Al Pastor Archives - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog

Al Trompo Mexican Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoMay 27, 2026May 30, 202612:01 AM

Comaraderie, brothers-in-arms, esprit-de-corps, commitment, dedication…Unless you’ve served your country in the armed forces of the United States, these terms probably don’t mean much. For those of us who did serve–proudly, gallantly, nobly–these terms mean everything. They’re not just a call to arms; they’re our code of conduct. They’re the way we carry ourselves. They denote our commitment to one another, the importance of taking care of our own. The uniforms worn by the select and exceptional men and women signify the call to duty–the ideals, and the shared title of being an American and believing in all that means. More than any other factor, it’s those ideals that truly bind servicemen and women together, across all five branches. Our brotherhood–that inexorable bond–doesn’t mean we’re not competitive with one another. Fierce rivalries exist among the five branches. We’ve been known to throw down with brothers-in-arms in defense of our particular branch. We rib one another good-naturedly with insults and derrogatory terms. That’s what brothers and sisters do. Our familial skirmishes and disses are ours exclusively. If you didn’t serve, you won’t be invited to participate. Like good families are, we’re mostly respectful and proud of our brothers-in-arms. We thank one another…

Mexican New Mexico Rating: Excellent Rio Rancho Tacos

Las Villas Taqueria – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoApril 23, 2026April 26, 202612:01 AM

Upon learning that a new Mexican restaurant named “Las Villas Taqueria” would be launching in Rio Rancho, the bilingual lexicologist in me didn’t immediately ponder the menu. Instead, my ruminations were of the translation of “Las Villas,” a Spanish term with several meanings depending on context. I pondered whethr the restaurant was named for small towns or settlements or for luxurious country homes, both translations of the term “las villas.” Then again, “Villas” is a common Spanish surname. After a superb meal with my dear friend Bill Resnik, I came to the conclusion that “Las Villas” is actually a diminutive form of “las maravillas,” or “the wonders.” That’s wonder as in “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.” I had not expected for Las Villas to be quite as good as it was. Las Villas had its grand opening on 11 October 2025. It occupies the very high turnover space which most recently housed Whiptail and before that Banana Leaf. Visionaries (residents of Rio Rancho) have long surmised that one of the reasons tenants don’t last long at the space is because there is no direct entrance or egress. in fact, if you didn’t…

Bernalillo Food Truck Mexican New Mexico Rating: Very Good Tacos

Sazon Con Amor – Bernalillo, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJanuary 31, 2026April 2, 202612:01 AM

The Broadway musical Rent taught us that a year is comprised of “five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.” Instead of measuring the length of a year “in daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee, inches, miles, laughter or strife,” Rent encouraged us to measure a year in life in seasons of love. Not surprisingly, Seasons of Love (a song from the musical from which the italicized lyrics originated) came immediately to mind when we espied Sazon Con Amor, a food truck (that’s mobile kitchen to you, Bob) parked on Highway 550 in Bernalillo. Sazon Con Amor translates from Spanish to “Seasoning With Love,” but that was close enough to Rent’s definitive song to trigger a day-long earworm. It also prompted me to ruminate on the many times chefs have expressed that the secret ingredient in their cooking is love, but until discovering Sazon Con Amor, we’ve never heard of any chef bragging about seasoning with love. It’s not just semantics either. Cookbooks refer to seasoning as “the herbs, spices and herb-spice mixes used during the preparation of food” (by contrast, condiments consist of ingredient combinations (often including spices) added by a diner at the point of consumption). It would be…

Albuquerque Mexican New Mexico Rating: N/R (Not Rated)Tacos

La Zenita – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAugust 12, 2024April 6, 202612:01 AM

In his immortal play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare used two lines to convey that the naming of things is irrelevant: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” My friends Bruce and Loren Plata like to remind me that in Hebrew, the name “Gil” represents a “small goat,” an animal that definitely doesn’t smell quite as fragrant as a rose. My retort, of course, is that “goat” is an acronym for “greatest of all time.” So, relevant or not, names do have meanings and can provide a lifetime of notoriety. Most of us just hope our names aren’t something that can be made fun of. In Hebrew, the name “Zenita” means “gift of God.” Now, that’s one lofty name to aspire to. Someone christened with that name would probably be expected to have pretty divine qualities. A restaurant bearing that name might be expected to serve food that’s heavenly. No, not manna and quail, but food that’s delicious and filling. When I asked about the genesis of the name, the restaurant’s personable owner explained that the name is a play on two words. First, it’s a…

