Closed in 2020Gone But Not ForgottenItalianNew MexicoRating: OutstandingSanta Fe

Il Piatto Italian Farmhouse Kitchen – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:10 AM

As an independent observer of the New Mexico culinary condition, I used to think the most prominent delta in quality between restaurants in the Land of Enchantment and those in large metropolitan cities are in the areas of seafood, barbecue and Italian food. It’s easy to understand the dearth in outstanding seafood restaurants. We are, after all, a landlocked state some 800 miles or so from the nearest ocean. While many New Mexican restaurants have fresh seafood flown in frequently, it’s not quite the same as having seafood literally off the boat and onto your plate. In recent years, the launch of several very good to excellent barbecue joints has done much to narrow the gap in the barbecue arena: Sugar’s BBQ in Embudo, The Ranch House in Santa Fe, Sparky’s in Hatch and Mr. Powdrell’s Barbecue House in Albuquerque. This terrific quadrumvirate has given us barbecue you can enjoy every day of the week, maybe even more than once a day. We may not ever have transcendent barbecue like Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City, but the same can be said about everywhere else in the world. My argument used to be that New Mexico does have some nice, maybe…

AlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009

Route 66 Malt Shop – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:21 AM

In a May, 2009 edition of New Mexico Magazine feature celebrating “20 reasons Rail is Cool Now,” the magazine’s staff and contributors shared the best things to experience via the New Mexico Railrunner Express.”  A Duke City notable was root beer at the Route 66 Malt Shop and Grill, then about three miles from the nearest Railrunner depot.  The magazine encouraged readers to “order a frosty mug of homemade award-winning root beer, or make it a float.”  While you’re at it, the magazine suggested “sinking your teeth into the signature Blue Cheese Green Chile Burger.  Dee-lish.” Ironically just as the magazine was hitting the newsstands, the Route 66 Malt Shop’s west-facing windows were scrawled with the alarming words “Lost Our Lease, Being Evicted.”  To the consternation of hundreds of loyal patrons who  signed petitions on the restaurant’s behalf, the developer who owns the building in which the restaurant was housed apparently had other plans for it.  Owners Diane Avila and Eric Szeman were unable to reach an accord with their landlord and had to close the beloved institution they operated for so long. To call an 845 square foot hole-in-the-wall an institution is a testament to how firmly entrenched and highly regarded this…

AmericanNew MexicoRating: Very GoodSanta Fe

San Marcos Cafe – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:37 PM

Contrary to some popular opinion, roosters don’t crow just to be noisy or annoying. They crow as a sign of territorial advertising; they’re protecting their turf. At San Marcos Cafe, the cacophonous din of crowing roosters is understandable considering the throngs of hungry patrons infringing on their turf. There was one famous fowl at the San Marcos Cafe who didn’t chicken out at the sight of guests.  Buddy the Chicken, master of all he surveyed, served as the restaurant’s unofficial valet parking attendant and maitre de.  Nattily attired in polychromatic plumage and a black bow tie, Buddy welcomed one all and actually answered to his name.  When he passed away in 1996, he received an above-the-fold obituary in the newspaper.  Name one other chicken who’s ever been honored posthumously other than with “Bless this food we are about to receive…” It’s not just roosters that parade happily on the bucolic grounds of this charming old adobe establishment on the Turquoise Trail about 15 miles south of Santa Fe. Peacocks display their glorious multi-hued plumage while peahens play hard to get. Chickens roam freely looking for the right spots to hold their peck-nics.  Turkeys splay their own plumage like politicians puffing…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2013Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Prickly Pear Bar & Grill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:37 PM

Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield offered the following advice to his son: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, focusing on a singular task was not only a practical way of structuring one’s time; it was a sign of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”  In university life as in the workforce of the 21st century, the notion that to work efficiently we have to focus on one task at a time is fairly well understood.  To understand that notion, however, is not necessarily to abide by its wisdom.  Students eat lunch in front of the television with their laptops open as they cram for a test, taking frequent breaks to tweet and post on Facebook while sending emails and chatting online, too.  The same research which has borne out that multi-taskers are most certainly not being more productive, reveals…

