AlbuquerqueAsianClosed in 2025Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoVietnamese

Viet Cốm – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

The name on the signage is Viet Cốm, not Viet dot com.  The difference is more than semantic.  In Vietnamese the term “Cốm” (with an accent denoting a high rising pitch when vocalized) translates from Vietnamese to a green sticky rice or green rice flakes. Cốm is a delicacy made only in autumn and cherished by all Vietnamese.  You learn a lot when you visit a Vietnamese restaurant and are interested enough to ask a lot of questions.  If Misty Do is your server, ask her about the family restaurant and you’ll learn quite a bit. We learned, for example, that the family owned and operated eatery opened in June, 2020, just a couple of months after the Cabrona Virus shut down the world.  Viet Cốm is indeed a family operation.  Misty’s dad is the cook.  Her stepmother, older sister and younger brother all help out, but it’s Misty who appears to be the face of the restaurant as you’ll learn should you peruse the restaurant’s Yelp review.  We learned also that we shouldn’t have assumed that because Misty’s last name is “Do,” the family name must also be Do.  Misty clarified that in accordance with Vietnamese traditions, women don’t…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2025Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoSandwich

The Farmacy – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In this age of “fake news,” biased media slants and unabashed tell-alls, the one recent headline which has pleased me most comes from Bloomberg. Splashed in bold typeface was the eye-catching lead “Mom-and-Pop Joints Are Trouncing America’s Big Restaurant Chains.” Elaborating on this contention, the first paragraph reads: “Americans are rejecting the consistency of national restaurant chains after decades of dominance in favor of the authenticity of locally owned eateries, with their daily specials and Mom’s watercolors decorating the walls.” The numbers bear this out–“annual revenue for independents will grow about 5 percent through 2020, while the growth for chains will be about 3 percent.” Fittingly, I read this article during my inaugural visit to The Farmacy, a Lilliputian lair of luscious food then located on the southeast corner of the Mountain Road-Eighth Street intersection. If big restaurant chains and their well-heeled operations are the proverbial muscle-bound beach bullies who kick sand in the face of scrawny kids, The Farmacy embodies the small underdog who fights back with the only weapons at its disposal: great food and friendly service at an affordable price. The Farmacy is David to the Philistine’s Goliath, the plodding tortoise to the overly confident hare, unknown…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2024Dog FriendlyGone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoPizza

Firenze Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Name a pizza joint “Florence Pizzeria” and public reaction would likely be dubious:  “Who the heck is Florence?”  “Can someone named Florence possibly have a clue how to make pizza?”  Now translate “Florence” to Italian and all of a sudden, “Firenze Pizzeria” has instant credibility.  Never mind that most of the pizza in Florence (er, Firenze), Italy is of the Neapolitan variety.  The name Firenze is a perfect fit for a pizzeria.  Even the name inspires visions of a fire-breathing Italian oven preparing a waifishly thin pizza in just about a minute. Steven Meyer, owner-operator of Albuquerque’s Firenze Pizzeria knows a thing or two about fire-breathing ovens and waifishly thin pizzas.  In 2011, he pioneered portable pizza in the Duke City, toting an Italian-made oven throughout the city.  Being booked every weekend for nearly two years for special events, catering and a semi-permanent gig at the Downtown Growers’ Market at Robinson Park facilitated the decision to seek a permanent venue.  He found the perfect spot at 900 Park Avenue, S.W., just across Central Avenue to Robinson Park. The two-story edifice Firenze called home for nearly nine years had plenty of character and personality.  One of its neighbors was the lair…

New MexicoNew Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009Rating: ExcellentRio RanchoVietnamese

Saigon 2 Restaurant – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno9:21 PM

In Chinese and Vietnamese cultures, numerology is very important. If you’ve traveled extensively, you may have wondered why the term “Pho” followed by a number is so commonplace. Often these numbers are considered lucky–and not necessarily across an entire culture. A number may be lucky on a personal level, perhaps marking a date that’s special to the restaurant owner. Espy a restaurant named Pho 66and the number 66 may well represent the year the owner fled Vietnam during the war. Restaurants named Pho 75 may well be honoring 1975, the year Saigon fell. Numerical repetition is also considered fortuitous. The City of Vision certainly counts the number eleven as a lucky number. November 11th, 2011 at precisely 11 o’clock AM (11/11/11 at 11AM) saw the launch of Rio Rancho’s third Vietnamese restaurant when Saigon 2 Restaurant opened its doors on Southern Boulevard. The restaurant is situated in an 1,800 square foot space that’s about a thousand feet smaller than Saigon Restaurant, its elder sibling on San Mateo. Because the Rio Rancho restaurant is smaller, the menu is somewhat abbreviated–115 items instead of 145 items. Fish dishes are not be served in Saigon 2, but for the most part, the dishes…

