Category: Albuquerque

AlbuquerqueAmericanDog FriendlyGreekNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Tula’s Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Tula: “My mom was always cooking foods filled with warmth and wisdom… and never forgetting that side dish of steaming-hot guilt.” As it celebrates its twenty year anniversary the 2002 Rom-Com “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” remains as timeless and funny as it was when it debuted.  Moreover, it’s still a heart-warming movie with which some of us can relate.  In my estimation, it could easily have been called “My Big Fat Northern New Mexican Wedding” and it could have been set in Peñasco.  The similarities between Greek families and Northern New Mexican families around which I grew up were startling.  That’s especially true about the food, family and eccentricities, the latter especially prominent among the movie’s well-meaning and hovering aunts and the protagonist’s domineering father. My Big Fat Greek Wedding centers around Tula Portokalos, who at thirty is only woman in her family who has failed to find a nice, Greek husband and have babies.  Living at home, Tula works as hostess at her family’s restaurant, “Dancing Zorba’s.” Tula describes her younger self as a “swarthy 6-year-old with sideburns” who was shamed by blonde schoolmates for eating “moose caca” (moussaka).  Tula remains frumpy and insecure until early in her third decade when she practically…

AlbuquerqueBrunchCoffeeNew MexicoRating: OutstandingSandwich

Sammys Cafe & Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:02 AM

Most foodies have pondered the expession “Never trust a skinny chef.”  Maybe you’ve even mused if there’s any truth to it.   Your line of thinking probably goes something like this: “If a chef’s cooking is any good at all, how can that chef possibly resist stuffing himself (or herself)?”  With this train of thought, every chef should look like Paul Prudhomme, the brilliant Creole-Louisiana Cajun chef who once weighed more than 500 pounds.  Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who’s not shy about expressing his opinion, called the notion that you shouldn’t trust a skinny chef “BS.”  To the contrary, the volatile Ramsay believes “In order to be consistently excellent, a chef must “stay fit.” As my friend Bill Resnik and I strode into Sammy’s Cafe & Deli, we ran into the very fit Chef Marc Quiñones who had just finished his morning run.  Chef Quiñones runs distances some of us get tired driving.  He’s the proverbial high-energy somatype, a dynamic whirling dervish in constant motion.  Moreover, he exemplifies a paraphrase of a famous Homer Simpson quote: “Chef Marc Quiñones: Is there nothing he can’t do?”  At least in the culinary arena, the answer to that Jack Handy deep thought is “no.” …

AlbuquerqueBar & GrillIrishRating: Good

Two Fools Tavern – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:32 AM

Read the table tent placards at the Two Fools Tavern and you’ll learn that this is where the craic is mighty. An old Gaelic term pronounced “crack,”craic refers to the lively essence of the pub experience, a unique and sometimes loud combination of good friends, good times and of course, good pints. Craic is a word for which there is no exact English translation even though there are some 9,000 pubs in the Emerald Isle. In Ireland, pubs, or public houses, are a focal point of the community–as much as the local church. It’s where friends gather for camaraderie and commiseration. The sale and consumption of alcoholic libations is perhaps the pub function with which most Americans are familiar. Most public houses offer a range of beers, wines, spirits and soft drinks with beer tending to be the most popular adult beverage. In recent years, serving food has become a more important function of the public house throughout the British Isles. Yeah, I know what you’re saying: “Good food at an Irish pub is an oxymoron.” When it comes to the culinary arts, Ireland (just like England) is the Rodney Dangerfield of Europe; its cuisine receives absolutely no respect. Irish…

AlbuquerqueChineseClosed in 2025Gone But Not ForgottenRating: Outstanding

BUDAI GOURMET CHINESE – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:07 AM

“The true gourmet, like the true artist, is one of the unhappiest creatures existent. His trouble comes from so seldom finding what he constantly seeks: perfection.” –Ludwig Bemelmans By definition, gourmets are connoisseurs, taking food more seriously than most and embodying the axiom “live to eat rather than eat to live.” True gourmets, as Ludwig Bemelmans would define them, appreciate food of the highest quality, exalting only in the rarefied experiences–those which require the most discerning palates and noses to cognize subtle nuances in complex and sophisticated flavors and aromas. Bemelmans, himself an internationally known gourmet, posited that the true gourmet will find joy only in tasting, smelling and appreciating perfection, not in its pursuit. I’ve known several true gourmets fitting Bemelmans definition. Most of them are insufferable and condescending. Though endowed with refined palates cultivated by years of indulgence in the finest foods and blessed with olfactory senses which would put a German shepherd to shame, they derive no sensuous enjoyment from most culinary experiences. Nothing is quite good enough. Nothing meets their demanding and exacting standards. Dining (they don’t eat) with them is a test in patience as they deride and diminish everything put before them. Perhaps the…

