Month: March 2005

ArizonaBarbecue

Joe’s Real BBQ – Gilbert, Arizona

Gil Garduno

No ordinary Joe is this, critics would have you believe. Instead, they insist, this is one of the best 59 restaurants in the Phoenix area (Phoenix magazine, 2002). Located in a 1929 brick building that saw its “hay day” in the golden age of agricultural Arizona, it retains the charm that helps make downtown Gilbert a popular destination. A 1948 John Deere tractor holds a position of honor in the restaurant’s dining room and might remind you of the opening sequence of Green Acres (a popular 1960s television comedy) in which Oliver Wendell Douglas bounced up and down on his chugging tractor as he surveyed his worse for wear farm. Joe’s menu features large selections of meat, each cooked “low…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

Casa Grande Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Arizona’s Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America and serves as the most impressive remnant left by the Hohokam (those who are gone) culture. In many ways, Albuquerque’s Casa Grande restaurant may be a remnant, too–albeit, a remnant of restaurants which prepare unadulterated New Mexican food made to order with the realization that tourists really might want to try authentically piquant and seasoned food as the locals would prepare it. More than most restaurants in Albuquerque, particularly those in the Old Town area, Casa Grande does prepare meals that taste as if your own abuela might have made them. It doesn’t insult tourists by serving them the…

AmericanClosed in 2005Rated 25

Nouveau Noodles – Cedar Crest, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

In the west, it’s generally accepted that the human tongue can discern only four different tastes and that all tastes in the dining experience are combinations of those four: sweet, bitter, sour, and salty. By contrast, the Chinese have long believed that the human tongue possesses a fifth taste sensation–one that can detect pungent foods.  Chinese postulate that each of the five taste sensations corresponds to one of nature’s five elements: water, fire, wood, metal, and earth. Dine at Nouveau Noodles and you’ll be convinced that there are at least five taste sensations and that they’re all present in each and every savory morsel of the innovative Asian fusion dishes masterfully crafted by chef Robert Griego. Griego’s restaurant, a 2003…