Category: Closed in 2012

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenItalian

Ravioli Italian Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:59 PM

The older I get, the more my favorite part of the Academy Awards every year is the teary-eyed tribute to all the famous screen legends who passed away during the preceding twelve months.  The montage of glitterati greatness on the “In Memoriam” segment not only provides a much-needed respite from self-absorbed acceptance speeches and tedious dance numbers, it  evokes a flood of memories and emotions as viewers pause to remember the movie makers who have touched us all. Similarly, the closure of a favorite restaurant gives diners pause to reflect on meals we’ve had at restaurants gone, but not forgotten. Even in booming economic times, restaurants have a higher mortality rate than most, if not all, businesses.  It’s the natural order of the restaurant business that not all restaurants are destined to survive.  Closures aren’t always the consequence of an economic malaise.  Nearly thirty percent of restaurants close within their first year of operation. So why a dour diatribe instead of my usual effusive celebration of a restaurant I just visited?  Ravioli Italian Kitchen, we found out, will be closed for good on Friday, September 1st, 2012.  Launched in November, 2011, Ravioli demonstrated promise and potential, but was never able…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenVietnamese

Miss Saigon Bar & Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:38 AM

When it closed on Broadway in 2001, the three-time Tony Award-winning musical Miss Saigon had been seen by some six million people during a running of 4,092 performances, making it the sixth longest running show in Broadway history.  Outside of Broadway, Miss Saigon was opened by 26 theater companies worldwide, translated into eleven different languages and played in 23 countries throughout the world.  The epic musical even had an eight performance run in Albuquerque’s Popejoy Hall in 2003.  During of our inaugural visit to Miss Saigon Bar & Grill in July, 2012, the restaurant was celebrating an eight month run of its own.  Though it may not be playing to turn-away crowds…yet, there are some indications this is a restaurant with staying power.  It may not be entirely accurate, however, to call it a restaurant and even the “bar & grill” portion of its name doesn’t do it justice.  Along with Central Cabana with whom it shares a commodious edifice, Miss Saigon is part of a large, multifarious entertainment complex. That complex includes a nightclub which showcases live Mexican bands on Fridays and Saturday nights.  There isn’t a seat in the house which doesn’t have a view of a large…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenMexican

Mamba’s Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:18 AM

When my friend Ryan “Break the Chain” Scott and I first visited Mamba’s Kitchen, we deliberated the genesis of the restaurant’s name. The possibilities were intriguing. The restaurant must be named for the black mamba, one of the world’s most venomous snakes, I thought. Ryan surmised then quickly dismissed the notion that the restaurant’s name honors Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star who calls himself the “Mamba” because he wants to have the type of basketball precision the snake has (it can strike with 99 percent accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession). Could it share the Mamba sobriquet with Beatrix Kiddo, the protagonist of the brilliant Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill, we wondered. Perhaps it’s named for Mambo Italiano, the 1954 hit song by Rosemary Clooney. Because the edifice which is now home to Mamba’s Kitchen twice previously housed two soul food restaurants, we finally reasoned Mamba’s Kitchen must be a sort of hybrid Soul food-Mexican food fusion restaurant.  Clever though our conjecture was, the reason for the restaurant’s name is far more down-to-earth and beautifully innocent.  Mamba is actually named for the grandmother of restaurant founder and owner Rebecca Sandoval.  When a grandchild couldn’t pronounce “grandma,” he…

AlbuquerqueBakeryClosed in 2012Gone But Not Forgotten

Just A Bite! – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:25 PM

An April, 2009 article in the Taos News reveals just how much cultural attitudes have changed in the county in which I grew up toward men in the kitchen.  The article profiled a Taos High School culinary arts team–comprised of three boys and one young lady–which triumphed over 16 other New Mexico schools in a state-wide cooking competition to earn a berth on the national stage. In the dark ages when I attended high school, any male student deigning to admit to enjoy cooking would have been dismissed as a (select your own pejorative) and might even have incurred physical harm.  When I enrolled in Home Economics as a senior, I spared myself merciless taunting and possibly painful beatings by telling my friends it was solely so I could eat the food prepared by the female students (not surprisingly my pals thought it was a good idea, too).  As if by malevolent design, the first semester of the class was dedicated to sewing, a torturous ordeal for which my profound lack of interest proved an early undoing. I quit well before semester’s end. My next flirtation with participating in the culinary arts came when I enlisted in the Air Force.  With vocational aptitude scores…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

