Category: Rated 23

AlbuquerqueNew MexicanRated 23

Papa Felipe’s Mexican Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

In 2009, James Beard Award-winning food journalists Jane and Michael Stern published a terrific tome entitled 500 Things to Eat Before It’s Too Late. Despite the ominous (some might say fatalistic) name, the book is actually a celebration of the best dishes that are unique to this country. The Sterns, who have been focusing on quirky All-American food haunts since 1977, describe in delicious detail, the best dishes proffered at roadside stands, cafes, street carts throughout the fruited plain. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Michael Stern was asked if the inclusion of the words “too late” in the book’s title referred to the “death of the small eatery, or the reader’s impending doom from eating too much…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastNew MexicoRated 23

Vick’s Vittles Country Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Possum shanks; pickled hog jowls; goat tripe; stewed squirrel; ham hocks and turnip greens; gizzards smothered in gristle; smoked crawdads. “Ewwww Doggies!,” now that’s eatin’. ~The Beverly Hillbillies Guests at the Clampett residence always seemed to recite a litany of excuses as to why they couldn’t stay for dinner when Granny announced the mess of vittles she’d fixed up. Not even the opportunity to dine at the fancy eatin’ table (billiards table) and use the fancy pot passers (pool cues) under the visage of the mounted billy-yard (rhinoceros) was enough to entice the sophisticated city slickers to stay for dinner with America’s favorite hillbillies. For the generation who grew up watching The Beverly Hillbillies, the notion of eating vittles elicits…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenHot DogsNew MexicoRated 23

Chumlys Southwestern – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

The old Jewish proverb “worries go down better with soup than without” may just be the most understated aphorism about soup ever uttered. When soup is discussed, it’s usually with a sense of warm nostalgia, perhaps even reverence. We ascribe such adjectives as comforting, restorative, soothing, nourishing, hearty, warming and fulfilling to that nostalgic elixir in a bowl. The number of adjectives would probably quadruple if we attempted to describe soup’s qualities of deliciousness in addition to its satisfying properties. There’s no doubt that a luxurious bowl of steaming soup has life-affirming attributes. Is it any wonder one of the most popular paperback series of all-time is named for soup–the Chicken Soup For the Soul series, an inspirational and uplifting…

BurgersClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRated 23Rio Rancho

Toro Burger – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

While watching a “sanitized for television” version of the audacious satirical comedy Blazing Saddles, my precocious six-year-old niece asked several questions with deep sociological implications: “Why is everyone in the town of Rock Ridge named Johnson? Why were all the town’s citizens white?” From her silence, you’d think my Kim was a “perp lawyering up” at a police inquiry. Rather than responding herself, she enjoyed seeing my brother and I hem and haw in trying to give accurate and age-appropriate answers. Far easier to answer were Blazing Saddles questions which inspired nostalgic reflection: “Is there a Howard Johnson’s Ice Cream Parlor in Albuquerque? Does Howard Johnson’s really serve only one flavor?” For those of us who grew up in the…

BurgersRated 23Santa Fe

Shake Foundation – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

If it seems there’s a glut of restaurants brandishing a much-hyped and often self-glossed as “best” version of New Mexico’s fabled green chile cheeseburger, it won’t surprise you to read that yet another purveyor of the Land of Enchantment’s sacrosanct sandwich entered the fray in January, 2014. What might surprise you is its most worthy motto and raison d’etre: “Dedicated to the preservation of the original green chile cheeseburger.” Just what exactly does that mean? If, like me, your initial inclination is to question why at its pinnacle of popularity, the green chile cheeseburger needs to be preserved, you’re missing the point. Likewise, the motto has nothing to do with mimicking the burgers crafted by New Mexico’s two claimants to…

