Category: United States

Diners Drive-Ins and DivesIllinoisSandwichUnited States

Al’s #1 Beef – Chicago, Illinois

Gil Garduno7:48 AM

Assume the position!  It’s been called the “Chicago Lean,” the “Italian Stance” and simply “The Stance.”   It’s  the time-tested, traditional art and science of eating Italian beef sandwiches, a Chicago specialty.  Trust me, it’s not the same as eating an ordinary sandwich.  If you don’t follow the process, you’re bound to spill shards of beef, bits of giardiniera and drippings of spice-laden beef gravy onto your clothing.  Italian beef sandwiches are as messy as they are delicious.  Some Italian beef sandwich shops don’t even offer seating.  Instead, they provide high, thin counters with or without stools where you’ll park yourself and proceed to assume the position.  I’ll let the professionals take over from here.  Courtesy of Italianbeef.com: (1)  Put…

IllinoisRated 27SteakUnited States

David Burke’s Primehouse – Chicago, Illinois

Gil Garduno11:48 PM

By day, my friend James Sorenham was an architect of his business group’s data warehouse and business intelligence strategies.  By night and on weekends, James was a gentleman farmer tending to a small herd at his Broke Again ranch outside Portland, Oregon.  James took immense pride in raising prized beef cattle and kept his colleagues apprised of their progress through his weekly status reports.  Alas, his writing skills weren’t in the same zip code as his data management skills so when he reported that he had “personally inseminated sixteen cows,” he got teased mercilessly about his deviant bestial activities. The fact that David Burke is the first chef to own his own bull means “personal insemination” of beef cattle can…

Fine DiningIllinoisRated 27United States

The Purple Pig – Chicago, Illinois

Gil Garduno4:52 PM

Poet Carl Sandburg bestowed the nickname “hog butcher for the world” upon the great city of Chicago at a time when the city was the epicenter for meatpacking in the United States. Companies such as Oscar Mayer, Swift and Armour operated large plants in the city, employing hundreds of residents. Unfortunately, Chicago’s streets became frequently overcrowded with pigs and cattle being herded through the streets to the plants. Ultimately the largest companies banded together in 1865 to build the Union Stock Yards next to the railroad tracks. Henceforth animals were ferried to the plants by train instead of through city streets. The 1970 closure of the Union Stockyards brought an end to the time when Chicago was nicknamed the “hog…

IllinoisMexicanRated 26United States

Frontera Grill – Chicago, Illinois

Gil Garduno1:20 PM

Not everyone has the relentless drive and impassioned fortitude to parlay their most ardent desires and zealous fervor into a wildly successful thematic venture, but then not everyone is Rick Bayless, America’s Mexican chef and restaurateur nonpareil. His single-minded passion for the Mexican culinary experience is reflected in multimedia ventures such as his successful PBS television series “Cooking Mexican” and “Mexico – One Plate At A Time” as well as his genre-redefining, award-winning books. One of those books, Authentic Mexican was heralded by the New York Times as “the greatest contribution to the Mexican table imaginable” while another, Mexican Kitchen was chosen best cookbook of the year.  Mostly, however, his passion is reflected in his restaurants. In 1987, Bayless launched…

ArizonaBurgersUnited States

In-N-Out Burger – Chandler, Arizona

Gil Garduno2:48 PM

During a 2011 episode of Break the Chain, the enlightening and entertaining food-centric radio program hosted by the brilliant Ryan Scott, Larry McGoldrick, the professor with the pulchritudinous palate, made some rather unkind comments about Blake’s Lotaburger, an exclusively New Mexico institution.  I cautioned him that local listeners might show up at the radio station armed with pitchforks and torches. That’s how much New Mexicans love the burger franchise whose motto reminds them that “If you are what you eat, you are awesome.” It’s not always easy to express your opinion about something as sacrosanct and beloved as Lotaburger, but inspired by Larry’s honesty, let me share my thoughts about In-N-Out Burger, a California institution that’s beloved beyond the Golden…

AmericanCaliforniaUnited States

Indigo Moon Cafe, Wine and Cheese Shop – Cambria, California

Gil Garduno5:34 PM

It might be easy to dismiss Cambria as a “jumping off” point to some of California’s most spectacular and  popular sites…until you actually visit Cambria.  That’s when you discover that there is plenty to see and do in this picturesque seaside village on the Central California Coast which Forbes.com declared “one of America’s prettiest towns.”  It’s a town virtually surrounded on three sides by towering pines and Monterey Cyprus which form a natural canopy over the beachside boardwalk.  To its west is the shimmering Pacific Ocean with some of the most pristine, unspoiled beaches in the state. Cambria virtually unfolds along the fabled Highway 1 at exactly the halfway point–240 miles–from both San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Just barely above…

AmericanCaliforniaUnited States

Nepenthe Restaurant – Big Sur, California

Gil Garduno11:11 AM

With all the travails and vicissitudes of  modern life, we can all use  a respite or safe harbor to which we can escape…where we can take a break from all our worries.  Big Sur, California, which most would consider an escape in and of itself has a dining destination which has been nourishing diners both physically and spiritually  for more than six decades.  It’s called Nepenthe, a Greek word which can be translated to “isle of no care,” “a place to find surcease from sorrow.” Lest you get the impression Nepenthe is a real-world Cheers tavern, it is oh, so much more.  First, if there’s a true paradise on Earth (other than New Mexico, of course), it may well exist…

CaliforniaSeafoodUnited States

Schooners Coastal Kitchen & Bar – Monterey, California

Gil Garduno8:20 AM

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 DiningUnited States

Sierra Mar at Post Ranch Inn – Big Sur, California

Gil Garduno2:34 PM

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…

CaliforniaContinentalUnited States

Casanova Restaurant – Carmel, California

Gil Garduno9:50 AM

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 23ThaiUnited States

Mint Thai – Gilbert, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:41 AM

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…