Category: Rating: Excellent

Excellent – High quality dining experience; very good to excellent food, attentive service, and a well-maintained atmosphere; worth a detour.

2022 James Beard Foundation - "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2022Diners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersRating: ExcellentSandwich

Bocadillos Slow Roasted: A Sandwich Shop – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:19 AM

The Food Network’s television cameras just love Chef Marie Yniguez who’s been showcased on not one, not two, not even three, but four of its prime-time programs. Aficionados of her cooking will tell you that in three of those programs she even upstaged Guy Fieri, the spiky-coiffed chef-glitterati.  Marie is a larger-than-life personality whose irreverent sense of humor, Burque pride and charisma can’t be contained within the small screen.  It’s inevitable that some network executive will someday make a movie of her life.  The question is who would play her.  Lady Gaga?  Nah, not enough personality.  Meryl Streep?  Ditto and then some.  Jennifer Lopez?  Getting closer.  The truth is, only Marie Yniguez can play Marie Yniguez. There’s no question Marie has led a very (to put it mildly) interesting life.   Her childhood in Hurley, New Mexico, a hardscrabble mining town where hard-working people owed their souls to the company store, imbued her with a work ethic which has served her well.  At age ten, her family moved to Albuquerque where five years later, a formative experience at a part-time job gave her the drive to persevere and surmount criticism.  A short-sighted supervisor who told her she’d never be more than…

AmericanBrunchCorralesDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Indigo Crow Cafe – Corrales, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:55 PM

Now I lay myself down to sleep I pray oh lord my soul to keep Cause if I should die before I wake I hope up in Heaven they’ve got lobster and steak It’s a sin if Heaven ain’t got an Indigo Crow Best food down here up there they’ve gotta know. A Sin if Heaven ain’t got an Indigo Crow But if they don’t then why the hell should I go. Now I’ve tried every joint around here I’ve had green chile stew, I’ve had had my root beer But when I want to treat my taste buds right I know this place is drop-dead tight It’s a sin if Heaven ain’t got an Indigo Crow Best food down here up there they gotta know. – Oscar Butler What would possess troubadour Oscar Butler to rhapsodize in his inimitable melodious timbre about a charming rural retreat in Corrales, New Mexico which serves some of the very best food in the metropolitan Duke City area?  A native New Yorker now living in Albuquerque, Butler sums it up in four words, “Great food, great atmosphere!” There’s a lot to love about the Indigo Crow and it starts with ambiance (atmosphere, if…

AlbuquerqueBreakfastClosed in 2024Diners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanRating: ExcellentTravel Channel Eats New Mexico

Cecilia’s Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:12 PM

FROM INSTAGRAM (December, 2024):  After 25 years on the corner of 6th & Silver, Cecilia’s Café has closed its doors. This New Mexican breakfast and lunch restaurant was once featured on the Food Network and was a beloved space for locals.  Owner Cecilia Baca cited persistent challenges with homeless people, issues finding employees, and the remote/hybrid work phenomenon as key reasons for closing. Since the pandemic, “customers aren’t working a full week,” she said. “Just a lot of little things that made me realize that Downtown will not come back to life the way it was before COVID.” Pasqual Baylon’s devotion to the Mass and the Holy Eucharist was so fervent that even when assigned kitchen duty, he remained so enraptured in adoration of the Eucharist that angels had to stir the pots to keep them from burning.  It’s deliciously ironic, therefore, that San Pasqual is the recognized patron saint of Mexican and New Mexican kitchens, a beloved saint whose smiling countenance graces many a kitchen, including the one in Cecilia’s Cafe, one of Albuquerque’s most authentic (and best) New Mexican restaurants. On the day Cecilia opened her cafe back in 1999, she found a small retablo (a painting with…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSalvadoran

