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AlbuquerqueMexicanNew Mexico

Juanita’s Comida Mexicana – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:36 PM

When writer Jeffrey Steingarten was named food critic for Vogue in 1998, he made it his quest to overcome any distaste he may have had for certain foods.  Chief among the foods he disliked were kimchi, lard, Greek cuisine, and blue food. Over time, he overcame his aversion toward all those foods, save for those with a bluish hue.  His reasoning, “I‘m fairly sure that God meant the color blue mainly for food that has gone bad.”  It could then be argued that his best-selling tome The Man Who Ate Everything is somewhat of a misnomer.  Steingarten, whom you might recognize as a frequent judge on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America competition, is a very discriminating diner, but by strict definition not an omnivore (given that the term is defined as “an animal or person who eats everything”). Because Gil’s Thrilling… contains reviews for an impressive number of the Duke City’s restaurants, my friend Carlos calls me “The Man Who Has Eaten Everywhere” (save, of course, for chain restaurants I avoid like the dreaded “reply all” email option). In truth, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of restaurants in the metropolitan area heretofore not darkened by my shadow. Consider…

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Duke City Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:18 PM

In the 1970s and 1980s,  Reese’s Peanut Butter cups commercials consisted of a series of vignettes.  Each vignette depicted the collision of two daydreamers–one eating peanut butter and the other eating chocolate.  The peanut butter eater would exclaim “you got chocolate on my peanut butter.”  The one eating chocolate would retort “you got peanut butter on my chocolate.”  The two would then sample the mix of chocolate and peanut butter and burst out in wide-eyed surprise with “Delicious!”  A godlike narrator would then proclaim “Two great tastes that taste great together.” Reese’s has nothing on restaurant impresario Doug Weckerly, chef and proprietor of the Duke City Kitchen on Lomas just west of San Mateo.  Peruse his menu and you might get the impression he’s declared “why stop at two great tastes that taste great together when seven great tastes would taste even better.”  Some of the burgers are constructed of ingredient combinations so seemingly disparate, so wildly unconventional, so un-Albuquerque,  it’s as if he channeled renowned tinkerer Rube Goldberg.  When I asked the inventive chef how he comes up with such ingenious burgers, he told me “I guess I just march to the beat of a different drum.” Not only does…

BarbecueDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Mad Jack’s Mountaintop Barbecue – Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:16 AM

Whether it’s movies, Uber drivers or restaurants, human beings seem to predisposed to take stock in rankings and ratings.  Be it a one- to four-star rating method or any other numerical or graphical rating system, many of us won’t even read what a reviewer has to say.  We go straight to the rating.  Of course, for visitors to Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog, that means you’re missing out on thrilling vocabulary and verbosity.  Then again, maybe you don’t want to wade through my sesquipedalian rants to find my rating. Most reviewers, me included, would just as soon not issue ratings at all.  We would prefer to have readers discern their own impressions based on our magniloquent prose and more importantly, their own observations.  As The Dude, our debonair dachshund, and I walked around the alpine town of Cloudcroft, New Mexico while my Kim waited in line at Mad Jack’s Mountaintop Barbecue, it dawned on me that maybe ratings should be based on how long a diner is willing to wait in line for a meal.  My own threshold, perhaps indicative of my lack of patience, has always been about fifteen minutes.  Any longer than that and I want to bolt…

BarbecueDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Henry’s Barbecue – Artesia, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:10 PM

“Texas. It’s Like A Whole Other Country.” That slogan, conceived by the Texas Tourism Department, appeared on television commercials, billboards, advertisements and even license plates. It was such a hit that the Texas Department of Transportation obtained seven federal trademark registrations to protect it on everything from stickers to shot glasses. In 2014, USA Today readers declared it the “best of all state slogans,” edging out Virginia Is For Lovers” and “Kentucky Unbridled Spirit.” New Mexico’s sacrosanct “Land of Enchantment” slogan ranked fifth. Visit Artesia, New Mexico and you might just wonder if you didn’t accidentally cross over into that whole other country. As with much of Southeast New Mexico, the scrub-brushed topography closely resembles that of West Texas. It’s a different type of enchanted terrain haughty New Mexicans along the Rio Grande corridor picture as representing the entire state. Then there are the large old west bronze statues depicting cowboys and oil drillers, imagery often associated with the Lone Star State. Any image association exercise involving Texas would also include trucks, barbecue and football. As in Texas, the preferred mode of transportation in Artesia seems to be heavy-duty pickups.  As for barbecue and football, Henry’s will tell you all…

