Category: Closed in 2024

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew Mexico

B2B Garden Brewery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“I’m a uniter, not a divider.” ~ George W. Bush, Governor of the Great State of Texas “No one wants to listen to politicians, but everyone wants to eat tacos. Tacos are the great uniter.” ~ John Fetterman, Candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania FROM B2B GARDEN BREWERY (October, 2024):  We’re sad to announce that after over 10 years, we are closing our doors. We want to thank all of you for your support and for the great times we’ve shared. Ideologically and politically, denizens of the land of the free and home of the brave seem incapable of agreeing on virtually anything, but turn the topic to tacos and there’s almost consensus. Americans love tacos! We love them to…

AlbuquerqueChineseClosed in 2024Dim SumDog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenSushi

Amerasia & Sumo Sushi – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:14 AM

Carpe Diem Sum–“seize the dim sum” at AmerAsia, the Alibi’s perennial selection for best dim sum in the city honors (diem sum, as spelled on AmerAsia’s menu is also a correct spelling). Dim sum, a Cantonese word that can be translated to “a little bit of heart,” “point of heart” and “touch the heart” has its genesis in the Chinese tea houses of the Silk Road. Weary sojourners would stop at tea houses for tea and a light snack (ergo, touch the heart). Over time, the popularity of the tasty little treasures offered at these tea houses led to larger restaurants serving dim sum meals until mid-afternoon, after which other Cantonese cuisine was made available. Today, dim sum buffets are…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico Culinary Treasures Trail

Mr. Powdrell’s Barbecue House – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:50 AM

If you believe in forever Where baby backs are never bland If there’s a barbecue heaven Well you know Mr. Pete is lending a hand, hand, hand. Shortly after Arthur Bryant died in 1982, the Kansas City Star published a cartoon depicting St. Peter greeting Arthur at the gates of heaven and asking, “Did you bring sauce?” A quarter of a century later, I can imagine St. Peter asking Pete Powdrell if he brought the secrets to his extraordinarily tender brisket. What the legendary Kansas City barbecue giant Arthur Bryant was to sauce, Pete Powdrell was to beef. Albuquerque’s indisputable king of barbecue was called home on December 2nd, 2007, but he left behind an indelible legacy that extended far…

BurgersClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoSocorro

Bodega Burger Co. & Lounge – Socorro, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:35 AM

“A Hamburger is warm and fragrant and juicy. A hamburger is soft and non-threatening. It personifies the Great Mother herself, who has nourished us from the beginning. A hamburger is an icon of layered circles, the circle being at once the most spiritual and the most sensual of shapes. A hamburger is companionable and faintly erotic: the nipple of the Goddess, the bountiful belly-ball of Eve.” ~Tom Robbins Hamburgers have long been the apotheosis of comfort food deliciousness and the favorite food of the masses. Regardless of socioeconomic strata, burgers are enjoyed by nearly one and all–to the tune of some 38 billion per year in the United States alone. That’s three per week on average for every man, woman…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenJapaneseNew MexicoSushi

Gen Kai Japanese Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:50 PM

In Japan, ramen is so revered that diners line up, sometimes for hours, at ramen houses for homemade noodles tangled with such ingredients as dried fish, pork and chicken. Connoisseurs make pilgrimages to a popular ramen museum in Yokohama, not the only museum dedicated to ramen, by the way. If you’re wondering how the ramen noodle product you purchased as a collegiate at the rate of ten bricks for ten dollars warrants such reverence and respect, you’re in the right ballpark, but not in the right seat. Although extremely popular throughout Japan where you can find it even in vending machines, it’s not the ubiquitous low-brow instant ramen found in Styrofoam packages which warrants such adulation and enthusiasm. That adulation…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew Mexico

Rincon Del Pollo – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:03 AM

In 1928, the presidential campaign featured several slogans and ads promising an era of prosperity.  The most memorable of these was a boast that the Republican administrations of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge had “reduced hours and increased earning capacity, silenced discontent, and put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot.’  And a car in every backyard, to boot.” If a chicken in every pot is a measure of prosperity, then the Rincon del Pollo (Chicken Corner) Mexican restaurant on North Fourth must epitomize success and affluence.  That’s because this diminutive eatery specializes in all things chicken, albeit al estilo Mexicano (Mexican style). The Rincon del Pollo launched in 2003 and was originally situated in the Northdale Shopping Center (which Duke…

Closed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenItalianMassachusettsRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Sportello – Boston, Massachusetts (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:24 PM

In its April, 2009 edition Saveur magazine feted “12 restaurants that matter,” profiling a dozen restaurants that “represent the best of dining in America today.”  Although that title may at first browse sound a bit condescending, the premise of the article was that restaurants are special places.  ”Everybody has to eat, but going out to eat is a choice.” The one choice of the Saveur sages which most intrigued me was a restaurant in Boston that had been open for less than one year, but which had already been drawing rave reviews.  It wasn’t those reviews that likely swayed the decision to name Sportello one of a distinctive dozen.  It was probably the execution of a concept under the masterful…

ChineseClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNevadaUnited States

Amlee Gourmet Restaurant – Las Vegas, Nevada (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:00 AM

There’s a Cantonese saying that translates to “anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible.” The Chinese diet counts as delicacies some things which would repulse the more sensitive American palate.  It’s not just the Chinese who will imbibe, ingest and intake what we might consider sundry strangeness. Each culture, including American, has foodstuffs other cultures find shocking. One culture’s strange and inedible is another’s traditional favorite. Take cheese, for example. Until rather recently, few Chinese would eat cheese, considering it the fetid spoils of milk. As it grows smaller, the world has become increasingly fascinated by watching the consumption of the bizarre–bizarre in this case being a voyeuristic term that doesn’t apply to…

Closed in 2024Fine DiningGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailTaos County

Sabroso – Arroyo Seco, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:01 AM

We’ve all heard the expressions from a jack to a king, from a moth to a butterfly, from a lump of coal to a diamond, but who’s ever heard…from a chicken coup to an elegant gourmet restaurant?  That sounds like more than a bit of a stretch, yet that’s the metamorphosis that transpired decades ago at what is currently the site of Sabroso, one of Taos county’s swankiest dining establishments. Local lore posits that in 1960, entrepreneurs started a restaurant not just on the site in which a chicken coup stood, but from its very walls.  That restaurant was christened Casa Cordova, a name it would proudly bear for years. Over time and with changes in ownership, Casa Cordova became…

Closed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew MexicoSanta Fe

Mucho Gusto – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:20 PM

On the surface, Laura Esquivel’s wonderful 1990 tome Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate) is about the struggles of a couple passionately in love but cruelly fated to be kept apart.  Below the surface, however, is a brilliant novel that celebrates the passion food can–and does–inspire. Tita de la Garza longs her entire life for her lover Pedro Muzquiz.  Alas, her life’s path has already been established by a tyrannical mother who decrees that Tita must remain unmarried and take care of her aging parents. Unable to have a life with her lover, Tita infuses her passion and love for Pedro into her cooking.   When her ingredients coalesce and simmer into subtle and unusual flavors, people who taste…