Gobble This – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:06 PM

“Is there a sound on Earth as joyous as the pat-pat-pat from a Salvadoran kitchen, the gentle rhythm of a cook slapping together a pupusa that just happens to be yours?” ~Jonathan Gold Pulitzer Prize-Winning Restaurant Critic Los Angeles Times Somewhere amid the bottlenecked tangle of highways, byways, freeways, parkways, roadways and expressways (boy, is that a misnomer) that make up Los Angeles there is well-trod mile many consider sacred. The Los Angeles Times calls it the “pupusa mile.” Housed in this approximately 5,280-foot-long stretch just beyond Koreatown is a congregation of Salvadoran restaurants so revered that “walking the pupusa mile is considered a foodie rite of passage.” Foodies were late-comers to the pupusa mile. Salvadorans, who constitute the second largest foreign-born group in Los Angeles with about 68,000 households, have been making pupusa pilgrimages for generations. Chef Nestor Lopez, scion of Salvadoran immigrants, grew up in Los Angeles and was largely raised on the foods of his ancestral homeland. When he matriculated at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, he didn’t intend or expect to someday launch a restaurant showcasing Salvadoran cuisine. His culinary arts focus was on fine dining. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu, he plied…

BarbecueBurgersClosed in 2023Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Excellent

Sugar’s BBQ & Burgers – Embudo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:52 AM

The winding highway meandering along the murky Rio Grande through Embudo is among the most scenic in the state, particularly in mid-autumn when leaves turn a vibrant shade of gold. You’ll want to drive slowly to take in the foliage, but especially to make sure you imbibe the hazy smoke plumes emanating from Sugar’s BBQ & Burgers which waft into your motorized conveyance like a sweet Texas smoke signal beckoning you to try a combo platter. The first time we met owners Nancy and Neil Nobles, we were blown away by their genuine humility. Until we told them, the genial proprietors of this corrugated tin shack and kitchen only a couple of hundred feet from the serpentine Rio Grande had no idea that they had been showcased on Roadfood.com. Their giddiness was unique and refreshing. While Neil prepared our meal, Nancy looked up Michael Stern’s eloquent review on the Roadfood Web site. That review is now framed and posted on the walls of the restaurant’s kitchen. Another glowing accolade–recognition as one of America’s ten best drive-ins by no less than Gourmet magazine–is also posted. That recognition came in May, 2005, culminating five years of growing acclaim.  Most recently (October, 2018),…

AlbuquerqueRating: ExcellentVietnamese

Pho Linh Vietnamese Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:33 AM

You always remember your first time…and if it’s good, it may set the standard by which you’ll forever measure every other time. I was a lanky lad of nineteen, away from home for the first time when “it” happened. As a precocious yet naive child growing up in bucolic Peñasco, New Mexico, I had been sheltered from the wiles and ways of the world and felt silly and embarrassed about being so inexperienced. All my new friends in Massachusetts seemed so sophisticated in comparison. Luckily I had a very patient and understanding teacher who taught me all its nuances and variations–how to appreciate its fragrant bouquet, taste the subtleties of its unique flavors and use my fingers as if lightly caressing its delicate features. To this day, I still compare all other Vietnamese meals against my first that balmy summer day in Massachusetts. I treasure the memories of my first fresh spring rolls; marinated, grilled beef served atop a bed of rice vermicelli and the fragrance of leafy basil wafting from my first steaming bowl of pho. The intoxicating aromas of Vietnamese cuisine remain a potent medium for conjuring up memories of my first time. A flood of memories greeted…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyMediterraneanRating: Excellent

Pars Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:43 PM

“Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — And Wilderness is Paradise enow.” – The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam The imagery inspired by this enduring poem–most notably “a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou“–can be read on so many levels–some literal and some allegorical. In the literal sense, these few lines may evoke images of a romantic dalliance in an idyllic wilderness, its lines undoubtedly kindling intense ardor. In the allegorical sense, some scholars believe one of the core themes of The Rubaiyat is a reiteration of a passage from The Gospel of Luke: “eat, drink and be merry.” Others compare its outlook to Ecclesiastes: that life is vanity, our knowledge is limited, our time is brief, and the existence of another world uncertain. Focusing solely on the literal translation, perhaps the modern day urban equivalent of a romantic outdoors tryst is a meal at Pars Cuisine which specializes in the Persian food Khayyam enjoyed during his time. At Pars (synonymous with Persian), that cuisine is served in a milieu which may inspire a little romance in its…

AmericanBurgersDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Black Bird Saloon – Los Cerrillos, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:57 PM

