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AlbuquerqueClosed in 2016Fine DiningGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Soul and Vine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:31 PM

“A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.” ~Thomas Keller A recent tweet from Ortega (yes, that purveyor of “high quality Mexican products”) posed the existential question “What’s your cooking style: cooking from the soul, from your taste buds, from a book or from your gut?” While most cooks and almost all chefs would contend they cook with their souls, their assertions are belied by the absence of the qualities and experiences diners might associate with the term “cooking from the soul.” For many of us, that term kindles cherished memories of our precious mothers lovingly preparing our favorite dishes, every spoonful an expression of their boundless love. For others, “cooking from the soul” may engender fond recollections of a perfectly executed gourmet meal served by a fabulous staff against a spectacular backdrop. Whatever imagery the term “cooking from the soul” conjures, most of us know when we’ve experienced it just as we can usually surmise that a cook or chef is just “going through the motions” in rote fashion. If you’re uncertain just what constitutes cooking from the soul, let’s turn to the wit and wisdom of The Ramen Girl: “You must…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenPizza

J.J.’s Pizza – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:20 AM

“Locally owned and operated.” It’s a concept I celebrate on my blog in paying homage to intrepid moms and pops who risk it all to compete with the ubiquitous corporate chains. I trumpet the fact that locally owned and operated restaurants can be unpredictable, that they prepare food to order instead of thawing something out which was shipped from corporate headquarters hundreds of miles away, that you can get to know the great families who own them, that those families have very personal investments and take immense pride in their products. Justin (JJ) Salazar’s ideas as to what constitutes “locally owned and operated” mirror my own. In his words, local should mean that “a business is owned by someone who lives in town (not just a mailing address), that there is no parent company (franchise) taking the proceeds to another town, and that the owner works in the business.” JJ knows that “nobody cares as much as an owner and that it does no good if the owner’s not in the store.” He plans on passing on his business to his children so you know his heart is in his investment. J.J. grew up in Albuquerque, just a couple of…

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Friends of Gil (FOG) Dinner: Extraordinary Food, Fun and Friendship

Gil Garduno9:09 AM

It’s easy to impress me. I don’t need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I’m happy. I’m satisfied. I’m content. ~Maria Sharapova So just what goes on at a Friends of Gil (FOG) dinner? If you’re thinking it’s a gathering of a bunch of pretentious food snobs and aesthetes getting together to try one-upping one another with our highfalutin knowledge of the culinary arts, nothing could be further from the truth. True, the Friends of Gil are all passionate and knowledgeable food enthusiasts who appreciate and understand great food, but we’re all ordinary people with a broad and diverse range of interests and backgrounds. We’re people who enjoy great conversation and great humor as much as we enjoy great food. On Friday, April 10th, 2015 at 7PM, the Friends of Gil (FOG) converged upon M’Tucci’s Kitchina for an evening good friends, good food and good laughs. It’s the fourth FOG event over the past two years and it may have been the very best. Several FOG members were making their inaugural visit to M’Tucci’s Kitchina. To say they were impressed is an understatement. By night’s end, several of them were placing M’Tucci’s…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenLatin AmericanNew Mexico

Cafe Caribe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:58 PM

When you’re on one of the Caribbean islands, sometimes it’s hard to picture how they fit in with the rest, but when you see them all joined together like a necklace from space, you see the natural geographic connectedness of them all. ~Chris Hadfield In virtually every sense, the Caribbean is a “melting pot.” It’s an amalgam, a hodgepodge, mishmash…a potpourri. It’s a gallimaufry, a confused jumble or medley of things. It’s a blend of African, Amerindian, European, East Indian, Arab and Chinese influences. Attitudinally, it’s festive and vibrant, bold and beautiful, fun and exciting. It inspires a joie de vivre. So does the diverse and delicious cuisine prepared throughout the island nations. If you’re wondering how you may have missed out on such exciting culinary fare, chances are you haven’t. Every time you’ve visited one of Albuquerque’s Cuban restaurants, you’ve indulged in the cuisine of one of the many Caribbean’s island nations. You may have even visited the short-lived Jamaican restaurant that plied its wares on Central Avenue…and if you’ve ever visited the fabulous Talking Drums restaurant, you’ve experienced not only the most sumptuous African cuisine, but some of the very best food the Caribbean has to offer. In…

AlbuquerqueBurgersChineseNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Good

Lucky Boy – Albuquerque, New Mexican

Gil Garduno1:03 AM

During its seventh season, the X Files television series in which FBI agents investigated paranormal phenomena featured an episode in which a ravenous Lucky Boy employee in California struggled against his craving for human brain matter (almost anything goes in the Golden state). The most paranormal thing about the Duke City Lucky Boy is its “east meets west” dining concept. Nowhere else in town can you order Chinese and American food so inexpensively and from the very same menu. If you think about it, ordering inexpensive Chinese and American food from within one menu shouldn’t be such an anomalous event–especially when you consider that many of Lucky Boy’s patrons are UNM students, many of whom know how to stretch a buck. It’s not just UNM students who patronize this hole-in-the-wall. You might just as soon find faculty and staff also indulging in inexpensive (but good) food. Lucky Boy is a quintessential American mom and pop diner tended lovingly by Chinese proprietors named Suzy and Ron who know what many of their customers are going to order as soon as they walk in. You’ll do a second-take the first time you see a steaming wok preparing noodles next to the sizzling…

AsianClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenLaoThaiVietnamese

Mekong Ramen House – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:51 PM

In a 2009 movie entitled Ramen Girl, Abby, a wayward American girl unacculturated to life in Tokyo witnesses the radiant smiles on the faces of diners as they eat ramen and receives an epiphany that her life’s calling is to become a ramen chef. Over time she persuades a ramen restaurant’s temperamental Japanese chef to mentor her. Initially he assigns her to perform the most menial and degrading tasks, but she perseveres and eventually convinces her tyrannical mentor of her sincerity and he teaches her how to make ramen. Alas, it’s ramen with no soul until she also learns that ramen must be prepared from the heart and not from her head. Ramen with soul? Ramen chefs? Ramen prepared from the heart? That just doesn’t describe the ramen experience for most Americans. In the fruited plain, ramen is typically thought of as “budget” food, something to fill your belly when your bank account is empty. Few foods offer as much bang for the buck as the ubiquitous low-brow meal most often associated with the college student demographic. Fittingly, in Japan ramen is often called “gakusei ryori” which translates to “student cuisine.” It’s not just students and budget-conscious diners, however, who…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Ortega’s New Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:36 AM

From Ortega’s Facebook Page: It has been our pleasure to serve Albuquerque and visitors for nearly 32 years. We want to thank you for supporting Ortega’s Restaurant for more than three decades. We have enjoyed your company and made many friends over the years. On September 12, 2020, we will close our doors for the last time. If you were raised in New Mexico thirty or more years ago, chances are you weren’t raised on the healthiest of diets. New Mexican food, while incomparably delicious, isn’t exactly a dietician’s dream. Even our beloved frijoles, the healthiest of carbohydrates, were prepared in lard…and many of our dishes which weren’t prepared with lard, had enough cheese to keep Wisconsin fiscally afloat. It’s no wonder the Land of Enchantment’s population is rife with caloric overachievers. You’ll forgive those of us who survived such overindulgence to somehow reach middle age if we’re skeptical when a New Mexican restaurant boasts that “you don’t have to be health conscious – because we already are!” To support that contention, Ortega’s New Mexican Restaurant in Albuquerque: uses only all-vegetable oil in their fryers and food preparation, serves whole wheat sopaipillas with every meal, doesn’t use MSG or any…

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Kasbah Mediterranean – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:58 PM

