Category: Rating: Very Good

Very Good – Good to very good food; generally solid; delivers consistent quality, strong technique, and a comfortable, enjoyable dining experience

AlbuquerqueMariscosMexicanRating: Very Good

Mariscos Altamar – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:32 PM

“Forget what you thought you knew about Mexican food!” That should be a cardinal rule for unacculturated diners when traveling to Mexico–or visiting Mariscos Altamar–for the first time. Many of the dishes some Americans commonly believe typify Mexican cooking are either not Mexican at all (chimichangas and fajitas, for example), or are prepared using inauthentic techniques and ingredients (such as “nachos” crafted from melted Velveeta heaped over a dish of corn chips, a recipe I’ve actually seen on a cookbook published by a charity for which I almost withdrew support based on such recipes). Because Mexico spans several climatic zones…

New MexicoRating: Very GoodRio Rancho

The Chill Zone Frozen Yogurt – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:46 PM

Returning to the United States in 1985 after my first year in England, there were two things that surprised me.  The first was the difficulty of getting used to driving on the “Yank” side of the road again.  Driving on the “wrong” side had required a high state of alertness and conscious thought until it had become a habit.  Expecting to transition easily upon my return to the fruited plain, my concentration waned until I found myself driving toward several cars on their side of the street (talk about road rage).  The second surprise was the sheer volume of frozen…

AlbuquerqueMediterraneanRating: Very Good

Sahara Middle Eastern Eatery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:35 PM

History has shown that cultures which thrived and advanced most rapidly are those which settled in arable areas rife with  natural resources.  The “Cradle of Civilization” where many of the earliest human civilizations evolved is in a seemingly unlikely region of the Middle East in which most of the land is too dry for farming.  In this largely desolate region lies a narrow strip of land known as  the “Fertile Crescent” because of its fecund soil and life-giving waters.  The Fertile Crescent lies in the ancient area stretching in an arc from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates, an…

New MexicanNew MexicoNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Very Good

El Farolito – El Rito, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:59 AM

The most contentious seasonal difference of opinion between Northern and Southern New Mexico residents isn’t whether Chimayo produces better chile than Hatch (though this will forever be in dispute). The great civil debate dividing the Land of Enchantment has all to do with semantics. More specifically, it has all to do with the appropriate name for the little paper bag lanterns which house a votive candle and light the way for the Holy Family on Christmas Eve. Misguided citizens of New Mexico’s lower half (just about anywhere south of and including Albuquerque) mistakenly call those lanterns luminarias while their more…

ArizonaRating: Very GoodThaiUnited States

Malee’s Thai Bistro – Scottsdale, Arizona

Gil Garduno1:47 AM

Many a time have I luxuriated in the pleasures of a memorable repast at a restaurant outside of New Mexico and found myself thinking “if only these tastes were available back home.”  I typically then fantasize about bringing those tastes to the Land of Enchantment myself.  Alas, lofty intentions, a profuse lack of culinary talents and the absence of the capital necessary to realize my fantasies subsume those dreams and I instead yen for future visits to restaurants whose incomparable tastes have captured my reality. In Deirdre Pain, I found someone through whom I can live vicariously.  An aficionado of Thai…

AlbuquerqueRating: Very GoodSalvadoran

Pupuseria Y Restaurante Salvadoreño – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:18 AM

In the 1980s, several hundred thousand Salvadorans fled their civil war ravaged nation (courtesy, many would say of America’s attempting to turn El Salvador into the Western hemisphere’s version of Vietnam).  Many migrated to large metropolitan areas in the United States where their culture has quietly flourished.  Those immigrants introduced and hooked Californians on their national snack, a modest street food called the pupusa.  If you’ve never had a pupusa, there’s a chance you may have learned of them on the Food Network’s Diners Drive-Ins and Dives program.  In 2009, host Guy Fieri visited Santa Fe’s Tune-Up Cafe where the garrulous…

BarbecueMissouriRating: Very GoodUnited States

Gates Bar B. Q. – Independence, Missouri

Gil Garduno1:40 PM

The cognoscenti seem to agree that the American epicenters of barbecue excellence are Texas, Memphis, Kansas City and South Carolina. In Texas, barbeque briquettes are burnished with beef–lean beef brisket celebrating the best in king cattle. At Memphis, they go hog wild at the pits for pulled porcine perfection. In South Carolina, the self-professed “cradle of American barbecue,” swine dining means pork smothered in a mustard-based sauce. Kansas City claims to put it all together with more than 100 barbecue restaurants, several of which have earned worldwide acclaim and celebrity. Traditionally, Kansas City barbecue is dry-rubbed, slow roasted over hickory…

BreakfastEspañolaNew MexicanRating: Very Good

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…

AlbuquerqueItalianPizzaRating: Very Good

JC’s New York Pizza Department – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:46 PM

Gil’s immutable law of thermodynamics posits that the enjoyment of even the best pizza is correlative with the length of time which has expired since it was removed from the oven.  Pizza tastes best right out of the oven when it is steaming hot and the aromas waft upwards to provide an almost sensual olfactory massage.  That flavor and olfactory appreciation diminishes as the pizza grows colder and your belly fuller.  This law is absolutely immutable, but it also has an equally immutable corollary: the flavor of a great pizza actually improves after it’s been refrigerated overnight.  It helps, of…

BakeryBurgersNew MexicoNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Very GoodSandwichTravel Channel Eats New Mexico

Bode’s General Merchandise Deli & Bakery – Abiquiu, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:28 PM

Mention food and convenience store in the same sentence and the first thing likely to come to mind is one of those perpetually rotating, alutaceous hot dogs seared to a leathery sheen under a heat lamp inferno. Not even a large slushie spiked with your favorite adult beverage would make that hot dog palatable. Mention food and gas station in the same sentence and all of a sudden that leathery hot dog at the convenience store sounds like a gourmet meal. Salty, cylindrically shaped dry meat snacks with the texture of sawdust and air-filled bags of Cool Ranch Doritos are…

New MexicanNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Very Good

Benny’s Mexican Kitchen – Bosque Farms, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:45 PM

“Whenever I need to leave it all behind Or feel the need to get away I find a quiet place, far from the human race Out in the country Whenever I feel them closing in on me Or need a bit of room to move When life becomes too fast, I find relief at last Out in the country.” In today’s dog eat dog rat race world (two bad animal metaphors in one sentence), who doesn’t dream of a peaceful idyll to which you can escape? Somewhere out in the country. *Appropriately the group expressing that sentiment so well in…