On a journey by train to San Francisco, New Mexico’s legendary award-winning author Tony Hillerman shared an observation car with businessmen from the East. As the spectacular Zuni Buttes, majestic Mount Taylor, breathtaking mesas and skies resplendent with monsoon thunderclouds passed in review, his heart was lifted and his worries dissipated. He then overheard one of the Easterners remark to the other, “My God, why would anybody live out here?” Hillerman’s immediate (though unspoken) thought was, “My God, why wouldn’t everyone want to live out here?” As Hillerman’s experience clearly illustrates, one person’s “middle of nowhere” is another person’s idyllic paradise. Similarly, what some consider “nothing to do here” is the pace of life others spend their life pursuing. It’s a dichotomy of lifestyles not delineated by age or wealth, but by attitude and maturity. In my twenties, my perspective of Los Cerrillos, New Mexico would have been similar to that of the Easterners. Thirty years later, I echo Hillerman’s sentiment. It dawned on me as I lounged under the shady porch in front of the Black Bird Saloon, my debonair dachshund The Dude by my side, that there was nowhere on God’s beautiful Earth I’d rather be at that…

BarbecueNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Danny’s Place – Carlsbad, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:59 PM

For some reason, national print and online publications and even the Food Network can’t seem to fathom that the Land of Enchantment has outstanding cuisine outside the shining pinnacles of Santa Fe and Albuquerque. To some extent the media may be justified in perceiving the City Different and Duke City as offering the quintessence of what makes New Mexico a culinary Mecca. Obviously, Santa Fe and Albuquerque enthrall hungry visitors armed with voracious appetites (especially for our incendiary red and green chile), but to discount the cuisine at other cities throughout our diverse state is just plain lazy. Santa Fe and Albuquerque do not have exclusivity when it comes to extraordinary restaurants and cuisine. Phenomenal eateries and cuisine can be found throughout the Land of Enchantment. When it comes to naming New Mexico’s best restaurants and best cuisine, the mantra embraced by national media seems to be “round up the usual suspects.” Invariably, a short list of “anointed” restaurants from Santa Fe and Albuquerque is repeated ad-nauseam whenever a “best this” or “best that” list is compiled. The list of anointed restaurants is short, exclusive and predictable. It’s hard to break into the list if a restaurant isn’t from Santa…

AmericanBurgersNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Big D’s Downtown Dive – Roswell, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

During a March, 2012 trip to Roswell, New Mexico President Barack Obama made the following opening remarks to his speech. “We had landed in Roswell. I announced to people when I landed that I had come in peace. (Laughter) Let me tell you – there are more nine and ten year old boys around the country when I meet them – they ask me, “Have you been to Roswell and is it true what they say? And I tell them, ‘If I told you I would have to kill you.’ So their eyes get all big…so…we’re going to keep our secrets here.” To many, his comment was just an innocent joke, but to passionate conspiracy theorists, Obama’s remarks were further proof of a government cover-up of the extraterrestrial crash landing which supposedly occurred outside Roswell in 1947. Ufologists like to point out that in the seventy years since that extraterrestrial crash, there has been a quantum leap in technology, a leap unprecedented in all human history. Believers will tell you humankind had help in making those advances and that the help came in the form of technology found in the downed alien spacecraft recovered in a pasture northwest of Roswell.…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenRating: Excellent

Philly’s N Fries – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED: May 18, 2018)

Gil Garduno11:36 AM

“But it’s a dry heat.” You’ve probably seen that slogan emblazoned on tee-shirts depicting a sun bleached skeletal figure lying prostrate mere feet from a thirst-slaking, life-giving oasis. You’ve gratefully expressed that sentiment every time Channel 13’s manic meteorologist Mark Ronchetti (or better yet, the pulchritudinous Kristen Currie) predicts yet another day of 90 degree plus weather as you rationalize that you could be in one of the South’s sweltering, sauna-like cities with temperatures comparable to our Duke City, but with 80 percent humidity. You may even have muttered that phrase while scalding your feet as you scurry to a swimming pool the temperature of bath water. For years, Albuquerque spelled relief from the oppressive heat “I-T-S-A” as in Itsa Italian Ice, a veritable oasis of cool refreshment on scalding New Mexico summer days. Itsa was situated in a Lilliputian locale at Lomas and Washington, offering drive-up service for cavalcades of parched motorists. The specialty at Itsa was a veritable phalanx of Italian ices, a flavor or more for each color on the ultraviolet spectrum. Unlike snow cones and other ice desserts, all ingredients–typically water, sugar and flavoring–used in making Italian Ice are blended together prior to being frozen. Italian…