Category: Albuquerque

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Mannie’s Family Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.” ~ George Carlin In December, 2016 when I introduced my friend Bruce “Sr. Plata” Silver to Mannie’s Family Restaurant, the visit evoked pleasant memories of plentiful visits to similar restaurants in Los Angeles where he grew up. Flashbacks of humongous portions of delicious comfort food favorites were secondary to nostalgic recollections of happy times spent with his family. His father, who passed away recently, loved the type of food and prodigious portions served at Mannie’s. So does his loving son who, as loyal readers of this blog know, could subsist on a diet of chicken fried steak. Since its launch in 1965, Mannie’s…

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Richie B’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

If you’ve ever wondered why New Yorkers fold their pizza slices in half lengthwise (aka the “fold hold”) and if you’ve ever attributed that practice to Big Apple quirkiness, you owe it to yourself to visit Richie B’s, a New York-style pizzeria on Montgomery and Louisiana. Now, the Albuquerque metropolitan area has plenty of claimants to New York-style pizza, but can you name a single one in which you’ve actually HAD to utilize the fold hold to eat a slice? New Yorkers have mastered the fold hold because true New York-style pizza is thin-crusted and cut into wide slices (usually wider than your face) which taper down to a perfectly pointed (and invariably “floppy”) bottom. I’ve seen friends and colleagues…

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The Supper Truck – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

On December 20th, 2014, a part-paean, part elegy graced this blog. The opening stanza read: “Supper Truck, I hardly knew you! Inexplicably and to the detriment of my taste buds, I didn’t partake of your delightfully creative interpretation of Southern cuisine until your very last day of serving Albuquerque. So, why do I miss you so much already? Most likely it’s the lost opportunities to partake of Southern cuisine inspired by the dynamic food truck scene of Charleston, South Carolina, one of my very favorite culinary destinations in America. It begs a paraphrase of a time-honored question is it better to have loved and lost the chance to further enjoy your edgy, contemporary, fusion twists on classic Southern comfort food…

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Casa Taco – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Nowadays, hoy en día, with our world full of war and violence and lack of love, a world full of greed A world of domination, grasping power, venal stupidity, real evil. Don’t get me started. It’s good to know that a conversation about tacos will always engender a sense of comfort and happiness. If only we could sit down at a big round world table and eat tacos in a spirit of love we might begin to work on world peace!” ~Denise Chavez New Mexican Author Not even the beloved taco was excluded from the divisiveness of 2016’s contentious presidential campaign. Marco Gutierrez, founder of the group Latinos for Trump warned MSNBC that without tighter immigration policies…”you’re going to have…

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An Hy Quan Vegetarian Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Celebrity chef and professional cynic Anthony Bourdain, one of the more vocal detractors of the vegetarian lifestyle, contends “Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” He’s not alone in his opinion. Vegetarians are perhaps the most maligned and misunderstood group in the culinary community. Consider the stereotypes. Nay-sayers with their preconceived and oversimplified notions founded on ignorance would have you believe all vegetarians are emaciated and pallid tree-huggers who worship at the altar of PETA. They attack vegetarian fare as bland and boring, lacking in variety and mostly tofu and lettuce. You can bet they wouldn’t spout their ill-founded drivel about vegetarian…

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Gecko’s Bar & Tapas – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

One of the best examples of the dichotomy of human nature can be illustrated in the way we react to lizards. The mere sight of a lizard scurrying around can send shivers down the spine of otherwise reasonable and intrepid people. Many of us are repulsed or frightened in the presence of any slithering reptile. In Tripoli the sight of a lizard is held to cause women to bear speckled children. To others, however, lizards are a portend of good luck, a source of entertainment and a symbol of plenty. Biographies written by several former prisoners of war in Vietnam recount being entertained by the scampering of geckos. Throughout the Mediterranean, the lizard is fondly regarded as an old family…

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Pete’s Frites – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

You might view my friend Schuyler’s insistence that his favorite vegetables are French fries, salsa and pizza as a fallacious premise, a non-sequitur fraught with absurdity. French fries are made from potatoes (botanically classified as a vegetable) so categorizing fries as a vegetable might not be a stretch, but pizza? How, you might ask, could any reasoning adult possibly consider pizza a vegetable? Schuyler’s argument is inspired from the beloved 1947 holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street. When ordered by the court to submit authoritative proof that Mr. Kringle is the one-and-only Santa Claus, Kringle’s lawyer Fred Gailey produced dozens of mailbags brimming with letters addressed to Santa Claus in care of the courthouse. Overwhelmed with this authoritative proof, the…

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Pizza Castle – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

There’s nothing like a topic about which opinions are wide and varied to stir up a good old-fashioned, highly spirited debate–an exercise in the Constitutional right of free speech. One topic which has been known to elicit energized dialogue is pizza. Whether the debate is New York style versus Chicago style, thin crust versus thick crust, brick wood-fired oven versus gas oven, mom-and-pop pizzeria versus the corporate chains or even slices versus whole pie, Americans sound off like England’s Houses of Parliament on CSPAN, only with more class, dignity and intelligence. Such was the case in 2008 when the forum topic “Where Can I get a good Pizza” was introduced on Albuquerque’s most popular blog, the Duke City Fix. The…

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Crackin’ Crab Seafood Boil – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

There are certain notions people find too implausible or preposterous to believe. Case in point: during a recent lunch with my friend Bill Resnik, our waitress asked what we did for a living. Bill told her I was an actor, a premise our waitress found entirely credible—even to the point of recalling she may have seen me in an episode of Breaking Bad. When, however, I told her Bill was a porn star, she couldn’t contain her laughter. She practically fell over in hysteria at the image of my towering (6’5″) friend performing in a porno as if it was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. After she composed herself, she told me I was full of sh… er,…

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Aura European and Middle Eastern Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Countries and states may recognize borders but food doesn’t, especially today in an increasingly connected world where it’s possible to enjoy the cuisine of many of the world’s diverse and distant cultures without crossing a single border. Attribute the modern world’s dietary diversity to improved agricultural, transportation and preservation methods as well as rampant imperialism throughout the history of humankind. Consider the culinary influence of invading forces on the ancient nation of Armenia. During the course of its storied history, Armenia was invaded and occupied in succession by Persians, Byzantines, Mongols and Turks, all of whom left their mark on the cuisine. Though we were pretty sure the menu at Aura European and Middle Eastern Restaurant in Albuquerque would offer…

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Eli’s Place (formerly Sophia’s Place) – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

NOTE: In March, 2018, Sophia’s Place reopened.  Please click here for the updated review. Picture yourself as a first-year marketing student assigned by your professor to perform a marketing analysis of Eli’s Place and its enigmatic chef-owner Dennis Apodaca. Essentially you’ve got to figure out the rhyme and reason behind the restaurant’s success. “Easy assignment,” you think to yourself, “Eli’s Place is successful because it serves some of the best, most delicious food in Albuquerque.” Your research quickly reveals, however, that Eli’s Place actually violates many of the time-honored, trusted and fundamental marketing tenets of growing and successful businesses. From a marketing perspective, it just shouldn’t work as well as it does. Any Marketing 101 student can tell you, for…