Blog

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoRating: OutstandingThai

Pad Thai Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain likened his first experience tasting Thai food to “like discovering a color I never knew existed before. A whole new crayon box full of colors.” With so many vibrant colors available, most people don’t settle for one fairly basic color (let’s say black) in a box full of crayons. Unfortunately, settling is precisely what many diners tend to do when eating at Thai restaurants. Although the menu may be replete with dozens of exotic options, many diners focus exclusively on ordering that one Thai dish with which they’re familiar, that ubiquitous dish more innocuous than bold, the dish which provides flavor without venturing outside the safe comfort zone that bespeaks of the unknown. For many diners, that one dish is Pad Thai. Howie “The Duke of Duke City” Kaibel, the charismatic Albuquerque Community Manager for Yelp, is the type of guy who has explored every crayon in the box and played with every color combination imaginable. He’s the kaleidoscopic, polychromatic, tie-dye guy who’s too whimsical and creative to remain in a monogamous relationship with any one basic color. Howie long ago gave up on Pad Thai because he wanted to explore the myriad of other options…

AlbuquerqueAsianClosed in 2023Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: ExcellentVietnamese

May Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno5:55 PM

There are perhaps thousands of examples throughout the Duke City of immigrants whose path to the American dream involved rising above humble origins and surmounting extraordinary circumstances to achieve success. Those challenges are exacerbated by the fact that many of them arrived in America as refugees from war-torn nations with nary a modicum of English. One such example is Liem Nguyen, who along with wife Kim founded the May Cafe in 1992, a scant nine years after arriving in Albuquerque through a church resettlement program. Speaking almost no English, Liem, then 22 years old, enrolled in Highland High School as a ninth-grader. He didn’t know how to drive, shop at the supermarket or even catch a bus. He slept in a closet in a tiny apartment he shared with several other immigrants. Among the city’s very first Vietnamese restaurants, May Cafe wasn’t an immediate success save within the tight-knit Vietnamese community craving the tastes of home and among the servicemen at Kirtland Air Force Base who had been stationed in Vietnam and fell in love with the cuisine. It took a while before the widespread acceptance by a trepidatious general public of the alluring and theretofore mysterious flavors of Vietnam.…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew Mexico

B2B Garden Brewery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“I’m a uniter, not a divider.” ~ George W. Bush, Governor of the Great State of Texas “No one wants to listen to politicians, but everyone wants to eat tacos. Tacos are the great uniter.” ~ John Fetterman, Candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania FROM B2B GARDEN BREWERY (October, 2024):  We’re sad to announce that after over 10 years, we are closing our doors. We want to thank all of you for your support and for the great times we’ve shared. Ideologically and politically, denizens of the land of the free and home of the brave seem incapable of agreeing on virtually anything, but turn the topic to tacos and there’s almost consensus. Americans love tacos! We love them to the depth and breadth and height our appetites can reach…and our appetites can reach bottomless depths, expansive breadths, dizzying heights and tremendous distances. In 2012, we loved tacos to the tune of 4.5 billion tacos consumed across the fruited plain. That’s the equivalent weight in tacos of two Empire State Buildings (775-million pounds). Our appetites surmounted the equivalent of 490,000 miles of tacos, enough–as Frank Sinatra might croon–to fly you to the moon and back. No one, it seems, loves…

Ice CreamNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

La Lecheria New Mexico Craft Ice Cream – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:21 PM

Joey: What are you talking about? “One woman. That’s like saying there’s only one flavor of ice cream for you. Let me tell you something, Ross. There’s lots of flavors out there. There’s Rocky Road, and Cookie Dough, and Bing Cherry Vanilla. You could get ’em with Jimmies, or nuts, or whipped cream! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! You got married, you were, like, what, eight? Welcome back to the world! Grab a spoon! Ross: I honestly don’t know if I’m hungry or horny. Chandler: Then stay out of my freezer. In that episode of Friends, Joey Tribbiani obviously considered the concept of one woman “monotony, not monogamy.” While the most uxorious among us might not be able to relate to the concept of polygamy, we can certainly relate to the nightmarish prospect of going through life partaking solely of one ice cream flavor–even if it’s a flavor we love. How boring would that be? There was a time, not too very long ago, in fact, in which three ice cream flavors–vanilla, chocolate and strawberry–dominated the market. That might explain why even today when dairy diversity reigns, vanilla remains the most popular flavor of ice…

AmericanDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

TerraCotta Wine Bistro – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” ~Benjamin Franklin In the 1960s, denizens of the fruited plain weren’t nearly as savvy about the fruit of the vin as they are today. Impressionable youth who tuned in every Sunday for Championship Wrestling from Albuquerque’s Civic Auditorium, for example, had the impression from Roma Wine commercials that all wine was served in large jugs. It really wasn’t far from the truth. Back then, a significant portion of wine production across the fruited plain was indeed destined for a jug. Another high percentage of wine would earn the ignominious distinction of being called “bum wine.” Sporting such brand names as Thunderbird, Mad Dog 20/20 and Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, bum wines were considered “bottom of the barrel.” Consumers (quite often dipsomaniacs or teenagers) often shielded their bum wine purchases from the “decent public” in brown paper bags. Fast forward five decades and America has become a nation of oenophiles—lovers and connoisseurs of wine–surpassing France as the world’s largest market for wine every year since 2013 (although on a per capita basis, the average French person still consumes about five times more wine than the average American).…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2017Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoPizza

Irrational Pie – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:12 AM

Jethro Bodine, the country bumpkin with diverse career aspirations (brain surgeon, street car conductor, ‘double-naught’ spy, Hollywood producer, soda jerk, and bookkeeper) on the Beverly Hillbillies television comedy graduated highest in his class by a whole foot or more. You couldn’t get much past the sixth grade educated “six-foot stomach.” When a math teacher posited the theory of π r2 (pi r squared), Jethro wasn’t fooled: “Uncle Jed, them teachers is tryin’ to tell us that pie are square. Shoot, everybody knows that pie are round, cornbread are square.” Jethro isn’t the only educated person to find pi irrational. The first to do so was Swiss polymath Johann Heinrich Lambert who proved that the number π (pi) is irrational: that is, it cannot be expressed as a fraction a/b, where a is an integer and b is a non-zero integer. It’s quite possible that the only people who understand that sentence are my friends Larry McGoldrick, the professor with the perspicacious palate and Bill Resnik, a New Mexico Institute of Technology-trained mathematician. For me, all math beyond statistics is irrational; it makes absolutely no sense. I did know enough to grin like the proverbial cat who ate the canary when…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBrewery-PubDog FriendlyNew Mexico

Boxing Bear Brewing Company – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno10:47 AM

In the 2008 Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro which centers on a fictional professional basketball team, there’s a scene in which Ferrell’s character wrestles with a grizzly bear at halftime of a game. While young viewers might find this scene preposterous, if not unbelievable, some of the more geriatrically advanced among us might remember when such promotions actually took place–usually at rural county fairs where members of the audience were offered money if they could last a few minutes with a wrestling or boxing bear. Bears who were forced into pugilism or grappling were typically de-clawed, de-fanged, fitted with a muzzle and often even drugged. Despite these disadvantages, the 600- to 800-pound Ursidae could easily defeat anyone who stood before them. Most matches lasted less than a minute (longer than George Costanza lasted in the Festivus Day feats of strength wrestling match with his dad). Although enthusiasm for bear wrestling and boxing has waned with the rise of animal rights, a barbaric subculture still exists which gets its jollies from watching animals fight. Boxing Bear Brewing Company’s logo-slash-mascot depicts a bear walking on all fours, a red boxing glove covering its right front paw. Both the brewery’s motto–beer with a punch–and…

AlbuquerqueChineseClosed in 2024Dim SumDog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenSushi

Amerasia & Sumo Sushi – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:14 AM

