Closed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenItalianMassachusettsRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Sportello – Boston, Massachusetts (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:24 PM

In its April, 2009 edition Saveur magazine feted “12 restaurants that matter,” profiling a dozen restaurants that “represent the best of dining in America today.”  Although that title may at first browse sound a bit condescending, the premise of the article was that restaurants are special places.  ”Everybody has to eat, but going out to eat is a choice.” The one choice of the Saveur sages which most intrigued me was a restaurant in Boston that had been open for less than one year, but which had already been drawing rave reviews.  It wasn’t those reviews that likely swayed the decision to name Sportello one of a distinctive dozen.  It was probably the execution of a concept under the masterful…

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Gil’s Thrilling Blog Marks One-Year Anniversary

Gil Garduno8:00 PM

Very well,” replied the editor-in-chief. “Dine somewhere else to-day and somewhere else to-morrow. I wish you to dine everywhere, — from the Astor House Restaurant to the smallest description of dining saloon in the City, in order that you may furnish an account of all these places. The cashier will pay your expenses.” With that mandate, the editor-in-chief of the New York Times dispatched an uncredited gentleman on what might well be the very first restaurant review published not only in America’s largest metropolitan newspaper, but perhaps throughout the country.  The date was January 1, 1859. Today, nearly every major American newspaper employs a restaurant critic to critique the area’s restaurants and present their objective assessments in an eloquent and creative…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

Albuquerque Tortilla Company Family Restaurant and Carry Out – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:15 PM

Fearful that her dim-witted and loose-lipped husband would tell everyone in the village his good fortune in having found three bags of gold, the woodcutter’s wife concocted a plan.  She had her husband buy her a one-hundred pound bag of flour and when he returned with the flour, she told him to lay down and rest for a while.  While her weary husband slept, the woman made tortillas from the entire one-hundred pound bag of flour, so many tortillas the stacks climbed to the ceiling.  She then carried the tortillas outside and threw them all over the ground. When the woodcutter woke up the next morning, he was amazed to find tortillas covering the ground.  His wife told him it…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2009

Hurley’s Coffee, Tea and Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:01 PM

“May you have food and raiment, a soft pillow for your head. May you be forty years in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead.” — An Irish Blessing Cynics who used to deride Irish food as the worst in the planet would have cautioned you to say a prayer before you ate it, but not necessarily in Thanksgiving for what you were about to receive.  For years the Emerald Isle has captured the imagination with its numberless shades of lush greens, smooth as silk whiskey, stout Guinness beer and poetry that can bring you to the depths of desolation or the heights of alacrity.  What the land of saints, sinners and poets had not, until recently, ever been known…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2013Gone But Not ForgottenMariscosMexican

Mariscos La Playa – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:54 PM

While New Mexico has always had restaurants featuring the cuisine of the country of Mexitli of Tenochtitlan (Mexico), the distinction between Mexican and New Mexican cuisine has always been somewhat obfuscated.  There are a number of reasons for this. For as long as I remember, restaurants which serve cuisine we now recognize as uniquely New Mexican (characterized among other things by the use of piquant red and green chiles instead of jalapeno) have billed themselves as Mexican restaurants.  The term “New Mexican food,” is, in fact, relatively new as the Land of Enchantment has more recently taken an active stance in promoting its cuisine as something distinctly delicious and different than Mexican food. The situation has been exacerbated by ancianos (New Mexico’s elderly population), even the…

BarbecueBreakfastClosed in 2010New MexicoRating: ExcellentRio Rancho

Mad Max’s BBQ – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:44 PM

NOTE:  In March, 2010, Max and Fran Montano entered into a lease to buy agreement with an enthusiastic owner who continued to use the recipes which made Mad Max’s the very best barbecue in the Albuquerque area.  By September, 2010 the restaurant was closed.  Max and Fran will continue competing in competitions throughout the region and will also cater events.  They will be missed as much for their warmth and great humor as for their outstanding barbecue. Since the discovery of fire, man has viewed his domain as the great outdoors. The outdoors is from where man brought home the day’s victuals for early woman to prepare.  As the centuries progressed, descendents of troglodytic man (many of whom haven’t evolved…

