Category: United States

CaliforniaRated 23Seafood

Schooners Coastal Kitchen & Bar – Monterey, California

Gil Garduno

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” ~John Steinbeck Cannery Row, 1945 During basic military training in the Air Force, several of us who could speak multiple languages were asked to take the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB), the test the military services use to measure aptitude to learn a foreign language.  Fewer than five percent of people who take (or retake) the DLAB pass it.  Somehow I managed a high score and was extended an opportunity to attend the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey.   My response, one borne of ignorance and stupidity, was “I…

CaliforniaFine Dining

Sierra Mar at Post Ranch Inn – Big Sur, California

Gil Garduno

Famous French mime Marcel Marceau once remarked “do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words.”  Without words, a rare state for someone who uses so many of them, aptly describes my reaction at gazing for the first time upon Big Sur with an awe and reverence few sights outside of New Mexico have ever inspired in me.  It eventually dawned on me that my friend Señor Plata may have best described Big Sur when he declared “God spent just a little more time creating Big Sur.”  Translating literally from the Spanish words “El Sur Grande” meaning “the Big South,” Big Sur is a fabled 90-mile expanse of coastline with breathtaking views of precipitous cliffs…

CaliforniaContinentalRated 25

Casanova Restaurant – Carmel, California

Gil Garduno

For they could not love you But still your love was true And when no hope was left inside On that starry, starry night You took your life as lovers often do But I could have told you, Vincent This world was never meant For one as beautiful as you ~Don McLean When Vincent van Gogh painted “The Starry Night” depicting the view of a swirling night sky from the window of his room at the sanatorium Rémy-de-Provence, there’s no way he could possibly have known that its fame would be spread by the heart-rending lyrics of a song.  In 1970, his painting was immortalized in pop culture on the refrain to Don McLean’s 1970 poignant Vincent.  Throughout his 37…

ArizonaClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenRated 23Thai

Mint Thai – Gilbert, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

You might assume that because of my unabashed online promotion of culinary adventures, I would be the classic prostheletizer seeking to convert to the joys of more adventurous dining all lost and wayward souls who frequent chain restaurants. Alas, when traveling with colleagues who are either pedestrian about their dining preferences (they eat to live) or are wholly resistant to trying anything new or different, I tend to defer to their lifestyle choices. It beats listening to comments such as “yech, how can you possibly eat that?” and “that’s not in any of the food groups I know.” The offshoot is that I eat in more chain restaurants than you’ll ever hear me admit to (I don’t write about them for…

AmericanArizonaUnited States

Roadkill Cafe – Seligman, Arizona

Gil Garduno

 I had my dinner yesterday In a place they call the Roadkill Cafe They serve their dishes full of tricks Scraped off Highway 66. From the Roadkill Cafe menu The legality of gathering and consuming roadkill varies from state to state.  In Tennessee, gathering and consuming flattened fauna (save for domestic pets) is not only perfectly legal, it made for great comedic fodder when Volunteer State native Al Gore ran for the Presidency.  In Maine, the police have to tag the furry Frisbees before you can take them home to cook it, while in Wyoming, the tagging is done by a game warden.  Only if you have a scientific collecting permit and plan to study it can you pick up…

ChineseFusionLas Vegas, NevadaMexicanRated 25

China Poblano – Las Vegas Nevada

Gil Garduno

Mexican history and folklore recount the story of a remarkable woman who would come to be venerated as a holy woman and prophetess.  Born to nobility in India and possessing remarkable beauty, she was kidnapped as a young child and brought to Mexico, an intended gift to the Viceroy of Mexico whose personal harem of gorgeous women was known far and wide.  When she arrived in Acapulco on a Chinese ship, people were in awe of her breathtaking appearance and exotic ensemble, detailed with dazzling sequins and complex embroidery.  Her stye would come to be imitated far and wide by Mexican women who called it and her China Poblana which translates literally to “Chinese Pueblan.”  At the time, China was…

Las Vegas, NevadaRated 27Thai

Lotus of Siam – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

In the August, 2000 issue of Gourmet Magazine, multiple-time Pulitzer Prize award-winning writer Jonathan Gold called the Lotus of Siam restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada “the single best Thai restaurant in North America.”  Not a disparaging word was heard or a dissenting opinion offered among the cognoscenti save for those who argued that the word “Thai” should be removed from from Gold’s audacious proclamation.  Lotus of Siam is THAT good! In the decade plus since Gold’s assertion, every reputable critic from every credible publication has jumped on the bandwagon, essentially echoing or adding to to the validation of the greatness that is the Lotus of Siam.  The superlatives are similar on every review you’ll read of this vaunted restaurant; only…

Las Vegas, NevadaRated 26Steak

Lawry’s The Prime Rib – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

“What keeps me motivated is not the food itself but all the bonds and memories the food represents.” ~Michael Chiarello Many of my most cherished memories involve the act of eating and quite often those memories don’t involve the food itself.  The memories which sweeten most over time invariably involve the people with whom those meals were shared.  The act of degustation is infinitely more satisfying and the meals so much more pleasing when shared with loved ones.  In part because of the memories it evokes, one restaurant which will always hold a special place in my heart is Lawry’s The Prime Rib.  Every visit rekindles memories of my first visit and creates new memories to be revisited and cherished…

Las Vegas, NevadaMexicanRated 23

Lindo Michoacan – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

Lindo Michoacan and its three scions strewn throughout the Las Vegas area may be the best gourmet-quality Mexican restaurants we’ve visited in America which aren’t owned by Rick Bayless or aren’t situated in Santa Fe (Los Potrillos) or Albuquerque (Los Equipales). The older sibling, Lindo Michoacan is a storied restaurant which over the years has garnered unprecedented local acclaim and has even been celebrated nationally. For years, it has earned “Best of Las Vegas” honors in the Mexican food category and if you listen to Vegas Chowhounds, there isn’t a Mexican restaurant in the city anywhere close. The founder’s story is also steeped in the kind of heart-rending rags-to-riches details that raconteurs tend to embellish until those details become legendary.…

ItalianLas Vegas, NevadaRated 27

Il Mulino of New York – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

While it may seem that Las Vegas is one perpetual bachelor party with hundreds of drunken frat boys expressing themselves loudly through expletives while leaving a hazy trail of smoke in their wake as they converge upon casino after casino, Sin City does have its pockets of civility.  One such refuge is Il Mulino during the lunch hour when it’s a veritable island of isolation and paragon of propriety despite being mere feet from the maddening throngs.  Perhaps it’s that aspect of propriety that explains the absence of teeming masses during lunch. Yes, it’s THAT Il Mulino, scion of the famous Italian restaurant held in reverential esteem and cited by the cognoscenti as perhaps the very best Italian restaurant in…

Las Vegas, NevadaSeafood

Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

“Stone crab is probably what God eats every night of the year, but in Florida we mortals only have it from mid-October to mid-May…” Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement Whether or not stone crab is really what God likes for dinner might make an interesting literary debate, but there’s no disputing that ordinary and not-so-mere mortals have loved the captivating crustaceans of citrus country for nearly a century.  In 1913 Joe Weiss discovered that stone crabs were not only edible, they were delicious–so much so that his small lunch counter in then backwater Miami Beach became an epicurean epicenter.  High society–everyone from Will Rogers, Gloria Swanson and Emelia Earhart to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and…