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Chef Toddzilla’s Gourmet Burgers – Roswell, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:41 PM

Roswell, New Mexico is a stodgy conservative town where sidewalks are rolled up early. Change comes to the state’s fifth largest city as slowly as the twangy, lazy cadence of a Texas drawl. So does embracing opportunity. Consider the so-called Roswell Incident of 1947. It took 55 years before Roswell opened its UFO museum and another three years before its first UFO Festival. Because Roswell is such an anachronism, you might think a tatted-up chef with a dystopian haircut would stick out like a sore thumb. Ask anyone who’s experienced that chef’s gourmet burgers and amiable manner and they’ll tell Chef Todd Alexander doesn’t stick out, he stands out. So does his effervescent partner in business and in life Kerry Moore. Chef Todd and Kerry are tattooed, tee-shirt wearing cool in a town defined by button-down plaid western wear. They’re cool enough to be themselves—no pretensions or snobbery, just genuine down-to-earth friendliness. They’d never brag about their pedigrees though they certainly would have reason to do so. Chef Todd has serious culinary creds, having plied his craft in five star, five diamond hotel kitchens. Kerry has a Master’s Degree in Marketing and managed food services at the Roswell Independent School…

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Bonchon – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:50 AM

Hawkeye Pierce had a very unique (and very sarcastic) take on the Korean War: “I just don’t know why they’re shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread. Transplant the American dream. Freedom. Achievement. Hyperacidity. Affluence. Flatulence. Technology. Tension. The inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back. That’s entertainment.” History has shown there was prophecy in his words. After thousands of years of civilization, South Korea now has donuts, quesadillas, pizza, cheeseburgers, fried chicken nuggets and all the fast foods which have wreaked havoc on America’s gut microbiome.  Hawkeye might term this cynically as the realization of the American dream. To say there’s a “trade imbalance” between the number of American restaurants in Korea and the number of Korean restaurants in America is an understatement. Many of the ubiquitous fast food chains found throughout the fruited plain can also be found across the Land of the Morning Calm. Very few Korean chains of any genre, but specifically fast food, can be found under the spacious skies. Almost all Korean restaurants in the United States are independent mom-and-pop eateries, including a couple…

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Cantina Nueva – Garduños – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:34 PM

Garduños just can’t seem to keep up with the Joneses, at least in terms of familial propagation. The 2010 United States Census indicates more than a million instances (1,425,470 to be precise) of the surname Jones, making it the fifth most common among the 6.3 million surnames recorded. In comparison, the surname Garduño belonged to only 6,912 individuals, ranking it as the 5073rd most common surname under the spacious skies. Almost 93 percent of the individuals answering to the surname Garduño listed their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino. It’s inherent in possessing a relatively scarce name that my Kim and I are often asked if we’re related to other people sporting that mellifluous patronym, usually Dave Garduño and his family who founded the Garduño’s dynastic restaurant empire. While there’s a strong likelihood we shared a common ancestor several generations ago, there is no shared direct family line. Call us cousins several times removed. Maybe because our surname is so uncommon, our eyes and ears perk up whenever the name Garduño is uttered or we see in print. That probably wouldn’t be the case if our surname was Jones. We were certainly excited to hear a new Garduño’s restaurant enterprise had…

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Bubblicitea Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:22 PM

