Tag: Cupcakes

BakeryBreakfastNew MexicoRating: ExcellentRio Rancho

Dulce River Bakery & Coffee – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 PM

“Siblings in an ancient tradition Who take time, temperature and love And bring them together To make something that brings people together. You make more than just food You make friendships. You make joy.” ~Thank You Bakers According to legend, the city of Vienna, Austria has bakers to thank for its existence.  Those legends have it that in 1683, Vienna was under siege by over a hundred thousand Ottoman Turks. After months of trying to starve the city into submission, the Turks attempted to tunnel underneath the walls of the city. Fortunately for the “City o Dreams,” some bakers hard at work in the middle of the night heard the sounds of the Turks digging and alerted the city’s defenders. This advance warning gave the defenders enough time to do something about the tunnel before it was completed. Just in time, King John III of Poland arrived at the head of an army that defeated the Turks and forced them to retreat. To celebrate the end of the siege and the part they had in repelling the Turks, several bakers in Vienna made a pastry in the shape of the crescents they had seen on the battle standards of the…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBetter Call SaulBreakfastDog FriendlyRating: Excellent

The Grove Cafe & Market – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:57 PM

Voracious readers*, avid aficionados of art and those aflame with a musical ardor know that great books, art and music are imbued with the power to transport them to another time and place. A recent influx of contemporary restaurants in Albuquerque also has that power. If you think about it, having a meal at most Duke City restaurants–transcendent though some may be–is just so…Albuquerque. There’s an almost boring consistency and sameness about many local restaurants. Their sole distinctiveness comes from the foods they serve. It’s very difficult, for example, to picture yourself on the beaches at Cabo San Lucas while sipping on a margarita at Garduño‘s. Noshing on mussels at the Indigo Crow just doesn’t feel like a leisurely repast on a sidewalk cafe in Paris. With the advent of the millennium, a new dining trend emerged in Albuquerque that has something to do with the type of cuisine, but perhaps even more to do with the “look and feel” of the dining experience. New restaurants emerged that can transport you from the dour sameness of Duke City dining. Restaurants such as the Slate Street Cafe and perhaps most of all the Grove Cafe & Market are so un-Albuquerque that…

AmericanBrewery-PubDog FriendlyNew MexicoRating: Very GoodRio Rancho

Turquoise Desert – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:46 AM

A 2016 online survey conducted by Statista asked 719 adult respondents “What is the maximum length of time that you would drive to a place to eat?” More than half (51-percent) of the respondents indicated they would travel 16 to 30 minutes to a restaurant. The limit for another 26-percent was 30 minutes to an hour.  Only five percent said they would travel more than one-hour.  Even the most prolific driving diners don’t have anything on David Schuler of Mississippi.  To sate his cravings for his favorite pizza in Massachusetts, Mr. Schuler drove over 1,400 miles and through 16 states.  Even that distance pales in comparison to humpback whales who travel as much as five thousand miles to get their fix of plankton, shrimp and salmon. Now you know what my argument will be next time my Kim complains about my “end-of-the-Earth” drives to visit a restaurant we haven’t previously visited.  Her counter-argument usually involves “all the great restaurants within a couple miles” of our Rio Rancho home.  She obviously doesn’t enjoy drives of great distance as much as our debonair dachshund The Dude and his dad do.  On a lazy August Sunday morning I surprised her by taking her…

AlbuquerqueBakeryBreakfastClosed in 2023Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenMexicanNew MexicoTacos

Ale’s Cakes – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Hypocrisy thy name is Gil. “For someone who whined so much about a one-hour (each way) commute to work, you’re willing to drive a hundred miles for lunch” my Kim lamented.  Our lunch destination wasn’t nearly a hundred miles away, but when you’re hungry it probably seems that way.  It would have seemed even further had we traversed the entirety of the street in which our intended restaurant is located. In fact, from its starting point to its terminus, that drive would truly have seemed interminable through all its winding and congested permutations. The street of which I speak is Albuquerque’s own Coors Blvd, otherwise known as New Mexico State Road 45.  According to Wikipedia, Coors Blvd is 22,918-miles long…er, make that 22.9-miles long though it does seem painfully longer than that (especially when you’re hungry).  Coors meanders parallel to the Rio Grande from the Southern boundary of Rio Rancho through Albuquerque and onto Isleta Pueblo.  It takes significantly longer to drive this route than it took the Mexican conquistadores to walk the Camino Real. Thank goodness for I-25 and Rio Bravo Blvd which shortened the length of our drive.  As we wended our way south on Coors, my Kim…