Category: Dog Friendly

AlbuquerqueAmericanBar & GrillDog FriendlyNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009Rating: Very Good

Alien Brew Pub – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:09 AM

“If the government is covering up knowledge of aliens, they are doing a better job of it than they do at anything else.” ~Stephen Hawking An alien walked into the Alien Brew Pub and says, “take me to your liter.” Okay, that joke is admittedly a groaner. It probably wouldn’t even work in one of those countries which use the metric system, but it might work in some other planet where advanced lifeforms are ostensibly more civilized.  I say ostensibly because frankly, we don’t really know what to expect from alien lifeforms.  While the politically correct stereotype is of a benevolent and benign race singing Kumbaya with us awestruck and primitive terrans,  Stephen Hawking took a contrarian view about extraterrestrial beings.  He suggested that “such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach.”  The notion of hostile aliens is hardly novel.  A Twilight Zone episode titled “To Serve Man” (a paraprosdokian title if ever there was one), is an exemplar of alien hostility veiled by benevolence.  An alien race known as Kanamit lands on Earth, promising peace and prosperity.  As promised, their technology ends hunger and solves the world’s energy crisis and other…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2020Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenItalianNew MexicoPizza

Gigi Italian Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:45 PM

“If you can go through with what Gordon Ramsey puts you through there’s nothing much more you can do. I mean the berating from that guy is unbelievable, but the reward is even greater.” ~ Chef Robert Hesse Veni, Vedi, Veci (I came, I saw, I conquered):  Chef Robert Hesse, the superstar consulting chef who launched Gigi left Albuquerque in February, 2019. The review below was based on three visits to Gigi when Chef Hesse prepared our meals.  In light of his departure, I have removed the rating of “26” I accorded Gigi and will update my review accordingly after my next visit. Chef Robert Hesse isn’t the man he used to be. In fact, he’s literally and figuratively a shadow of his former self. Once tipping the scales at over 600 pounds and espousing the attitude that you should “never trust a skinny chef,” he’s now a svelte and fit 155-pound inspiration to caloric overachievers everywhere. I didn’t recognize him when he escorted The Dude and I to Gigi’s covered patio. Later when he dropped by and visited with The Dude, I thought “wow, Gigi’s host is really kind to dogs.” Even when he ferried over a plateful of…

AlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2022Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Bosque Burger – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:01 PM

As much a social commentary as a realist novel, Grapes of Wrath by author John Steinbeck immortalized Route 66 as “The Mother Road”  and “the road to flight.”  The latter and lesser known sobriquet recalls the epic odyssey of nearly a quarter of a million people migrating to California to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl.  Route 66 not only succored Americans, it symbolized a renewed spirit of optimism and beginning anew just as the nation was coming off the Great Depression and World War I.  The 2,448 mile stretch of asphalt which traversed eight states connected remote and sparsely-populated regions with Chicago and Los Angeles, two of America’s most vital economic engines.  “The Main Street of America” also gave Americans a sense of adventure on the open road, introducing them to parts of the country theretofore found only in books.  That’s  especially true about the “wild west” of which New Mexico was a part. While most of us know that Route 66’s route through New Mexico meandered roughly east to west across the central part of the state, until 1937, Route 66 actually took a much lengthier detour.  Its initial alignment ferried motorists northward from Santa Rosa to…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyFood TruckNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Street Food Institute – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:43 PM

“The more street food we have, the more it’s embraced by every income strata, the better world we have.” ~Anthony Bourdain Jonathan Gold, the first restaurant critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, called food trucks “the new incubators of culinary innovation.” Indeed, chefs and entrepreneurs who ply their talents in food trucks and express themselves through  distinctively creative cuisine aren’t just fostering culinary trends.  They’re doing so at a rate at which their brick-and-mortar counterparts couldn’t conceive, much less execute. Food trucks are exposing consumers to unorthodox flavor combinations and ingredient fusions, creating a growing demand for more novelty and culinary diversity. Add fast and inexpensive to the mix and you’ve got a trifecta of reasons food trucks continue to expand. Every day across the planet, street food is consumed by 2.5 billion people. Across the fruited plain alone, food trucks generated 1.2 billion in revenue in 2015, a 12.4 percent growth over the previous five years. One industry publication projects an annual growth rate of about 9.3 percent for the next ten to fifteen years. Coupled with much lower start-up costs than brick-and-mortar restaurants, food trucks may sound like a lucrative proposition as well as a culinary…

Dog FriendlyFine DiningNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Terra – Tesuque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:46 AM

Several years ago, I asked my grandmother if she might consider aromatherapy as a treatment for the nagging aches and pains she suffered daily.  Aromatherapy, I explained was being hailed by New Age devotees in Santa Fe and Taos as a holistic healing treatment used to promote health and well-being. “Mi hijito,” she said gently, “In Northern New Mexico we are always surrounded by aromatherapy. We experience it when we bake bread in our hornos and roast chile in our comals. Aromatherapy is the petrichor of wet earth after the first rain. It’s the piñon-scented air we breathe every day.” As usual my grandmother was right. In her own way, she was telling me to let others seek a trendy panacea for life’s vicissitudes; those of us fortunate to live in Northern New Mexico had an abundance of simple, life-affirming blessings to help us heal. Memories of my grandmother’s wisdom flooded back to me when we stepped out of the car and imbibed the piñon-scented air of the Sangre de Cristo’s rolling foothills just fifteen minutes or so from downtown Santa Fe.  The familiar early autumn aroma and freshness of the air were a balm.  So was the  quiet stillness. …

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyFusionGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Cafe Nom Nom – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:12 PM