Sweeping cobwebs from the edges of my mind Had to get away to see what we could find Hope the days that lie ahead Bring us back to where they’ve led Listen up to what’s been said to you Would you know we’re riding on the Marrakech Express Would you know we’re riding on the Marrakech Express All on board that train – Crosby, Stills & Nash For decades, Hollywood has portrayed the ancient Moroccan city of Marrakech as a venue in which mystery and intrigue can be found along every narrow street and behind every sharp turn, a place of fantasy where fire-eaters, sword-swallowers and snake charmers perform–a city with a dizzying array of food stalls, richly adorned palaces and alleyways crowded traditional shops in which intricately woven tapestries and brass works dazzle the eyes. Alfred Hitchcock certainly exploited those characteristics in his suspenseful 1956 thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much where middle class Americans played by Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day vacationing in Marrakech find themselves embroiled in a nefarious plot to assassinate an ambassador after their son is kidnapped. The movie has me on the edge of my seat every time I watch it, as much…

Closed in 2016GermanGone But Not Forgotten

Heimat House and Beer Garden – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:51 AM

“We’re not normal people. We’re the Griswolds.” Laughs abound in National Lampoon’s European Vacation, the 1985 movie which follows the antics of well-meaning blunderer Clark W. Griswold and his equally inept family. In a television game show called “Pig In a Polk,” the Griswold family accidentally wins a trip to Europe where they leave a trail of destruction everywhere they go (who can forget when Clark knocked down Stonehenge by accidentally backing into it with a rented car?). The family foray into Germany was no less fraught with hapless humor. In a German village, the Griswolds burst in on “Fritz and Helga”, a bewildered elderly couple whom they mistakenly believe are long-lost relatives. Though language barrier issues prevent any mutual dialogue, the Griswolds never quite seem to grasp that all conversations are one-sided and avail themselves of all the hospitality–including large bowls of sausage and sauerkraut with plenty of German rye bread–befitting family ties. Like Clark W. Griswold (who’s intensely proud, but blissfully ignorant of his Germanic heritage), many New Mexicans haven’t cut through the sauerkraut and remain unaware of the diversity and deliciousness of German cuisine. Ask your friends and colleagues what dishes comprise German cuisine and they’ll probably…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicanRating: Very Good

Padilla’s Mexican Kitchen – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno6:04 PM

“Why, this here sauce is made in New York City!” “New York City? Git a rope!” Uttered in a 1980s commercial for Pace Picante sauce, those lines expressed the ire of several hungry cowboys who threatened to string up the cook for serving a “foreign” salsa (translation: not made in Texas). That commercial also brings to my mind the annual issue in which–from 1999 through 2005–Hispanic magazine named its top 50 Hispanic restaurants across America. The sentiment so eloquently expressed by those ravenous cowpokes reflects just how many New Mexicans feel when Hispanic magazine listed among its top 50, only two or three New Mexico restaurants per year. It really rankled us when both Texas and California had four times as many selections. Just as you won’t find too many cowboys who appreciate salsa made in New York City, you won’t find many New Mexicans who will freely admit that Texas, much less California, can have edible Hispanic food. Hispanic magazine further lost any credibility among New Mexicans when that top 50 list included restaurants in, heaven help us, Georgia or Mississippi. Hispanic magazine did have a lot of credibility among the Albuquerque dining crowd when, for three consecutive years…

Closed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoPizzaRio Rancho

Blue Grasshopper Brew Pub – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:40 PM

If you’ve ever wondered why the term “pink elephants” has long been recognized as a euphemism for a drunken hallucination, credit author Jack London. In his autobiographical tome, he described himself as “the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants.” When we first heard of the Blue Grasshopper Brew Pub in Rio Rancho, we wondered if it, too, was a euphemism for adult beverage overindulgence. Frankly, the reason behind the name is almost as good as Jack London’s euphemism. The sobriquet was bestowed upon co-owner Peter Apers by his mentor as he was teaching Apers to play the blues on guitar. One of that mentor’s favorite television personalities was Caine, the David Carradine character in Kung Fu whom the Shaolin master called “grasshopper.” Hence “Blues Grasshopper.” In 2014, Livability.com named the Duke City as “America’s best mid-sized city in the country for beer.” With nearly thirty brewery and tap room restaurants (as of this writing), Albuquerque metropolitan area cerevisaphiles certainly have their pick as to where…