Category: Vietnamese

AlbuquerqueRating: OutstandingVietnamese

CAFE DA LAT – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:03 AM

While the term “Vietnamese cuisine” is broad and overarching, any attempt to pigeonhole this very diverse and eclectic culinary culture is a failure to consider its complexities and nuances.  Even when culinary taxonomists compartmentalize Vietnamese cuisine regionally into “Northern,” “Southern” or “Central,” these wide-ranging generalizations fail to take into account the variations–often influenced by socioeconomic factors–that occur not only between villages, but often within small neighborhoods.  James Nguyen, proprietor of Albuquerque’s Cafe Da Lat is very cognizant of those variations.  That’s why he takes it in stride when a compatriot visiting his restaurant contends “this isn’t like the Vietnamese food I grew up eating.”  Obviously, he says, they didn’t grow up with his mother’s cooking.  His mother’s recipes are at the heart of Cafe Da Lat’s menu, but like every successful restaurateur, he understands that in order to grow business year-upon-year, the menu has to remain interesting. Though wholesale changes aren’t necessary, over the years he has continued to introduce amazing new items we now can’t live without.   Every year James travels to Little Saigon in Orange County, California where he takes the pulse of innovative new trends in Vietnamese cuisine.  When he discovers something he believes Duke City…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2022Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Bamboo Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In his 30s, curmudgeonly London food critic Jay Rayner who’s been called the “enfant terrible (literally “terrifying child) of the gastronomic scene,” came to the realization that he hated hangovers more than he hated being drunk.  During a visit to a Vietnamese restaurant in London, he achieved an epiphany:  “huge steaming bowls of a deeply aromatic beef broth called pho, bobbing with slivers of meat and wide rice noodles – would prove a perfect cure. The head pain would ease. The pitch and roll of the stomach would steady. A gentle, soft comfy cloud of well being would descend. And all this for not very much money at all.” A 2017 article from the travel experts of Lonely Planet also believes pho is “an excellent hangover cure.”  In fact, pho appears first on a list of personal tips on how to survive a hangover on the road.  The article’s editor expounded further: “The broth rehydrates, the sodium gives you a little pick-me-up, and the freshly cooked beef adds protein in wafer-thin slices (which is all I can usually stomach in this state).”   The article concludes: “Even an image of a steamy bowl of pho can cure that headache for…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoVietnamese

T & T Gas N Mart – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:50 PM

“Eat here and get gas.”  Even in more naive and innocent times, the connotation of that double-entendre wasn’t lost on adults or children, all of whom giggled when they espied the classic sign on the marquee of many a combination eatery and filling station.  In his brilliant website The Big Apple, the “restless genius of American etymology” Barry Popik points out the sign was noticed as early as 1930.  On roadways and byways–primarily across rural America–you might still espy that clever, funny and yes, inviting sign.  It undoubtedly still inspires guffaws and groans in equal measure. Consumer historian Jan Whitaker explains in her magnificent blog Restaurant-ing Through History that not long “after thousands of Americans acquired cars and took to the roads in the 1920s that all kinds of roadside businesses popped up to serve them.”  Among the most popular was the combination gas station-restaurant “often further combined with a gift shop or rooms for overnight guests.”   She described the logic as “same one-stop-shopping idea used by department stores: get customers to stop in for essentials and they may buy other things they didn’t even know they wanted.” Today, these “eat-and-get-gas highway oases” still exist across the fruited plain,…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoVietnamese

Pho Kup – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:21 PM

Virtually from infancy, my brother George was a prodigy with Lincoln logs, Erector sets and even Tinkertoys.  He could literally build anything.  That’s when he played indoors.  He preferred being out in the elements where weather-permitting, he would build solid and rainproof club houses and tree houses out of twigs, logs, boards and whatever else he could find.  In the winter, he built Eskimo-worthy igloos.  To no one’s surprise, George became a carpenter, quickly rising to the rank of construction superintendent.  Over a rather luminous career, he’s built stately residences as well as mission-critical structures and facilities at the Los Alamos National Labs.  In his rare spare time, he builds furniture and carves wood into artistic pieces. In entrepreneur Roy Solomon, George has a kindred spirit.  In 2015, Solomon launched a community-oriented commercial plaza constructed entirely with repurposed shipping containers as modular, architectural building blocks.   Christened the Green Jeans Farmery, the unique twist on a shopping plaza is an architectural marvel George would have enjoyed building.  Several among the cluster of shipping container buildings are connected by a bridge.  You can literally walk from one rooftop deck to another.  From the very beginning, Green Jeans Farmery has housed a number…