EspañolaNew MexicanNew MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011Rating: Very Good

El Parasol – Española, New Mexico

Gil Garduno4:10 AM

If you were in a hurry, driving through Española on a hot summer day in the early 1980s might have raised the diastolic level (the lower number) of your blood pressure to the level of the temperature gauge. That’s because on Sunday afternoons, Española’s main thoroughfares were the domain of the lowriders, elaborately painted late-model cars (many with intricate religious murals on the hood) whose suspension is replaced with hydraulic cylinders to allow the car to be drastically lowered when parked and raised back up for travel. Española etiquette dictated that no one, not even the law, interfered with the low-and-slow (sounds like barbecue) pace these sparkling cars set as they hugged the pavement on both lanes for the entire length and breadth of the city limits. The lowered late-model cars with their custom paint jobs, tiny steering wheels and chrome wheels were in no hurry; attracting attention was a major aim of lowriding. As a result, it might take an hour or more to drive through Española. Because of its tradition of highlighting the cars as part of local culture and the high number of lowriders per capita, the city earned the sobriquet of the “lowrider capital of the…

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Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog Up and Running…Again (And This Time For Good)

Gil Garduno4:51 PM

Dear Readers As many of you know, back in August a malicious invader infected my virtual private server with a malware virus, the second such incident in four years.  To prevent a future recurrence, I paid the company which hosted my server to move my site to a “more secure” hosting environment.  Alas, no good deed goes unpunished.  The move caused the site to become unstable with frequent and unexplained outages.  Because my hosting provider didn’t take ownership for issues they caused during the move, I began searching for a new company to host Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog.  In ZippyKid, I found the very best hosting company there is.  It’s a very reputable company with tremendous technical expertise, but moreso, it’s a company which will partner with me to ensure you have the best browsing experience on my site. I apologize for any inconvenience the absence of my blog may have caused and appreciate all the kind words from so many of you.  It’s my hope that henceforth the only thing I’ll have to apologize about is the quality of the pictures I take. Gil

AlbuquerqueBreakfastBrunchBuffetClosed in 2014Gone But Not ForgottenLatin American

La Fonda Del Bosque – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:24 AM

In the millennium year, after years of planning and lobbying, the dream was finally realized of a haven  dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and advancement of Hispanic culture, arts, and humanities. In 2000, the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC), launched along the Camino Real in the Albuquerque’s historic Barela’s neighborhood.  The Center is an architectural anomaly in a largely adobe-hued area, its unique structures including a renovated hacienda-style school, a stylized Mayan pyramid with interior elements modeled on Romanesque architecture and a torreon (tower) housing a 4,000 square foot concave fresco depicting over 3,000 years of Hispanic history. Ironically the complex chartered to preserve, protect and promote Hispanic culture had to displace several families, thereby disenfranchising some of the very families who embody the Hispanic culture in Albuquerque.  One resident–the late Adela Martinez–stared down bureaucrats and made them blink, refusing to move.  The forty-million dollar Cultural Center had to be redesigned to accommodate her family in the home she moved into in the 1920s.  Today, her family’s two small houses stand out, not like a sore thumb, but as a testament to the courage of one 80-year old Hispanic woman whose treasured memories were worth much more than the monetary…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2014Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

ZS&T’s Great Grub – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:45 PM

“Here’s an idea: Quit playing on the Internet and get over to 5017 Menaul, N.E. for lunch. And dinner.” That’s not Gil Garduño admonishing you to take a break from the invaluable research you’re conducting on the Internet. That’s ZS&T’s Web site inviting you to what could very well be one of the best Duke City restaurants you’ve never heard of, a restaurant so confident in its cooking that its Web site boasts, “If you don’t think it’s the best food in Albuquerque, we’ll refer you to a good Ear, Nose and Throat doctor to get your taste buds adjusted.” Audacity, braggadocio or confidence? As Muhammad Ali used to say, “it’s not bragging if you can back it up.” ZS&T’s owners have the pedigree to back it up! While the restaurant itself is a relatively new player on Albuquerque’s culinary stage, having opened in March, 2012, Suzie and Daniel Baca are certainly not newcomers to the city’s dining scene. In fact, under their stewardship, La Fonda Del Bosque, the National Hispanic Cultural Center’s flagship restaurant, garnered significant critical acclaim and hosted international glitterati from both the political and the cinematic arena. When the National Hispanic Cultural Center decided to take…

New MexicanNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)Travel Channel Eats New Mexico

Pepper Pot – Hatch, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:55 PM

You might expect that a village renowned as the “chile capital of the world” could also boast of restaurants which showcase chile of such high quality that they would be veritable Meccas to which diners from throughout the state would pilgrimage.  With a population of 1,648 (as of the 2010 census), Hatch has fewer than ten restaurants, many of which do indeed seem to draw nearly as many visitors from outside of Hatch as they do local residents and most of which do indeed showcase red and green chile.  For New Mexican food, the one restaurant which most locals name as their very favorite is the Pepper Pot. Located in a converted residence, the Pepper Pot still resembles a family home, the give-away that it’s a business being prominent signage on a concrete plant stand.  Homey exterior implements such as an old-fashioned push mower and a miniature John Deere tractor adorn the lawn.  When you step into the restaurant and seat yourself in one of the dining room’s sixteen tables, you might notice that the ambiance is laden with Catholic symbols.  Even the flowers painted above the arched doorways resemble the roses on Juan Diego’s tilma.  A bulletin board recounts…

BarbecueMissouriRating: OutstandingUnited States

Arthur Bryant’s – Kansas City, Missouri

Gil Garduno8:13 PM

Shortly after Arthur Bryant died in 1982, the Kansas City Star published a cartoon showing St. Peter greeting Arthur at the gates of heaven and asking, “Did you bring sauce?” Perhaps not even in Heaven can such a wondrous sauce be concocted. Arthur Bryant’s is probably the most famous barbecue restaurant in the country, if not the world–an institution to which celebrity and political glitterati make pilgrimages. If Schlitz was the “beer that made Milwaukee famous,” then Arthur Bryant’s is the barbecue that made Kansas City one of America’s four pillars of barbecue (along with Memphis, Texas and the Carolinas). In a city where barbecue is exalted, Arthur Bryant’s may no longer be indisputably the one restaurant everyone mentions as their favorite, but it remains a revered institution. In 1974, renowned New Yorker magazine author Calvin Trillin declared in Playboy magazine that “the single best restaurant in the world is Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue at 18th and Brooklyn in Kansas City.” Approaching the restaurant may make you giddy with anticipation. You might not even notice that the original restaurant is situated in the seedy side of town where buildings are boarded up and surrounding streets are nearly deserted. The aroma of…

Fine DiningMissouriRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Savoy Grill – Kansas City, Missouri

Gil Garduno9:15 PM

In a 2012 episode of the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations” television program, host Anthony Bourdain and his Russian pal Zamir Gotta visited Kansas City in search of the city’s best barbecue.  When not licking barbecue sauce off their fingers, the peckish duo detoured to Stroud’s for the best fried chicken in the known universe and to The Savoy Grill for nostalgia and memories.  The Savoy Grill, a Kansas City landmark, has been making memories since 1903 when it was added to the Hotel Savoy.  Today, the Savoy Grill is the oldest restaurant in Kansas City while its home, the Savoy Hotel is the oldest continuously operating hotel in the United States west of the Mississippi River. During its inception, the Savoy Grill did not allow women, a situation that quickly ended.  The menu then offered prairie chicken and buffalo steak, delicacies which today would be considered exotic.  After dinner, tables were pushed aside for music and dancing late into the night.  The restaurant’s elegant features include stained glass windows, high-beamed ceilings, lanterns which were previously gaslights, tiled floors and an enormous carved oak bar.  One of the restaurant’s spacious booths has come to be known as the “President’s booth” as…