Tag: Seafood

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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…

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Zu Hot Pot – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

“You have tattoos and others have piercings, but for me, there’s nothing that says more about me than the food I choose to carry every single day. As a kid trying to maintain my identity in America, my Chinese was passable, my history was shaky, but I could taste something one time and make it myself at home. When everything else fell apart and I didn’t know who I was, food brought me back and here I was again.” ~Eddie Huang, Fresh Off The Boat Food: It triggers memories that provide a sense of identity and belonging. It feeds the soul and nourishes the body. It impacts the environment and geopolitical politics. It inspires song, art and lore. It affects…

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Nick & Jimmy’s Bar & Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Legendary American chef, author and television personality Julia Child was often exasperated with what she perceived as American’s propensity for culinary laziness, once commenting that “the trend in the U.S.A. was toward speed and the elimination of work.” “Americans,” she noted, equated as “gourmet” such “horrible glop” as “TV dinners, frozen vegetables, canned mushrooms, fish sticks, Jell-O salads, marshmallows and spray-can whipped cream.“ Julia Child obviously didn’t know Dave Hurayt, a good friend and fellow gastronome who’s shared some wonderful recipes with me. While Dave may not have spent two years and nearly 300 pounds of flour attempting to bake the perfect loaf of French bread as Julia Child once did, he experiments painstakingly with the recipes he creates, laboring…

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Vintage 423 – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

My friend Bill Resnik, a professional stand-up comedian for more than two decades, performs a bit in which he “translates” Spanish terms for linguistically challenged audiences.  “Paseo del Norte,” for example, translates to “Paseo of the Norte.” For Duke City residents, the “Northern Route” is no joke.  It’s the corridor from the Northeast Heights to Albuquerque’s burgeoning West side, ferrying nearly 100,000 vehicles a day.  Paseo del Norte is widely credited with the rapid development–from 30,000 residents in 1980 to more than 85,000 in 2006–of the city’s growth north of Interstate 40 and west of the Rio Grande.  What most city residents don’t realize is that the official Department of Transportation designation for the 25-mile passage is State Highway 423.…

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Freshie’s Lobster Co. – Salt Lake City, Utah

Gil Garduno

The best lobster in the world?  In Salt Lake City?  That’s as improbable as the Detroit Lions winning a Super Bowl, as unlikely as drivers in New Mexico developing the motor skills to use turn signals, as far-fetched as a conservative NRA member driving a Subaru in Santa Fe.  As a landlocked state some two-thousand miles from the cold New England waters that produce the world’s most delicious lobsters, the notion that a Salt Lake City restaurant would be acclaimed as home of the “world’s best lobster roll” seems quite implausible indeed.  Even the concept that a lobster restaurant (other than Red Lobster) would experience wild success in Salt Lake City could be construed as rather fantastical.  Utah isn’t exactly…