According to the United States Census Bureau, by 2016 the Asian American population–including those of multiracial, Hispanic and Latino ancestry–had reached nearly 21 million, constituting about six-percent of the Fruited Plain’s total population.  As the table below illustrates, there’s absolutely no correlation between population and the number of restaurants across the fruited plain representing the listed Asian ethnicities.  Ethnicity Population Restaurants Source Chinese 3.79 million 41,000 Chinese Restaurant News Filipino 3.41 million ???? ???? Indian 3.18 million 5,000 Washington Post Vietnamese 1.73 million 8,900 Institute for Immigration Research Korean 1.7 million 5,000 Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) Japanese 1.3 million 25,100 Japanese Overseas Diplomatic Establishments   Just try finding an authoritative source enumerating the country’s Filipino restaurants.  There is none.  Despite being the second most populous Asian-American ethnic group under the spacious skies, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence indicating there are very few Filipino restaurants in the United States–even in California where Filipinos are the largest ethnic group in the state at at 1.5 million.  Contrast that with Thai restaurants.  Despite a population of only 300,000 Thai-Americans, Thai restaurants have exploded across the country, today numbering around 5,300 So why aren’t there more Filipino restaurants in this country?  It certain…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSalvadoran

Gobble This – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:06 PM

“Is there a sound on Earth as joyous as the pat-pat-pat from a Salvadoran kitchen, the gentle rhythm of a cook slapping together a pupusa that just happens to be yours?” ~Jonathan Gold Pulitzer Prize-Winning Restaurant Critic Los Angeles Times Somewhere amid the bottlenecked tangle of highways, byways, freeways, parkways, roadways and expressways (boy, is that a misnomer) that make up Los Angeles there is well-trod mile many consider sacred. The Los Angeles Times calls it the “pupusa mile.” Housed in this approximately 5,280-foot-long stretch just beyond Koreatown is a congregation of Salvadoran restaurants so revered that “walking the pupusa mile is considered a foodie rite of passage.” Foodies were late-comers to the pupusa mile. Salvadorans, who constitute the second largest foreign-born group in Los Angeles with about 68,000 households, have been making pupusa pilgrimages for generations. Chef Nestor Lopez, scion of Salvadoran immigrants, grew up in Los Angeles and was largely raised on the foods of his ancestral homeland. When he matriculated at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, he didn’t intend or expect to someday launch a restaurant showcasing Salvadoran cuisine. His culinary arts focus was on fine dining. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu, he plied…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicanRating: Good

Mac’s La Sierra – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:01 PM

But the Lights of Albuquerque, will soon be shining bright, Like a diamond in the desert, like a beacon in the night. And I wonder if she’ll take me back, will she understand? Will the Lights of Albuquerque, shine for me again? Jim Glaser: The Lights of Albuquerque Imagine yourself a weary traveler motoring along a two-lane blacktop half an hour west of Albuquerque. Moments ago, having espied a preternatural palette of colors on your mirror, you stopped to gaze in awe and wonder at the breathtaking sunset spraying the sky with vibrant reds, oranges, yellows and purples. Rejuvenated by the slow descent of the sun giving way to an ebony canopy speckled with twinkling stars, you resume your climb of Nine Mile Hill. At its summit, you’re rewarded with one of the most inspiring sights in the west as the lights of Albuquerque come into view. It’s a sight Elvis Presley enjoyed often during his travels across the country in his pink Cadillac. The year is 1952. The closer you get to Albuquerque, the more prominent the neon-spangled lights become. Vibrant neon signage cuts a luminous swath through the city, beckoning motorists with unique roadside architecture and welcoming motor…

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Pho Kobe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno2:35 PM

Jim Millington, a long-time friend of this blog, contends that “there must be a bad Vietnamese restaurant somewhere on this wide earth but I have never found it.”  If the Albuquerque metropolitan area is a microcosm of this wide Earth, Jim may just be right.  Just ask Yelp reviewers, a blatantly honest bunch which doesn’t pull punches when expressing dissatisfaction about restaurants that just don’t measure up.  From among the 35 Vietnamese restaurants listed on Yelp with more than a handful of votes, one is rated 5 stars, 16 have a rating of 4.5 stars, 12 are rated 4 stars, one is rated 3.5 and at the bottom of the pack is Viet Noodle which has a 3.0 rating.  Even those not rated 4 stars or higher have their staunch supporters. Jim’s comment and the phalanx of Yelp reviews got me thinking (hence the plumes of smoke emanating from Rio Rancho).  It’s gotten to the point that you can take for granted when you visit a Vietnamese restaurant that you’ll be served solid, if not spectacular food; that service will be cordial and professional; that prices will be reasonable, if not downright inexpensive and that you probably won’t discover any…