Category: Vietnamese

AlbuquerqueBakeryClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRated 24Vietnamese

SweeTea Bakery Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In some metropolitan areas, legions of restaurant bloggers dissect and report on every facet of the area’s dining scene. These bloggers have a significant impact on the restaurant choices diners make. That fact isn’t lost on savvy restaurateurs—particularly young entrepreneurs active in social media–who solicit feedback on their restaurants from the dynamic food blogger community. Some restaurateurs who understand the power of online reviews even engage in “food blogger outreach campaigns” and cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with food bloggers. Alas, this doesn’t often happen in Albuquerque—maybe because you can count on one hand (with at least two fingers left over) the number of active food bloggers with staying power and brand recognition. There is anecdotal evidence that Duke City restaurant…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2021Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVegetarian/VeganVietnamese

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…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Que Huong – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“Wisdom oft comes from the mouth of babes.” ~George R.R. Martin After far too many meals at restaurants in which children are either screaming at the top of their lungs, throwing hysterical tantrums or wandering unsupervised around the dining room, our inaugural meal at Que Huong proved a very pleasant surprise. Across the dining room, we espied a Vietnamese family with several young children. Theirs was the quietest table in the restaurant. All of them were completely focused on their meals. When my Kim commented on how well behaved Vietnamese children are, I reminded her of at least one Vietnamese child who doesn’t always behave as well as the children Kim was idealizing. In fact, that child is as candid…

AsianClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenLaoThaiVietnamese

Mekong Ramen House – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In a 2009 movie entitled Ramen Girl, Abby, a wayward American girl unacculturated to life in Tokyo witnesses the radiant smiles on the faces of diners as they eat ramen and receives an epiphany that her life’s calling is to become a ramen chef. Over time she persuades a ramen restaurant’s temperamental Japanese chef to mentor her. Initially he assigns her to perform the most menial and degrading tasks, but she perseveres and eventually convinces her tyrannical mentor of her sincerity and he teaches her how to make ramen. Alas, it’s ramen with no soul until she also learns that ramen must be prepared from the heart and not from her head. Ramen with soul? Ramen chefs? Ramen prepared from…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenVietnamese

Viet Q – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“When helicopters were snatching people from the grounds of the American embassy compound during the panic of the final Vietcong push into Saigon, I was sitting in front of the television set shouting, ‘Get the chefs! Get the chefs!’” Calvin Trillin, American writer, New Yorker Magazine It’s unlikely Trillin, a humorist renown for his love of food, was entirely serious about his seemingly callous reaction to the poignant imagery of thousands of South Vietnamese fleeing their besieged city. In his own inimitable way, he was using his sardonic wit to express appreciation for the exotic cuisine he loves so much. In fact, he considers the influx of Asians into American restaurant kitchens divine intervention of a sort: “God felt sorry…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoVietnamese

Viet Noodle – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

On April 3, 2013, University of New Mexico (UNM) Vice President for Athletics Paul Krebs sent out a very simple and succinct tweet confirming the hire of head men’s basketball coach Craig Neal. The one-word tweet read simply “Noodles.” Noodles, of course, is the sobriquet Neal received in high school on account of his tall and thin stature. The hire was very enthusiastically received by both fans and players who were witness to the strong impact he had on the program as long-time assistant coach. Albuquerque has always been a Lobo basketball crazed city and it has embraced Noodles who guided his team to 27 wins during his first season as head coach. While the UNM Lobo Club would like…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2014Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Pho Hoa – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Though it ended in 1975, the Vietnam war was still very fresh in the minds of Americans when I enlisted in the Air Force two years later.  Many of my senior colleagues had served in Vietnam and regaled me with tales of their adventures.  It wasn’t man’s inhumanity to man they took away from the experience, but the goodness of people brought together by exigent circumstances.  It is very telling of the high character of my colleagues that despite the ravages of war, they had fallen in love with Vietnam: its people, culture and its food.  Several of my friends sponsored Vietnamese families fleeing the beleaguered nation. One of my friends told me the beauty of Vietnam was best seen…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenSandwichVietnamese

Sai Gon Sandwich – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

If ever there was a culinary Kobayashi Maru (for the non-Trekkies among you, that’s a no-win scenario), it might well be naming the best sandwich (or best food of any kind) in the world. Imagine the challenge. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of delicious candidates, many worthy of acclaim as the very best in their block, city, state or province…but the world’s an awfully big place. A lifetime might not be enough to sample but a few thousand sandwiches. Any sandwich you select would undoubtedly be disputed vehemently. Surely, you say, no authoritative source exists which would possibly have the temerity, much less breadth of knowledge, to name just one sandwich as the very best in the planet. Such hubris…

AlbuquerqueVietnamese

2000 Vietnam Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

JERRY: “By the way Newman, I’m just curious. When you booked the hotel, did you book it for the millennium New Year?” NEWMAN: (smug) “As a matter of fact, I did.” JERRY: “Oh, that’s interesting, because as everyone knows, since there was no year zero, the millennium doesn’t begin until the year two-thousand and one.  Which would make your party one year late, and thus, quite lame.” It’s likely only Jerry Seinfeld and a few chronologically savvy people even know that “2000” and “the Millennium” are not synonymous. When it first launched and for years thereafter, a popular Duke City Vietnamese restaurant was actually named 2000 Millennium Restaurant, a semantically incorrect term. Today, the name on the marquee reflects the…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenRated 23Vietnamese

Kim Long Asian Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED 1 JULY 2015)

Gil Garduno

Growing up on a relatively unsophisticated Northern New Mexican diet featuring such staples as beans, tortillas and chile could hardly be considered a training ground for gastronomic appreciation. Though I thoroughly enjoyed my mom’s cooking it was hardly with the realization that I was feasting on one of America’s very best regional cuisines. Frankly, in the 1960s, only someone with prescience would have thought New Mexican cuisine could eventually garner worldwide acclaim. My siblings and I actually thought we were deprived because we weren’t eating Wonder bread sandwiches, pizza and Big Macs. Similarly, my friend and Intel colleague Huu Vu who grew up in Vietnam had no realization that the simple foods on which he was raised would someday be…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRated 24Vietnamese

May Hong – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In late 2002, long-time proprietor and friend James Nguyen sold May Hong.  Fortunately he kept this wonderful jewel in the family, selling it to his lovely and talented sister-in-law. Best of all, he didn’t relinquish ownership until fully ensuring she could perfectly prepare the recipes that have made May Hong one of the two or three best Vietnamese restaurants in the Duke City.  That short list, by the way, includes James’ second restaurant Cafe Dalat. May Hong (along with Saigon Vietnamese Restaurant) is somewhat of an anomaly in that it’s not located anywhere near Albuquerque’s tightly-knit Vietnamese neighborhoods, most of which seem to be concentrated on the city’s southeast quadrant.   Though situated on bustling Montgomery Avenue, you’ll forget the cares of…