Category: Gone But Not Forgotten

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Pho 505 – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:58 PM

“Eating slowly is good for the stomach; plowing deeply is good for the fields.” ~Vietnamese Proverb Imagine if the village of Hatch was granted a trademark that awarded it exclusive rights to the name “chile.”  Imagine Hatch then taking legal recourse against Chimayo, Lemitar, Jarales, et al. to prevent them from using the term.  Civil war would surely ensue.  A similar situation actually occurred in England when in 2013, an owner-operator of a small Vietnamese restaurant chain  trademarked the term “Pho” (as well as “pho” and “PHO).”  In a letter, the audacious trademark owner sent the following cease and desist request to existing restaurants: “…we have to ask all restaurants, large and small, to refrain from using the trademark Pho in their name. And with what we think is a fair amount of time to rename…” While it’s not at all unusual for a restaurant to trademark its name in order to protect its identity, this particular overreach exemplifies either bureaucrats sleeping on the job or having absolutely no knowledge of the genesis and cultural significance of pho.  How, after all, can the national dish of Vietnam possibly be trademarked?  How could Vietnamese restaurateurs possibly be made to stop selling…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

ABQ BBQ – Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:43 PM

“It was Kansas City but it was North Carolina I wanted; whole hog smoked low and slow over fruit woods and doused liberally with a vinegar-based sauce. It was North Carolina but it was Texas I wanted; king beef sliced into juicy brisket prepared over post oak and glistening with a sweet tomato-molasses based sauce. It was Texas but it was Memphis I wanted; unctuous pork slow smoked over hickory and served “wet” in a tomato and vinegar-based sauce. It was Memphis but it was Kansas City I wanted; a medley of magnificent meats smoked over a variety of woods and dusted generously with a dry rub. It was all of America’s four dominant barbecue regions, but it was New Mexico I wanted; applewood-smoked meats of all types imbued with the piquancy of red and green chile sauces. My search is over. ABQ BBQ is here!” NOTE: A sign on the door of ABQ BBQ indicates that due to personal reasons, the restaurant will be open only for private events. For years, the promotional machines behind America’s barbecue have been telling us there are four distinct and dominant barbecue regions across the fruited plain. This assertion has been repeated so…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastBurgersClosed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Duke City Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:18 PM

In the 1970s and 1980s,  Reese’s Peanut Butter cups commercials consisted of a series of vignettes.  Each vignette depicted the collision of two daydreamers–one eating peanut butter and the other eating chocolate.  The peanut butter eater would exclaim “you got chocolate on my peanut butter.”  The one eating chocolate would retort “you got peanut butter on my chocolate.”  The two would then sample the mix of chocolate and peanut butter and burst out in wide-eyed surprise with “Delicious!”  A godlike narrator would then proclaim “Two great tastes that taste great together.” Reese’s has nothing on restaurant impresario Doug Weckerly, chef and proprietor of the Duke City Kitchen on Lomas just west of San Mateo.  Peruse his menu and you might get the impression he’s declared “why stop at two great tastes that taste great together when seven great tastes would taste even better.”  Some of the burgers are constructed of ingredient combinations so seemingly disparate, so wildly unconventional, so un-Albuquerque,  it’s as if he channeled renowned tinkerer Rube Goldberg.  When I asked the inventive chef how he comes up with such ingenious burgers, he told me “I guess I just march to the beat of a different drum.” Not only does…

BurgersClosed in 2021Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Chef Toddzilla’s Gourmet Burgers – Roswell, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:41 PM

Roswell, New Mexico is a stodgy conservative town where sidewalks are rolled up early. Change comes to the state’s fifth largest city as slowly as the twangy, lazy cadence of a Texas drawl. So does embracing opportunity. Consider the so-called Roswell Incident of 1947. It took 55 years before Roswell opened its UFO museum and another three years before its first UFO Festival. Because Roswell is such an anachronism, you might think a tatted-up chef with a dystopian haircut would stick out like a sore thumb. Ask anyone who’s experienced that chef’s gourmet burgers and amiable manner and they’ll tell Chef Todd Alexander doesn’t stick out, he stands out. So does his effervescent partner in business and in life Kerry Moore. Chef Todd and Kerry are tattooed, tee-shirt wearing cool in a town defined by button-down plaid western wear. They’re cool enough to be themselves—no pretensions or snobbery, just genuine down-to-earth friendliness. They’d never brag about their pedigrees though they certainly would have reason to do so. Chef Todd has serious culinary creds, having plied his craft in five star, five diamond hotel kitchens. Kerry has a Master’s Degree in Marketing and managed food services at the Roswell Independent School…

AlbuquerqueAsianClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenKoreanNational ChainNew Mexico

Bonchon – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:50 AM

Hawkeye Pierce had a very unique (and very sarcastic) take on the Korean War: “I just don’t know why they’re shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread. Transplant the American dream. Freedom. Achievement. Hyperacidity. Affluence. Flatulence. Technology. Tension. The inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back. That’s entertainment.” History has shown there was prophecy in his words. After thousands of years of civilization, South Korea now has donuts, quesadillas, pizza, cheeseburgers, fried chicken nuggets and all the fast foods which have wreaked havoc on America’s gut microbiome.  Hawkeye might term this cynically as the realization of the American dream. To say there’s a “trade imbalance” between the number of American restaurants in Korea and the number of Korean restaurants in America is an understatement. Many of the ubiquitous fast food chains found throughout the fruited plain can also be found across the Land of the Morning Calm. Very few Korean chains of any genre, but specifically fast food, can be found under the spacious skies. Almost all Korean restaurants in the United States are independent mom-and-pop eateries, including a couple…

AlbuquerqueBrunchClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew MexicanNew Mexico

Cantina Nueva – Garduños – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:34 PM

Garduños just can’t seem to keep up with the Joneses, at least in terms of familial propagation. The 2010 United States Census indicates more than a million instances (1,425,470 to be precise) of the surname Jones, making it the fifth most common among the 6.3 million surnames recorded. In comparison, the surname Garduño belonged to only 6,912 individuals, ranking it as the 5073rd most common surname under the spacious skies. Almost 93 percent of the individuals answering to the surname Garduño listed their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino. It’s inherent in possessing a relatively scarce name that my Kim and I are often asked if we’re related to other people sporting that mellifluous patronym, usually Dave Garduño and his family who founded the Garduño’s dynastic restaurant empire. While there’s a strong likelihood we shared a common ancestor several generations ago, there is no shared direct family line. Call us cousins several times removed. Maybe because our surname is so uncommon, our eyes and ears perk up whenever the name Garduño is uttered or we see in print. That probably wouldn’t be the case if our surname was Jones. We were certainly excited to hear a new Garduño’s restaurant enterprise had…

AlbuquerqueAsianClosed in 2021FilipinoGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Bubblicitea Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:22 PM

According to the United States Census Bureau, by 2016 the Asian American population–including those of multiracial, Hispanic and Latino ancestry–had reached nearly 21 million, constituting about six-percent of the Fruited Plain’s total population.  As the table below illustrates, there’s absolutely no correlation between population and the number of restaurants across the fruited plain representing the listed Asian ethnicities.  Ethnicity Population Restaurants Source Chinese 3.79 million 41,000 Chinese Restaurant News Filipino 3.41 million ???? ???? Indian 3.18 million 5,000 Washington Post Vietnamese 1.73 million 8,900 Institute for Immigration Research Korean 1.7 million 5,000 Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) Japanese 1.3 million 25,100 Japanese Overseas Diplomatic Establishments   Just try finding an authoritative source enumerating the country’s Filipino restaurants.  There is none.  Despite being the second most populous Asian-American ethnic group under the spacious skies, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence indicating there are very few Filipino restaurants in the United States–even in California where Filipinos are the largest ethnic group in the state at at 1.5 million.  Contrast that with Thai restaurants.  Despite a population of only 300,000 Thai-Americans, Thai restaurants have exploded across the country, today numbering around 5,300 So why aren’t there more Filipino restaurants in this country?  It certain…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Le Bistro Bakery & Vietnamese Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:49 PM

