Category: Gone But Not Forgotten

Closed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSanta Fe

Roque’s Carnitas – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:04 PM

In more cosmopolitan metropolises it isn’t uncommon to see sidewalk vendors plying their trade over chuck wagon stands and proffering high quality fast food such as hot dogs, tacos, gyros and sundry quick meal items. Some of the best food in cities such as Portland, Oregon can be found near city parks where enterprising street vendors concoct culinary magic on portable kitchens and what we typically deride as “roach coaches.” Roque Garcia has made such a business an art form–a very successful one. In fact, Roque claims carnitas paid for his home outside Puerto Vallarta in Mexico and for the Mercedes Benz automobiles he likes to drive. Roque’s cart is stationed on the southeast corner of the Santa Fe plaza where the irresistibly smoky aroma of sizzling, marinated beef draws repeat customers and tourists like a siren’s call. Despite posting a sign explaining what carnitas are, Roque is unfailingly patient with tourists who don’t necessarily know what it is they’re ordering; they only know they can’t resist the intoxicating aromas wafting from the strange cart. During the past decade or so, national publications including the New York Times, Gourmet Magazine, National Geographic, Roadfood and others have waxed poetic about Roque’s…

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 it served on a hamburger bun.” Leave it to humorist Lewis Grizzard to succinctly sum up the truth to which “purists” across the fruited plains hold fast about their beloved burgers–that it’s all about the beef with “some” cheese.  Alas the burger in which the sacrosanct flavor of beef is the focus rarely earns accolades for its solid, if unspectacular and unadorned qualities.  Invariably when you read about a burger earning acclaim as “best in town,”  that burger is crowned…

AmericanArizonaClosed in 2014Gone But Not ForgottenRating: OutstandingUnited 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 a great chef) places a morsel of cheese in his mouth and closes his eyes as the fabulous flavors of the fetid fromage envelop him. His mind’s eye is awash in vivid shapes and colors as his taste buds truly savor the experience. In combination with other ingredients, those vivid shapes and colors become a complex and brilliant kaleidoscope of beautiful symmetry. This symmetry is reality for those who learn to live to eat–those for whom food is so much…

AlbuquerqueChineseClosed in 2018Gone But Not Forgotten

Best Lee’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:01 AM

When John Lucas, Elizabeth Eisner Reding and Mike Reding, three trusted gastronomes who frequent this blog, heartily recommended I try Best Lee’s, my initial reaction was, “they’ve got to be kidding.”  Our sole visit to Best Lee’s in Rio Rancho exemplified the mediocrity and boring “sameness” that plagues many of New Mexico’s Chinese restaurants–a homogeneity my discerning friend Bill Resnik refers to as “copycat menus full of candied, fried and breaded mystery meats that all taste the same.” It’s a good thing Chinese Restaurant News (CRN) doesn’t read my blog.  CRN, a highly respected monthly trade publication serving the more than 43,100 Chinese restaurants across America, selected Best Lee’s as one of America’s best Chinese restaurants for 2008.  In fact, during the “year of the mouse,” Best Lee’s earned distinction as one the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the categories of “Top 100 Local Favorites” and “Top 100 Overall Excellence.”  The latter is the publication’s highest honor. The “Local Favorites” award is presented to restaurants which have “proven their success over many years and through difficult circumstances.”  Such honorees must also “maintain an important community presence and have a significant and devoted customer base.”  The award for “Overall Excellence” is accorded to restaurants…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009New Mexican

Sabroso’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:37 AM

From the moment they first set foot in the Land of Enchantment, some people just “get it” or perhaps more precisely, New Mexico gets to them.  It weaves its preternatural spell and stirs something deeply in those open enough to its calling.  D. H. Lawrence said it best, “In the magnificent fierce morning of New Mexico one sprang awake, a new part of the soul woke up suddenly, and the old world gave way to a new.” Other people don’t get it–and maybe they never will.  In the early 1980s while attending the University of New Mexico, I encountered several “dormitory rats” who whined incessantly that “there’s nothing to do or see in New Mexico.”  I befriended some of them, determined to help them discover the Land of Enchantment they were perhaps too close-minded to see.  That usually entailed a day trip or two to the north-central mountains of New Mexico, but not to tourist laden Taos or Santa Fe. Northern New Mexico is a spectacular canvass on which God painted perhaps the most awe-inspiring scenery in the state.  Two break-taking drives, the High Road to Taos and the Enchanted Circle–are well known, but an even more wondrous peregrination starts…

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,” I asked her what it was about those burgers that made them the best.  Here’s her reply. “I think they’re great because they’re one, the perfect size–not so thick that you can’t take a big bite out of them, and not so skimpy in width that the bun envelopes it.   Two, they are always cooked to perfection. I am pretty sure the patties are hand formed. When you order them, they don’t have any filler, so they ALMOST fall apart–almost…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