Silvano’s New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:17 AM

My friend Carrie Seidman, the elegant and erstwhile restaurant critic for the Albuquerque Tribune prefaced one restaurant review by saying “sometimes pleasure comes with a price tag.” That pithy aphorism should probably be appended by paraphrasing Luke 12:48: “from those who charge a lot, much will be expected.”   Expensive meals come with  expectations of intoxicating aromas and tastes, impeccable service and a classy, relaxed milieu in which to bask in the glory of a decadent, memorable meal.  Such meals are worth it only if afterwards you consider every dollar well spent.  Any regrets and the experience will leave you (and your wallet or purse) empty. Fortunately for the most penurious and parsimonious among us, there is no absolute correlation of price tag to enjoyment.  There is no guarantee that an expensive meal will be a good one…but there is most certainly a correlation between spending a lot of money and the pain and regret you feel afterwards if the meal didn’t achieve lofty expectations.  Conversely, some of the very best restaurant meals to be enjoyed are often those that not only provide great value for the money, they serve genuinely good food and provide simple, but very pleasant and rewarding…

AlbuquerqueAsianClosed in 2012Gone But Not Forgotten

Pacific Rim Asian Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:52 PM

In 1520, after sailing past South America’s Tierra del Fuego and through a perilous strait which he named for himself, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan laid eyes on the expansive South Sea. At the time, the waters were calm and peaceful. He renamed it the Pacific Ocean (from the Latin Mare Pacificum which means “peaceful sea.”) Magellan vastly underestimated the Pacific, thinking he would be able to cross it in a matter of days to reach his goal, the Spice Islands. For most of Magellan’s four month crossing, the waters of the Pacific did little to belie the name he had bestowed upon it. During that crossing, however, Magellan and his men suffered terrible hunger. They ran out of fresh food and were relegated to eating grubs and rats. Unfortunately Magellan did not have the benefit of knowledge we now possess. We now know, for example, that the Pacific covers 32 percent of the world’s total surface and that it separates the countries bordering its western and eastern rims by eight time zones and the International Date Line. Magellan would be amazed that today, a sea crossing by the fastest ship will take a mere two week. There’s no way he…

AlbuquerqueBrunchClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenItalianPizza

Gregorio’s Italian Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:12 AM

 “The definitive recipe for any Italian dish has not yet appeared. We are still creating.” Luigi Barzini The categorization and labeling some diners tend to ascribe to Italian restaurants bespeaks not only of strong emotional preferences, but of an unwillingness to assign any merits to the “other side.”  At one side of the spectrum are the old-fashioned “red sauce” restaurants and at the other are Northern Italian restaurants.  To those who love red sauce Italian restaurants, they represent Italian comfort food in a festive and friendly ambiance stereotyped by red and white checkerboard tablecloths and bottles of Chianti at every table.  The menus–often green, white and red–feature familiar American Italian entrees such as spaghetti and meatballs served in profuse portions.  To its proponents, red sauce restaurants are homey, rustic and simple in the best sense of those terms. Detractors usually speak of red sauce restaurants in derogatory and condescending terms.  To its “haters,” red sauce restaurants represent overcooked, mushy pasta dredged in a profligate amounts of tomato sauce “gravy.”  This, they will tell you is low-end food served by Old World restaurants as opposed to the more sophisticated “cuisine” that draws aficionados to Northern Italian restaurants and their nouveau menu…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