AlbuquerqueAmericanCoffeeDog FriendlyNew MexicoSpecialty

Villa Myriam Coffee Roastery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Because of coffee’s olfactory-arousing properties and nuanced depth of flavors, it has the unique ability to evoke personal memories that transport java junkies to better times.  Every satisfying and stimulating sip of coffee relocates me to my Grandma Andreita’s kitchen table where I learned to love coffee brewed on her old wood stove.  For brothers David and Juan Certain, the aromas return them to Colombia where their grandfather founded Villa Myriam in 1961.   The brothers spent much of their childhood on the fields of their grandfather’s coffee plantation where they learned which coffee beans were the best. In 1999, Juan and David migrated to the US as political refugees during the hard times of violence in Colombia. After things settled, they decided to share their passion for coffee and return to the family plantation to import their beans to Albuquerque, NM.  In October 2010, the brothers started a wholesale coffee business in Albuquerque, using Albuquerque’s South Valley Economic Development Center’s commercial kitchen to roast and package the coffee. It didn’t take long for Villa Myriam coffee to become a hit in New Mexico. Though we’ve enjoyed Villa Myriam’s award-winning coffee at several restaurants, it was a foodie event–edible New Mexico’s…

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Mati Peruvian Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 2004, The Economist (a British weekly news publication) proclaimed that “Peru can lay claim to one of the world’s dozen or so great cuisines.” In 2005, Bon Appetit declared Peruvian “the next hot cuisine,” extolling its “vibrant ceviches, crispy, spiced rotisserie chickens and packed-with-flavor empanadas” then encapsulating its declaration with “this is one cuisine we could eat every day.”  A year later, at the world’s premier gastronomic forum, the International Summit of Gastronomy, Lima (the coastal nation’s capital city) was touted as the “gastronomic capital of the Americas.” In 2011, The Wall Street Journal also called Peruvian food “the next big thing” glossing that it “provides flavors that have the world’s top toques raving, experimenting and catching the next jet.”   The following year, BBC expressed the same “next best thing” notion.  In 2014, Conde Naste Traveler called Peru “the future of gastronomy.”  One year later, The Culinary Exchange expressed that “the world’s next global food trend is…Peruvian cuisine.”  A number of other online and print publications parroted that “next big thing” mantle. As an independent  observer of the culinary condition, I had to wonder “when will Peruvian food finally arrive as the “next big thing,” especially in Albuquerque which isn’t…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBrewery-PubClosed in 2025Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoTacos

Sobremesa Restaurant & Brewery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In June, 2021, Eater.com published a list of “the 21 Essential Restaurants in Albuquerque.” Unlike so many “clickbait” articles from national publications purporting to tell New Mexicans which restaurants across the Land of Enchantment serve the “best this” and the “best that,” the Eater feature was penned by Justin De La Rosa who actually knows this state very well.  In fact, in 2015 Justin earned a “Local Hero Award” from Edible New Mexico as “best food writer.” If you’re wondering what constitutes an “Essential Restaurant,” Eater’s erstwhile national critic Bill Addison defined the term to mean “indispensable to their neighborhoods, and eventually to their towns and whole regions,” to “ultimately become vital to how we understand ourselves, and others, at the table.”   In other words, restaurants accorded the “essential” designation by Eater are more than among the best restaurants in their town.  They are transcendent presences that feed the soul as well as the stomach. It’s a virtual certainty that Mary & Tito’swould make the list after having been named one of America’s 38 Essential Restaurants in 2018<.  It’s also no surprise that restaurants (Campo at Los Poblanos and Frenchish) helmed by multiple-time James Beard Foundation Chef of the Year…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyPizzaRating: Excellent

