Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1,302 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 13,100 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
Throughout its storied history, Amarillo’s culinary reputation has been based primarily on one kind of food: beef. That’s no surprise considering Amarillo-area ranches produce thirty-percent of the nation’s beef and ninety-percent of the beef in Texas. So when the city on the High Plains is described as a “cow town,” it’s not solely because of…
During our last full year at Intel, my friend Bill Resnik and I had the distinct honor and privilege of working on a project with a team from Microsoft comprised mostly of information technology professionals with roots in the exotic subcontinent of India. We had expected impeccable technical expertise, but their dedication and focus was…
If you’ve ever wondered about the meaning of the line “I’ll be lookin’ for eight when they pull that gate” in George Strait’s classic hit Amarillo By Morning, here’s a theory you probably haven’t heard. The country crooner was actually looking for eight brawny guys to help him finish the 72-ounce steak at Amarillo’s The…
Published in 1938, John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novels ever written. Replete with timeless themes of struggle, destitution, injustice, and the pursuit of a delusive “Promised Land,” the novel centers around the trevails of the Joad family. Along with thousands of other tenant farmers from Oklahoma…
When I told my friend Carlos my Kim and I would be enjoying Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken during our trip to Austin, he quipped “when did Los Pollos Hermanos open a restaurant in Texas?”. Wrong Gus. Obviously Carlos was joking about Gus Fring, the stoic Argentinian entrepreneur on the Albuquerque-based Breaking Bad television series. …
It’s oft been said that among males (we’re such children), insults are a form of intimacy. Perhaps because of societal expectations, many men aren’t comfortable expressing affection toward other males in physically demonstrative ways (even in the Age of Oprah). In his book A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt – and Why They Shouldn’t,…
Yabba-dabba-doo! After finishing another day of toiling at the quarry, Fred Flintsone rushes home to pick up his modern stone-age family for a drive-in movie, an exclusive one-night only viewing of The Monster. Courtesy of Fred’s two feet, the family then proceeds to Bronto Burgers & Ribs Drive-In for an order of ribs. Somehow a…
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,…
“I‘m only eating the skins, so the chicken’s up for grabs.” ~Joey Tribbiani Several of my earliest memories of growing up in agrarian Peñasco, New Mexico involve chickens. Some of those memories–such as getting viciously pecked by my Grandma Piedad’s cantankerous old rooster–were rather painful. Other memories, however, were of mischievous fun my brothers and…
There are a phalanx of “best of” lists online and in print publications that celebrate restaurants deemed true stand-outs worthy of accolades. Such lists are obviously very subjective though by no means definitive. That holds true as well to the concept of restaurant review ratings, a mere snapshot in time valid really only to that…
In the Mexican neighborhoods of west Dallas, adventurous “gringo” diners who grew up on Tex-Mex cuisine have apparently discovered the wonderful cuisine of Old Mexico. On the night we visited, this was evidenced by the lively and decidedly “white” crowd enjoying their meals almost as much as the generations of Mexican-American patrons craving (and receiving)…
