Category: Dog Friendly

AlbuquerqueChickenDog FriendlyFusionNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Happy Chickenzz – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:02 AM

“And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.” ~Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Two things came to mind when my friend Nader and I approached Happy Chickenzz during our inaugural visit in September, 2019. First, I mused, “if happy cows come from California (a 2002 marketing campaign for California cheese), where do happy chickenzz come from.” My second rumination was to wonder if the ‘zz’ at the end of the word chicken is an indication that the chicken is so boring, it’ll put your taste buds to sleep. You know, zzzzz. As we were quick to learn, it’s not only the chickenzz who are happy here.  So are diners.  Endorphin-rush happy! Fully sated and blissfully happy! As for putting taste buds to sleep, these chickenzz have so much personality, so much depth of flavor, so much  that they’ll wake up the most staid of taste buds and delight even the most pedantic of palates. Happy Chickenzz started off as one of six original food pods at the pristine El Vado multi-use complex on Central Avenue just east of the Rio Grande.  In October, 2024, Happy Chickenzz…

2025 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAlbuquerqueDog FriendlyFine DiningJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersNew Mexico

Level 5 Rooftop Restaurant at Hotel Chaco – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

The Hotel For a nearly four-hundred year period, the Anasazi civilization which preceded New Mexico’s Pueblo cultures achieved the pinnacle of its technological and cultural advancement at a magnificent,  deep gorge called Chaco Canyon. Within the walls of Chaco Canyon, construction of multi-level buildings sprung up, some structures accommodating as many as  800 rooms. Not surprisingly, lower walls had to be made massive in order to support heavy stone walls up to five floors high.  It took remarkable planning to locate doors, passageways, kivas and other architectural features.  At five stories high,  Pueblo Bonito was the largest structure and the inspiration for Hotel Chaco’s spectacular venue in Albuquerque’s Sawmill District. In 2017, local developer Heritage Hotels launched Hotel Chaco on Bellamah Avenue in the Sawmill District.  Formerly a 110-acre complex, the District once milled lumber, doors and shingles, at one point serving as the largest manufacturing company in the Southwest. Today there are few, if any, vestiges of the District’s historic past.  Instead, the area has exploded, metamorphosing from a lusterless industrial area to a dynamic hub for hospitality and dining.   Hotel Chaco is at the heart of the changes.  An eighty-million dollar project, the Hotel is unlike any…

AlbuquerqueChineseDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Noodle Works – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:11 PM

“To witness the birth of a noodle is a glorious thing. I have listened, spellbound, as an 85-year-old noodle chef in Beijing told me why the act of making noodles helped him make sense of the world.” -~Terry Durack, Noodle In the movie Mr. Nice Guy, martial artist cum actor Jackie Chan portrays a  chef with a successful television show.  In the movie’s opening scene, Chef Jackie is presiding over a flour-dusted table, stretching, twisting, and pulling a piece of dough into fine strands of noodles, a process the TV host can only describe as “alchemy.”   For the culinary obsessed among us, that was the highlight of the movie, all the “special effects” we needed.  Later on, Chef Jackie would be stretching, twisting and pulling a drug lord and his syndicate in much the same manner as he did the noodles. There’s something almost mystical about the artisan process of pulling noodles by hand.  Certainly for the onlooker, it’s entertaining to the point of being mesmerizing.  It’s not prestidigitation in that there’s no sleight of hand to deceive you.  It’s sheer brilliant mastery of an time-honored craft.  It’s performance art and scientific precision in one.  Learning to repeatedly stretch…

AlbuquerqueAmericanDog FriendlyGreekNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Tula’s Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Tula: “My mom was always cooking foods filled with warmth and wisdom… and never forgetting that side dish of steaming-hot guilt.” As it celebrates its twenty year anniversary the 2002 Rom-Com “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” remains as timeless and funny as it was when it debuted.  Moreover, it’s still a heart-warming movie with which some of us can relate.  In my estimation, it could easily have been called “My Big Fat Northern New Mexican Wedding” and it could have been set in Peñasco.  The similarities between Greek families and Northern New Mexican families around which I grew up were startling.  That’s especially true about the food, family and eccentricities, the latter especially prominent among the movie’s well-meaning and hovering aunts and the protagonist’s domineering father. My Big Fat Greek Wedding centers around Tula Portokalos, who at thirty is only woman in her family who has failed to find a nice, Greek husband and have babies.  Living at home, Tula works as hostess at her family’s restaurant, “Dancing Zorba’s.” Tula describes her younger self as a “swarthy 6-year-old with sideburns” who was shamed by blonde schoolmates for eating “moose caca” (moussaka).  Tula remains frumpy and insecure until early in her third decade when she practically…

