Month: March 2022

ItalianRated 25Rio Rancho

JOE’S PASTA HOUSE – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Once a year, despite my protestations and whining, I agree to take my Kim to the Olive Garden. It’s a deal we have, albeit one that makes me feel like Faust in the Christopher Marlowe play. Faust, for the non-English majors among you, was a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. In my case, the deal is a visit to Olive Garden once a year in exchange for all the strange and exotic restaurants I want to visit the rest of the year. I sure got the rotten end of that deal. On a list of things I’d rather do, my annual visit to the Olive Garden for a meal…

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Kickstand Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

In 2016, The Plough Hotel in North Canterbury, New Zealand banned Lycra-clad customers in an attempt to remove any “unsightly bumps and bulges.”  The hotel owner declared Lycra “unsuitable,” explaining “We get a nice group of customers out here, some elderly folk. When you’re trying to concentrate on your breakfast you just want to see the sausages on your plate.” Then as if expecting a confrontation from the lumpy, bumpy bikers, he issued a challenge: “If there’s hordes of cyclists outside threatening to bash us with their bike pumps we can always barricade ourselves in, we’ve got a bit of food and drink here so we should be able to outlast them.” Lycra bike wear may not be de rigueur…

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Davido’s Pizza – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Some might call the American Realty and Petroleum Company (AMREP for short) a pioneering visionary for its early 1960s purchase of over 50,000 acres on the dusty Sandoval County plains that are now Rio Rancho. Others use different–and not necessarily as complimentary–adjectives to describe the land speculator whose clever marketing attracted hundreds of New Yorkers (among others) to the then untamed western fringes overlooking the Rio Grande. They came because Rio Rancho was a “lucrative investment” with half acre lots going for under $800 in the 1960s. They came because Rio Rancho offered “fishing, camping, swimming and golfing in a place where the sun shone 360 days a year.” They came to live in an area which sloped “among the…

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M’tucci’s Moderno – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere It’s up to you, New York, New York.” ~Frank Sinatra Jeff Spiegel, managing partner of the insanely popular M’tucci’s family of restaurants has described flagship restaurant M’tucci’s Italian Restaurant (previously M’tucci’s Kitchina) as “as good as anything we did in New York City.” That is really saying something considering over the course of 23 years, Jeff and his wife, life and business partner Katie Gardner owned and operated eleven restaurants in The Big Apple. Those eclectic eleven were highly regarded dining establishments, earning praise and acclaim from the dining public and media alike. One, The West End Bar & Grill, was a legendary Columbia University institution and veritable second home…

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Al Alwan’s Cafe – Albuquerque New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“I hope I live long enough to see the children of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria wake up to the sounds of birds not bombs.” ~Gigi Hadid Historians believe the name Syria derives from the Ancient Greek word “Seirios,” meaning, “sun-bright, glowing, blazing, and shining.” In Latin the equivalent term “Sirius” was used not only to denote the brightest star in the night sky and most prominent star in the constellation Canis Major (the greater dog), but to indicate “people from Syria.”  Officially today, Syria is known as the Syrian Arab Republic.  Lying in the east coast of the Mediterranean in the Middle East region which boasts of the most ancient civilizations in the world, Syria has historically existed in…

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Cafe Nom Nom – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Nom nom.” It sounds innocent enough. Parents–yes, including parents of four-legged fur babies–utter it in baby talk intonations to get our children to eat something, especially when that something is “good for them” but doesn’t actually look or taste good. Nom nom was, of course, the favorite expression of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster as he ravenously devoured a plate or six of cookies, a fusillade of crumbs flying from his chewing mouth. Grade school teachers use nom nom as an example of an onomatopoeia, a word that imitates a sound. My friend Michael Gonzales, the dynamic owner of Rio Rancho’s Cafe Bella uses it to describe great new restaurant finds. English majors recognize it as an expression used to convey…

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Vegos Vegan New Mexican – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Well, there’s not a taco big enough for a man like me That’s why I order two or three Let me give you a tip, just try a nacho chip It’s really good with bean dip. I eat uno, dos, tres, quatro burritos Pretty soon I can’t fit in my Speedos Well, I hope they feed us lots of chicken fajitas And a pitcher of margaritas.” ~ Weird Al Yankovic: Taco Grande Growing up in agrarian Northern New Mexico where we grew and consumed the bounty of our gardens was the closest I’ve ever been to a vegetarian or vegan diet.  In addition to the beans, pumpkins, corn, carrots, lettuce, apples, pears and strawberries we grew on our farm, my…