Category: Closed in 2020
La Crêpe Michel – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
FROM THE LA CREPE MICHEL WEBSITE: We have decided to permanently close La Crepe Michel. I want to thank everyone for making more than 30 years possible. We will miss you all and we have wonderful memories that will last forever. Again, thank you. – Claudie and all the staff at crepe michel The crêpe is, at its essence, not much more than a very thin cooked pancake, but ask even the most accomplished chefs to relate their initial attempts at baking crêpes and you’ll be regaled with tales of exasperation, woe, despair and misery. Use too much water or milk and not enough fat and the crêpes will turn out elastic and tough. If your pan isn’t hot enough, the crêpes will stick to it; too hot and the crêpes turn out lacy. Roll them too tight and they’ll explode and scald your face… Or at least that was the experience of Dominicans trying to pass off as Cuban cigar rollers in a hilarious episode of Seinfeld. When the owners of the Magic Pan crêperie became incapacitated, Jerry had the “Cubans” fill in at the restaurant rolling crêpes. Not surprisingly, the “Cubans” rolled the crêpes cigar tight, causing the…
Standard Diner – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
From the Standard Diner Facebook Page: It is with great sadness that Standard Diner will be closing its doors for good after dinner service on Monday, September 7th. On Friday the 11th, our doors will reopen as The Range Cafe. While New Mexico is most assuredly the Land of Enchantment, most locals also accept that it’s also the “land of mañana” where things that can be put off until tomorrow usually are, where the pace of life is more relaxed and slower. George Adelo, Jr., an enterprising Pecos resident even coined (and copyrighted) a phrase to describe the New Mexican way: “Carpe Mañana”–Seize Tomorrow. The spirit of Carpe Mañana was certainly prevalent in the long-awaited, much-anticipated opening of the Standard Diner, a Matt DiGregory restaurant venture which in opening March 2nd, 2006, was nearly eight months behind its planned launch. If ever a restaurant has more than made up for lost time, it may be this one. DiGregory, a local restaurant impresario owns the Standard Diner with his brothers Chris, Vince and Jon. He also owns the very popular Range restaurants in Bernalillo and Albuquerque as well as the now defunct Rodeo Grill. The Brothers DiGregory couldn’t have found a…
Anatolia Turkish & Mediterranean Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
In the mid 80s when my Kim and I lived in rural, agrarian England, a “sandwich” meant one of three things: a warm, fresh floury bap with butter, Cheddar cheese and Branston’s Pickle from our favorite bakery in Lechlade; a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (with chips (fries), of course) from The Plough in Fairford; or a doner kebab from a jankety kebab house in Banbury. There just weren’t many other sandwich options (not to mention burgers and pizza) in the Cotswolds region of England where we lived and certainly no subs, grinders, torpedoes, po’ boys or hoagies. In fact, to our British hosts, the notion that “Yanks” had so many options and fillings for our sandwiches was sheer lunacy on the level of King George, III. Never mind that the bread-encased convenience food known as the “sandwich” was invented by Englishman John Montague, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Of the three sandwiches, the memories of all which still rekindle pangs of hunger, our favorite was the doner kebab. It was our special occasion sandwich, the extravagance of which we chose to partake on birthdays and anniversaries. It was the indulgence on which we splurged (we were very poor back…
Eloisa – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)
Expansive views bathed in salubrious, sun-kissed air punctuated by languid breezes. Cerulean skies graduating in depth and brilliance the higher they climb above the horizon. Surreal topography of unnaturally contorted, dappled sandstone formations and juniper laden foothills. Lush, well-tended gardens blessed with an abundance of vegetables, herbs, flowers and shrubs. Such was the idyll Georgia O’Keefe called home. On Sunday, July 19th, 2015, another transcendent artist–one whose medium is food and whose canvas is the palate—spent the day at the home of the legendary doyenne of American painting. He went there to pick apricots from the Abiquiu property on which she had lovingly doted. It wasn’t John Rivera Sedlar’s first visit. Much of the chef’s upbringing and many of his happiest memories were at his family’s ranch in Abiquiu, not too far from where O’Keefe had lived and where she had painted the stunning macro perspectives of floral sensuality which captivated the world. Chef Sedlar’s aunt, Jerry Newsom, was Georgia O’Keefe’s personal chef for more than a decade, but it was under the nurturing influence of his grandmother Eloisa Martinez Rivera that his interest in cooking was kindled. Not only did she teach him how to prepare traditional New Mexican…
The Luna Mansion Landmark Steakhouse – Los Lunas, New Mexico (CLOSED)
New Mexico is truly a dichotomous land, a state in which seemingly contrasting qualities exist in symbiotic harmony with each other. While most of those contrasts exist spectacularly in nature, the Land of Enchantment’s architecture is no stranger to contradictions. One such example is the Luna Mansion, a stately manor built in the Southern Colonial architectural style, but whose basic construction material is adobe. The Luna Mansion was built in 1880 by the Santa Fe Railroad Company in exchange for right-of-way through lands owned by the Luna family. In the 1920s, the Luna-Otero family added to the grandeur of the Los Lunas showcase by building a front portico and grand solarium. White Grecian columns bid all visitors welcome. In the 1970s, the Luna Mansion was transformed into a restaurant, perhaps rankling the ire of Josefita Otero, one of the original family members to dwell in the Mansion. Her apparition, attired in 1920s regalia, began to appear. Several other apparitions, including Cruz, a groundskeeper, are said to haunt the restaurant while others have been seen or felt on the grounds of the estate. Perhaps they continue to visit the Luna Mansion for the food. While Auld Lang Syne faded with the…