4 Aces Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:54 PM

As a proud native New Mexican, my chest still swells with pride whenever I travel outside the Land of Enchantment (even to Texas, Arizona and Colorado) and espy a vehicle displaying the license plate of the great state of New Mexico.  I’m not the only one.  While stopping for gas in Iowa a few years ago, a couple from Roswell noticed our license plate and excitedly came over to find out where in New Mexico we were from.  We wound up having lunch together, all the while discussing the great state in which we all live in. For citizens of the fruited plain not fortunate enough to live in New Mexico, seeing our state’s license plate within their borders evokes curiosity, especially if they’re attentive enough to notice that it reads “New Mexico U.S.A.”  As the “One of Our Fifty is Missing” column in New Mexico Magazine has demonstrated for more than a quarter of a century, many of our fellow American citizens and ill-informed bureaucrats don’t even realize that New Mexico is part of the United States.  When the unwashed and uninformed masses aren’t wondering if we’re carrying our passports as we cross their borders, they’re  curious about the…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenHot DogsSandwich

Señor Dog – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:39 AM

H. K. Duff VIII:  Why not break your fast with our brand-new Isotope Dog Supreme? [Homer sniffs the hot dog.] Homer Simpson:  Oh, so hard to resist. Mesquite-grilled onions. Jalapeño relish. … Wait a minute, those are Southwestern ingredients. … Mango-lime salsa? That’s the kind of bold flavor they enjoy in … Albuquerque! Lenny: He’s right. Moe:  Yeah … and the wrapper says “Albuquerque Isotopes”! Within three months after the Duke City’s Triple-A baseball team, the Albuquerque Isotopes, co-opted its team name from The Simpsons animated television series, it sold more merchandise than the city’s previous Triple-A team, the Albuquerque Dukes, had sold in any entire season.  That was even before a single game had even been played. In that magical, inaugural year of 2003, the team led all of minor league baseball in merchandising revenue. Unfortunately, the Isotopes moniker wasn’t accompanied by the fictional Isotope Dog Supreme.  Who wouldn’t love a hot dog with mesquite-grilled onions, jalapeño relish and mango-lime salsa?  It certainly would be oh, so Albuquerque.  Alas, the  Isotopes Park concession menu doesn’t include a hot dog nearly as imaginative or, ostensibly, as delicious as the Isotope Dog Supreme.  A case could easily be made that there…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenMexican

Jo’s Place – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:16 AM

By their fruits ye shall know them. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? -Matthew 7:16 As Americans are often prone to judge fruit by the pleasingness of its appearance, the fragrance of its bouquet and the sweetness of its flavor, huitlacoche may not stand a chance.  A fungus which forms on the ears of corns, huitlacoche resembles a malignant tumor with postulous  black secretions  Worse, its name translates from Nahuatl, the ancient language of the Aztecs, to raven shi…er, excrement. In more pleasant company it’s called corn smut.  As if that isn’t bad enough, it’s created from a disease formed by a pathogenic plant fungus.  Is it any wonder persnickety Americans have been slow to accept that huitlacoche could possibly be considered a delicacy? Perhaps Americans would be wise to remember that the ancient Aztecs were one of the world’s most advanced civilizations in medicine, math and science and they incorporated huitlacoche into their cooking as have generations of their descendants.  Perhaps if American farmers understood its potential as a culinary delight, they wouldn’t work so hard to eradicate it.   Perhaps if nutritionists recognized that huitlacoche is replete with unique proteins, minerals…

AmericanClosed in 2012Gone But Not ForgottenSanta Fe

Real Food Nation – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:16 PM

“Come on, you know you want it!”  Television commercials, movies and especially cartoons frequently depict temptation as a battle being waged by two miniature versions of the person being tempted. Faced with a crisis of conscience–doing the right or the wrong thing–a devil-self (complete with horns and a pitchfork) suddenly pops up on the left (or sinister) shoulder and an angel-self on the right.  Quite naturally, the devil-self prods and prompts for the person to do the wrong thing while the beatific angel-self implores the person to resist temptation. When waging an internal conflict as to whether or not I should have some unhealthy dessert, a greasy burger or another slice of pizza, my muse, angel and conscience is often Kate Manchester, the brilliant and beautiful publisher of Edible Santa Fe.  For more than five years, Kate has been educating the readers of her fabulous publication about the virtues of actually paying attention to how and where our food is raised, processed and how it arrives at their tables.  In the process she’s introduced us to such concepts as “locavorism,” “sustainable,” “slow foods” and “organic.” With my benevolent angel over my right shoulder during times of caloric trial, I’m prompted…