Category: Japanese

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Vong Sushi Thai & Laos Cuisine – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Grammatically any of the following is correct:  Laotian cuisine, Lao cuisine or the cuisine of Laos.  Just don’t ever call it “Laosy cuisine.”  That would not only be a malapropism, it would be wholly inaccurate.  The cuisine of Laos is among the most dynamic and delicious in Southeast Asia, if not the world.  One of the reasons Laotian cuisine doesn’t receive the accolades it deserves is because of its neighbors.  The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia bordered by Myanmar (formerly Burma), China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.  To some extent, these neighbors (at least China, Vietnam and Thailand) have surpassed Laos on the world’s culinary stage–not necessarily because their cuisine is superior, but because it’s…

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Aji Ramen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

If a television show was to be created about ramen (some pronounce it ray-men), it would probably be called “Everybody loves ramen.”  According to the World Noodles Association (yes, there is such an entity), Americans consume 5.15 billion servings of instant ramen every year.  If you think that’s a lot, the United States ranks as only the sixth-largest consumer globally, significantly far behind such Asian nations as China and Indonesia.  Still, the land of spacious skies and fruited plains ranks as the top ramen consumer outside of Asia.   The per person consumption rate among Americans is 15 servings of ramen per year.  Would you believe South Korea is ranked the world’s number one per capita in instant noodle consumption (72.8…

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East Asian Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Perhaps more than anyone I’ve ever met, my Singaporean friend Ming Lee (God rest his beautiful soul) regarded people by the content of their character, not by physical characteristics.  So, it surprised me to hear him joke “we all look alike.”  It was an unsolicited admission that even he couldn’t always discern the cultural genesis of Asian people he met.  He also joked “at least I can always tell where an Asian restaurant’s food comes from.”  Ming was a bona fide gastronome who introduced me to the cuisine of Singapore and Malaysia.  Like me, he disliked restaurants in which overt homogenization of Asian food was apparent.  Sure, different culinary cultures across Southeast Asia have borrowed from one another over the…

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Sushi Gen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:56 AM

Years ago while at Intel I co-managed an enterprise project with Nora, a diminutive Vietnamese lady who later left the company and moved to San Diego.  I expected her to say she her move was prompted by a desire to be closer to family or to her childhod home.  Instead what she most looked forward  to about relocating to San Diego was the availability of all-you-can-eat (AYCE) sushi bars.  Her answer validated why she and I worked so well.  We had a very symbiotic relationship and were able to land our project not only successfully, but better than any other Intel site had done.  We both loved Asian food of all types. Nora left Albuquerque a couple of years before…

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Kawaii Boba Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

I have a confession to make.  I just don’t get anime…and can’t figure out the pokemon craze.  That’s a rather starting admission for an Information Technology (IT) professional to make.  Maybe I need help?   After all, for your stereotypical male IT professional, anime and pokemon are just steps in the typical progression of IT affectations.  They’re the logical graduation that follows a rather unhealthy obsession with Princess Leia and all things Star Wars.  Which reminds me, I found Star Wars silly and boring.  Since I’m airing dirty laundry, I may as well admit I’d just as soon watch paint dry as play a video game.  Any video game. Nor do I ever celebrate Pi day (March 14th) and my…

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El Charlatan – Socorro, Texas (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Everyone should have a friend like Steve Coleman, the erudite owner of Steve’s Food Page. Not only is he a great guy and a lot of fun to spend time with, he’s a superb host and tour guide.  During a two-day sojourn to “El Chuco,” Steve not only showed us the sights, he gave me a much-needed lesson about history New Mexico and Texas share.  He explained that during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, members of the Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico were displaced to El Paso along with Oñate and the Spaniards.  Today, descendants of those Native Americans reside in a Native American Pueblo in the Ysleta section of El Paso just about three miles from El Charlatan, our…

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Fun Noodle Bar – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:05 PM

By definition, many, if not most noodles are fun.  No, not fun as in luxuriating in a tub filled with ramen (albeit non-edible, synthetic noodles) with real tonkatsu (pork bone) broth.  Yeah, that really is a thing in Japan.  Nor does my contention that noodles are fun have anything to do with the Simpsons episode in which Bart was threatened with “forty whacks with a wet noodle.”  It doesn’t even have anything to do with the Beach Boys classic “Fun, Fun, Fun” song.  It especially has nothing to do with those buoyant polyethylene foam “noodle” tubes people bring to swimming pools. In a classic example of Gil style “swerve,”  Fun refers to Chinese noodles made from rice flour or some…

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Sushi Freak – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Somewhere in Japan generations of traditional sushi chefs are rolling in their graves…and they’re not rolling sushi.  What set them off?  No one knows for sure, but it could have been a 2014 article in the San Diego Reader in which Jennifer Duarte, the co-owner of a San Diego based sushi restaurant named Sushi Freak boasted “I can teach any kid to become a sushi roller.  I could train you in five minutes.”  Sushi masters (itamaes) trained in Japan would argue that it takes years to learn and master the delicate art of making great sushi, that it’s significantly more complex and subtle a specialty than could possibly be mastered in five minutes by a kid.   The painstaking process of…

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Tokyo Bangkok – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 2019, Mastercard published its Global Destination Cities Index which ranked 200 cities around the world with the most international visitors.  Topping the list for the fourth consecutive year was Bangkok, Thailand which boasted of 22-million overnight visitors.  Next on the list with around 19-million international overnight visitors were Paris and London respectively.  With 13.6-million visitors, New York City was the only United States destination to make the top ten, ranking seventh.  Tokyo (12.93-visitors) was ninth on the list. Many years ago when I was a fledgling airman in the world’s greatest Air Force I had the privilege of serving with grizzled veterans who had been stationed in Southeast Asia during the long and drawn-out Vietnam War.  Almost invariably they…

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Ikigai ABQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

While ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy) may sound like what grade school girls called me many years ago, in Japanese the term ikigai is a Japanese concept combining the terms “iki,” meaning “alive” or “life,” and “gai,” meaning “benefit” or “worth.”  Though there is no direct English translation, when combined these terms embody “that which gives your life worth, meaning, or purpose.”  Essentially, ikigai is the reason why you get up in the morning. It makes a lot of sense therefore that the signage for Ikigai, a sushi restaurant ensconced in a Lilliputian pod within the El Vado Motel complex, would be subtitled “a sushi shop with purpose.”  For some of us, sushi gives life worth, meaning and purpose.  Sushi was the…

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Oni Noodles – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:06 PM

In retrospect, the monsters and bogeymen who frightened impressionable children of my generation were pretty lame. Perhaps the most lame of them all was Frankenstein, a lumbering behemoth who walked around with his arms outstretched like a sleepwalking Shaquille O’Neal. Frankenstein snarled and growled a lot, probably because Gene Hackman poured hot soup on his lap. Then there was that pasty-faced vampire Dracula who could be repelled with garlic (which explains his aversion for Italian food). Dracula couldn’t even enjoy New Mexico’s 310 days of sunshine without sizzling and hissing like a strip of bacon. In comparison Japan’s monsters are pretty badass. Godzilla, a foul-tempered prehistoric sea monster prone to  tantrums destroyed Tokyo several times and was pretty much impervious…