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Albuquerque Asian Chinese New Mexico Seafood

ABC Cajun Seafood & Noodle House – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoFebruary 4, 2024February 9, 202412:01 AM

Although popular myth attributes the introduction of pasta in Italy to Marco Polo, pasta’s origins in Lo Stivale can be traced back as far as the 4th century B.C. That’s when the Etruscan civilization-which existed in the Tuscany region from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE–began the centuries old love affair between Italians and pasta. Culinary historians agree that pasta’s earliest roots begin in China, during the Shang Dynasty (1700-1100 BC), where some form of pasta was made with either wheat or rice flour. Pasta also appears to have been part of the ancient Greek diet in the first millennium B.C. Africa also had its own form of pasta (made with the kamut crop). Despite being first to create…

Albuquerque Chinese Fusion Korean New Mexico

Hanmi Korean-Chinese Fusion – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoSeptember 21, 2023July 13, 202512:01 AM

Popular culture is defined as “commonly known information that briefly holds the public interest. It is typically discussed in various mass media, including TV and the Internet, and becomes a topic of everyday conversation (what used to be called a “water cooler conversation” before that term fell from popularity). Apparently you’re out of touch with pop culture when you believe Game of Thrones is a video game and that Taylor Swift is a sprinter, the female equivalent of Usain Bolt. Approaching forty years of youth, I’d probably be completely out of touch with pop culture were it not for our interns at UNM Information Technology. They do their best to educate this old fogey on what’s lit, cool, on fleek…

Albuquerque Chinese New Mexico

Nio Szechuan – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJuly 26, 2023December 16, 202512:01 AM

Several years ago Mike Muller, my friend and former colleague at Intel was sent to Chengdu, the capital of the providence of Szechuan in Southwest China. It was an assignment I would have loved. Unfortunately I could barely spell the name of the enterprise asset management application Mike would be training our Chinese counterparts how to use. From an application and business knowledge perspective, Mike was the perfect man for the job. From the perspective of culinary culture, Intel should have sent me. Our counterparts may not have learned much about the asset management tool, but we would have had a great time feasting on the incendiary delights for which the Szechuan region is famous. Mike is “bizarro Gil,” my…

Albuquerque Chinese New Mexico

Zu Hot Pot – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJanuary 17, 2022February 4, 202212:01 AM

“You have tattoos and others have piercings, but for me, there’s nothing that says more about me than the food I choose to carry every single day. As a kid trying to maintain my identity in America, my Chinese was passable, my history was shaky, but I could taste something one time and make it myself at home. When everything else fell apart and I didn’t know who I was, food brought me back and here I was again.” ~Eddie Huang, Fresh Off The Boat Food: It triggers memories that provide a sense of identity and belonging. It feeds the soul and nourishes the body. It impacts the environment and geopolitical politics. It inspires song, art and lore. It affects…

Albuquerque Asian Chinese New Mexico

Dragon House – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJanuary 9, 2021January 13, 20217:20 PM

Admit it–every time you dine at a Chinese restaurant, you peruse the Chinese Zodiac paper placemats at your table describing the characteristics of people based on their birth year. Every new year of the lunar calendar is represented in Chinese mythology by one of twelve animals, only one of which is mythological. That would be the dragon. People born on the year of the dragon are considered very fortunate as presumably a long, happy life awaits those with a dragon birth year. So that you don’t have to look it up, the last six years of the dragon were 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1964 and 1952. If you were born before 1952, simply subtract 12. Long before Hungarian Horntails, Swedish…

Chinese New Mexico Rio Rancho

Heaven Dragon – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoNovember 22, 2020November 29, 20207:40 PM

From Norbert, the Norwegian Ridgeback of Harry Potter lore to Smaug, the greatest and most powerful of all dragons in The Hobbit, dragons are a familiar icon in modern literature, movies, music and pop culture. Dragons are symbols of fantasy, whimsy and magic, often representing ancient legends and far-off lands. They range from the malevolent, fiery tempered, scaly fire-breathers (insert your favorite mother-in-law reference here) to the affectionate benefactors of mankind. What could possibly explain the popularity of dragons? Could it be because dragons once existed? Stories of dragons are pervasive in such ancient cultures as the Chinese, Australian aborigines, Babylonians and Welsh. Ancient Chinese cosmogonists actually defined four types of dragons. The Heaven, Heavenly or Celestial Dragon (Tianlong) guarded…

Albuquerque Chinese Dim Sum New Mexico

It Dim Sum – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJune 17, 2019June 23, 20196:22 PM

Shortly after “moving on up to the east side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky,” George Jefferson was uncharacteristically late returning home. Knowing George had gone to a Chinese restaurant after work, his dutiful wife Weezy asked neighbor Tom Willis what Chinese restaurant George might have visited. Ever the gourmand, Tom asked what style of Chinese food George liked then proceeded to rattle off five different types of traditional Chinese cuisine available in the neighborhood: Mandarin, Sichuan, Hunan, Cantonese and Shandong. Until that very moment I had no idea there were so many different styles of Chinese cuisine, wrongly believing there was only Chinese food period. That’s pretty much what most Americans believed even back in the 80s when…

Asian Chinese Closed in 2018 Gone But Not Forgotten Sushi

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

Gil GardunoApril 20, 2018July 14, 20187:03 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…

Albuquerque Chinese New Mexico

Rising Star Chinese Eatery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoApril 2, 2018October 13, 20189:22 PM

Let’s get one thing straight. General Tso’s chicken is not some weird cold war Chinese one-upmanship response to Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken. In other words, China did not deliberately seek to outdo the United States by creating a chicken dish and naming it for a General, a rank superior to the rank of Colonel. Not even close! Back in the early 50s, Colonel Harlan Sanders actually did create a revolutionary way of preparing poultry (pressure fried, eleven herbs and spices, yada, yada, yada). General Zuo Zongtang (romanized as Tso Tsung-t’ang), on the other hand, did not create the dish named for him. Nor did he ever eat it. In fact, he never even heard of it. It wasn’t even…

Albuquerque Chinese Closed in 2020 Gone But Not Forgotten New Mexico

The Birds Paradise Hot Pot – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJanuary 12, 2018November 11, 20209:11 PM

It was 2:15AM on a workday, a full four hours before my dreaded alarm clock was set to utter a tone surpassed for annoyance only by the screechy prattle on The View. Inexplicably my brain decided it was a good idea to play deejay and serenade me with Sukiyaki, the only Japanese pop song ever to top the charts across the fruited plain. Yep, my mind had been invaded by an earworm, a song that sticks with you long after the note is played. Akin to a broken record (millennials may have read about “records” in their history books) scratching the same chords over and over again, earworms can be nostalgic and pleasant or annoying and torturous, especially when they…

Albuquerque Asian Chinese Dog Friendly National Chain New Mexico

P.F. Chang’s China Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoDecember 9, 2017July 7, 201810:41 AM

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.” ~ Jim Jarmusch American Film Director I discovered that pithy pearl shortly after a recent email exchange with Gil’s thrilling pollmeister (my spellchecker still insists on “poltergeist”) Bob of the Village of Los Ranchos. We were deliberating whether to ask…