Carpe Diem Sum–“seize the dim sum” at AmerAsia, the Alibi’s perennial selection for best dim sum in the city honors (diem sum, as spelled on AmerAsia’s menu is also a correct spelling). Dim sum, a Cantonese word that can be translated to “a little bit of heart,” “point of heart” and “touch the heart” has its genesis in the Chinese tea houses of the Silk Road. Weary sojourners would stop at tea houses for tea and a light snack (ergo, touch the heart). Over time, the popularity of the tasty little treasures offered at these tea houses led to larger restaurants serving dim sum meals until mid-afternoon, after which other Cantonese cuisine was made available. Today, dim sum buffets are a popular offering throughout the United States. Albuquerque’s most venerable practitioner of the traditional culinary art of dim sum is AmerAsia which has been serving Albuquerque since 1978. Though AmerAsia has been around for nearly thirty years, out of blind loyalty to Ming Dynasty we avoided trying it, reasoning there is no way anyone could serve dim sum quite as good as the popular Cantonese restaurant. Thankfully AmerAsia’s diem sum captured the unfettered affections of a Chowhound poster from Phoenix…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRating: ExcellentSandwichVietnamese

IKrave Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:34 PM

Please say it isn’t so! According to Nations Restaurant News, a highly respected trade publication “a new crop of restaurant chain entrepreneurs” believes “American diners will soon embrace the Vietnamese bánh mì sandwich as the next burrito or taco.” The notion of corporate chain megaliths setting their sights on the humble banh mi should send shudders down the spine of everyone who frequents the mom-and-pop nature of the banh mi restaurants we’ve come to know and love. Imagine a phalanx of Subway-like sandwich shops creating and selling banh mi. The notion isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. One of the first chains vying to expand the presence of banh mi in the mainstream is Chipotle whose Asian-themed offshoot “ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen” features banh mi as the menu’s cornerstone. If Chipotle does for the banh mi what it did for burritos and what Olive Garden did for Italian food, there will be generations of American diners who may never experience the real thing–an authentic banh mi prepared in the traditional manner by Vietnamese weaned on banh mi. Worse, slick Madison Avenue advertisers might convince them they prefer the faux food. It’s a small consolation that it will probably take…

AmericanDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Santa Fe

The Teahouse – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:25 AM

When I suggested to my Kim that our next al-fresco culinary adventure with our dachshund Dude (he abides) should be at the Teahouse in Santa Fe, she shot a glance at me that seemed to suggest advanced mental deterioration had caught up with me. She reminded me that every time we had tea and scones on the banks of the River Windrush in Bourton on the Water (England), I guzzled my tea and tossed bits of my scones at hungry ducks floating on the water. “It was the only way,” I argued “to enjoy high tea without actually being high.” As with most men, the notion of high tea conjures images of women in frilly outfits and flowery hats sipping tea from cups much too small for our sausage fingers and eating finger sandwiches that wouldn’t feed a famished mosquito. It’s right out of a Jane Austen novel. Our XY chromosome pairing seems to have predisposed men to hate the idea of high tea. We’re just not civilized enough to enjoy it though perhaps if the tea house had a dozen large flat screen televisions tuned to the NFL game of the week, we’d certainly enjoy the experience more. Of…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBurgersClosed in 2017Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Kitchen Se7ven – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:00 AM

During a 1996 episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza, a self-proclaimed “short, balding, unattractive man” made the mistake of telling his fiancee he wanted to name his child “Seven” after his idol Mickey Mantle. To George’s chagrin, his fiancee’s cousin liked the idea so much she decided to name her own child Seven. Even as the cousin was being wheeled by an orderly into the delivery room, George tried in vain to convince her to name the child something else. Six, Thirteen, Fourteen, even…Soda. “it’s bubbly, it’s refreshing!,” he cried. When Chef Akio told us of the birth of his son just a day before our inaugural visit, we had to ask him if he’d be naming his son “Seven.” Obviously understanding the reference, he laughed and told us his son’s name would be Isaiah. The only seven in his family is the uniquely spelled “Kitchen Se7ven” he named his restaurant. If you’re looking for signage to guide you to his restaurant, you won’t find any. Kitchen Se7ven is located within the Kaktus Brewing Company on the western fringes of Nob Hill and eastern extremities of the University of New Mexico…you know, that weird corner bordered by Central to the South,…