AlbuquerqueVietnamese

Saigon Far East – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED*)

Gil Garduno9:08 PM

NOTE: In November, 2020, Saigon Far East closed its doors and relocated to 25 The Way where it is now called Saigon City. Breaking a paradigm. That’s a modern corporate buzz phrase that essentially means approaching a situation or routine from a different perspective instead of the standard or typical way. In the parlance of dining out, breaking a paradigm means eating somewhere other than the “usual suspects.” That means getting out of your rut and visiting a restaurant you’ve never visited, especially one that no one has recommended to you.  If Gil’s Thrilling… had a mission statement it would be to introduce you to restaurants which break your paradigms. For many diners, breaking a paradigm is eating at a restaurant like Saigon Far East, one of Albuquerque’s most venerable Vietnamese restaurants. Despite being around for more than three decades, Saigon Far East is surprisingly not very well known, perhaps because it lacks a prominent street-facing storefront (or maybe because some people still refer to the area in which it’s situated as the “combat zone”). If you’ve ever visited Giovanni’s Pizzeria in the nondescript San Pedro shopping center, you may have noticed Saigon Far East on the northeast corner of…

AlbuquerqueAsianNew MexicoRating: ExcellentVietnamese

Viet’s Pho – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:59 PM

“”Vietnam. It grabs you and doesn’t let you go. Once you love it, you love it forever.” ~ Anthony Bourdain Most of us have never been to Vietnam. It’s possible, maybe likely, that most of us will never make it to Vietnam…at least not in a corporeal state. That’s an important distinction because for years, we’ve already been visiting Vietnam. We’ve been magically transported to Vietnam every time Anthony Bourdain visited. Bourdain had the rare ability to develop intimate connections with the cultures and people he encountered in his travels then translate those connections into expressive and relatable narratives. He was a gifted raconteur whose rare honesty, lack of pretense, irreverent sense of humor and self-deprecating humility came across so endearingly empathetic. His evocative descriptions of exotic foods and cultures expanded our imaginations and allowed us to marvel and wonder about the world we know so little about. Because of him, many of us fell in love with Vietnam. Not its food. We already loved that. Because of Bourdain, we fell in love with the Vietnamese culture and its people. During one of his many memorable visits to Vietnam, Bourdain gushed, “It’s so delicious, I feel like an animal.” That’s…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Pho 505 – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:58 PM

“Eating slowly is good for the stomach; plowing deeply is good for the fields.” ~Vietnamese Proverb Imagine if the village of Hatch was granted a trademark that awarded it exclusive rights to the name “chile.”  Imagine Hatch then taking legal recourse against Chimayo, Lemitar, Jarales, et al. to prevent them from using the term.  Civil war would surely ensue.  A similar situation actually occurred in England when in 2013, an owner-operator of a small Vietnamese restaurant chain  trademarked the term “Pho” (as well as “pho” and “PHO).”  In a letter, the audacious trademark owner sent the following cease and desist request to existing restaurants: “…we have to ask all restaurants, large and small, to refrain from using the trademark Pho in their name. And with what we think is a fair amount of time to rename…” While it’s not at all unusual for a restaurant to trademark its name in order to protect its identity, this particular overreach exemplifies either bureaucrats sleeping on the job or having absolutely no knowledge of the genesis and cultural significance of pho.  How, after all, can the national dish of Vietnam possibly be trademarked?  How could Vietnamese restaurateurs possibly be made to stop selling…

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Pho Kobe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:35 PM