Food Truck Mexican New Mexico Rating: Good Tacos

Birrieria Y Tacos Alex Tijuana Style – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoMay 15, 2024April 3, 202611:01 PM

If you’ve noticed an increase in the number of recent visits on this blog to Mexican restaurants, credit much of that to Pati Jinich, ebullient host of the James Beard Award-winning and Emmy nominated PBS series Pati’s Mexican Table Although we record the Saturday airing of Pati’s Mexican Table, we don’t usually watch it until Sunday…right before lunchtime. It’s no wonder, therefore, that what we’ve been craving for lunch is Mexican food. It’s nigh impossible not to be utterly charmed (if not outright besotted) by the lovely Pati Jinich. Her huge likeability quotient is the byproduct of a genuine warmth and self-effacing humor which come across with her every thickly-accented utterance. She’s down-to-Earth and genuine, taking absolute joy in broadening and sharing her expansive knowledge about the colorful tapestry known as Mexican cuisine. In every episode, Pati embarks on an educational and entertaining journey. Each dish she encounters serves as a launching point into explorations of the rich and diverse history and culture of her country of birth. In season eight (episode 811), which aired in January, 2019, Pati explored Sinaloa, “Mexico’s Bread Basket,” which produces about 40% of the meat and produce consumed in all of Mexico. Inspired…

Albuquerque American Burgers Dog Friendly Mexican New Mexico Tacos

Burger Bro’s – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoOctober 18, 2023October 20, 202312:01 AM

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 enjoyed until recent years was relatively unadorned save for the burger’s essential and defining elements: a soft, toasted bun (sesame seed buns were popularized by the Golden Arches in the 60s); sweet, vine-ripened tomatoes; crisp, cool, crispy lettuce; a smear of pungent yellow mustard; maybe some chopped white onions and in the middle of it all, a juicy, seasoned all-beef patty. To be sure, additional ingredients–cheese in the 1920s or 1930s and in New Mexico, green chile in the 1940s–eventually…

Albuquerque Breakfast Dog Friendly Mexican New Mexico Rating: Very Good Tacos

Foodtopia – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJuly 13, 2023April 3, 202612:01 AM

When a restaurant with the curious name “Foodtopia” surfaced in 2022, long-suffering readers of Gil’s Thrilling… probably realized an etymology lesson would soon be in order. If the suffix “topia” intrigued you as much as it did your grandiloquent blogger, hang on. First, a review of what we all know. Utopia is “a seemingly perfect society, one without flaws, where everyone is content and conflict and strife are unknown.” One example of a Utopian society is the movie Zootopia in which animals live in harmony and lions sing kumbaya with antelope. More common than movies about Utopian societies are movies and literature about dystopia, “societies that are either extremely chaotic or extremely authoritative, a hellish place where most people suffer.” No, it’s not your place of employment, but rather something like Planet of the Apes or George Orwell’s 1984. The common element in these two opposite societal types is the suffix “topia,” a Greek word meaning “a place with specified characteristics.” An imaginary society with both good (Utopian) and bad (Dystopian) features might be called a “mixtopia.” Some posit an imaginary place where everything (especially the government) is as bad as it can be. Fittingly, the term for this…

Dog Friendly Food Truck Mexican New Mexico Rating: Excellent Rio Rancho

No Te Rajes – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoMay 26, 2023April 5, 202612:01 AM

As the eldest of six, I had the wonderful blessing of having spent more time with our dad than my siblings did. Dad was the embodiment of the term “gentle man,” a patient mentor and nurturing exemplar of how to be a father and friend. During our many outings, dad always had the radio tuned to KDCE, “The Station That’s All Heart” out of Espanola. KDCE played the New Mexican and Mexican songs dad grew up with and loved. Among his favorites (frequently on KDCE’s repertoire) was Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes by Jorge Negrete. It became one of my favorites, too. The song title made absolutely no sense to me because the term “rajes” comes from the verb “rajarse” which means to “crack” or “split.” Dad explained that colloquially, “no te rajes” means “don’t back out” or “don’t chicken out.” He assured me the song was basically a love song to the Mexican state of Jalisco. He also told me it was the theme song to the 1941 Mexican movie of the same name, based on a novel by the same name. If you think I’m a wealth of information, you should have met my dad, one of the…

