Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog
Follow the Culinary Ruminations of New Mexico's Sesquipedalian Sybarite. 1,302 Restaurant Reviews, More Than 13,100 Visitor Comments…And Counting!
Since 2007, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host Guy Fieri has taken a fifteen-year long (and still going) cross-country road trip to visit some of America’s classic “greasy spoon” restaurants — diners, drive-ins and dives — that have been doing it right for decades. He’s visited dozens of restaurants in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but like much of the…
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a cautious reemergence into a world where “normal” is constantly being redefined. New Mexico’s restaurants continue to push boundaries, shift paradigms, and invent new and better ways to serve their guests. 2021 saw the proliferation of the “ghost kitchen” concept. Bold restaurateurs began pushing back against parasitic delivery companies that misrepresented alliances…
You might think that my annual “best of the best” compilation would be replete with lavishly extravagant dishes proffered by swanky fine-dining establishments. Instead, the list of dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2021 are almost exclusively of the “cheap eats” (or reasonably priced) variety, selected not for complex culinary preparations and…
We’ll always remember 2020 as the year we mostly stayed home, the year of cancelled vacations, of working remotely and as the ignominious year of politics and pandemics, a “year of nonstop awfulness,” according to Dave Berry. It was the year so many our favorite restaurants and small businesses had to shutter their doors and…
2020 will be remembered for a series of shelter-in-place and lockdown restrictions that largely limited restaurants to delivery, call in, carry out and online ordering options. The resilience, strength and innovation demonstrated daily by restaurateurs throughout the country has been inspirational. Despite the tremendous challenges and economic hardships they faced daily, restaurants soldiered on, blessing…
Several years ago after waging a lengthy and courageous battle, my friend Larry’s beloved bride of nearly four decades succumbed to the ravages of cancer. It was a devastating loss for her family, friends and community who loved her. Among the very first people who reached out to Larry were Joe and Kassie Guzzardi, the…
In 2017, legendary Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold declared “food blogs are dead. There are still some people doing them, and there are still a bunch of cookery blogs where people are wrestling with cupcakes, but Instagram has so totally and thoroughly usurped whatever blogs used to do.” Much as I respect and…
With a puff of white smoke emanating from the chimney of the Garduño residence and to the cheers of legions of loyal Gil’s thrilling readers, your friendly neighborhood blogger has finally named the very best of the best for 2019. These are the dishes I enjoyed most across the Land of Enchantment in 2019, the…
Over the years perhaps no restaurant across the Land of Enchantment has garnered as much acclaim as Santa Fe’s Geronimo. It’s been long and widely acknowledged that Geronimo is one of the very best fine-dining restaurants not only in New Mexico, but under the spacious skies. In TripAdvisor’s compilation of the 25 top fine dining…
“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.” Sound of Music fans will recognize that these are a few of Julie Andrews favorite things. It’s with great fondness and more than a little (blush) salivation that I bid adieu and auld lang syne to my my favorite things–the dishes…
New Mexico’s storied history will recall that 2009 was the year of the green chile cheeseburger. It all started in May when Bobby Olguin, the gregarious owner of San Antonio’s Buckhorn Tavern bested Food Network celebrity chef Bobby Flay in a “green chile cheeseburger throwdown.” Capitalizing on the momentum, Governor Bill Richardson called for a…