Several years ago and much to the surprise of the proprietor, I ordered a durian shake at a Vietnamese restaurant. She proceeded to caution me that durian has a very powerful aroma and flavor many people find off-putting. When she witnessed my enjoyment of the cold pungent fruit beverage, she gave me a big hug and told me I was the “only white boy” she ever saw who delighted in the odoriferous nuances of what is known widely as “the world’s stinkiest fruit.” Indeed, durian is one of the very few things in the world Travel Network celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern cannot eat. Its sulfurous emanations have been likened to body odor, smelly feet, rotten onions, garbage and even decomposing corpse. It was deja vu all over again (as Yogi Berra once said) when I visited Le Bistro Bakery & Vietnamese Cuisine with my good friends Larry “the professor with the perspicacious palate” McGoldrick and the Dazzling Deanell. When I ordered a durian smoothie, shock and awe registered in the face of proprietor Mindy Nguyen who proceeded to warn me that durian has a very strong flavor, a flavor my well-traveled friends had never before experienced. Much to my own…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenItalianNew MexicoRating: Outstanding

M’TUCCI’S MARKET & PIZZERIA – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:35 AM

Greek mythology recounts the story of Tantalus, progeny of a divine parent (Zeus himself) and a mortal one. Uniquely favored among mortals by being invited to share the food of the gods, Tantalus abused that privilege by slaying his own son and feeding him to the gods as a test of their omniscience. The gods immediately figured out what Tantalus had done and in their rage condemned him to the deepest portion of the underworld where he would be forever “tantalized” with hunger and thirst. Though immersed up to his neck in water, when Tantalus bent to drink, it all drained away. When he reached for the luscious fruit hanging on trees above him, winds blew the branches beyond his reach. For years, Duke City diners have been tantalized by the promise of signage beckoning us to visit “delis” only to realize, much like the gods of Olympus, that all is not as it appears. A sign does not a deli make nor do products from peripatetic distributors. As with Tantalus, we’re left to pine for the authenticity of a true deli, the type of which Albuquerque has not seen since the bygone days of Deli Mart. Savvy diners may…

Closed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenMariscosMexicanNew Mexico

El Agave – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:13 AM

“Why, this here sauce is made in New York City!” “New York City? Git a rope!” No matter how broad-minded we may perceive ourselves to be, most of us are burdened by covert biases and prejudices that reveal themselves at inopportune times. One of mine was divulged during my inaugural visit to El Agave Mexican Restaurant in Rio Rancho. After being greeted warmly by effusive hostess Lilly Venegas (who could not possibly have been nicer), I began my usual “twenty questions” routine to learn everything I could about the restaurant. Beaming with pride, she told me her brother-in-law had owned and operated two Mexican restaurants for more than twenty years in Raleigh, North Carolina. North Carolina! North Carolina! My mind raced to the circa 1980s Pace Picante Sauce commercial in which several hungry cowboys threatened to string up the cook for serving a “foreign” salsa (translation: not made in Texas). To be fair, my ridiculous notion that good Mexican food couldn’t possibly be prepared in North Carolina was based on having lived and traveled in the Deep South for eight years. During those octennial years of Mexican food deprivation, we found only one restaurant in Dixie which served good Mexican…

AmericanClosed in 2023Dog FriendlyDonutsGone But Not ForgottenRating: N/R (Not Rated)TexasUnited States

Gourdough’s Public House – Austin, Texas (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:23 PM

Donuts could have gone their entire existences fat, dumb and happy with a following–mostly cops, adult men my age (39) and households with annual incomes of less than $10,000–who expected nothing more out of them than we were already getting.  Essentially just fried or fruit-filled delivery mechanisms for quadruple our recommended daily allowance of calories, sugar and guilt, donuts have always been predictable, unchanging…reliably there for us.  Our expectations for these sweet, ring-shaped fried cakes weren’t exactly very high.  Then something changed.  Donuts became “gourmet,” experiencing a much-needed make-over.   In recent years, several foods have experienced a similar artisinal reinvention, metamorphosing from tasty enough moths into glorious, flavor-packed butterflies.  A more demanding public–especially those of us who self-gloss as foodies or gastronomes–didn’t want to leave well enough alone.  We wanted to explore possibilities, to actualize the foods we love most.  We did it with the most sacrosanct of plebeian foods such as hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and donuts, transforming the prosaic into the inspired with new and different ingredients and preparation methods. No one is under the illusion that these so-called gourmet innovations have supplanted their staid predecessors or converted their loyal sycophants.  There will always be consumer base completely…