Rating: Excellent Archives - Page 9 of 19 - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog

Albuquerque Bakery Jewish New Mexico Rating: Excellent

Ruthie’s Bagels – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJanuary 11, 2022March 31, 202612:01 AM

George: “I came this close last night, and then I just sort of chickened out.” Jerry: “Well, that’s a big move, Georgie boy. Are you confident in the “I love you” return?” George: “Fifty-fifty.” Jerry: “Because if you don’t get that return, that’s a pretty big matzo ball hanging out there.” ~Seinfeld The 1980s comedy Seinfeld has been described as “a show about nothing” largely because it focuses on the minutiae of daily life. A show about nothing is, of course, a faulty premise. In the case of Seinfeld, the “nothing” may have referred to the simplicity of each episode’s narrative. More often than not, each weekly show focused on four people coming in and out of Seinfeld’s apartment or a…

Albuquerque American Bakery Breakfast Dog Friendly Rating: Excellent

The Flying Star – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJanuary 5, 2022April 5, 20264:39 PM

In the ancient Chinese art and science of Feng Shui, flying stars are used to assess the quality of the energy flow (qi) in a given place at a given time. The positive and negative auras of a building are charted using precise mathematical formulas to determine the wealth, academic, career, success, relationships and health of a building’s inhabitant. By understanding the course of harmful and beneficial flying stars, appropriate Feng Shui cures can be employed to mitigate the effects of those harmful stars while enhancing the positive effects of the beneficial stars. While owners Jean and Mark Bernstein may not have renamed their successful local restaurant chain for the Feng Shui principles of flying stars, there’s no denying the…

Albuquerque Closed in 2022 Gone But Not Forgotten New Mexico Rating: Excellent Southern

Ms. Gennie’s House of Chicken – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil GardunoDecember 5, 2021March 31, 20265:04 PM

My Air Force friend and colleague Al Garcia once shared one of those amusing anecdotes that will leave your head shaking in disbelief even as you’re practically rolling on the floor with laughter. According to Al who grew up in the Socorro area, his parents had to make a daylong trip to the big city (Albuquerque), leaving him and his sister at home to finish their chores. At around lunchtime, he and his sister got hungry and decided to prepare some rice. Never having cooked rice before, they poured an entire bag of rice into a pot, added water and turned the stove on high. In a few minutes, rice began spilling out over the pot like lava flowing…

Albuquerque Breakfast Dog Friendly New Mexican Rating: Excellent

Barelas Coffee House – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoNovember 6, 2021April 3, 202612:16 AM

Quick, name the oldest neighborhood in Albuquerque. Most people would say Old Town which was settled in 1706 near the banks of the Rio Grande. Most people would be wrong. The oldest neighborhood in Albuquerque is actually the Barelas neighborhood, formally established as a ranching settlement in the late 1600s. The history of the central Rio Grande region began at and expanded from Barelas, once a thriving hub of commerce bustling with activity. Both the Camino Real, the royal road to Mexico City and Route 66, America’s mother road passed through the Barelas neighborhood. Barelas was the seat of a flourishing railroad enterprise which facilitated a burgeoning economy. The neighborhood began a precipitous decline in the 1950s when odoriferous emanations…

Breakfast Mexican New Mexico Rating: Excellent Santa Fe

Los Potrillos – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil GardunoOctober 25, 2021April 5, 20262:39 AM

Faced with a situation that renders us incredulous, many of us might yammer incoherently, complain vociferously or maybe even utter colorful epithets. Such moments, it seems, are best expressed with succinct precision, a rare skill mastered by a select few wordsmiths from which eloquence flows regardless of situation–polymaths such as the late Anthony Bourdain, a best-selling author, world traveler, renowned chef and “poet of the common man.” Flummoxed at the discovery of a Chili’s restaurant a mere five miles from the Mexican border, I might have ranted and raved about another inferior chain restaurant and its parody of Mexican food. With nary a hint of contempt, Bourdain instead compared the spread of Chili’s restaurants across America to herpes. How utterly…

Albuquerque Mexican New Mexico Rating: Excellent Tacos

Tako Ten – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoSeptember 24, 2021April 3, 202611:57 AM

Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, wasn’t kidding when he quipped “The Taco Bell taco is dead. Long live the taco.” Boomers like me may not have grown up heading for the border, but we did grow up with the Taco Bell “taco template”–a crunchy hard-shell tortilla crammed with seasoned ground beef, chopped tomato, lettuce, a fistful of shredded yellow cheese and a large dollop of sour cream. We’ve long since joined enlightened millennials and generation Z diners in railing against what Chef Rick Bayless calls Taco Bell’s “near-laughable caricature” of authentic Mexican tacos. So just what are authentic Mexican tacos? Travel throughout the Land of Montezuma and whether you get your tacos from upscale…

Albuquerque Closed in 2021 Gone But Not Forgotten New Mexico Rating: Excellent Thai

Siam Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil GardunoJuly 30, 2021March 31, 20263:37 AM

It’s oft been said that “you taste first with your eyes.” Certainly sight figures in to the enjoyment of food and sets expectations, but the first sensory receptors to engage in taste is the sense of smell. If you’ve ever experienced a pleasant aroma wafting toward you as you approach a restaurant, you’ll agree. The Siam Cafe is quite possibly the most aromatically-enticing, olfactory-arousing restaurant in the Duke City. Its exotic spices and herbs waft like a gentle summer breeze over all diners entering what is conceivably Albuquerque’s best Thai restaurant. For years the marquee named its previous occupant, Pollo Loco, before the owners of the Siam Cafe finally changed the marquee in 2003. With its new signage, this gem declared…

Albuquerque Food Truck New Mexico Rating: Excellent Specialty

Busy Bee Frozen Custard – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJune 20, 2021April 3, 20261:01 PM

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw has been credited with the aphorism “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” My Kim and I had no idea just how different the Queen’s English is from the English spoken by the colonists until we were assigned to Royal Air Force Fairford. As part of the newcomers orientation, we were required to attend a course in which those vast differences between American English and England English were explained. Many of those differences were rather comedic, but we were warned, “if Yanks aren’t careful, we could perpetuate the dreaded “ugly American” stereotype widely held in some parts of Europe.” We learned, for example, that if an American serviceman walks up to…

Barbecue Dog Friendly New Mexico Rating: Excellent

Watson’s BBQ – Tucumcari, New Mexico

Gil GardunoMarch 4, 2021April 5, 202612:01 AM

The Wikipedia article on Eastern New Mexico describes the region as “mostly characterized by flat featureless terrain,” even likening it to West Texas: “Like much of the Llano Estacado region, Eastern New Mexico is largely agricultural and resembles West Texas in geography, culture, economy, and demographics.” While Eastern New Mexico may not be back-dropped by spectacular mountain ranges or bisected by the murky Rio Grande, it’s got an enchantment all its own even if the Wikipedia writer can’t see it. It’s also got something else the Rio Grande Corridor, for all its population centers and cultural diversity, can’t match. It’s got long-standing barbecue traditions that, not surprisingly, have their roots in Texas. By comparison, barbecue along the Rio Grande Corridor…

Arizona New Mexican Rating: Excellent United States

Richardson’s Cuisine of New Mexico – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil GardunoDecember 26, 2020March 31, 20263:34 AM

My friend and former Intel colleague Steve Caine will forever rue the day he asked me to help him with an expense report for a business trip he made to Portland, Oregon. His itemized expense report indicated he had dined twice at Chevy’s, a middling quality Americanized Mexican restaurant which wouldn’t survive in the tough Albuquerque market. I teased him mercilessly. Worse, when my boss saw what the commotion was all about, he immediately put Steve on double-secret probation. Steve has never lived down visiting a Chevy’s in Portland where he could have had some of the country’s freshest and best seafood. When the din died down, Steve admitted somewhat sheepishly that after two days in Portland, he was…

Arizona English Rating: Excellent United States

Cornish Pasty Company – Scottsdale, Arizona

Gil GardunoDecember 22, 2020April 6, 202612:57 PM

There’s a European joke that uses stereotypes to deride British cooking, among the most maligned cuisines in the world culinary stage. As the joke goes, in the European conception of heaven, the French are the chefs, the British are the police, the Germans are the engineers, and so forth, while in the European conception of Hell, the Germans are the police, the French are the engineers and the British are the chefs. Rodney Dangerfield got more respect than British cuisine. While fish and chips are probably what most Americans would answer if asked what constitutes traditional British food, the truth is British food is as diverse as its many regions. During the three plus years we lived in England, we…