BreakfastNew MexicoRated 23Santa FeSouthwestern

Plaza Cafe Southside – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Santa Fe’s oldest restaurant (circa 1918), the Plaza Cafe is so popular that long waits to be seated are commonplace. Compound that with the hassle of trying to find a parking spot that isn’t a marathon’s length to walk to and from the Cafe then having to navigate through throngs of awestruck tourists and it’s a restaurant we don’t visit as often as we’d like. Our visits might become even more infrequent thanks to the 2003 launch of the Plaza Cafe’s sister restaurant (albeit a sister that’s 84 years younger) on Santa Fe’s south side. The Plaza Cafe Southside, situated in San Isidro Plaza on Zafarano Drive, is a welcome respite from the challenges inherent with trying to dine in…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyItalianNew MexicoPizzaRated 23

Piatanzi – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“Italy is an illusion, indeed, a mirage, the stuff of wishes.” ~Mario Luzi In the 1996 motion picture Big Night, two Italian restaurants across the street from one another operate in diametric opposition to one another both philosophically and in practice. One is enormously successful because it gives customers what they want and expect (even though savvy diners would consider the culinary fare mediocre and uninspired). In the other restaurant, the chef is a perfectionist who will labor all day to create a perfect dish and becomes exasperated when diners don’t recognize the authentic culinary art he creates, preferring “Americanized” Italian food instead. You might think the American dining public would prefer the latter and reject the former. Our inaugural…

AlbuquerqueFrenchNew MexicoRated 23

Le Troquet Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Pope Gregory the Great was a prolific writer canonized as a saint and recognized as a “doctor of the church.” Among musicians, singers, students and teachers, he is revered as a patron saint, a heavenly advocate who intercedes on their behalf. Among gluttons of the Middle Ages, however, the supreme pontiff was reviled. In his treatise Morals on the Book of Job, Pope Gregory essentially condemned them to Hell, a denouncement reflecting the strict austerity of the times. For gluttons, the unpardonable sin was in deriving too much pleasure from eating. Eating, or more precisely the pleasurable overindulgence in food, was viewed as an ungodly preoccupation with temporal and corporeal pleasures at the expense of spirituality. Church leaders of the…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2017Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoRated 23Soul FoodSouthern

Bucketheadz – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“I think it’s easy to dismiss Southern food as nothing but grease and grits. I happen to like both grease and grits, And if you call them lardo and polenta, no one would have a problem with it.” ~John T. Edge Author John T. Edge acknowledges that negative stereotypes are rampant about Southern food, crediting some of those perceptions to how Southern food is marketed. Instead of Southern food being presented as one of America’s great culinary traditions, all too often it’s presented as bumpkinly and backwater. Instead of focusing on its soul-warming deliciousness and comforting properties, it’s presented as fatty, fried and laden with butter. It could well be argued that Southern cooking is the Rodney Dangerfield of American…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenJapaneseRated 23Sushi

Magokoro Japanese Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Emeril Lagasse, the jovial master of the culinary catchphrase, has been known to exhort his studio audience to “feel the love” as he adds a dash or two of something special to a dish. Indeed, love is that extra ingredient many chefs say they add to make everything they prepare taste better. To these chefs, cooking with love is not a labor of love because the gratification they receive is as intrinsically nourishing and pleasing as their cuisine is pleasurable and fulfilling to the diners who partake of it. Asian cultures have known for time immemorial that cooking is more than providing sustenance to sate hunger. They believe cooking and eating can create spiritual awareness and foster community as well…

AlbuquerqueBakeryFrenchRated 23

La Quiche Parisienne Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexican

Gil Garduno

Who can ever forget Fred the Baker, the haggard, perpetually exhausted Dunkin Donuts baker and his iconic lament, “time to make the donuts?” Every morning an annoying alarm clock would rouse Fred from his deep slumber and he would wearily utter his trademarked catch phrase as he prepared for the rigor of the day. For fifteen years—from 1982 to 1997—Fred the Baker let America know it was time to make the donuts, reminding them that while he was doing so, the guys who make the supermarket donuts were still in bed. The Fred the Baker commercials became ingrained in American pop culture, but they also had a ring of truth. Being a baker means rising very early and working during…