Farina Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:36 PM

On May 14, 2011, I had the great honor, pleasure and privilege of being the first guest on Break the Chain, the weekly radio show (sadly no longer on the air) dedicated to showcasing the great independent mom-and-pop restaurants in and around Albuquerque.  When the show’s charismatic host, my friend Ryan Scott asked me to name the five best pizza restaurants in the Albuquerque area, I omitted Ryan’s very favorite — and he yelled at me (good-naturedly (I think)).  I asked forgiveness for my transgression, stating in my defense that I couldn’t well include Farina, having visited only once with attempts for a second visit being quashed by long waits. The only pizza for which I’ve ever waited more than half an hour–in 115-degree temperature, no less–is the transcendent pizza at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.  It was a pizza worth the near dehydration and painful sunburn resultant from standing in blistering sun for nearly an hour with other equally ardent aficionados (masochists?).  I’ve often considered it heretical madness that some Duke City diners have compared Farina with Pizzeria Bianco.  How, after all, can a pizza crafted in Albuquerque compare with the pizza James Beard award-winning author Ed Levine considers the…

AlbuquerqueChickenDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Chile Chicken Nashville Hot Chicken – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My brother Mario–seven years younger, much better looking and quite a bit smarter–and I have shared many memorable firsts. There was the time I taught him how to drive on our dad’s 1965 standard transmission Chevrolet pickup truck.  He was a quick study, soon terrifying our grandmother with drifting skills Formula D drivers would envy.  I took him to his first championship wrestling match at Albuquerque’s Civic Auditorium where we watched “Rapid” Ricky Romero dispatch “Yellow Belly” Robley.  Mario would go on to similarly dominate high school wrestling opponents (though unlike Robley, he didn’t pull “foreign objects” from his trunks with which to beat his opponents).  Already in our grizzled 30s, we once beat two much younger (and ostensibly more fit) starters on Peñasco’s state championship basketball team.  That may not have been a first, but like the four touchdowns scored by Al Bundy, it was one of those youth-reclaiming victories we’ll boast of well into our 80s.  Fittingly, I was with Mario when he experienced Nashville hot chicken for the first time. There are some things brothers will confide only in one another.  One of us told the other the Nashville hot chicken too hot to handle, but the…

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Pho Ginger – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:00 AM

The Cultural Atlas reveals one aspect of Vietnamese life that is readily apparent to those among us well acquainted with Albuquerque’s Vietnamese restaurant families:  “Family is the most important aspect of life in Vietnam. It is much more interdependent and tight-knit than what many Western cultures are familiar with. The cohesiveness and health of the family unit is often a main imperative. The “family unit” itself generally includes a larger nexus of relationships. Aunts, uncles, grandparents and other extended relatives often have very close relationships and provide a central support system.” During our time in the Land of Enchantment, we’ve seen just how interdependent and tight-knit Vietnamese families are.  We’ve also experienced how warm and welcoming those families are.  We consider James and Thu Nguyen at Cafe Dalat among our very favorite restaurateurs.  Same with Vicki Truong at SaiGon.  Sean and Kim, the genial proprietors of Saigon City, treat us like family.  Visiting their restaurants is like going home and catching up with relatives we actually like–a lot!  Aside from the obvious, one commonality among these three restaurants is that family either works in them or has their own restaurant in town. When we walked into Pho Ginger on Juan…

AlbuquerqueMediterraneanRating: Outstanding

Al-qud’s Mediterranean Grill & Grocery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:54 AM

The St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Magdalena, New Mexico is adorned with ceramic statues, most familiar and easy to identify…at least for dyed-in-the-wool Catholics like me. After Sunday Mass one September, 2010 morning, we espied a statue of a saint clutching a curious implement to his chest. None of the parishioners we asked had any idea who the statue represented. Father Andy Pavlak, the parish vicar at the time, confirmed the statue depicted Saint Lawrence of Rome and the curious device he held was a gridiron, a metal grate used for grilling meat, fish, vegetables or any combination thereof. Father Pavlak went on to explain why Saint Lawrence clutched the gridiron. Saint Lawrence was one of seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred during the reign of Emperor Valerian. The manner of death he suffered was especially gruesome. The intrepid saint was grilled on a gridiron. As his flesh cooked, Lawrence is said to have cried out, “This side’s done. Turn me over and have a bite.” That probably explains why Saint Lawrence is the patron saint of comedians, butchers and roasters. He is also patron saint of several parishes throughout the Land of Enchantment. I suspect Saint…