Category: Gone But Not Forgotten

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Los Felix – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

As we strode into Los Felix on a windy Saturday in May, we espied a very attractive young lady pointing an extendable selfie stick at her face as she spoke a thousand words a minute.  “Great,” we figured “another self-absorbed Gen Xer sharing the mundane details of her day on social media.”  Boy were we wrong.  That young lady turned out to be Gaby Camez, a social media influencer who posts restaurant reviews on Facebook.  Gaby’s site, Comiendo Rico en Albuquerque, is a celebration of the Duke City’s Mexican restaurants. Even if you’re not fortunate enough to speak and understand…

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Revel Burger – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

NOTE: In 2025, the Golf Course location of Revel Burger shuttered its doors.  The original Revel Burger on 4720 Alexander Blvd., N.E. remains open. At my advanced age (39), I would rather shop like it’s 1999 than party like the 1999 of Prince’s hit tune.  For those of you less seasoned than I am, there’s a venue in Albuquerque where you can party hearty then enjoy burgers to replenish the calories you burn while partying.  It’s a 55,000 square-foot entertaining concept called Revel that includes a food hall, bar and entertainment venue–nine concepts under one roof.   Located at 4720…

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Belle’s Urban Deli – Corrales, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Father Mark Schultz, the charismatic former priest at the Holy Ghost Parish in Albuquerque used to joke that the reason Catholics are required to abstain from eating meat on Fridays is not because there’s a shortage of cows. That’s certainly true. There is more beef on the hoof grazing on the Land of Enchantment’s green (and mostly brown) grass than there are tax-paying citizens.  That’s why it’s always puzzled me that sandwich restaurants in New Mexico are so chintzy with their meat portions. You’d think there really was a beef shortage (and a surfeit of bread and lettuce) considering many…

AlbuquerqueChineseClosed in 2026Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: Excellent

China Luck – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:06 PM

A few years ago,  The Daily Meal, an online resource which purports to produces more culinary content than any other resource published a feature entitled “Chinese Food You Won’t Find in China.” The list was replete with many popular favorites you’ll find at virtually every Chinese restaurant in America: General Tso’s Chicken, Crab Rangoon, Fortune Cookies, Chop Suey, Sweet and Sour Pork, Egg Foo Yong, Orange Beef and even Egg Drop Soup. Many of these dishes were, in fact, invented in the United States.  You can’t accuse Americanized Chinese food of being subtle.  Brash, gaudy and maybe even over-the-top, but…

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Whiptail – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

We all know New Mexico has an official state aroma (green chiles roasting),  an official state cookie (biscochito),  official state vegetables (chile and pinto beans), but did you know the Land of Enchantment has an official state reptile?  Chastity Bustos does.  In fact, in she named her new eatery  in honor of that reptile, the New Mexico whiptail (Aspidoscelis neomexicanus).  When I asked Chastity if she knew the New Mexico whiptail is a female-only species that doesn’t need male lizards to reproduce, she jokingly replied “it’s all about girl power.” Don’t get the impression that Chastity subscribes to the slogan popularized…

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Bama’s 1865 – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

When we tell people we lived in Mississippi for eight years their typical reaction is something akin to “OMG, that must have been terrible.”  Lumping Alabama and Louisiana into their diatribes, they typically perceive we lived in a poorly educated, mostly rural and unabashedly racist region.  It surprises them to learn that New Mexico ranks below those three states among the least educated states in the country (only West Virgina ranked lower).  We lived in Ocean Springs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, an almost contiguous metropolitan area from New Orleans to Mobile.  It’s as modern as you can get.  …

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La Sirenita – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Our friends, John Martin and Lynn Garner and I couldn’t help but laugh. There before our very eyes was the depiction of a meme come to life. In the dining room of la Sirenita was a papier Mâché reproduction of the bottom half of a mermaid. It reminded us of a meme we recently shared.  That meme depicted a grizzled sailor marooned on a desert island.  On the first panel of the meme the sailor smiled lasciviously as a beautiful and buxom mermaid approached the island.  The second panel shows the sailor cooking the bottom half of the mermaid on…

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Poké Serrano Asian-Latin Fusion – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Ask most people what comes to mind when they think about Hawaiian food and the likely answer is Spam®.  No matter how much the Aloha State’s tourism department does to showcase the state’s diverse and exciting culinary culture, the stereotype that Hawaiians eat Spam® for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between meals is engrained in many of us.  Because Hawaiians do consume seven-million cans of  Spam® per year (with a population of 1.42 million residents in the Islands), it begs the question “Is it really a stereotype if facts bear out the fact that Spam® is so immensely popular…

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Habibi House – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Before Al Gore invented the internet, it wasn’t easy for logophiles (lovers of words) like me to figure out what some words meant.  “Lover of words,” in my case was an understatement.  I was obsessed about learning every new word–its etymology (origin, definition and context, even what it used to mean) I came across.  It’s a wonder my parents (both educators) didn’t put this precocious, pedantic child up for adoption. Dictionaries were of little help as their content was mostly limited to English words.  The Velazquez dictionary was helpful when I wanted to learn a new Spanish word, but that, too,…

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Knead Dough Bar & Eatery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“I don’t talk about politics, religion or sports, because all three will divide people. That’s why I talk about food, because food brings people together. That’s right! Unless you’re vegan!” ~Gabriel Iglesias Not even glass half full optimists can disagree that America has accelerated into a warp speed devolution from George H. W. Bush’s vision of a “kinder, gentler nation.”    Replace kinder and gentler with snarky and sniping and you’ve got a more accurate picture.  Not only are there widening schisms between political ideologies, there are deep fissures between values of all types (as comedian Gabriel Iglesias astutely pointed…

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The Crack Shack – Salt Lake City, Utah (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

NOTE: In November, 2023, it was announced that all Utah Locations of The Crack Shack would be closing and transitioning to a new concep. tOnly culinary historians would call 2020 the “year of the fried chicken sandwich.”  Most of the rest of us would call 2020 the “year of the Cabrona virus” or the “year the world shut down.”  During that annus horribilis, some 50 chains introduced either brand new premium chicken sandwiches or upgraded former versions.  The instigator of the “chicken sandwich wars” was Chick-fil-A whose slogan boasts “we didn’t invent the chicken, just the chicken sandwich.”  In response…