Tag: Enchanted Hills

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Street & Spice – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Before writing any of my missives, especially about a restaurant from a culinary culture about which I have not previously written, I take inventory of what I know about that culture.  The September, 2026 launch of Street & Spice provided the opportunity to assess what I knew about Indonesia.  It wasn’t a very long list.  Undoubtedly the coolest thing (to me, at least) about Indonesia is that some of its islands are home to the Komodo dragon, a large lizard-like apex predator that may have inspired Star Trek’s “Gorn.”  I also knew that Indonesia is made up of about 17,500…

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Vong Sushi Thai and Laos Cuisine – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Grammatically any of the following is correct:  Laotian cuisine, Lao cuisine or the cuisine of Laos.  Just don’t ever call it “Laosy cuisine.”  That would not only be a malapropism, it would be wholly inaccurate.  The cuisine of Laos is among the most dynamic and delicious in Southeast Asia, if not the world.  One of the reasons Laotian cuisine doesn’t receive the accolades it deserves is because of its neighbors.  The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia bordered by Myanmar (formerly Burma), China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.  To some extent, these neighbors (at least China,…