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AlbuquerqueClosed in 2026Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoSeafood

Slapfish – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Every year, a jolly, bearded (some might also say fat) gentleman leaves the comforts of his home to celebrate an event that comes only once a year. Throughout the year he’s visited good little mom-and-pop restaurants across the Land of Enchantment and rewarded them with kind reviews wrapped in polysyllabic words and alliterative phrases. On this special day, my Kim’s birthday, the bearded gentleman isn’t quite as jolly for as faithful readers know, once a year I agree to take my cookie-baking bride 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 28 October 2017, my Kim decided to collect my soul, er….have me make good on my promise and take her to the Olive Garden (which she doesn’t like…

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Saigon Far East – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED*)

Gil Garduno9:08 PM

NOTE: In November, 2020, Saigon Far East closed its doors and relocated to 25 The Way where it is now called Saigon City. Breaking a paradigm. That’s a modern corporate buzz phrase that essentially means approaching a situation or routine from a different perspective instead of the standard or typical way. In the parlance of dining out, breaking a paradigm means eating somewhere other than the “usual suspects.” That means getting out of your rut and visiting a restaurant you’ve never visited, especially one that no one has recommended to you.  If Gil’s Thrilling… had a mission statement it would be to introduce you to restaurants which break your paradigms. For many diners, breaking a paradigm is eating at a restaurant like Saigon Far East, one of Albuquerque’s most venerable Vietnamese restaurants. Despite being around for more than three decades, Saigon Far East is surprisingly not very well known, perhaps because it lacks a prominent street-facing storefront (or maybe because some people still refer to the area in which it’s situated as the “combat zone”). If you’ve ever visited Giovanni’s Pizzeria in the nondescript San Pedro shopping center, you may have noticed Saigon Far East on the northeast corner of…

AlbuquerqueBarbecueDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Nexus Blue Smokehouse – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:33 AM

Tim “The Toolman” Taylor just didn’t get the concept of “low-and-slow.”  During barbecue week on Taylor’s “Tool Time” television show, his buddies from NASA told him the secret to quickly igniting a grill was to use rocket fuel (“liquid oxygen with a skosh of hydrogen and for fun, a little soupcon of cilantro for flavoring”).  Predictably, the grill fired up in a world record time of 2.6 seconds.  Also to be expected, the grill exploded like a rocket, flying off into the wild blue yonder.  That was par for the course for the accident-prone Taylor who once installed a jet engine on his lawnmower. Thankfully the pitmaster extraordinaire at Nexus Blue Smokehouse, understands the sweet, smoky, seductive low-and-slow science and art of grilling succulent meats.  That intersection of art and science occurs at just the optimum point.  Art doesn’t start where science stops.  Rather it’s a symbiosis of both.  Tim Taylor well understood the science, but could never grasp the intricacies of the art of barbecue.  Discerning Duke City diners pining for succulent smoked meats understand both. If you didn’t already know, the name “Nexus” certainly cued you in that the Smokehouse comes from the Nexus Brewery family, a burgeoning…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew MexicoTacos

Dia De Los Takos – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:47 PM

NOTE: Although Dia De Los Takos has closed, founder-owner-chef Dominic “Dom” Valuenzuela has launched a new restaurant called Tako Ten.  Look for a review soon. Felix, a character in Adi Alsaid’s young adult fiction book North of Happy was asked what makes a taco perfect. “It’s a taco that tastes as good as the idea of a taco itself. A taco that’ll hold steadfast through memory’s attempt to erase it, a taco that’ll be worthy of the nostalgia that it will cause. A taco that won’t satisfy or fill but will satiate your hunger. Not just for tonight but for tacos in general, for food, for life-itself, brother. You will feel full to your soul. “But!” he added, a callused index finger pointed straight up at the sky. “It’s also a taco that will make you hunger for more tacos like it, for more tacos at all, for food, the joy of it, the beauty of it. A taco that makes you hungry for life and that makes you feel like you have never been more alive. Nothing short of that will do Finding the perfect taco may be as futile a quest as finding a modicum of talent in…

Dog FriendlyNew MexicoPizzaRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Pizza Barn – Edgewood, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:16 PM

“I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love Wikipedia describes the 2010 biographical romantic novel Eat Pray Love as “a journey around the world that becomes a quest for“…pizza. Okay, I took some literary liberties with the “pizza” thing.  What author Elizabeth Gilbert was actually in pursuit of was “self-discovery.”  Pizza….Self-discovery.  Isn’t that pretty much the same thing?  In her travels, Elizabeth went all the way to Italy to discover the art of pleasure, a significant aspect of which is the hedonistic, indulgent joy of eating pizza, pasta, gelato and other treasure troves of absolute deliciousness prepared as they can only be prepared in Bel Paese Thankfully denizens of the Duke City don’t have to cross an ocean to partake of the joys of eating very good, if not life-altering pizza.  A recent comment from Jackie suggested such pizza might be found as nearby as Edgewood, just east of the Sandia Mountains.  I realize some people approach a journey beyond the Sandias with the same…

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Santa Fe Bite – ABQ – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:49 PM