China City – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
The Claw: Actually the only girl we want is Princess Ingrid. Maxwell Smart: Then why did you abduct the others? The Claw: Unfortunately, Mr. Smart, all Americans look alike to us. ~Get Smart Leave it to iconic filmmaker Mel Brooks to turn cultural stereotypes around to create a hilarious interchange between The Claw, the head of the Asian arm of the criminal spy agency KAOS, and Smart, the bumbling American secret agent who fights on behalf of the forces of goodness and niceness. Many of us who followed Twitter commentary after the United Sates Women’s National Soccer team played to a draw against North Korea shrank with embarrassment at comments which evinced the fact that there are still people who subscribe to ill-founded stereotype that all Asians look alike. If there’s a more innocuous and less offensive concession that can be made, it’s that most Chinese restaurants in Albuquerque do look alike in much the same way so many “red sauce” Italian restaurants of the 1960s looked alike. That’s a point even the most politically correct among us will concede. You’ll arrive at that conclusion about Chinese restaurants if ever you’re driving the city streets looking for a new place…
Ortega’s New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
From Ortega’s Facebook Page: It has been our pleasure to serve Albuquerque and visitors for nearly 32 years. We want to thank you for supporting Ortega’s Restaurant for more than three decades. We have enjoyed your company and made many friends over the years. On September 12, 2020, we will close our doors for the last time. If you were raised in New Mexico thirty or more years ago, chances are you weren’t raised on the healthiest of diets. New Mexican food, while incomparably delicious, isn’t exactly a dietician’s dream. Even our beloved frijoles, the healthiest of carbohydrates, were prepared in lard…and many of our dishes which weren’t prepared with lard, had enough cheese to keep Wisconsin fiscally afloat. It’s no wonder the Land of Enchantment’s population is rife with caloric overachievers. You’ll forgive those of us who survived such overindulgence to somehow reach middle age if we’re skeptical when a New Mexican restaurant boasts that “you don’t have to be health conscious – because we already are!” To support that contention, Ortega’s New Mexican Restaurant in Albuquerque: uses only all-vegetable oil in their fryers and food preparation, serves whole wheat sopaipillas with every meal, doesn’t use MSG or any…
Blue Grasshopper Brew Pub – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)
If you’ve ever wondered why the term “pink elephants” has long been recognized as a euphemism for a drunken hallucination, credit author Jack London. In his autobiographical tome, he described himself as “the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants.” When we first heard of the Blue Grasshopper Brew Pub in Rio Rancho, we wondered if it, too, was a euphemism for adult beverage overindulgence. Frankly, the reason behind the name is almost as good as Jack London’s euphemism. The sobriquet was bestowed upon co-owner Peter Apers by his mentor as he was teaching Apers to play the blues on guitar. One of that mentor’s favorite television personalities was Caine, the David Carradine character in Kung Fu whom the Shaolin master called “grasshopper.” Hence “Blues Grasshopper.” In 2014, Livability.com named the Duke City as “America’s best mid-sized city in the country for beer.” With nearly thirty brewery and tap room restaurants (as of this writing), Albuquerque metropolitan area cerevisaphiles certainly have their pick as to where…
Model Pharmacy – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
Albuquerque’s Model Pharmacy is an anachronism–a genuine throwback to the days in which old fashioned drug counters shared retail space with lunch counters and soda fountains. In every sense, the Model Pharmacy is chronologically out of place as an independently owned, family operated business in a world of corporate conglomerations that dominate the pharmaceutical business (such as the megalithic Walgreen’s store directly across the street). The pharmacy’s apothecaries still prescribe and dispense drugs, but an even bigger draw than sundry medicines are the high-end European beauty products and perfumes on the venerable pharmacy’s shelves. Renown food author Jane Stern indicates on the Roadfood Web site she and her former husband and writing partner Michael have made a foodie standard that Model Pharmacy stocks “rare items she’s seen in no pharmacies anywhere else in the world.” The store’s retail section is a paradise for curiosity seekers who can spend hours browsing through hand-made cards, journals and stationary or scour the glass cases for Swiss Army knives, fine pens, coin purses and women’s jewelry. It wasn’t these curiosities or the pharmaceuticals that brought the Sterns to the Model Pharmacy. It was the lunch counter…and even in the lunch counter, nostalgia abounds. Suspended…
Hartford Square – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)
“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.” ~ Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Dante Alighieri’s 14th century poem Divine Comedy postulated the existence of nine circles of Hell, each circle appropriate to the sins of the damned. The fourth circle, for example, is reserved for hoarders and wasters whose punishment is to spend eternal life rolling giant boulders at one another. While gastronomy is a virtue and not a sin, were there to have been a circle in Hell for gastronomes, there’s no doubt it would have been to spend eternity eating in chain restaurants where we would be subjected to the tedium and monotony of forevermore eating homogeneous foods. It would certainly make prophetic my words “I’ll be damned if I ever eat at Chili’s or Applebee’s.” Gastronomes need the spice of life that is variety. Unlike gluttons who eat and drink excessively or voraciously, (and therefore spend eternal life in the fourth circle of Hell where they wallow in muck and mire) gastronomes need not consume food in large quantities. Instead, we (and I’m including the faithful readers of this blog here) need the diversity that comes from foods with varying…