Category: Gone But Not Forgotten

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Cafe Nom Nom – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:12 PM

“Nom nom.” It sounds innocent enough. Parents–yes, including parents of four-legged fur babies–utter it in baby talk intonations to get our children to eat something, especially when that something is “good for them” but doesn’t actually look or taste good. Nom nom was, of course, the favorite expression of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster (Hi Darren) as he ravenously devoured a plate or six of cookies, a fusillade of crumbs flying from his chewing mouth.  Grade school teachers use nom nom as an example of an onomatopoeia, a word that imitates a sound.  My friend Michael Gonzales, the dynamic owner of Rio Rancho’s Cafe Bella uses it to describe great new restaurant finds. English majors recognize it as an expression used to convey pleasure at eating or at the prospect of eating.  It’s also a verb meaning “to eat something, typically with great enjoyment.” See anything wrong with the term nom nom?  Though it may never grace Gil’s Thrilling… in a descriptive manner, I don’t see anything wrong with it either.  So, if it sounds innocent and innocuous enough, why does the Huffington Post rank the word nom nom with “moist” as “the worst offender of words when it comes to…

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Stripes Biscuit Co. – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:05 PM

NOTE: While the Gibson location of Strips Biscuit Co. has closed. Stripes Biscuit Co. can still be found at 8050 Academy Rd NE # 101. Additionally, there are a number of Stripes Burrito Co. throughout the city and in Rio Rancho. Southern humorist Jerry Clower once quipped “One of the saddest things is the sound of them whomp biscuits being opened in more and more houses these days. Whomp! Another poor man is being denied homemade biscuits. No wonder the divorce rate is so high.” There’s more than a bit of underlying truth to Clower’s humor. Southerners take their biscuits seriously. “Whomping” or “whacking” biscuit cans on the kitchen counter to open them is akin to parents letting their children answer their Memaw with “yeah” and “nope” instead of “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am.” It just isn’t done! Southerner Belinda Ellis, author of Biscuits: A Savor the South Cookbook expresses it succinctly: “I learned that deep in the soul of a biscuit, there’s more than the flour, fat, and milk. A hot biscuit embodies a memory of place and family.” Her heartfelt tribute to the biscuit is one with which anyone raised or who has lived in the South can…

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Las Ristras Restaurant – Corrales, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:17 PM

Based on interviews conducted with Hollywood luminaries who’ve starred in movies or television shows shot in New Mexico, you might think our state either doesn’t have a symbol of hospitality or that symbol is something as poorly representative of the Land of Enchantment as crack (Josh Brolin), tire stores (Jonathan Banks), shirtless drivers (Seth McFarlane), Walmart (Jessica Alba) or loudness (Tommy Lee Jones). With all the tax breaks and enticements afforded film production companies, shouldn’t its most visible beneficiaries at least have something nice to say about New Mexico? While New Mexico doesn’t have an official (as in legislatively decreed) symbol of hospitality, most of us recognize a ristra hanging on a doorway as an invitation to visitors, ergo a symbol of hospitality. It’s as much a symbol of hospitality as the pineapple is in Hawaii and the fleur de lis is in Louisiana. Moreover, the ristra has come to represent the state of New Mexico, maybe not quite as much as the Zia sun, but to a large extent. Now, if you want your texts to reflect New Mexico hospitality, download an app called “New Mexico Emojis” for your iPhone or iPad. Among the emojis you can add to…

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Krazy Lizard – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:41 PM