Albuquerque Closed in 2023 Dog Friendly Gone But Not Forgotten Mexican New Mexico

El Cotorro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil GardunoJuly 17, 2022April 12, 202312:01 AM

There’s a scene in the 2006 lucha libre (Mexican professional wrestling) comedy film Nacho Libre in which Nacho’s ectomorphic tag team partner Esqueleto (“the skeleton”) orders two grilled, buttered and chile-dusted elotes (corn-on-the-cob) from a street vendor. Esqueleto graciously attempts to hand one to Nacho who rebuffs the offer, knocks the elotes to the ground and bellows “get that corn out of my face!” That antagonistic act so enraged Esqueleto that he leaped on Nacho’s back and attempted to throw his corpulent partner to the ground. The sight of the two golden elotes tinged with red chile on the ground was funny at the time, however, after consuming the elotes at El Cotorro, we would consider knocking elotes to the ground an act of sacrilege and sheer madness. It’s no wonder Esqueleto was so upset. Sure we’ve had elotes elsewhere…plenty of elotes at a plethora of elsewheres, in fact, but only at El Cotorro have elotes made us swoon in appreciation. El Cotorro, which translates to “the parrot” in English is not what you might expect from a Mexican restaurant of that name. It’s not a restaurant named for the stereotypical squawking “Polly wants a cracker” parrot mascot some kitschy…

Dog Friendly Mexican New Mexico Rating: N/R (Not Rated)Rio Rancho Tacos

Tap N Taco – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoApril 6, 2022April 5, 202612:01 AM

Imagine Marty McPlata, a 17 year old Rio Rancho High School student who gets transported back in time seven years to 2015. With the help of his mad scientist friend Bill Resnikoff, he makes his way back to the future to the year from which he left–2022. Significant changes and burgeoning growth have transpired in the City of Vision since he left. Among one of the improvements by subtraction is the absence of one of the city’s three Burger King restaurants, a multi-national chain he drove past only because it was on the way to Corrales. Marty smiled at the thought that Burger King’s incredibly creepy, big-headed mascot may finally driven away all of the “home of the Whopper’s” customers. That realization hit Burger King CFO Josh Kobza in 2011: “We got rid of the creepy king character that tended to scare away women and children.” Gone, Marty thought, are the gold and red colors of Burger King’s logo, ironically the same colors used by McDonald’s. Gone, too, is the empty parking lot. On some days only the drive-up window seemed to have customers. While the iconic, standardized shape of the familiar Burger King restaurant remains, the building is now…

Albuquerque Food Truck Mexican New Mexico Rating: N/R (Not Rated)Tacos

Taco Bus – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoJuly 3, 2021April 6, 202612:01 AM

Perhaps no mobile conveyance in the Land of Enchantment has ferried as many interesting people on as many colorful journeys as the “Road Hog,” the psychedelic bus which shuttled its passengers from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock to Llano Largo, New Mexico. The Road Hog’s 1969 arrival in Llano Largo heralded the start of the “summer of the hippie invasion” as The Taos News called it. There unwashed masses settled into a Utopian agrarian commune they called the Hog Farm. The Road Hog with its familiar duck hood ornament and Grateful Dead-style tie-dyed design became a common sight in Peñasco, my childhood home. Everyone–from sanctimonious adults to horny teenagers–visited the Hog Farm. The former feigned shock and outrage at the audacity of the hippies frolicking in their altogether. The latter gaped in astonishment at the nubile nymphs parading a boldness exceeding the rather benign porn of the time. By road, our home was several miles away from the Hog Farm. By hiking over the river, through the woods and up the hills behind our home we could easily walk to the Hog Farm. My friends and I grabbed many an eyeful and a good education in anatomy and biology every time we…