Category: Dog Friendly

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Habibi House – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Before Al Gore invented the internet, it wasn’t easy for logophiles (lovers of words) like me to figure out what some words meant.  “Lover of words,” in my case was an understatement.  I was obsessed about learning every new word–its etymology (origin, definition and context, even what it used to mean) I came across.  It’s a wonder my parents (both educators) didn’t put this precocious, pedantic child up for adoption. Dictionaries were of little help as their content was mostly limited to English words.  The Velazquez dictionary was helpful when I wanted to learn a new Spanish word, but that, too, was limiting.  Alas, no comprehensive resource seemed to exist to sate my curiosity. Here’s an example of my dilemma.  The…

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Java Joe’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“I hate chile powder.” ~Tuco Salamanca Breaking Bad, Season 2 Duty-bound to make himself available to the citizenry of the fledgling United States, newly elected president George Washington spent the night in so many private homes and inns that “George Washington Slept Here” remains a real estate cliché and tourist draw centuries later. Perhaps the closest similarly celebrated landmarks in the Albuquerque metropolitan area are the filming sites for the 16-time Emmy Award-winning television series Breaking Bad. Never mind that Albuquerque recently celebrated its Tercentennial–three hundred years of history. History is not what visitors want to see. They want to see the Duke City of Breaking Bad. Albuquerque, which itself became a character in Breaking Bad, is the home of…

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Five Star Burgers – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

On Friday, March 19th, 2010 and to surprisingly little fanfare, a locally owned and operated burger restaurant by the name of Five Star Burgers launched in Albuquerque’s North Towne Plaza at Academy and Wyoming. Its opening predated by about a week, the launch of a similarly named burger establishment, an east coast based interloper named Five Guys which has exploded across the country with nearly 600 locations in 39 states. The latter opening was greeted with ruffles and flourishes, pomp and circumstance and throngs of curiosity-seekers and “chain gangs.” Despite the relative lack of hype and brouhaha, Five Star Burgers won’t play second-fiddle to any burger restaurant. The name on the marquee will tell you that. That name is bold…

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Turtle Mountain Brewing Company – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

The Tewa name “Oku Pin” which translates in English to “Turtle Mountain” has three meanings of significance to the people of Okay Owingeh, one of New Mexico’s great Tewa speaking Northern New Mexico Pueblos. “Oku Pin” was the the Indian name given to Dr. Alfonso Ortiz who obtained worldwide prominence as an anthropologist and ethnologist until his death in 1998. Ortiz was born and raised in San Juan Pueblo which in 2006 officially changed its name to Okay Owingeh. “Oku Pin” is also the Tewa name for Sandia Peak, the 10,678-feet high mountain which provides a spectacular backdrop for Albuquerque, Bernalillo and Rio Rancho. When Nico Ortiz, son of the famous anthropologist launched his inaugural restaurant and microbrewery in 1997,…

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Sunnyside Up Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side Keep on the sunny side of life It will help us ev’ry day, it will brighten all the way If we’ll keep on the sunny side of life.” ~Keep On The Sunny Side Lyrics According to Statistica, a leading provider of market and consumer data, in 2019 the per capita consumption of eggs in the United States was 207.1 eggs.  That’s up from 177.7 eggs per consumer in the year 2000.  In a 2019 survey conducted by YouGov, an international research data and analytics group, respondents indicated their most preferred way to consume eggs for breakfast is scrambled eggs (36%).  Other choices were eggs over easy (18%), sunny side up…

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Burger Bro’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Such advanced human traits as complex symbolic expression, art as an aesthetic visual form and elaborate cultural diversity emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years or so.  That’s more than four-million years after humans gained the ability to walk on two legs. By comparison, the ubiquitous All-American burger has evolved in the blink of time.  Most culinary historians believe the burger as we know it today was invented somewhere between 1885 and 1904. Even most of us who have lived three or more decades have seen significant changes in the burger.  Many of those changes have occurred during the 21st century–the last twenty years or so. Think about it.  For the most part, the predominant burger many “seasoned” eaters across the fruited plain…

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Vic’s Daily Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?” “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.” Unlike the great philosopher Winnie the Pooh, many Americans, it seems, don’t equate breakfast with excitement. Studies show that far too many of us fuel our bodies with a “gobble and go” mentality that typifies our frenetic lifestyles. In 2007, one food service industry research firm concluded that most Americans spend no more than three minutes shopping for breakfast (at such paragons of nutritional virtue as McDonald’s and Starbucks).…

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Joseph’s Culinary Pub – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Although ducks don’t have a church sanctioned patron saint, if the Catholic church ever deemed one worthy it would be Saint Cuthbert, a 12th Century Anglo-Saxon monk.  According to legend, Saint Cuthbert tamed a large population of nesting eider ducks so well that they would nest even next to the chapal altar without fear.  Cuthbert placed the ducks under his protective grace so that no one would eat or disturb them.  Monks who mocked (mocking monks) Cutbert’s curse and ate or harassed the eiders were said to have been struck down. It’s a good thing Chef Joseph Wrede didn’t ply his trade in proximity to Saint Cuthbert or he would probably have been struck down by Cuthbert’s curse.  Diners like…

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El Patio de Albuquerque – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

For more than a quarter century, award-winning journalist Charles Kuralt had the type of job any aspiring sojourner would envy. He hit the road on a motor home, crisscrossing the fruited plains where waving fields of wheat passed in review and snow-capped mountains reached for cobalt colored skies. Observing that “thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything,” Kuralt avoided the interstates, instead traversing America’s back roads and byways in search of real people with interesting stories to tell. Kuralt loved New Mexico, which he noted in his terrific tome America, is really a misnomer. In his estimation, New Mexico “should be called Precambria for the sea that crashed…

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Hello Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

HELLO DELI (to the tune of Hello Dolly) “Hello Deli, this is Joe, Deli would you please send up a nice corned beef on rye. A box of RITZ, Deli and some Schlitz, Deli Some chopped liver and a sliver of your, apple pie. Turkey Legs, Deli hard boiled eggs, Deli and a plate of those potatoes you french fry, oh Don’t be late, Deli I just can’t wait Deli, Deli without breakfast, I’d just die.” ~ Frank Jacobs (Writer for MAD Magazine) In 2016, BBC Travel lamented the imminent demise of the New York City deli.  “Not the corner markets or bodegas that appear on nearly every New York block,” but “the true New York City delicatessen: the brick and…

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The Kosmos – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Even though New Mexico’s license plates have been graced with the sobriquet “Land of Enchantment” since 1941, it didn’t become the state’s official nickname until 1999. For much longer than that, the more derisive epithet “Land of Entrapment” has also been in use. In 1955, the New Mexico Motor Club began using it because state highway police were perceived as being overly “aggressive and deceptive” in ticketing motorists. That infamous Land of Entrapment nickname is sadly still in use, primarily by malcontents and miscreants who wouldn’t recognize enchantment if it gave them 280 days of sunshine a year. Those of us with unbridled state pride prefer to think that New Mexico enrapts you with its enchantment; it doesn’t entrap you.…