The Chili Stop Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:12 PM

Over the years it’s been my experience that almost invariably, New Mexican restaurants which violate traditional New Mexican grammar don’t prepare the object of their grammatical faux pas very well.  The grammatical transgression of which I speak is forgetting the “i” before “e” rule and committing the piquant peccadillo of spelling New Mexico’s official state vegetable with two “i’s” and no “e’s.” It’s entirely forgivable that chile is technically a fruit, albeit one which packs an incendiary capsaicin punch, but like many New Mexicans, I feel personally insulted when presented with a menu offering “chili.” That grammatical malapropism wasn’t lost on Calvin Trillin, a legendary American journalist and novelist known for his humorous writings about food and eating.   In an October, 2002 article on Gourmet magazine entitled “Bowlful of Dreams,” he described a visit to the New York City “New Mexican” restaurant Los Dos Molinos: “One of the places I’d heard about, Los Dos Molinos, seemed to have been designed for citizens who have gotten about ten years past spring break at Daytona Beach but had not lost their taste for specialties like a “Kick-Ass Pitcher” of Margaritas. Although the red and green chile served as a dip with the…

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” without the letter “t.”  Today restaurants such as Sweet Tomatoes have added a creative flair that includes high calorie ingredients that can be diet devastating. At Sweet Tomatoes, a burgeoning franchise, it will take self-discipline to steer clear of such diet destroying delicacies as the chocolate chip muffins, chocolate muffins, warm apple cobbler, Asiago focaccia and tomato focaccia bread, all of which are not only tempting, but pretty good. Sweet Tomatoes lets you craft every salad combination conceivable with a…

BernalilloBurgersClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenMexican

Charlie’s Burgers & Mexican Food – Bernalillo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:48 PM

Ashley’s Convenience Store on the ill-fated corner of Camino del Pueblo and Avenida Bernalillo achieved the type of notoriety which will be forever associated with a tragedy visited all too often upon New Mexico’s streets.  In November, 2006, a driver already inebriated during a U.S. Airways flight, purchased alcohol at the convenience store before resuming his journey home and causing a tragic head-on collision that killed five members of a Las Vegas, New Mexico family. The state of New Mexico banned the airline from serving alcohol while flying to and from the state.  The state also took the convenience store’s liquor license, forcing it to close.  At the time the convenience store was leased by Albuquerque gasoline distributor Ever-Ready Oil which, in turn, leased its liquor license from Giant Industries. Charlie Williamson, a long-time contractor and owner of the complex, had absolutely nothing to do with the tragedy but was–and this is not intended in any way to diminish the horrific loss of life–one of its victims, too.  His property’s reputation was sullied by a business enterprise perceived to be irresponsible.  The building threatened to fall into disuse and prospects were dim. In September, 2007, the owners of the Bernalillo gas station attached…

Closed in 2010MariscosMexicanNew MexicoRio Rancho

Dahlia’s Central Mexican Cuisine – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:34 PM

Because Mexico spans several climatic zones and a diverse topography, its cuisine varies from region to region. As such, it’s grossly unfair to stereotype Mexican food. It’s true that until recent years, most of the Mexican restaurants in the Albuquerque’s area featured the cuisine of the border state of Chihuahua, Mexico, typified by menus offering refried beans, enchiladas, chiles rellenos and the like. The past decade or so, however, has seen the influx of Mexican restaurants serving mariscos, the surprisingly fresh cuisine of the Mexican states bordering its coastal waters. The 2008 introduction of Dahlia’s Central Mexican Cuisine in Rio Rancho was therefore intriguing. My hopes were that Central Mexican cuisine might mean the cuisine of Oaxaca and Puebla, two regions renown for moles. Alas, the family who owns Dahlia’s is from Guadalajara, the largest city in the state of Jalisco which borders the Pacific ocean and is not, as the restaurant’s name might imply, centered geographically in the nation of Mexico. A common misperception might be that the menu would then include, if not specialize, in mariscos, the incomparable seafood prepared so well in the Mexican states bordering the Pacific. Mariscos do indeed have a prominent place on the…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2010Gone But Not ForgottenItalian

Nana’s Trattoria & Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:17 AM

What’sa matta you, hey! Gotta no respect, whatta you think you do, Why you looka so sad? It’s-a pretty bad, it’s-a not-a nice-a place, Ah, shaddap you face! Joe Dolce will just have to forgive me for the liberties I took with the lyrics to his worldwide 1980 number one song Shaddap You Face. Slightly altered, those lyrics express my sentiments when the airwaves are polluted with saccharinely mushy, accordion accented commercials for Italian chain restaurants–commercials like the one in which a small lad escorts his elderly uncle from Italy to Olive Garden for a birthday dinner. You can almost imagine the dumbfounded, aged paisano muttering “stunad” under his breath as he chokes down pasta and longs for the return trip home. Sadly, when Albuquerque’s citizenry thinks Italian food nowadays, they think the Olive Garden, Buca di Beppo, Zio’s Italian Kitchen, Johnny Carino’s and even Pizza Hut. The promise of Italian ethnicity–even the inauthentic parody pitifully proffered by the chain restaurants–remains a marketable concept that draws hungry hordes. Albuquerque, like much of America, has settled for a parade of institutionalized pre-cooked, frozen-shipped Italian food mediocrity. Thousands of the Italian emigrants who were processed through Ellis Island must be gesticulating wildly…