2022 James Beard Foundation - "Best Chef - Southwest" SemifinalistAfricanDiners Drive-Ins and DivesFood Network Eats New MexicoJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersRating: OutstandingSanta Fe

JAMBO CAFE – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Growing up in the 60s–the dark ages before the Internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore’s eyes and google–then spelled “googol”– represented an very large number (currently being approached by build back better spending)–even precocious children like me derived most of our knowledge of Africa from National Geographic magazines and Tarzan movies. We thought Africa was one large monolithic country comprised solely of stark, expansive deserts or lush, mysterious jungles. Africa’s indigenous people, we believed, had to compete for food with lions, tigers and hyenas, oh my. Though Africa was called “the Dark Continent,” it was truly our knowledge which was in the dark, obfuscated by stereotypes and misconceptions. The 1966 debut of Star Trek helped eliminate some of those stereotypes with the introduction of communications officer Lieutenant Uhura, a stunning black woman from the United States of Africa who spoke Swahili. By the time Disney’s The Jungle Book premiered in 1967, I had learned enough about Africa to know that save for in zoos, you couldn’t find a tiger in the entire continent. In the intervening years since the naivete of my youth, I’ve also learned that Africa is comprised of 53 very distinct and autonomous nations and…

AlbuquerqueMiddle EasternNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

El Chamo Arabe – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:01 PM

According to the New York Post, the beleaguered South American nation of Venezuela may be the easiest place on Planet Earth in which to become a millionaire.  Of course, a million Bolivars in the inflation-ridden nation is worth only about fifty-three cents.  In 2018, Venezuela’s Central Bank actually began printing $1,000,000 bills.  Years of hyperinflation devours the income of Venezuelans, leaving them hungry and struggling to buy food and medicine.  Many Venezuelans scour through garbage to find food while millions of others fled the country to build new lives across South America and beyond.   You wouldn’t know life in Venezuela is so difficult if you speak with Maria Laura, a perpetually smiling server at El Chamo Arabe. Maria Laura has reason to smile.  She’s been in the United States for only a month.  She’d prefer to extol the virtues of her country and its beautiful people rather than focus on Nicolás Maduro, the autocrat and dictator who has ruled Venezuela since 2013.  Maria Laura’s cousin Paola Maried co-owns El Chamo Arabe along with Ibrahim Jamaleddin.  Both are also immigrants who escaped Venezuela six years ago to make a better life for themselves in the United States.  Paola’s background is…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicoPopcornRating: ExcellentSpecialty

The Cornivore Popcorn Company – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:09 AM

“Popcorn for breakfast! Why not? It’s a grain. It’s like grits, but with high self-esteem.” ~James Patterson The planet’s very first known popcorn aficionados may have expressed the sentiment “to the batcave”  long before Batman, the Caped Crusader uttered the words to Robin, the Boy Wonder.  After long days of hunting and gathering, foraging and fishing, our primitive progenitors–nearly six-thousand years before the advent of Netflix–would adjourn to a cave to enjoy popcorn (which, ostensibly, was delicious even without butter, caramel and Cheddar). Contrary to popular opinion, the world’s oldest popcorn did not come from the same movie theater which also houses the world’s oldest hotdog, a perpetually rotating hot dog seared to a leathery sheen under a heat lamp.  The oldest known popcorn to date was actually discovered in a dry cave in West Central New Mexico.  Dubbed the “bat cave,” it yielded several individually popped kernels as well as a trove of unpopped corn.  These kernels were carbon-dated and shown to be approximately 5,600 years old. During his ransacking of Mexico, Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes was among the first Europeans to glimpse popcorn. In addition to enjoying it as a snack, Aztecs used popcorn to decorate ceremonial headdresses,…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastNew MexicanNew MexicoRating: Very Good

