Category: Albuquerque

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Pazzi Ristorante Italiano – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In Italian, pazzi is the masculine plural form of pazzo, which means “crazy,” “mad,” or “foolish”. The feminine plural form is “pazza.” In either case, it translates to “crazy people” or “madmen” when used as a noun, or simply “crazy” for masculine plural nouns/adjectives. Interestingly, the name “Pazzi” is derived from the Latin word “pax,” which means peace.  So why would an upscale Italian restaurant in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights name itself for a crazy person.  Surely, it’s not because owners have been inspired by the crazy officiating of WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) games in which physicality and dirty play…

AlbuquerqueBurgersNew MexicoRating: Very GoodRio Rancho

Stackers Burger Co. – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In baseball it’s called the “Triple Crown,”an incredibly rare achievement in which a player leads the league in average, home runs, and runs batted in.  To win the triple crown, a player must tremendous power to hit for distance as well as a very keen eye to hit baseballs thrown at nearly 100 miles per hour and place them on the field in positions that result in driving in runs.  In horse racing, the term Triple Crown represents a series of horse races for three-year-old Thoroughbreds, consisting of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes.  To win all three of these…

AlbuquerqueAsianNew MexicoRating: OutstandingVietnamese

Saigon City – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:02 AM

My brother in blogging Ryan Cook describes his first day in Vietnam: “So, my first stop in Vietnam was the capital, Hanoi. My honest first impressions… what the hell have I let myself in for. Seriously…The roads are chaos! The ride from the airport to the hostel was basically 40 minutes of holding my breath and cringing. How someone wasn’t killed in front of my eyes was a miracle! However, this is something you later don’t even bat an eyelid at after a day or two. Throughout the country, the roads are all complete lawless chaos…BUT it works! Everyone is…

AlbuquerqueBakeryFrenchRating: Excellent

La Quiche Parisienne Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:00 PM

Who can ever forget Fred the Baker, the haggard, perpetually exhausted Dunkin Donuts baker and his iconic lament, “time to make the donuts?” Every morning an annoying alarm clock would rouse Fred from his deep slumber and he would wearily utter his trademarked catch phrase as he prepared for the rigor of the day. For fifteen years—from 1982 to 1997—Fred the Baker let America know it was time to make the donuts, reminding them that while he was doing so, the guys who make the supermarket donuts were still in bed. The Fred the Baker commercials became ingrained in American…

2023 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueBurgersNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Patty Man – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“Hotter than a sizzling flat-top, More powerful than a wood-fired grill, Able to stack towering flavors in a single bite… Look, up at the Sawmill! It’s a James Beard semifinalist It’s the king of the grill… It’s The Patty Man!“ Chef Sean “The Patty Man” Sinclair is a self-effacing guy, more like mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent than his “man of steel” alter ego.  You won’t see Chef Sinclair run into a phone booth to don his apron and toque nor will gawking crowds point toward him and utter “Look!  In the kitchen, it’s a cook.  It’s a chef.  It’s Sean…

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Tony’s Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Why is it so hard to convince others to change their minds and hearts? That’s a question philosophers, psychologists and even curious hoi polloi like me have pondered over for millennia. Perhaps never has that question been brought to the fore as during recent political events. Sadly, the question takes on even more of a personal bent when you believe someone else’s views betray something inherently rotten about their character—or when someone else believes the same about yours. Rightly or wrongly, we’re wired to believe people’s views are barometers of their moral conscience. Psychologists have long posited the existence of…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfast BurritosNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Albuquerque City Limits – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:32 PM

“It’s when I reach the city limits that my sense of security ends and my sense of adventure begins.” ~Anthony T. Hincks Author: Verbs in Storyland Why is it the term “city limits” conjures the same type of trepidation today that very early (before the Third Century BC) explorers must have felt when they thought the Earth was flat and if they navigated too far west, they’d fall off the edge of the map?   Why is it Hollywood has consistently portrayed the area just beyond city limits as either a dystopian wasteland or a bastion of lawless libertinage?  For that matter,…

AlbuquerqueBreakfastBreakfast BurritosMexicanNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: Outstanding

La Sierra New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“I eat uno, dos, tres, quatro burritos Pretty soon I can’t fit in my Speedos Well, I hope they feed us lots of chicken fajitas And a pitcher of margaritas” ~Taco Grande by Weird Al Yankovic While perusing the slogans–One Bite And You’re Hooked; Cooked Slow, Served Hot, Loved Fast; Hot Chile makes Everything Better” on the windows of La Sierra, I half expected to see lyrics from the “Weird “Al Yankovic song “Taco Grande”  (a parody of the song “Rico Suave”).  What I didn’t expect was for La Sierra to live up to its self-aggrandizing hype.  Of course, diners…

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Spicy Junction – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

While perusing the menu at Spicy Junction, you might hearken back to The Dream, the very eclectic restaurant owned and operated by Pakistan emigrant Babu Bhatt in an uproariously funny episode of Seinfeld. As Jerry Seinfeld observed about The Dream’s menu, “he’s serving Mexican, Italian, Chinese. He’s all over the place.” Spicy Junction’s menu is similarly diverse, a melange of Indian, Venezuelan, Middle Eastern, Indo-Chinese and even pizza and burgers splayed temptingly onto three individual menus. That the menu is so “all over the place” makes great sense in that the chef worked as a chef at the location’s previous…

AlbuquerqueDiners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicoPolishRating: Outstanding

Red Rock Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:32 PM

America may be a multicultural melting pot, but thriving within its most populous metropolises are ethnic neighborhoods–pockets of diversity residing in two worlds, retaining many of the cultural and culinary traditions of their motherland while integrating into and pursuing the American dream. Cities such as Chicago have long realized that these ethnic enclaves offer a treasure trove of cultural and culinary experiences. Most of these neighborhoods welcome culinary tourism–the opportunity to showcase the cuisine of their homelands. One such example is the city of Chicago which boasts of the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw (as many as 183,000 by…

2025 James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Bakery" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueBakeryDiners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoRating: OutstandingSandwichVietnamese

Coda Bakery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

JP, my former boss at Intel used to pride himself on consistently working “half days.” If you’re thinking you’d like a job where you work only four hours a day, you’ve misinterpreted his definition of “half days.” To him, half days is a literal term meaning twelve hours a day. When most of us are done for after only nine or ten hours, he was just starting what he called his “second shift.” Very few of us have the stamina, initiative and especially the passion for what we do to work “half days.” I know restaurateurs for whom half days…