I count in almost equal measure, friends, family members and colleagues who label themselves as either militant liberals or staunch conservatives. Despite what they may think, they have more in common than they’d ever admit. Passionate ideologues, they all regurgitate political dialogue in talking point format. They’re uncompromising in towing their respective party line. They would never see merit in counterpoints from “the other side,” ergo, they never compromise. They’re all are passionate, almost to a fault. You could say they’ve all been been fully assimilated and they’re not going to change. It sure makes it difficult to share a meal with people when their disparate principles, ethics and beliefs make them incompatible with those of opposite perspectives. Despite the old maxim that you should never discuss politics or religion at the table, there’s one restaurant in Albuquerque that practically invites diners to discuss politics even as they’re perusing the menu. That restaurant is the Krazy Lizard Taqueria on Jefferson Street just north of Singer. The menu is posted above the counter where you place your order. Now, political discourse would be easily avoided if the sole focus of the menu was breakfast, burritos, tortas and salads. Those items don’t…

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Mykonos Cafe And Taverna – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:24 AM

Jose Villegas, my friend and colleague at Hanscom Air Force Base, earned the most ignominious nickname. Everyone called him “Jose Viernes” which fans of the 1960s television series Dragnet might recognize is the Spanish translation for “Joe Friday.” We didn’t call him Jose Viernes because he was a “just the facts” kind of guy. He earned that sobriquet because he lived for Fridays. Jose kept a perpetual calendar in his head, constantly reminding us that there are “only XXX days until Friday.” Quite naturally, his favorite expression was “TGIF” which he could be overheard exclaiming ad-infinitum when his favorite day of the week finally arrived. Conversely, for him (as it is for many Americans), Monday was the most dreaded way to spend one-seventh of his life, an accursed day that mercilessly ended his weekend. Aside from the temporary reprieve Friday provides from the grind of an arduous workweek, Jose’s anticipation about Fridays had everything to do with fun, friends, food and females. Mostly food…or so we thought. Jose was one of the first gourmets I ever met, a man with an educated palate and nuanced tastes (though for some reason, he disliked the foods of his native Puerto Rico). On…

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528 Sushi & Asian Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:03 PM

“No lady likes to snuggle and dine accompanied by a porcupine.” “He lit a match to check gas tank. They call him skinless Frank.” “A man, a miss, a car, a curve. He kissed the miss and missed the curve.” “Within this vale of toil and sin, your head goes bald but not your chin.” “Henry the Eighth sure had trouble. Short-term wives, long-term stubble.” Some of the more seasoned among us might remember that one of the best ways to break up the drudgery of traveling long distances on monotonous two-lane highways was to look for Burma Shave billboards. Humorous five-line poems adorned red signs one line at a time, each line in white capitalized blocked letters about 100-feet apart. The last line of each poem was the much anticipated punchline followed by a sign bearing the obligatory name of the then-popular shaving cream. New Mexico was one of a handful of states not to benefit from this highly visible and very successful advertising medium. Apparently our highways and byways were deemed to have insufficient road traffic to warrant the billboards. As a precocious child yet to revel in hours-long explorations of the family encyclopedias, my limited knowledge of…

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Farmhouse 21 – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:21 PM

I love Italian food but that’s too generic a term for what’s available now: you have to narrow it down to Tuscan, Sicilian, and so on.” ~ Lee Child, Author “You don’t want to be the guy who follows a legend; you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows the legend.” That tried and proven sports adage applies in every walk-of-life. Indeed, if you’re the person who has to succeed a beloved living legend, you’ll invariably hear about the gigantic shoes you have to fill. Your every move will be scrutinized and your every failure magnified until you prove yourself worthy of breathing the same rarefied air as the icon you’re replacing. It’s not a challenge the faint-hearted should attempt and it will test the mettle of even the most accomplished. Confident people have another perspective on following a legend. They relish the challenge of living up to exceedingly high standards and fully expect to succeed. There’s no exit strategy for them…unless it’s to move on to a loftier challenge. They revel in the scrutiny, seeing it as another opportunity to prove themselves. Confident people aren’t reluctant to chart a different course, to do things just…

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Tap That – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:19 PM