Dog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very GoodRio RanchoVietnamese

Pho Garden – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:24 PM

NOTE:  In the first few introductory paragraphs below I describe an encounter that took place between two friends.  Though that encounter took place several years ago, it perfectly  illustrates the idealogical divide that has torn our great nation apart. It should have been a point-counterpoint debate for the ages. My ideologically opposed and perpetually squabbling friends Carlos and Hien were arguing about the concept of American exceptionalism. Carlos took the Reaganesque position that America is the shining city on a hill. “Everything about America is great,” he proclaimed. “We have the highest standard of living and pretty much the best of everything.” Hien mirrored Obama’s stance that America does not have exclusivity in believing itself to be exceptional. Much like the chasm that divides Congress, neither disputant would concede a modicum of merit in the other’s argument. When it seemed as if this argument would end in another stalemate, Hien pulled out his trump (no, not another reference to a President) card. “There’s one thing about America that isn’t exceptional,” he declared. “American fast food is terrible.” With that point having been made, Carlos, long an advocate of independent mom-and-pop eateries, capitulated. True to form, they then began an argument…

AlbuquerqueAmericanCoffeeDog FriendlyNew MexicoSpecialty

Villa Myriam Coffee Roastery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Because of coffee’s olfactory-arousing properties and nuanced depth of flavors, it has the unique ability to evoke personal memories that transport java junkies to better times.  Every satisfying and stimulating sip of coffee relocates me to my Grandma Andreita’s kitchen table where I learned to love coffee brewed on her old wood stove.  For brothers David and Juan Certain, the aromas return them to Colombia where their grandfather founded Villa Myriam in 1961.   The brothers spent much of their childhood on the fields of their grandfather’s coffee plantation where they learned which coffee beans were the best. In 1999, Juan and David migrated to the US as political refugees during the hard times of violence in Colombia. After things settled, they decided to share their passion for coffee and return to the family plantation to import their beans to Albuquerque, NM.  In October 2010, the brothers started a wholesale coffee business in Albuquerque, using Albuquerque’s South Valley Economic Development Center’s commercial kitchen to roast and package the coffee. It didn’t take long for Villa Myriam coffee to become a hit in New Mexico. Though we’ve enjoyed Villa Myriam’s award-winning coffee at several restaurants, it was a foodie event–edible New Mexico’s…

AmericanDog FriendlyRating: N/R (Not Rated)SteakTexasUnited States

Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar – New Braunfels, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My mom was born in 1929, the last year of the Great Depression.  She still recalls that during her childhood, her family would take grist ( grain) and separate it from its chaff (seed coverings and other debris) in preparation for being ground into flour.  They would then take the family’s horse and buggy over the precipitous mountain roads to Cleveland (the one in New Mexico).  In Cleveland, they would have the grain ground into flour in “el molino,” the Cleveland Roller Mill.   The Mill is a three story adobe edifice with a water-powered mill used for grinding.  Today, that mill has been turned into a local museum where its original machinery remains intact and has been restored significantly to the point that it can be operated for demonstration purposes. When I asked my dear friend and trusted guide Melinda Martinez to pick where our next culinary adventure would be, she selected The Gristmill River Restaurant,  located on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Gruene Historic District, in New Braunfels, Texas. Gruene is located in the Texas Hill Country, 30 minutes north of San Antonio, and 45 minutes south of Austin, on IH-35.   The setting was spectacular, my delightful…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBrewery-PubClosed in 2025Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoTacos

Sobremesa Restaurant & Brewery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In June, 2021, Eater.com published a list of “the 21 Essential Restaurants in Albuquerque.” Unlike so many “clickbait” articles from national publications purporting to tell New Mexicans which restaurants across the Land of Enchantment serve the “best this” and the “best that,” the Eater feature was penned by Justin De La Rosa who actually knows this state very well.  In fact, in 2015 Justin earned a “Local Hero Award” from Edible New Mexico as “best food writer.” If you’re wondering what constitutes an “Essential Restaurant,” Eater’s erstwhile national critic Bill Addison defined the term to mean “indispensable to their neighborhoods, and eventually to their towns and whole regions,” to “ultimately become vital to how we understand ourselves, and others, at the table.”   In other words, restaurants accorded the “essential” designation by Eater are more than among the best restaurants in their town.  They are transcendent presences that feed the soul as well as the stomach. It’s a virtual certainty that Mary & Tito’swould make the list after having been named one of America’s 38 Essential Restaurants in 2018<.  It’s also no surprise that restaurants (Campo at Los Poblanos and Frenchish) helmed by multiple-time James Beard Foundation Chef of the Year…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyPizzaRating: Excellent

Farina Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:36 PM

On May 14, 2011, I had the great honor, pleasure and privilege of being the first guest on Break the Chain, the weekly radio show (sadly no longer on the air) dedicated to showcasing the great independent mom-and-pop restaurants in and around Albuquerque.  When the show’s charismatic host, my friend Ryan Scott asked me to name the five best pizza restaurants in the Albuquerque area, I omitted Ryan’s very favorite — and he yelled at me (good-naturedly (I think)).  I asked forgiveness for my transgression, stating in my defense that I couldn’t well include Farina, having visited only once with attempts for a second visit being quashed by long waits. The only pizza for which I’ve ever waited more than half an hour–in 115-degree temperature, no less–is the transcendent pizza at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.  It was a pizza worth the near dehydration and painful sunburn resultant from standing in blistering sun for nearly an hour with other equally ardent aficionados (masochists?).  I’ve often considered it heretical madness that some Duke City diners have compared Farina with Pizzeria Bianco.  How, after all, can a pizza crafted in Albuquerque compare with the pizza James Beard award-winning author Ed Levine considers the…

AlbuquerqueChickenDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Chile Chicken Nashville Hot Chicken – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My brother Mario–seven years younger, much better looking and quite a bit smarter–and I have shared many memorable firsts. There was the time I taught him how to drive on our dad’s 1965 standard transmission Chevrolet pickup truck.  He was a quick study, soon terrifying our grandmother with drifting skills Formula D drivers would envy.  I took him to his first championship wrestling match at Albuquerque’s Civic Auditorium where we watched “Rapid” Ricky Romero dispatch “Yellow Belly” Robley.  Mario would go on to similarly dominate high school wrestling opponents (though unlike Robley, he didn’t pull “foreign objects” from his trunks with which to beat his opponents).  Already in our grizzled 30s, we once beat two much younger (and ostensibly more fit) starters on Peñasco’s state championship basketball team.  That may not have been a first, but like the four touchdowns scored by Al Bundy, it was one of those youth-reclaiming victories we’ll boast of well into our 80s.  Fittingly, I was with Mario when he experienced Nashville hot chicken for the first time. There are some things brothers will confide only in one another.  One of us told the other the Nashville hot chicken too hot to handle, but the…

AlbuquerqueContinentalDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: OutstandingSpecialty

The Mouse Hole – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My Chicago born-and-bred bride and I often debate the merits and pitfalls of the Albuquerque metropolitan growing large enough to support more cultural opportunities, larger sports venues and ethnic restaurants we don’t currently have. Having grown up with those amenities, she knows more urban growth also means an increase in crime (as if we didn’t have enough already); more cronyism, corruption and collusion among the political cabal; more pollution, gentrification, traffic congestion, etc. Neither one of us wants Albuquerque to become another Big Cheese like Phoenix (though increasingly we’ve grown to love the Valley of the Sun’s restaurants). We would, however, love a Big Cheese shop like one in Toronto. If you’ve tuned in to a Hulu series called “Cheese: A Love Story,” you know of what I speak. The series centers around Afrim Pristine, one of the youngest maître fromagiers (cheese masters) in the world. That means he really is a big cheese…so much more than a turophile (a gourmet/ connoisseur of cheese) like me. His appreciation for and knowledge of cheese puts me to shame. As in every métier, it took significant time and effort to achieve his level of expertise. It did help that he was born…