Category: Breakfast

AmericanBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2012Gone But Not Forgotten

Cafe Green – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:45 PM

Brunch is the best of two worlds–not quite breakfast and not quite lunch, but the best of both. It’s a leisurely weekend repast which makes you feel you’re getting away with something, as if you’re defying your mom’s mandate not to have dessert before the main entree. The feeling that you’re getting away with something delightfully illicit is reenforced as you lap up mimosas and Bloody Marys as fast as the wait staff can bring them to you. Brunch even allows you to get away with laziness at least once a year when you have the excuse to drag mom to a restaurant where she and countless other moms can be pampered on their special day. Americans have loved brunch…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2017Dog FriendlyGone But Not Forgotten

Gold Street Caffe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:51 PM

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely You can always go – downtown When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry Seems to help, I know – downtown Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty How can you lose? The lights are much brighter there You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares So go downtown, things’ll be great when you’re Downtown – no finer place, for sure Downtown – everything’s waiting for you. Just a few years ago, the lyrics to Petula Clark’s January, 1965 number one single, would not have been used to describe Albuquerque’s downtown area. In…

AmericanBreakfastClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009

Harla May’s Fat Boy Grill – Belen, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:22 PM

Many of us who grew up in small town America during the 60s sometimes pine for the more innocent days of our youth–the days before cable television gave us hundreds of channels (and nothing to watch) and video games became the only form of exercise (albeit, of their thumbs) our children get. Back then, the movie theater was the town’s cultural center. It was where small-town America congregated to see Hollywood blockbusters (about two years after they hit the big cities) as well as movies which introduced our innocents to the Hell’s Angels, Bruce Lee, Godzilla and campy Sonny and Cher movies. The small-town American theater in New Mexico also meant Cantinflas, the campesino once referred to by Charlie Chaplin…

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Cafe Pasqual’s – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:36 PM

Pasqual Baylon’s devotion to the Mass and the Holy Eucharist was so fervent that when assigned kitchen duty, angels had to stir the pots to keep them from burning.  It’s ironic therefore that San Pasqual is the recognized patron saint of Mexican and New Mexican kitchens, a beloved saint whose smiling countenance in the form of various art forms graces many a kitchen, including Katharine Kagel’s kitchen in the world famous Cafe Pasqual, one of Santa Fe’s most popular restaurants. Cafe Pasqual is a very small cafe with seating for only 50 patrons sitting in very close quarters. Prospective diners place their names on a waiting list then typically wait half an hour or more to be seated, usually longer…

BarbecueBreakfastClosed in 2010New MexicoRated 23Rio Rancho

Mad Max’s BBQ – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:44 PM

NOTE:  In March, 2010, Max and Fran Montano entered into a lease to buy agreement with an enthusiastic owner who continued to use the recipes which made Mad Max’s the very best barbecue in the Albuquerque area.  By September, 2010 the restaurant was closed.  Max and Fran will continue competing in competitions throughout the region and will also cater events.  They will be missed as much for their warmth and great humor as for their outstanding barbecue. Since the discovery of fire, man has viewed his domain as the great outdoors. The outdoors is from where man brought home the day’s victuals for early woman to prepare.  As the centuries progressed, descendents of troglodytic man (many of whom haven’t evolved…

AmericanBakeryBreakfastClosed in 2011Gone But Not ForgottenLos Ranchos de Albuquerque

Calico Cantina & Cafe – Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:22 AM

The first time my friends and I visited the Calico Cafe at its original Corrales location, we wondered if the restaurant suffered from an identity crisis. Exterior signage read “Calico Cafe” but the menus indicated we were dining at “Cowgirl’s.” Apparently the restaurant was initially christened Cowgirl’s, but a name change was court-ordered after a naming dispute with Santa Fe’s long-established Cowgirls BBQ restaurant. On December 2nd, 2004, the popular and intimate lunch and breakfast restaurant owned by Corrales residents Vernon and Angel Garcia, was consumed by fire. In 2006, the Calico Cantina & Cafe launched in a new and much expanded location, the 19,000 square foot Village Shops at Los Ranchos–in the heart of the original Route 66. Coupled…

AlbuquerqueBakeryBreakfastClosed in 2012DonutsGone But Not ForgottenSpecialty

Paradise Donuts – Bosque Farms, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:41 PM

Though often boorish and crude, America’s favorite everyman philosopher Homer Simpson is prone to occasional bouts of insight. Who can argue with such Homeric sagacity as, “donuts, is there anything they can’t do.” At first browse that statement may appear clouded, make that glazed, but it’s a statement replete with credibility–and not solely with police officers. Cultural anthropologist Paul R. Mullins posits that one of the best ways to examine a culture is by looking at its eating habits and regional cuisines. He reasons that Americans don’t really have a culinary culture we can call our own, that the American culinary experience is an amalgam of appropriated customs and cooking techniques. The best evidence of this, in his mind, is…

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Guadalupe Cafe – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:07 PM

1974, Mexico’s Nobel laureate Octavio Paz wrote that “the Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery.” Though perhaps not to the same degree of reverence as people of Mexican descent have for Our Lady of Guadalupe, many diners literally make pilgrimages to Santa Fe’s Guadalupe Cafe. You might say they trek to this beloved institution with a type of fervor which could be considered almost spiritual. The Guadalupe Cafe, long removed from Santa Fe’s Guadalupe District and Guadalupe Street, does indeed inspire a fierce devotion. It is one of the most popular restaurants in Santa Fe, a venue often included in discussions about the best New…

BakeryBreakfastNew MexicanNew MexicoTaos County

Michael’s Kitchen – Taos, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:56 PM

Murphy’s Law postulates that “if anything can go wrong, it will.” This rather pessimistic and oft-quoted expression has become a catch-all when everything seems to go askew. Murphy’s Law is blamed when you’re in the slowest line at a grocery store behind people who can’t find their checkbooks. It’s the reason the toast you accidentally drop off the table lands butter side down. It’s why the loudest and rudest people always sit in front of you at a movie theater. Murphy’s Law is also the reason the restaurant you brag most about will invariably have an “off night” on the day people you most want to impress visit. It never fails! This immutable law works like compound interest. The more…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastClosed in 2009

Sunshine Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:36 AM

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry Sunshine on the waters looks so lovely Sunshine almost always makes me high -John Denver A gloomy, gray winter day in Minnesota was the inspiration for John Denver’s number one song “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” During a visit to the Gopher State in 1974, he experienced the type of “cabin fever” with which many New Mexicans are familiar after one gloomy winter day after another (ask anyone from Chama).  Minnesota, as we know, is a far cry from New Mexico when it comes to winter warmth and sunshine. Still, after the winter of 2007-2008, many New Mexicans are able to empathize with Denver’s being ready…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenRated 23

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

Gil Garduno3:03 AM

In a 2002 column Jason Sheehan, one of the best in a succession of outstanding Alibi restaurant critics assembled a dream menu of the best foods he had ever eaten, a “desert-island top ten” from which he’d choose if ever asked the question, “If you could eat only one thing every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?”  His top ten list included the phenomenal red chile breakfast burritos from Milton’s Family Restaurant in Albuquerque. As a restaurant critic I’d flatter myself disingenuously if I compared myself to Sheehan, but at least in terms of our mutually high opinion of Milton’s breakfast burritos, we’re completely simpatico. I first discovered those tortilla encased treasures when stationed at…