Jim Millington, a long-time friend of this blog, contends that “there must be a bad Vietnamese restaurant somewhere on this wide earth but I have never found it.”  If the Albuquerque metropolitan area is a microcosm of this wide Earth, Jim may just be right.  Just ask Yelp reviewers, a blatantly honest bunch which doesn’t pull punches when expressing dissatisfaction about restaurants that just don’t measure up.  From among the 35 Vietnamese restaurants listed on Yelp with more than a handful of votes, one is rated 5 stars, 16 have a rating of 4.5 stars, 12 are rated 4 stars, one is rated 3.5 and at the bottom of the pack is Viet Noodle which has a 3.0 rating.  Even those not rated 4 stars or higher have their staunch supporters. Jim’s comment and the phalanx of Yelp reviews got me thinking (hence the plumes of smoke emanating from Rio Rancho).  It’s gotten to the point that you can take for granted when you visit a Vietnamese restaurant that you’ll be served solid, if not spectacular food; that service will be cordial and professional; that prices will be reasonable, if not downright inexpensive and that you probably won’t discover any…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Le Bistro Bakery & Vietnamese Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:49 PM

Several years ago and much to the surprise of the proprietor, I ordered a durian shake at a Vietnamese restaurant. She proceeded to caution me that durian has a very powerful aroma and flavor many people find off-putting. When she witnessed my enjoyment of the cold pungent fruit beverage, she gave me a big hug and told me I was the “only white boy” she ever saw who delighted in the odoriferous nuances of what is known widely as “the world’s stinkiest fruit.” Indeed, durian is one of the very few things in the world Travel Network celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern cannot eat. Its sulfurous emanations have been likened to body odor, smelly feet, rotten onions, garbage and even decomposing corpse. It was deja vu all over again (as Yogi Berra once said) when I visited Le Bistro Bakery & Vietnamese Cuisine with my good friends Larry “the professor with the perspicacious palate” McGoldrick and the Dazzling Deanell. When I ordered a durian smoothie, shock and awe registered in the face of proprietor Mindy Nguyen who proceeded to warn me that durian has a very strong flavor, a flavor my well-traveled friends had never before experienced. Much to my own…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyFusionGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Cafe Nom Nom – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:12 PM

“Nom nom.” It sounds innocent enough. Parents–yes, including parents of four-legged fur babies–utter it in baby talk intonations to get our children to eat something, especially when that something is “good for them” but doesn’t actually look or taste good. Nom nom was, of course, the favorite expression of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster (Hi Darren) as he ravenously devoured a plate or six of cookies, a fusillade of crumbs flying from his chewing mouth.  Grade school teachers use nom nom as an example of an onomatopoeia, a word that imitates a sound.  My friend Michael Gonzales, the dynamic owner of Rio Rancho’s Cafe Bella uses it to describe great new restaurant finds. English majors recognize it as an expression used to convey pleasure at eating or at the prospect of eating.  It’s also a verb meaning “to eat something, typically with great enjoyment.” See anything wrong with the term nom nom?  Though it may never grace Gil’s Thrilling… in a descriptive manner, I don’t see anything wrong with it either.  So, if it sounds innocent and innocuous enough, why does the Huffington Post rank the word nom nom with “moist” as “the worst offender of words when it comes to…

AlbuquerqueRating: ExcellentVietnamese

Pho Linh Vietnamese Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:33 AM

You always remember your first time…and if it’s good, it may set the standard by which you’ll forever measure every other time. I was a lanky lad of nineteen, away from home for the first time when “it” happened. As a precocious yet naive child growing up in bucolic Peñasco, New Mexico, I had been sheltered from the wiles and ways of the world and felt silly and embarrassed about being so inexperienced. All my new friends in Massachusetts seemed so sophisticated in comparison. Luckily I had a very patient and understanding teacher who taught me all its nuances and variations–how to appreciate its fragrant bouquet, taste the subtleties of its unique flavors and use my fingers as if lightly caressing its delicate features. To this day, I still compare all other Vietnamese meals against my first that balmy summer day in Massachusetts. I treasure the memories of my first fresh spring rolls; marinated, grilled beef served atop a bed of rice vermicelli and the fragrance of leafy basil wafting from my first steaming bowl of pho. The intoxicating aromas of Vietnamese cuisine remain a potent medium for conjuring up memories of my first time. A flood of memories greeted…