In my review of the Corrales Bistro Brewery, you were introduced to “Le Cochon,” a self-professed God’s gift to women, lady killer, playboy, seducer, Lothario and otherwise philanderer nonpareil. To my knowledge, Le Cochon is still plying his cheesy pick-up lines on women and getting his face slapped a plenty in the Boston area. He would undoubtedly giggle like the school girls of his dreams at the Albuquerque taproom named “Tap That” which dispenses libations by the ounce. In its original context, the term “tap that” simply meant putting a spigot on a keg of beer or ale so that its contents can be drawn out. As with so many seemingly innocuous terms, chauvinists like Le Cochon have made “tap that” subject to double entendre (open to two interpretations, one of which is risqué or indecent). Cerevisaphiles understanding the intended connotation of the term probably won’t giggle, but they’ll get just as excited at the prospect of tapping into a keg or six. Shortly after finding a vacant table in the dog-friendly patio at the back of Tap That, an eager server began very enthusiastically to explain the taproom’s unique-to-Albuquerque concept. There was so much elan in his delivery that…

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South Bourbon Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:15 PM

“I got a plate of chicken and taters and a lot of stuff like that All, all I need is a biscuit, but I wish you’d look where they’re at I guess I could reach across the table but that’s ill-mannered, Mom always said I wish I had a biscuit, I just can’t eat without bread.” ~ Jimmy Dean: Please Pass the Biscuits Country music is renowned for songs that tug at your heart strings. The very best sad country songs render us weepy and melancholic because our very souls can relate to and empathize with the sad, touching lyrics, mournful melodies and tear-jerking tempos. Jimmy Dean’s Please Pass the Biscuits may just be the saddest song ever in country music. This song recounts a boy desperately trying to get someone to pass him biscuits to eat with Sunday dinner. Tired of being ignored by the grown-ups, he finally decides to stop being polite and just reach for one. Alas, by that time, nary a biscuit is left. How can a song about a little boy not getting a biscuit with his dinner be sadder than He Stopped Loving Her Today? Or Old Shep? Or Chiseled in Stone? Or How…

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Il Bosco – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:35 AM

The customer in the Italian restaurant was so pleased that he asked to speak to the chef. The owner proudly led him into the kitchen and introduced him to the chef. “Your veal parmigiana was superb,” the customer said. “I just spent a month in Italy, and yours is better than any I ever had over there.” “Naturally,” the chef said. “Over there, they use domestic cheese. Ours is imported.” While we were perusing the menu at Il Bosco, my Kim noticed polpette on the menu and asked me what polpette was. As usual, she got more than what she bargained for. “Polpette,” I joked “is the Italian word for meatballs…unless you’re in Montreal.” “What the heck are you talking about,” she asked. I explained that in 2013, Quebec’s language police cited an Italian restaurant for using Italian names for Italian dishes on the menu instead of their French equivalents. (In French, polpette would be called “boulettes de viande.” ) “That’s absolutely ridiculous,” she vented. “America may go overboard with its political correctness, but there’s no way any state or city could get away with bashing multi-culturalism. It would be like Albuquerque declaring its official city language to be Spanish…

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Groundstone – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:59 PM

Kids say the darnedest things. That was the premise of popular radio and television shows hosted by Art Linkletter from the mid 1940s through 1969. Linkletter would engage children (usually aged three to eight) in casual conversation. Humor–often laced with double entendre–would often ensue out of the children’s naive and silly responses. Once, for example, he asked a little girl to spell Art, his name. She proceeded to spell the host’s name R-A-T. Most parents can relate to the unpredictable nature of what their children say. More often than not, it resonates with child-like innocence, but every once in a while an utterly unintentional and unfiltered zinger sneaks out that will make parents want to slink away and hide. When her son Caleb was four years old, Kimber Scott, an Albuquerque resident and one of my very favorite people, discovered that he was curious about everything his world had to offer. He was fascinated by all the letters, numbers and colors that whizzed by him. Now nine, he’s always asked a lot of questions and has never shied away from expressing himself. Sometimes he speaks with the insightful precociousness of an older child and sometimes with the naivete of innocence,…