Tag: Albuquerque

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Ikigai ABQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

While ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy) may sound like what grade school girls called me many years ago, in Japanese the term ikigai is a Japanese concept combining the terms “iki,” meaning “alive” or “life,” and “gai,” meaning “benefit” or “worth.”  Though there is no direct English translation, when combined these terms embody “that which gives your life worth, meaning, or purpose.”  Essentially, ikigai is the reason why you get up in the morning. It makes a lot of sense therefore that the signage for Ikigai, a sushi restaurant ensconced in a Lilliputian pod within the El Vado Motel complex, would be subtitled “a sushi shop with purpose.”  For some of us, sushi gives life worth, meaning and purpose.  Sushi was the…

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Bamboo Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In his 30s, curmudgeonly London food critic Jay Rayner who’s been called the “enfant terrible (literally “terrifying child) of the gastronomic scene,” came to the realization that he hated hangovers more than he hated being drunk.  During a visit to a Vietnamese restaurant in London, he achieved an epiphany:  “huge steaming bowls of a deeply aromatic beef broth called pho, bobbing with slivers of meat and wide rice noodles – would prove a perfect cure. The head pain would ease. The pitch and roll of the stomach would steady. A gentle, soft comfy cloud of well being would descend. And all this for not very much money at all.” A 2017 article from the travel experts of Lonely Planet also…

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Salty Catch – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:24 PM

As children growing up in landlocked and agrarian Peñasco, my siblings and I led a very sheltered life. Our extremely provincial experience with “seafood” was limited to Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks which we dipped in Kraft’s sandwich spread (we didn’t know about tartar sauce) and (gasp, the horror) Mrs. Paul’s fried shrimp. Sure, we snared the legal limit (yeah, right) of German brown trout, cutthroat trout and rainbow trout in the cold, rocky waters of the mountain streams in our backyard, but that wasn’t “seafood.” That was fish! One commonality among the “seafood” and even the “fish” we experienced was that it was all fried. Okay, so the Mrs. Paul’s seafood was already breaded and fried when we removed it…

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Urbano Pasta Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:14 AM

“To break bread together,” a phrase as old as the Bible, captures the power of a meal to forge relationships, bury anger, provoke laughter.” ~The Joy of Food From National Geographic Sharing a meal creates a unique sense of intimacy felt by all who sit together at the table.  It’s an act that can spark new friendships, solidify lifetime bonds and serve as the backdrop for new memories.   Dining together is the most communal and binding action humans can take–an act The Atlantic describes  as “a quintessential human experience.”  It’s a universal act that transcends cultures, borders and geopolitical divides and it’s been practiced since the dawn of time.   Or at least for 300,000 years  according to archaeologists…