BurgersClosed in 2009Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Village Grill – Moriarty, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:53 PM

Since the mid 1920s, New Yorker magazine has been providing insightful commentary on popular American culture in all its star-spangled idiosyncrasies.  One of its most popular features in the 1970s  was the “American Journal” written by the inimitable Calvin Trillin who traversed the continent in search of where real people ate.  The “Walt Whitman of American eats” chronicled his dining experiences with the same enthusiasm with which he ate the native cuisines most appreciated by locals.  Peppering his reviews with humor, he culled a reputation as one of America’s best food writers. Trillin was adamant that America’s most glorious food was not the culinary fare proffered at the uppity upscale restaurants he cynically referred to generically as “La Maison de…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2009New Mexican

Quesada’s New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:52 AM

When we get together, native New Mexicans of my generation who grew up in the state’s mountainous regions sometimes reminisce about trudging a mile or more in feet-deep snow to get to school.  We wonder how we survived the furious snowstorms which killed  reception for weeks to all four (yeah, four) Albuquerque television stations in the dark, pre-historic days before color television (not to mention, cable), the Internet and iPhones. Mostly, we trumpet the fact that we were  weaned on chile–and not just any chile.  We grew up eating the most gastronomic distress-inducing, tongue-searing, sweat-arousing chile possible–the type of chile which embodies the axiom that with some New Mexican food, pain is a flavor.  Listen to us and we’ll  have you believe that in…

AmericanBakeryBreakfastClosed in 2011Gone But Not ForgottenLos Ranchos de Albuquerque

Calico Cantina & Cafe – Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:22 AM

The first time my friends and I visited the Calico Cafe at its original Corrales location, we wondered if the restaurant suffered from an identity crisis. Exterior signage read “Calico Cafe” but the menus indicated we were dining at “Cowgirl’s.” Apparently the restaurant was initially christened Cowgirl’s, but a name change was court-ordered after a naming dispute with Santa Fe’s long-established Cowgirls BBQ restaurant. On December 2nd, 2004, the popular and intimate lunch and breakfast restaurant owned by Corrales residents Vernon and Angel Garcia, was consumed by fire. In 2006, the Calico Cantina & Cafe launched in a new and much expanded location, the 19,000 square foot Village Shops at Los Ranchos–in the heart of the original Route 66. Coupled…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueClosed in 2012Gone But Not Forgotten

Johndhi’s BBQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:45 AM

With the wafting aroma of smoked meats, Johndhi’s, a charming smokehouse restaurant on picturesque Rio Grande Boulevard welcomes you to Bar-B-Querque, a well-earned and time-tested sobriquet. Known as Geezamboni’s since its inception in 1988 until a name change in 2005, Johndhi’s is a North Valley institution popular all year round. Owned and operated by John Nellos of Albuquerque’s first family of barbecue (the philanthropic Nellos clan owns three Quarters restaurants in the Duke City), Johndhi’s has an ultra hip, mega casual feel to it that belies the converted home structure in which it sits.  The artsy ambience includes French posters, multi-hued Mexican ceramic masks and pictures adorning the walls.  Strewn about the restaurant’s many nooks and crannies are interesting accoutrements such as an antique…

Closed in 2016Fine DiningGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

High Finance – Sandia Crest, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:36 PM

“Getting high” on cannabis is known for increasing appetite.  According to High Times, a New York based magazine which advocates the legalization of marijuana, scientists now know why.  Those scientists have uncovered the part of the brain which makes cannabis users get the munchies for chocolate, pizza, peanuts and more.  It’s hoped that this discovery will help in developing pharmaceuticals to prevent anorexia and obesity. In New Mexico, the term “getting high” sometimes has different connotations–without the psychoactive effects but with the unfailing effect of getting the munchies.  That’s because getting high often means high altitude dining–at least that’s what it means to savvy diners who recognize that food seems to taste better at high altitude. Here’s some anecdotal evidence.…