Jinja Bar & Bistro – Santa Fe & Albuquerque, New Mexico
Fusion cuisine. The term often makes the most stodgy of purists cringe. Even those among us with the most liberal of palates have been known to cower at its mention. All too often, fusion cuisine is a loosely defined excuse for restaurateurs to unleash any number of unnatural flavor combinations upon the chaste, unsuspecting taste buds of diners seeking a memorable meal. Like a shotgun culinary marriage, felonious acts have been perpetrated in the name of fusion, with disparate exotic ingredients forced together by the imagination of sadistic chefs. It would be impossible, however, to dismiss fusion cuisine entirely. In one respect or another, much of the food we eat is a product of fusion. There is no one national…