“Nom nom.” It sounds innocent enough. Parents–yes, including parents of four-legged fur babies–utter it in baby talk intonations to get our children to eat something, especially when that something is “good for them” but doesn’t actually look or taste good. Nom nom was, of course, the favorite expression of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster (Hi Darren) as he ravenously devoured a plate or six of cookies, a fusillade of crumbs flying from his chewing mouth.  Grade school teachers use nom nom as an example of an onomatopoeia, a word that imitates a sound.  My friend Michael Gonzales, the dynamic owner of Rio Rancho’s Cafe Bella uses it to describe great new restaurant finds. English majors recognize it as an expression used to convey pleasure at eating or at the prospect of eating.  It’s also a verb meaning “to eat something, typically with great enjoyment.” See anything wrong with the term nom nom?  Though it may never grace Gil’s Thrilling… in a descriptive manner, I don’t see anything wrong with it either.  So, if it sounds innocent and innocuous enough, why does the Huffington Post rank the word nom nom with “moist” as “the worst offender of words when it comes to…

BreakfastDog FriendlyNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

Tortilla Flats – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:29 PM

“Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold.” ~John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat In his 1935 novel Tortilla Flat, John Steinbeck introduced the literary world to the downtrodden denizens of Tortilla Flat, an impoverished barrio on the shabby hillside just outside the respectable city of Monterey, California. The quirky inhabitants of the ramshackle community were a dichotomous lot–hedonistic drunks, adulterers and thieves on one hand; on the other, paisanos with surprisingly kind-hearts who asked nothing more from life than loyal friends and a little wine. Unlike their stodgy, orthodox counterparts in Monterey, the men of Tortilla Flat defied social mores, conventions and expectations. They rebuffed the notion of holding down steady employment or paying rent. They had no qualms about cadging for food or purloining it from neighbors or restaurants. The paisanos of Tortilla Flat were carnal beings, happiest when their appetites (food, drink, women, music) were sated. They cared nothing for accumulating material possessions or the responsibilities inherent with ownership. Though Santa Fe’s touristy-artsy Plaza area and the city’s western fringes along Cerrillos are hardly Monterey and Tortilla Flats, there is a clear demarcation between the two, a distinctness that bespeaks of vast socioeconomic differences. My friend Carlos would argue…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyNew MexicanNew Mexico

Little Anita’s New Mexican Food – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:11 PM

My friend Scott Pacheco may never forgive me for dining at Little Anita’s New Mexican Food in Old Town. Scott hates Little Anita’s, but not because of its food, ambiance or service.  He hates Little Anita’s for what he considers a traitorous act on the scale of Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot. To understand why Scott hates Little Anita’s so much, it might help if you know that there are two things in life he’s passionate about–the Denver Broncos and New Mexican green chile. If this isn’t making sense yet, recall that on February 2, 2014, the Seattle Seahawks demolished the Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII. Not only was this the largest margin of victory for an underdog, it was tied for the third largest point differential (35) in Super Bowl history. Scott was (and still is) incensed at the “dirty” Seahawks, the “blind mice” referees and “biased” announcers.  His beloved Broncos had no chance against such a stacked deck.  So what did Little Anita’s have to do with the Broncos loss?  Actually nothing, but in Scott’s mind Little Anita’s still committed an unforgivably (albeit unwitting) traitorous transgression.  As is  Super Bowl tradition, dignitaries from competing cities engaged in…

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…

Closed in 2020CorralesDog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew MexicoSteak

Las Ristras Restaurant – Corrales, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:17 PM

Based on interviews conducted with Hollywood luminaries who’ve starred in movies or television shows shot in New Mexico, you might think our state either doesn’t have a symbol of hospitality or that symbol is something as poorly representative of the Land of Enchantment as crack (Josh Brolin), tire stores (Jonathan Banks), shirtless drivers (Seth McFarlane), Walmart (Jessica Alba) or loudness (Tommy Lee Jones). With all the tax breaks and enticements afforded film production companies, shouldn’t its most visible beneficiaries at least have something nice to say about New Mexico? While New Mexico doesn’t have an official (as in legislatively decreed) symbol of hospitality, most of us recognize a ristra hanging on a doorway as an invitation to visitors, ergo a symbol of hospitality. It’s as much a symbol of hospitality as the pineapple is in Hawaii and the fleur de lis is in Louisiana. Moreover, the ristra has come to represent the state of New Mexico, maybe not quite as much as the Zia sun, but to a large extent. Now, if you want your texts to reflect New Mexico hospitality, download an app called “New Mexico Emojis” for your iPhone or iPad. Among the emojis you can add to…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew Mexico

Krazy Lizard – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:41 PM

I count in almost equal measure, friends, family members and colleagues who label themselves as either militant liberals or staunch conservatives. Despite what they may think, they have more in common than they’d ever admit. Passionate ideologues, they all regurgitate political dialogue in talking point format. They’re uncompromising in towing their respective party line. They would never see merit in counterpoints from “the other side,” ergo, they never compromise. They’re all are passionate, almost to a fault. You could say they’ve all been been fully assimilated and they’re not going to change. It sure makes it difficult to share a meal with people when their disparate principles, ethics and beliefs make them incompatible with those of opposite perspectives. Despite the old maxim that you should never discuss politics or religion at the table, there’s one restaurant in Albuquerque that practically invites diners to discuss politics even as they’re perusing the menu. That restaurant is the Krazy Lizard Taqueria on Jefferson Street just north of Singer. The menu is posted above the counter where you place your order. Now, political discourse would be easily avoided if the sole focus of the menu was breakfast, burritos, tortas and salads. Those items don’t…