Category: New Mexico

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Alkemē at Open Kitchen – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” ~Khalil Gibran, The Prophet Very few of us can identify with the profundity of Khalil Gibran’s immortal poem “On Joy and Sorrow”  as well as Hue-Chan Karels, owner of the Santa Fe restaurant that is reimagining Asian cuisine.   Outwardly the beautiful entrepreneur is as buoyant and joyful as can be.  In fact, what might be her restaurant’s “mission statement” reflects that joy:   “We are joy makers who believe in the magic of culinary experiences.  Our passion is to create and curate inspired, original,…

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Burger Bro’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Such advanced human traits as complex symbolic expression, art as an aesthetic visual form and elaborate cultural diversity emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years or so.  That’s more than four-million years after humans gained the ability to walk on two legs. By comparison, the ubiquitous All-American burger has evolved in the blink of time.  Most culinary historians believe the burger as we know it today was invented somewhere between 1885 and 1904. Even most of us who have lived three or more decades have seen significant changes in the burger.  Many of those changes have occurred during the 21st century–the last twenty years or so. Think about it.  For the most part, the predominant burger many “seasoned” eaters across the fruited plain…

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Vic’s Daily Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?” “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.” Unlike the great philosopher Winnie the Pooh, many Americans, it seems, don’t equate breakfast with excitement. Studies show that far too many of us fuel our bodies with a “gobble and go” mentality that typifies our frenetic lifestyles. In 2007, one food service industry research firm concluded that most Americans spend no more than three minutes shopping for breakfast (at such paragons of nutritional virtue as McDonald’s and Starbucks).…

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Al-quds Mediterranean Grill II – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

The penultimate day of the 2023 International Balloon Fiesta will be memorable for many reasons.  Foremost may be the 2023 annular eclipse whose path took it directly above the Balloon Fiesta Park, host of the world’s largest ballooning event.  That day will be imprinted on our minds for another reason–our inaugural visit to Al-quds Mediterranean Grill in Rio Rancho.   The second instantiation of perhaps Albuquerque’s most popular Middle Eastern restaurant is located on The Village on Rio Rancho, a timeworn shopping center that flourished in the early 1990s when Intel’s Fab 4 was fully operational. Neither owner Mohammad Abdeljalil or his son were in Rio Rancho when we visited.  Our server wasn’t able to tell us whether or not…

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Joseph’s Culinary Pub – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Although ducks don’t have a church sanctioned patron saint, if the Catholic church ever deemed one worthy it would be Saint Cuthbert, a 12th Century Anglo-Saxon monk.  According to legend, Saint Cuthbert tamed a large population of nesting eider ducks so well that they would nest even next to the chapal altar without fear.  Cuthbert placed the ducks under his protective grace so that no one would eat or disturb them.  Monks who mocked (mocking monks) Cutbert’s curse and ate or harassed the eiders were said to have been struck down. It’s a good thing Chef Joseph Wrede didn’t ply his trade in proximity to Saint Cuthbert or he would probably have been struck down by Cuthbert’s curse.  Diners like…

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El Patio de Albuquerque – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

For more than a quarter century, award-winning journalist Charles Kuralt had the type of job any aspiring sojourner would envy. He hit the road on a motor home, crisscrossing the fruited plains where waving fields of wheat passed in review and snow-capped mountains reached for cobalt colored skies. Observing that “thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything,” Kuralt avoided the interstates, instead traversing America’s back roads and byways in search of real people with interesting stories to tell. Kuralt loved New Mexico, which he noted in his terrific tome America, is really a misnomer. In his estimation, New Mexico “should be called Precambria for the sea that crashed…

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Los 6 Hermanos – Bernalillo, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Once upon a time (how many of you remember when seemingly all ancient fables and stories began with these four words?) there was a family of six Chinese brothers, each with a unique and amazing power. One of the brothers committed an infraction against Chinese law and was sentenced to death by the emperor. By asking for one last night at home the brothers were able to take each others place and thwart the king’s executioner’s attempt to kill them.  Eventually the executioner ran out of ways to run the execution and had to call it off. There are no cuentos or corridos, sagas or stories in Mexico involving six siblings imbued with exceptional abilities.  In fact, just about the…

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Hello Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

HELLO DELI (to the tune of Hello Dolly) “Hello Deli, this is Joe, Deli would you please send up a nice corned beef on rye. A box of RITZ, Deli and some Schlitz, Deli Some chopped liver and a sliver of your, apple pie. Turkey Legs, Deli hard boiled eggs, Deli and a plate of those potatoes you french fry, oh Don’t be late, Deli I just can’t wait Deli, Deli without breakfast, I’d just die.” ~ Frank Jacobs (Writer for MAD Magazine) In 2016, BBC Travel lamented the imminent demise of the New York City deli.  “Not the corner markets or bodegas that appear on nearly every New York block,” but “the true New York City delicatessen: the brick and…

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Piccolino Italian Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

When I asked Gaby (our server Gabriela) what the Italian name “Piccolino” translates to, she didn’t have a clue.  She asked Olga Tarango-Jimenez, the restaurant’s co-owner who also seemed at a loss, but shared the restaurant’s very interesting history.  When my Kim Googled “Piccolino, she found it translates to “little one” and has such slang alternatives as “teeny weeny.”  Talk about a fitting name.  I joked with Gaby that if she ever called her diminutive in stature boss “teeny weeny” she’d probably find out her boss has a giant temper. Just how small is Piccolino?  Before its transmogrification into one of Santa Fe’s most popular Italian restaurants, its Liliputian digs housed a Church’s chicken and before that a gas station.…

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Coda Bakery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

JP, my former boss at Intel used to pride himself on consistently working “half days.” If you’re thinking you’d like a job where you work only four hours a day, you’ve misinterpreted his definition of “half days.” To him, half days is a literal term meaning twelve hours a day. When most of us are done for after only nine or ten hours, he was just starting what he called his “second shift.” Very few of us have the stamina, initiative and especially the passion for what we do to work “half days.” I know restaurateurs for whom half days (or longer) are standard six or seven days a week. Because they spend so much time in their restaurants tending…

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Tucanos Brazilian Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Many New Mexico born Hispanics of my generation grew up watching not only American “shoot ’em up” Westerns featuring rugged cowboys, rowdy rustlers, round-ups and home on the range, but the Mexican equivalent–movies featuring the exploits of charros, the traditional cowboys of central and northern Mexico. My friends and I could only dream about overcoming marauding Indians, desperate rustlers and flooding rivers as we drove our cattle to the stockyards in Abilene just like our white hat wearing heroes. It’s conceivable that in Brazil, cinematic exploits glamorized the equivalent to America’s cowboy–the gaucho, a South American cattle herder who tended his herds on the rich, verdant pampas. For generations the pampas is where the very best cattle herds in Brazil have been…