Category: Breakfast

BreakfastNew MexicanNew MexicoSanta Fe

Cafe Castro – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:13 PM

The rich folklore of the Hispanic culture of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado is preserved largely through cuentos and dichos passed down from one generation to the next. Cuentos are stories, legends and myths, the type for which Aesop is renown. Dichos are pithy folk sayings or proverbs much in the style of Confucius. Both cuentos and dichos are replete with the wisdom of the ages expressed in simplistic terms even a child can easily comprehend. They offer words to live by. One of my favorite dichos goes, “A la primera cocinera se le va un chile entero,” which means “To the best cook goes the whole chile.” This dicho recognizes that the best cooks know how to maximize…

AlbuquerqueBakeryBreakfastClosed in 2014GermanGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRated 23

Dagmar’s Restaurant & Strudel Haus – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:18 AM

According to the 2000 United States Census, there are 47 million Americans of German ancestry, making them the largest self-reporting ethnic group in the country. German Americans represent 16 percent of the total U.S. population.  With such a large ancestry group, you might wonder why German cuisine isn’t as popular as the cuisine of its European neighbors Italy and France.  It’s a question which also seems to baffle the National Restaurant Association which posits that Americans characterize German food as “rich, indulgent foods; good, hearty portions; and irresistible desserts.”  With reasons like those, you might expect that there would be more German restaurants across the fruited plain (and more than one German restaurant in the Land of Enchantment).  Bon Appetit‘s…

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Roper’s Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:03 AM

Since the early 1980s when I was stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base, every vehicle I’ve owned has seemingly had a built-in auto-pilot with the destination 8810 Central, S.E. hard-coded. For years that was the address of the junior-most of two Albuquerque Milton’s restaurants, a classic American diner which consistently serves some of the very best diner entrees in the city. Milton’s was for me and my barracks-dwelling friends what Monk’s Cafe was to Jerry Seinfeld and his friends and what the Central Perk Coffee House was to the Friends cast. It’s where we commiserated with one another after a stressful day and it was where we celebrated good times. When I returned to New Mexico after three years in…

AlbuquerqueBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2013Fine DiningGone But Not ForgottenRated 24

Lucia – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:58 PM

There was a time the name “Hilton” didn’t conjure up images of a ditzy blonde airhead whose celebrity is based largely on promiscuity. On second thought, maybe not. More than 50 years ago, another ditzy blonde temptress, Zsa Zsa Gabor honeymooned at Albuquerque’s Hilton Hotel with her then husband Conrad Hilton, a New Mexico native and founder of the historic downtown hotel.  It was Hilton’s fourth hotel and the very first modern high-rise hotel in the Land of Enchantment. The ten-story hotel, launched in 1939, was an example of New Mexico Territorial style architecture, showcasing earth tone stucco and southwest woodwork, furnishings and artwork.  Its imposing two-story lobby, stately arches, hand-carved beams and balconies overlooking the lobby made it one…

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Weck’s – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:53 PM

Arguably the very best programming all year long on KNME, Albuquerque’s Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) comes during its four annual fund-raising campaigns.  For sandwich lovers all over New Mexico, no PBS feature is more greatly appreciated than Sandwiches That You Will Like, a documentary by Rick Sebak of television station WQED in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The documentary showcases unique sandwich offerings from throughout America. Voracious viewers like me practically salivate at the scrumptious sandwiches on display and lament the fact that most of them can’t be found within the borders of the Land of Enchantment. Watching the documentary is torture of the most delicious sort, no doubt prompting a rush to the refrigerator for even the least tortured among us.  One…

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Atrisco Cafe & Bar – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:10 PM

From the snow-capped mountains to the coral shores You’re the only one my heart adores You’ve only got three competitors Tacos, enchiladas and beans From the Mississippi to the Amazon There’s not much we don’t agree upon Wish we could get together on Tacos, enchiladas and beans Love ’em, dozens of ’em I consume them by the score And when I’m through, what do I do I stamp and holler for more You can have the fourth position on my list Must admit your kisses would be missed But how in the world could I exist Without tacos, enchiladas and beans Doris Day In the dark ages when I was growing up in the high mountain community of Peñasco, the…

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Graham’s Grille by Lesley B. Fay – Taos, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:25 PM

While it may be true that you only have one chance to make a good first impression, history has shown that bad first impressions can be overcome.  Further,  given a second chance, someone making a bad first impression may go on to  make a lasting positive impression.   In 1988, a charismatic  young governor was widely jeered during the Democratic National Convention, his first national stage.  After an uninspiring 32-minute-long opening night address, political pundits predicted the demise of the man heretofore considered a rising star in the party.  Four years later Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd President of the United States. Feedback to a surprising number of my reviews has a palpable tone of negativity–sometimes even anger–based on a…

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Santa Ana Cafe – Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:26 AM

As you gaze in awe at the sheer opulence of the expansive Tamaya hospitality complex and resort and consider the Santa Ana Pueblo’s Vegas-style, high-stakes gaming center or 27-hole, championship golf course, you have to conclude that the Pueblo’s tribal enterprises are flourishing–and you would be right. An entrepreneurial spirit is nothing new to the Santa Ana people. The Santa Ana (Tamaya) Pueblo has a long and storied history of forward-thinking and self-reliance. To increase its land base and agricultural production, in 1709 the pueblo purchased 5,000 acres along the Rio Grande. Coupled with its 15,000-acre Spanish land grants and other land purchases, the reservation (population about 500) is today a vast expanse of about 73,000 acres. While Tamaya, the…

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Outlook Cafe – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:25 PM

Some would argue that the city of Rio Rancho was spawned as a dubious marketing ploy designed to bilk gullible New Yorkers out of their savings by enticing them to a vast wasteland under the pretext  that their  “lucrative investment” would  ensure a comfortable retirement in “among the greenest, most fertile valleys in the world.”  Others see those pioneers who sought to civilize the wilderness on the plateaus west of Albuquerque as visionaries possessing a clarity and prescience that escapes most of us. Frankly, on our inaugural trek to the Outlook Cafe, we began to question our own sanity as we traversed what seemed to be an endlessly empty enormity of sage and sand beyond any vestige of civilization save…

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JoAnn’s Ranch O Casados Restaurant – Española, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:18 PM

Shortly after it was announced that Mary & Tito’s was selected as a 2010 recipient of the James Beard Foundation’s “Americas Classic” award, the brilliant Albuquerque Journal columnist Leslie Linthicum wrote a gilt-edged tribute to my very favorite New Mexican restaurant.  Indicating “the red chile at Mary & Tito’s Cafe brings grown men to poetic fevers,” she quoted something I wrote in my review which she must have found to be sufficiently rhapsodic to warrant mention. For anything I write to be considered even remotely “poetic” by the scintillating columnist is a great honor.  Compared to the spell-binding prose and incisive insight which typify Leslie’s columns, my writing is prosaic and dim-witted.  It’s akin to comparing Michelangelo’s work on the…

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Blue Cactus Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:26 PM

In the early 80s I tried to impress my very traditional grandmother by taking her to a recently opened restaurant on Academy Boulevard.  What was not to like?  The restaurant shared the mellifluous name she had proudly worn for over fifty years.  It was a locally owned and operated and had earned several awards.  It boasted a multi-page menu.  Surely Garduno’s of Mexico offered something she would like. It turns out the restaurant’s name was the only thing she liked.  One nod of disapproval after the other ensued as she meticulously perused the menu, a compendium of Mexican and New Mexican appetizers, entrees and desserts.  Scanning the descriptions carefully, she dismissed the contemporary interpretations of the foods on which she was raised…