annual “best of the best” compilation would be replete with lavishly extravagant dishes proffered by swanky fine-dining establishments.  Instead, the list of dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2022 are almost exclusively of the “cheap eats” (if that term even applies under the current economy) variety, selected not for complex culinary preparations and exorbitant price points, but for the simple preparation of dishes that taste as if they were prepared by a chorus of angels in a celestial kitchen.  These are the dishes most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2022. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: New Mexicans tend to be blue-collar, meat-and-potatoes eaters (or in the case of breakfast, biscuits-and-gravy (with green chile, of course)).  At My Moms on 4th Street, Marie Yniguez’s green chile sausage biscuits n’ gravy is a breakfast offering you’ll want to get up early in the…

2020 will be remembered for a series of shelter-in-place and lockdown restrictions that largely limited restaurants to delivery, call in, carry out and online ordering options.  The resilience, strength and innovation demonstrated daily by restaurateurs throughout the country has been inspirational.  Despite the tremendous challenges and economic hardships they faced daily, restaurants soldiered on, blessing us with a delicious bounty that deserves to be recognized.  Without further ado, these are the dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2020, the fifteen dishes most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2020. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are:  The  lamb rogan josh dish from Taste of India may sound as if was named for a Hollywood celebrity (or at least it did to this pop culture drop-out), but it shouldn’t be mistaken for anything but absolutely delicious.  You’ve never had lamb stew like this.  I’ve never seriously considered…

With a puff of white smoke emanating from the chimney of the Garduño residence and to the cheers of legions of loyal Gil’s thrilling readers, your friendly neighborhood blogger has finally named the very best of the best for 2019.  These are the dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2019, the dozen dishes most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2019. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: Comedian Rita Rudner once joked that “most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before.” Obviously she had no idea what Chef Nestor Lopez can do with a turkey. His El Chumpe sandwich (Salvadoran pulled turkey in a tomato mole, sliced cucumber and radish, slaw, mango-pineapple-habanero salsa and watercress on a toasted bolillo) is one of several items on the Gobble This menu which could have made this list. Twice named purveyors of…

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.” Sound of Music fans will recognize that these are a few of Julie Andrews favorite things. It’s with great fondness and more than a little (blush) salivation that I bid adieu and auld lang syne to my my favorite things–the dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2018. These are the baker’s dozen plus dishes which are most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2018. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: Seared may be the Duke City’s most reasonably priced fine-dining restaurant, an upscale American bistro “with a French and Italian twist.”   Chef Alejandro Tenchipe prepares one of the city’s most sumptuous steaks, a Filet de Boeuf (eight-ounces of local, grass-fed beef, roasted red skin potatoes and red onions, asparagus, red wine demi-glaze reduction and roasted garlic).  It’s a great dish with which to start…

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.” Sound of Music fans will recognize that these are a few of Julie Andrews favorite things. It’s with great fondness and more than a little (blush) salivation that I bid adieu and auld lang syne to my my favorite things–the dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2017. These are the baker’s dozen plus dishes which are most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2017. Every dish was a delicious discovery. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: Singapore Noodles may be a Cantonese (Chinese) dish, but no one (except perhaps the May Cafe) prepares them as well as Pho Linh, one of the Duke City’s very best Vietnamese restaurants. Sweet, savory, pungent and absolutely delicious, it’s a dish with which every new year should start. The three meat platter from Danny’s Place in Carlsbad is my favorite threesome of 2017, a terrific triumvirate of…

It’s the season for making lists and checking them twice, finding out which restaurants were naughty or nice. The advent of 2017 is nigh. It’s with great fondness and more than a little (blush) salivation that I bid adieu and auld lang syne to my most memorable dishes of 2016. These are the baker’s dozen plus dishes which are most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2016. Every dish was a delicious discovery. In the spirit of lagniappe, my “best of the best” list for 2016 lists nineteen fabulous dishes and–for the first time ever–includes memorable meals shared by some of my faithful readers. It’s my fondest hope that you do more than just read this list. Please make it your New Year’s resolution to try as many items as your schedule, budget and dietary constraints will allow–then tell me about it. Let me know if my recommendations and those of contributors met your own high standards. I promise it will be worth every…

It’s the season for making lists and checking them twice, finding out which restaurants were naughty or nice. The advent of 2016 is nigh. It’s with great fondness and more than a little (blush) salivation that I bid adieu and auld lang syne to my most memorable dishes of 2015. These are the baker’s dozen plus dishes which are most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. It would be oh so easy to compile a “best of the best” list from among entrees we enjoyed prior to 2015 and from restaurants honored among my best of the best in previous years, but true gastronomes don’t take the easy way out. We explore new culinary frontiers, seek out new dishes and boldly go where no reviewer has gone before. More than half of this year’s best come from restaurants we hadn’t visited prior to 2015 and includes more desserts than in any previous year. If you’re curious, the one item I enjoyed more often than any other in 2015 is the red chili mocha from Cafe Bella in Rio Rancho. David, Julian,…