Category: Gone But Not Forgotten

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenMediterranean

Anatolia Turkish & Mediterranean Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:25 AM

In the mid 80s when my Kim and I lived in rural, agrarian England, a “sandwich” meant one of three things: a warm, fresh floury bap with butter, Cheddar cheese and Branston’s Pickle from our favorite bakery in Lechlade; a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (with chips (fries), of course) from The Plough in Fairford; or a doner kebab from a jankety kebab house in Banbury. There just weren’t many other sandwich options (not to mention burgers and pizza) in the Cotswolds region of England where we lived and certainly no subs, grinders, torpedoes, po’ boys or hoagies. In fact, to our British hosts, the notion that “Yanks” had so many options and fillings for our sandwiches was sheer lunacy on the level of King George, III. Never mind that the bread-encased convenience food known as the “sandwich” was invented by Englishman John Montague, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Of the three sandwiches, the memories of all which still rekindle pangs of hunger, our favorite was the doner kebab. It was our special occasion sandwich, the extravagance of which we chose to partake on birthdays and anniversaries. It was the indulgence on which we splurged (we were very poor back…

AfricanAlbuquerqueClosed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: Outstanding

Talking Drums – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:26 PM

“There is strength in Africa. Not the crushing brute strength of the bull elephant. Nor the rigid, unyielding strength of the Kilimanjaro. But a calm, enduring strength, the kind of abiding strength that will not waiver in the face of adversity, loss or hardship. It is the quiet strength of the African woman.” Quiet strength. That uplifting affirmation, inscribed on a framed poster, hangs on a wall at Talking Drums, Albuquerque’s very first African restaurant. It provides inspiration to and could have been written about Toyin Oladeji, the risk-taking proprietor, chef and daring entrepreneur who’s betting the Duke City is ready for the incomparable cuisine of her homeland. Toyin (who’s mistakenly called Toni so often, she goes by that name) already provides one niche service, owning and operating the only African store in New Mexico and Arizona. Her Zenith African Caribbean Market has been serving the area with groceries, clothing, beauty products, arts and crafts for more than a decade. In launching Talking Drums, she’s filling another niche. The name Talking Drums is derived from a prominent method of communication throughout West Africa, especially during festive occasions and in Africa there is nothing more festive than sharing foods. West Africa…

Closed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenSanta FeSouthwestern

Eloisa – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:00 PM

Expansive views bathed in salubrious, sun-kissed air punctuated by languid breezes. Cerulean skies graduating in depth and brilliance the higher they climb above the horizon. Surreal topography of unnaturally contorted, dappled sandstone formations and juniper laden foothills. Lush, well-tended gardens blessed with an abundance of vegetables, herbs, flowers and shrubs. Such was the idyll Georgia O’Keefe called home. On Sunday, July 19th, 2015, another transcendent artist–one whose medium is food and whose canvas is the palate—spent the day at the home of the legendary doyenne of American painting. He went there to pick apricots from the Abiquiu property on which she had lovingly doted. It wasn’t John Rivera Sedlar’s first visit. Much of the chef’s upbringing and many of his happiest memories were at his family’s ranch in Abiquiu, not too far from where O’Keefe had lived and where she had painted the stunning macro perspectives of floral sensuality which captivated the world. Chef Sedlar’s aunt, Jerry Newsom, was Georgia O’Keefe’s personal chef for more than a decade, but it was under the nurturing influence of his grandmother Eloisa Martinez Rivera that his interest in cooking was kindled. Not only did she teach him how to prepare traditional New Mexican…

Closed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSteak

The Luna Mansion Landmark Steakhouse – Los Lunas, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:36 PM

New Mexico is truly a dichotomous land, a state in which seemingly contrasting qualities exist in symbiotic harmony with each other. While most of those contrasts exist spectacularly in nature, the Land of Enchantment’s architecture is no stranger to contradictions. One such example is the Luna Mansion, a stately manor built in the Southern Colonial architectural style, but whose basic construction material is adobe. The Luna Mansion was built in 1880 by the Santa Fe Railroad Company in exchange for right-of-way through lands owned by the Luna family. In the 1920s, the Luna-Otero family added to the grandeur of the Los Lunas showcase by building a front portico and grand solarium. White Grecian columns bid all visitors welcome. In the 1970s, the Luna Mansion was transformed into a restaurant, perhaps rankling the ire of Josefita Otero, one of the original family members to dwell in the Mansion. Her apparition, attired in 1920s regalia, began to appear. Several other apparitions, including Cruz, a groundskeeper, are said to haunt the restaurant while others have been seen or felt on the grounds of the estate. Perhaps they continue to visit the Luna Mansion for the food. While Auld Lang Syne faded with the…

AmericanBakeryClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenItalian

New Yorken Cafe & Bakery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:50 PM

“Some folks like to get away Take a holiday from the neighborhood Hop a flight to Miami Beach Or to Hollywood But I’m taking a Greyhound On the Hudson River Line I’m in a New York state of mind.” ~Billy Joel Perhaps only in New Mexico does the term “New York state of mind” evoke images of a desert hamlet atop the mesa overlooking the largest city in the state. Such was the effectiveness of the slick marketing campaign by the American Realty and Petroleum Company (AMREP for short) that Rio Rancho, the city it founded less than fifty years ago, may be more often referred to as “Little New York” than as the “City of Vision,” the sobriquet it would prefer. AMREP’s clever marketing attracted hundreds of middle-income New Yorkers to the then untamed western fringes overlooking the Rio Grande. To almost everyone else, however, “New York state of mind” calls forth the melting pot character that can take you around the world in five boroughs where as many as 800 languages are spoken. That multicultural diversity has become what former President Jimmy Carter described as “a beautiful mosaic” with “different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different…

AlbuquerqueBakeryClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenPeruvianRating: Excellent

Sara’s Pastries and Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:42 PM

Creator! You who give life to all things and who has made men that they may live happy and multiply. Multiply also the fruits of the earth, the potatoes and other food that you have That men may not suffer from hunger and misery. ~Traditional Incan Prayer As recently as 2010, Albuquerque–which rightfully takes great pride in its acceptance of cultural and culinary diversity–did not have a single Peruvian restaurant. Fast forward three years to March, 2013 and there are three restaurants showcasing to Duke City diners just a modicum of the tremendous diversity and deliciousness offered by Peruvian cuisine. Every one of the three is unique, each highlighting only a segment of the culinary offerings that make Peruvian cuisine one of the great cuisines of the world. More than perhaps any of the world’s great cuisines, Peruvian food is impossible to pigeonhole or stereotype. It is the original fusion cuisine, having absorbed culinary influences from streams of immigrants encompassing every great culinary culture and melding them with indigenous ingredients and dishes, many with Incan roots. As a result of this cultural and culinary fusion, the Guinness Book of Records recognizes Peru as the nation with the most local plates,…

AmericanBakeryClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenPizzaSandwich

Witch’s Brew – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:00 PM

“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake;” ~Macbeth Act 4 Scene 1 Each of the lunch ladies at the Peñasco Elementary School cafeteria undoubtedly earned a pair of wings, a harp, and a halo for all they were subjected to from the recalcitrant kids who lined up for our daily gruel. Whenever (and it was quite often) something unappetizing was served, we would burst into a chorus of “double, double, toil and trouble. Dump this slop on the double.” Most of us were six or seven years old and had certainly never heard of the three witches immortalized in the Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth. We’d improvised the little ditty from something we’d heard on an episode of Bewitched (or was it Gilligan’s Island?), a situation comedy of the 1960s. It wasn’t those sainted lunch ladies who first came to mind when I espied the sign for “Witches Brew,” a coffee house in the Altura Park neighborhood. Now much more geriatrically advanced (and ostensibly more “grown up”) I tried to recall the remarkably precise and detailed incantation (was it “eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat,…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenPizza

DaVinci’s Gourmet Pizza – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:29 PM

