Month: September 2024

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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,…

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Mati Peruvian Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 2004, The Economist (a British weekly news publication) proclaimed that “Peru can lay claim to one of the world’s dozen or so great cuisines.” In 2005, Bon Appetit declared Peruvian “the next hot cuisine,” extolling its “vibrant ceviches, crispy, spiced rotisserie chickens and packed-with-flavor empanadas” then encapsulating its declaration with “this is one cuisine we could eat every day.”  A year later, at the world’s premier gastronomic forum, the International Summit of Gastronomy, Lima (the coastal nation’s capital city) was touted as the “gastronomic capital of the Americas.” In 2011, The Wall Street Journal also called Peruvian food “the next big thing” glossing that it “provides flavors that have the world’s top toques raving, experimenting and catching the next…

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K Style Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

If you’re susceptible to the power of suggestion–especially as it pertains to ear worms (recurring tunes that involuntarily pop up and stick in your mind)–you’re probably going to hate me (or you can skip this paragraph and continue to love me).  That’s because if you do read this paragraph you’re going to be humming to yourself one of the most annoying songs of all time–Gangnam Style.  Arguably, Gangnam Style is not as annoying as La Macarena or My Humps (which Rolling Stone declared “the most annoying song ever”). The more you try to suppress Gangnam Style, the more your impetus to hum it increases, a mental process known as ironic process theory.  By the way, those most at risk for…

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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…

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Mixtli – San Antonio, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

A quote attributed to Marcel Marceau, the French mime famous for his sad-faced clown, aptly describes my attempts at describing a meal at Mixtli: “Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words”  (not that being without words has ever stopped me). Life’s events often include moments which move you deeply and stir your very soul. My inaugural dining experience at Mixtli was not so profound and cathartic as to move me to drastically change my life, but it certainly prompted a stirring awakening as I experienced what was conceivably the best restaurant meal I’ve ever had. Several of the other effusive reviews I’ve written are mere hyperbole in comparison to what I’d like to say…

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Curry Boys BBQ – San Antonio, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

The 1970s were characterized by writer Tom Wolfe as the “Me Decade” and derided by cynics as the “Disco Era.” It was an era of contrasts: the national crisis of confidence described by President Jimmy Carter as a “malaise” and the ubiquitous yellow smiley face; the melodic, velvety stylings of the Carpenters and the edgy, funky beat of disco; an explosion of copycat fast food chain restaurants and the introduction of innovative fusion cuisine in many contemporary restaurants. Fusion cuisine is the inventive combination of diverse, sometimes disparate culinary traditions, elements and ingredients to form an entirely new genre. In large metropolitan areas, particularly in California, the fusion of different cuisines became commonplace. Restaurants featuring the melding of French and…

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Terry Black’s BBQ – Lockhart, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My Kim won’t be jealous that I was in the company of two winsome women during my inaugural visit to Terry Black’s BBQ.  She might, however, be unhappy if I were to come home perfumed by post oak, a sure sign I had been enjoying Texas barbecue without her.  Post oak is the wood many of the Lone Star State’s best barbecue restaurants smoke to give their meats inimitable flavors and aromas.  Okay, she might also be jealous that I polished off a monsterous beef rib, the type of which tipped over Fred Flintstone’s granite automobile.  It would have been more than enough for her and The Dude to share with me, but hey, how often do you get to…

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Burnt Bean – Seguin, Texas

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Legend has it that shortly after the horrendous mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas,  Burnt Bean pitmaster and co-owner Ernest Servantes was asked to serve barbecue to law enforcement officials in Uvalde.  According to sources, Servantes, himself an Uvalde native, refused to serve anything to the milksops whose cowardly inaction resulted in the fatal shooting of 19 students and 2 teachers, and the injuring of 17 others.  Servantes wasn’t around when my new friend and dining companion Melinda Martinez and I finally completed our time in the purgatory of a queue that snaked to the end of the block.  We asked one of the restaurant’s servers, but he was unable to either confirm or refute the story.  At any regard, it’s…

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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…

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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…

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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…