Closed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanRating: ExceptionalSanta Fe

EPAZOTE ON THE HILLSIDE – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:37 PM

Epazote. That’s a word that can make an intrepid chef’s toque blanche resemble the white flag of surrender. If you’re a culinary savant and haven’t heard of epazote, it’s probably because the chefs at restaurants you frequent might just be afraid to use it. Would you want to use an ingredient also known as “skunkweed” and “wormseed”…a word derived from a Nahuatl term for an animal with a rank odor…an ingredient perhaps best known for reducing the after-effects of eating beans? When Chef Fernando Olea chose to name his fabulous new world restaurant Epazote, it signaled a bold departure from the stereotype too many diners have of Mexican restaurants. In the Chef’s inimitably gentle manner, he was declaring his passion…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoVietnamese

Viet Noodle – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:15 PM

On April 3, 2013, University of New Mexico (UNM) Vice President for Athletics Paul Krebs sent out a very simple and succinct tweet confirming the hire of head men’s basketball coach Craig Neal. The one-word tweet read simply “Noodles.” Noodles, of course, is the sobriquet Neal received in high school on account of his tall and thin stature. The hire was very enthusiastically received by both fans and players who were witness to the strong impact he had on the program as long-time assistant coach. Albuquerque has always been a Lobo basketball crazed city and it has embraced Noodles who guided his team to 27 wins during his first season as head coach. While the UNM Lobo Club would like…

CorralesNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Katrinah’s East Mountain Grill – Edgewood, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:22 AM

It’s interesting that the New Mexico State Constitution bars “idiots” and “insane persons” from voting, but quips about votes being cast by dead people, family pets and farm animals have been pervasive over the years in some counties and municipalities. In some of the same counties and municipalities, the saying “vote early and vote often” has seemed more a way of life than an aphorism. Not all citizens of the Land of Enchantment exercise their right to vote, but some, it seems, exercise it vigorously…and often. Perhaps realizing the enthusiasm some New Mexicans have for the right to vote, the New Mexico Tourism Department allowed them to cast their vote daily for their favorite breakfast burrito in the statewide Breakfast…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoPizza

Gioco – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:23 AM

Archaeologists in Spain have unearthed the original man cave. What is most remarkable about this finding is how very similar Neanderthal man and contemporary man are. Men, it seems, have not evolved much. Neanderthals were hairy and brutish in appearance, much like the New York Giants. They spoke in guttural grunts, similar to today’s politicians. Neanderthals scrawled their art on cave walls; contemporary man expresses himself artistically on bridges, underpasses and walls. Neanderthal man used tools: hammers and axes; contemporary man uses tools: television remote controls and iPhones. Cultural anthropologists (and Barbara Streisand) have long posited that throughout evolutionary history, man has had an inherent need for belonging to a social group. We are driven to form and maintain at…

Fine DiningNew MexicoSanta Fe

Anasazi Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:00 PM

As you gaze in awe and wonder at the luxurious trappings surrounding you everywhere you turn at the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi, you can’t help but contemplate the irony. Inn of the Anasazi? Throughout their existence the Anasazi never knew luxury or leisure, focusing solely and at all times on survival. Shelter, food and water were of paramount concern in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, a desolate environment which was often brutal and unforgiving. Amidst the ravages of climatic extremes, the Anasazi scratched out an existence and an lasting legacy. While the subsistence living of the Anasazi civilization and the opulence of the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi are at polar extremes, even stodgy historians might appreciate…

Food Network Eats New MexicoNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: GoodSanta FeThe Best Thing I Ever Ate

Five & Dime General Store – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:35 PM

The late Fray Angelico Chavez, New Mexico’s preeminent historian once wrote about Santa Fe’s growth, “The only threat to her own distinctive glory, and something to guard against these days, is the kind of hurried “progress” which has, not history or humanity, but only money as its sole aim and purpose.” Perhaps nowhere in Santa Fe has that hurried progress been more in evidence than in the world-famous Santa Fe Plaza which has seen significant changes over the years. One of the bastions against progress had been the Woolworth’s department store, in place for several generations, but which finally gave up the ghost just before the turn of the 21st century. In its place stands the Five & Dime General…

New MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa FeSouthwestern

Del Charro Saloon – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:12 PM

Can it truly be that the more things change, the more they stay the same? In 1776, Fermin de Mendinueta, governor and captain-general of the Spanish province of New Mexico, declared that “Santa Fe settlers are “churlish types” who are “accustomed to live apart from each other, as neither fathers nor sons associate with each other.” In 2013, Travel & Leisure published a list of America’s “snobbiest cities” and Santa Fe made the list at number five. The list was based on surveys of the magazine’s readers. Mayor at the time David Cross attributed the perception of Santa Fe snobbery to the enjoyment of the arts, a point validated by the article which quoted a writer as saying “without a…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenThai

Tara Thai Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:04 PM

The Internet is replete with personality assessments. Some–such as a personality assessment based on your choice of pizza toppings–are created by psychologists ostensibly intent on obtaining scientifically valid results, but many others are intended solely for fun and have no real validity. In the latter category, most assessments can easily be manipulated to achieve the results you want. As you’re responding to questions, an inevitable conclusion becomes transparent. You can usually tell by the way you’re answering those questions what the results will be. On the other hand, some personality assessments are baffling. While you may think you’re manipulating the results, the subsequent assessment winds up contrary to your responses. One such assessment purports to tell you which “Big Bang…

New MexicoRating: GoodSteakTruth or Consequences

Los Arcos Steakhouse & Bar – Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:31 PM

Because of the geothermal mineral springs which issue from the ground, the city of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico was originally named “Hot Springs.” Seeking to distinguish itself from other cities of the same name and to advertise its plentiful resources, city residents voted to rename the city in response to a challenge rendered by a successful 1950s NBC television show called Truth or Consequences. The rest, as they say, is history. This small resort town with an year round permanent population of just over 8,000 bustles with activity, much of it centered around nearby Elephant Butte lake. Truth or Consequences (T or C to the locals) is a city which honors its history and is an exemplar of small…

BurgersClosed in 2024Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoSocorro

Bodega Burger Co. & Lounge – Socorro, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:35 AM

“A Hamburger is warm and fragrant and juicy. A hamburger is soft and non-threatening. It personifies the Great Mother herself, who has nourished us from the beginning. A hamburger is an icon of layered circles, the circle being at once the most spiritual and the most sensual of shapes. A hamburger is companionable and faintly erotic: the nipple of the Goddess, the bountiful belly-ball of Eve.” ~Tom Robbins Hamburgers have long been the apotheosis of comfort food deliciousness and the favorite food of the masses. Regardless of socioeconomic strata, burgers are enjoyed by nearly one and all–to the tune of some 38 billion per year in the United States alone. That’s three per week on average for every man, woman…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNepaleseNew Mexico

Taste of Himalayas – Los Ranchos De Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:39 PM

At 40,000 1/2 feet, the imposing Rum Doodle is the highest mountain in the world, surpassing even Mount Everest, its alpine neighbor on the Himalayas. Surmounted only by a group of audacious British mountaineers and their Yogastani porters in an odyssey fraught with misadventure, its ascent is the stuff of which mountaineering legends are made. As if scaling the perilous precipice wasn’t dangerous enough, the intrepid climbers had to endure the inedible culinary miscreations of Pong, the expedition’s sadistic cook. While Rum Doodle the mountain exists only in the 1956 novel The Ascent of Rum Doodle, there’s an immensely popular bar in Kathmandu named for the fictitious mountain. The Rum Doodle Bar is legendary as the gathering place and watering…