Milly’s Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:28 AM

Until rather recently, if there was a wide diversity of opinion about Albuquerque’s restaurant scene, it wasn’t widely shared. Albuquerque’s two daily periodicals, the Albuquerque Journal and the Albuquerque Tribune as well as a number of alternative publications published weekly restaurant reviews, but opinions and observations expressed therein were rather one-sided. It wasn’t until about 2008 that crowd-sourced restaurant reviews really took off in the Duke City. Published in such online mediums as TripAdvisor (founded in 2000), Yelp (launched in 2004) and Urbanspoon (debuted in 2006), crowd-sourced review venues gave everyone an opportunity to become a “critic.” More than ever before “Joe and Jane Diner” had license to express rather colorful (sometimes bordering on libel) versions of their truth. One of the predictable outcomes of this open, honest and direct culture became the wide swath of differing opinions. This illustrated how different people can have distinctly different perceptions—each a snapshot of time–of their experience at a restaurant. Reviews for some restaurants run the gamut with some reviewers extolling every aspect of their visit as “fabulous” while others lambaste every facet of their experience. It’s almost as if two different restaurants are being reviewed. The differences are sometimes so very pronounced…

AlbuquerqueBrewery-PubDog FriendlyIrishNew Mexico

Quarter Celtic Brewpub – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 1913, French mathematician Émile Borel introduced a thought experiment that has come to be known as the infinite monkey theorem. Essentially, the theorem posits that a single monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will eventually type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. Espying a sign bearing the name Llanfairpwll-gwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch when we visited the island of Anglesey in Wales, we wondered if that monkey had been set loose on the sign bearing the village’s name. When Kim asked me to try pronouncing the 58-character name (which actually translates to “Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave”), I told her locals just called it “Llano” for short. As soon as she remembered Llano is actually a “suburb” of Peñasco, she had a few short names for me. Our visit to the “Welsh Llano” came to mind when our debonair dachshund, The Dude and I visited the Quarter Celtic Brewpub. If Welsh naming conventions hold true, I had to wonder if its full name would translate from Welsh to “the Quarter…

Las CrucesNew MexicanNew MexicoNew Mexico Culinary Treasures TrailRating: Outstanding

NOPALITO RESTAURANT – Las Cruces, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Growing up in rural Northern New Mexico, my siblings and I thought all Mexican food was the same–the way my mom, grandmothers and aunts prepared it (which is to say it was outstanding).  At the time New Mexicans hadn’t universally acknowledged that the genesis of our cuisine wasn’t solely Mexico.  Back then, only the most savvy culinary historians were crediting Spanish and Native ingredients and preparation techniques as differentiating factors that made New Mexican cuisine unique.  It also wasn’t that long ago New Mexicans were spelling our official state vegetable as “chili.”   No, that’s not an episode of the Twilight Zone.  It’s the way it was just a few decades ago when all three of  my sisters matriculated at New Mexico State University. We didn’t know what to think when they’d return home on long weekends and holidays and prepared these strange and different “Mexican” dishes.  Sour cream enchiladas?   Con queso made with muenster cheese?  Green chile salsa?  Rolled enchiladas?  Gorditas?  Those “Mexican” restaurants in Las Cruces were either revolutionizing Mexican food or they didn’t know what they were doing.  It didn’t take long before we all embraced these new dishes and looked forward to sampling other delights from…

2024 James Beard Foundation "Best Chef - Texas" SemifinalistAsianClosed in 2023Dog FriendlyFusionGone But Not ForgottenJames Beard Foundation (JBF) Award Nominees & WinnersJapaneseMariscosMexicanRamenTacosTexasUnited States

El Charlatan – Socorro, Texas (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Everyone should have a friend like Steve Coleman, the erudite owner of Steve’s Food Page. Not only is he a great guy and a lot of fun to spend time with, he’s a superb host and tour guide.  During a two-day sojourn to “El Chuco,” Steve not only showed us the sights, he gave me a much-needed lesson about history New Mexico and Texas share.  He explained that during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, members of the Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico were displaced to El Paso along with Oñate and the Spaniards.  Today, descendants of those Native Americans reside in a Native American Pueblo in the Ysleta section of El Paso just about three miles from El Charlatan, our dining destination.  We were looking forward to Steve ferreting us through the historic El Paso Mission Trail, a nine-mile route representing a segment of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road of the Interior), the historic trail that ran from Mexico City to Santa Fe.  Alas, unseasonably fierce winds (another commonality New Mexico and Texas share) obfuscated our view of the churches as we drove past (at least one of) them.  On the Fujita Scale, a measure of wind speed,…