In 1940, Thomas Wolfe penned You Can’t Go Home Again, a novel whose deeply existential title prompted more than water cooler conversations.  It prompted profound philosophical discourse, internal reflection and pangs of nostalgia about better days remembered.  Readers pondered if it was true that “you can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood.”  Realists concluded the novel’s title meant you can’t return to a place of another time and expect that everything would be exactly the same.  Optimists  took it a bit further, positing that while some things may change, other things don’t change and some things might actually be better. Wolfe’s novel came to mind when we first heard a legendary Santa Fe institution had licensed a franchise in Albuquerque.  That institution, the Santa Fe Bite had itself once provided evidence that you can go back home.  For six decades, that institution–then known as the Bobcat Bite–earned every accolade conceivable before relocating to the Santa Fe Plaza area in 2003.  There was a lot of charm in its Lilliputian digs where you sat elbow-to-elbow with other diners who, like you, had waited eagerly for one of the Bobcat Bite’s 26 seats to become available.   The…

AlbuquerqueFood TruckKoreanRating: Very Good

Soo Bak Seoul Bowl & Soo Bak Foods – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Announcer: “The story you are about to read is true. The menu has been changed to showcase the delicious mashup of Korean and Mexican cuisines. Roy Choi: “This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I’m a chef.” Since 2008, there’s been a dragnet in progress across the city of Los Angeles. Instead of a coordinated attempt by police to catch criminals, this dragnet is a coordinated attempt by four mobile food kitchens (that’s food truck to you, Bob) to attract hungry diners. Those mobile food kitchens are named Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go and have pioneered a technological approach for enticing eager eaters by announcing its location on social media. Diners have since been lining up like flash mob of bees to a honey-coated hive, prompting Newsweek to hail Kogi as “the first viral eatery.” Kogi is widely acknowledged as the forerunner of the gourmet truck phenomenon, the catalyst which elevated the food-truck concept from “roach coach” to legitimate destination rolling restaurant. Founder-chef Roy Choi even made Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People for 2016. Kogi’s “Seoul meets Mexico City” concept has spawned a phalanx of flatterers…er, imitators across the country. And why not? Unlike so…

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Seasonal Palate – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:58 PM

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; ~Ecclesiastes, 3:1-2 Not that very long ago, a “seasonal palate” meant humankind consumed foods only during the season in which they were grown. Today, we can walk down the aisles of our neighborhood grocery stores in January and find a veritable horn of plenty overflowing with the same kinds of fruits and vegetables we were enjoying when they were “in season” back in June. That’s what progress–refrigeration, preservatives, processed foods and a worldwide distribution system–has wrought. Alas, that “progress” may have come at the expense and delusion of our taste buds. While genetic engineering has fooled our eyes by making those “out-of-season” fruits and vegetables appear fresh, ripe and delicious, our taste buds are more honest, discerning those fruits and vegetables to be flat, bland and uninspiring. They may look good, but the real proof is in the eating. Aside from discerning seasonally optimum flavors with our olfactory senses and taste buds, our memories tend to associate fruits and vegetables…

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Toltec Brewing Co. – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:01 PM

Vincent: And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris? Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese? Vincent: No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn’t know what the #%*&! a Quarter Pounder is. Jules: What’d they call it? Vincent: They call it Royale with cheese. Jules: Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac? Vincent: Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac. ~Pulp Fiction 265 “f-bombs,” copious racist slurs, torrents of extreme language and some of the most weighty dialogue ever spoken in an American movie. That was Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 apotheosis Pulp Fiction, a low-brow pastiche the cognoscenti consider one of the most quotable movies ever made. The clever banter and witty repartee between hitmen Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is particularly memorable. It was their dialogue which introduced this review. It was what immediately came to mind when I espied the “Royale” on the “Breaking Bread” section of Toltec Brewing Co.’s menu. While no self-respecting gastronome would ever order a Quarter Pounder…er, Royale with cheese in Paris (or anywhere else, but especially not in Paris), Toltec’s Royale is…

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Swiss Alps Bakery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:58 PM

Admit it. The second thing that comes to mind when you hear the term “Swiss Alps” is the scene from one of cinema’s most heartwarming movies. It begins with a distant camera drawing closer to a verdant mountainside backdropped by steep, snow-capped peaks. Soothing music grows louder as the camera pans in on a lone figure with arms outstretched. The chappeaued figure twirls and looks skyward as a voice in the background sings “The hills are alive with the sound of Griswolds.” Never mind that Clark Griswold’s dream sequence for the comedy classic European Vacation was actually filmed in the Austrian Alps, not the Swiss Alps. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is the Swiss Alps Bakery & Cafe, a Duke City mainstay for more than three decades. If you don’t remember Swiss Alps being around for that long, the bakery actually got its start as the Black Forest Bakery. For nearly the first two decades of its existence, the Black Forest Bakery was ensconced in a strip mall on Menaul. In 2012, Jessica Espat-Johnson bought the bakery and relocated it to a larger location on the northeast corner of San Pedro and Candelaria. The move allowed…

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Tesuque Village Market – Tesuque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:34 PM

The most successful Indian revolt in North American history occurred on August 10th, 1680. On that day, more than 8,000 warriors from the various Native American pueblos in New Mexico put aside deep historical differences and banded together to drive the Spaniards from their ancestral lands. This event is celebrated each year in Tesuque Pueblo. Tesuque Pueblo played an integral role in the rebellion. Two Tesuque runners were dispatched by pueblo leaders to enlist support for the revolt. The runners carried knotted deer hide cords to the various pueblos, each knot signifying a day. On each successive day, one knot was untied. When the final knot was untied it signified the day of attack.The annual celebration of this event includes a relay run reenacting the famous run. Runners depart from Tesuque plaza carrying a knotted cord made of yucca and an ear of corn. The yucca cord symbolizes the spirit of the people and the ear of corn their physical body. It is an inspiring event. Led by Diego Jose de Vargas, the Spanish returned to New Mexico in 1692 and within a year regained full political control of New Mexico. Their return marked a significant change in Spanish policy…