For more than two years, Dan Brown’s brilliant and controversial novel, The DaVinci Code was a permanent fixture as number one on the New York Times best seller list. Brown’s magnus opus postulates the existence of a clandestine society in Europe which, for centuries, has been the guardian of a hallowed bloodline whose lineage descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. This secret society included such luminaries as Leonardo DaVinci, Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei. While many people may consider this terrific tome heretical, at its very least the DaVinci Code spawned a renaissance (rebirth of learning) in the Renaissance (period of European history between the 14th and 17th centuries when a cultural rebirth occurred). In 2005, renaissance man (a man with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge) John Mickey launched DaVinci’s Gourmet Pizza in Albuquerque’s far Northeast Heights and his brainchild is spawning a renaissance (rebirth again) of its own among pizza enthusiasts–so much so that it was named the best new restaurant in the Alibi‘s 2005 Readers Choice issue. What makes this accolade doubly impressive is that his restaurant was tucked away for its first eight years in operation in the Shops at Mountain Run and until 2009, was…

AlbuquerqueAsianChineseClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

China City – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:53 PM

The Claw: Actually the only girl we want is Princess Ingrid. Maxwell Smart: Then why did you abduct the others? The Claw: Unfortunately, Mr. Smart, all Americans look alike to us. ~Get Smart Leave it to iconic filmmaker Mel Brooks to turn cultural stereotypes around to create a hilarious interchange between The Claw, the head of the Asian arm of the criminal spy agency KAOS, and Smart, the bumbling American secret agent who fights on behalf of the forces of goodness and niceness. Many of us who followed Twitter commentary after the United Sates Women’s National Soccer team played to a draw against North Korea shrank with embarrassment at comments which evinced the fact that there are still people who subscribe to ill-founded stereotype that all Asians look alike. If there’s a more innocuous and less offensive concession that can be made, it’s that most Chinese restaurants in Albuquerque do look alike in much the same way so many “red sauce” Italian restaurants of the 1960s looked alike. That’s a point even the most politically correct among us will concede. You’ll arrive at that conclusion about Chinese restaurants if ever you’re driving the city streets looking for a new place…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2018Fine DiningGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Elaine’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:54 PM

“They were all impressed with your Halston dress and the people that you knew at Elaine’s”. ~Big Shot by Billy Joel For nearly five decades–from 1963 through 2011–“the place to be” in Manhattan’s trendy Upper East Side was Elaine’s, perhaps the city’s most celebrated and revered A-lister’s hangout. Everyone who was anyone frequented Elaine’s, an eponymous establishment in which luminaries came to see and be seen. Celebrity habitues included glitterati from stage, screen, television, literature and politics such as Woody Allen, Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, Mick Jagger, Jacqueline Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Andy Warhol and Raquel Welch. Elaine Kaufman was the peripatetic presence around whom the celebrities flocked, the geocentric personality whose gravitational pull drew them all in. Every chic and cosmopolitan city has its own “place to be,” a vibrant cultural, retail and entertainment hub with its own distinctive sights, sounds and flavors. In Albuquerque, that cultural hub is Nob Hill, a fusion of trendy shops, eclectic galleries and swank dining options. The history of Nob Hill is interlaced with that of Route 66, the fabled “Mother Road” which once traversed the fruited plain from Chicago to Los Angeles. Remnants of Route 66 in its halcyon days…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2018Gone But Not Forgotten

Pepper’s Bar-B-Q & Soul Food – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:09 PM

Like many Americans, Daniel “Pepper” Morgan has two passions in life–baseball and barbecue. While these two passions seem inextricably bound in American culture, what separates Daniel from so many of us is that we excel at watching baseball and eating barbecue. Daniel excelled at playing baseball, having made it to the Houston Astros Triple A farm club. His barbecue is also par excellence, big league stuff–as good as any barbecue you’ll find in the Duke City area. Though he has a degree in Mechanical Engineering, what Daniel is most exuberant about is cooking. It’s a passion nurtured at the feet of his mother who cooked daily for more than five hundred students at the Texas State School in Denton. It’s a love engendered from being around his grandmother’s kitchen from which the tantalizing aromas emanated that impressed themselves indelibly in his memories. His grandmother, by the way, grew up in Stamps, Arkansas and called poet laureate Maya Angelu her best friend. Settling comfortably into middle age, Daniel continues to live the baseball dream, though now it’s vicariously through his son, himself leaguer in the Miami Marlins system. Unlike in sports where the ravages of age diminish an athlete’s skills, Daniel…