AlbuquerqueBurgersClosed in 2019Gone But Not Forgotten

Little Red Hamburger Hut – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:07 PM

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” – J. Wellington Wimpy Cultural shock! It’s been oft repeated that the United States and England are two nations separated by a common language. I had no idea how much the two nations are separated by more than language until 1979 when stationed at Royal Air Force Base Upper Heyford just outside of Oxford, England. Cultural differences were especially evident in dining experiences. Back then American fast food restaurants were as scarce in England as fish and chips restaurants were in the United States. McDonald’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut had just starting to make inroads in the megalopolis of London. In smaller cities, if we wanted an American hamburger, the only option was a chain of England-based hamburger restaurants named Wimpy’s. During my first visit to Wimpy’s there were many reminders we were not in America. First, service was on New Mexico time (and I say that with the utmost affection); the concept of fast food was apparently lost on the wait staff. Secondly, portions were parsimonious. The burgers weren’t the size of a frisbee the way American servicemen liked them. Soft drinks were merely eight-ounces, not the barrel-sized cups…

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Friends of Gil (FOG) Dinner: Fabulous Food, Fun and Friends

Gil Garduno12:30 PM

When Sheri LaVigne was a little girl, her family moved to a small farm in Corrales. Her mother Kay Lucas bought a Nubian goat they named Mocha which provisioned the family with everything from farmer’s cheese to goat’s milk ice cream. Sheri got up early every morning to help her mom milk Mocha, an experience which helped foster her lifelong love affair with cheese. That love was rekindled when she lived in New York City just around the corner from a cheese shop. A few years later she and her husband relocated to Seattle where, despite a thriving food scene, there wasn’t a cheese shop to be found. Deciding she would be the one to rectify the situation, in 2009 she launched Calf & Kid, an artisan cheese shop. You may have seen Sheri on television not that long ago when she was featured on The Layover with Anthony Bourdain, whom it turns out is quite the turophile (a connoisseur of cheese). He spent an hour tasting various cheeses with Sheri guiding him through a number of the “runny and smelly” cheeses he craved. Not surprisingly the Calf & Kid has become über popular in Seattle where Sheri has cultivated…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenHot DogsNew MexicoPizza

Kaktus Brewery Tap @ Nob Hill – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno8:31 PM

Most of us have known a wine snob or two. You know the type. They refer to themselves as oenophiles, a fancy way of saying “connoisseur or lover of wines.” They believe themselves to possess refined palates and won’t drink a wine that isn’t as cultured as they are. Even then, they first have to check the color and opacity of the wine. Then they twirl their glass for ten minutes or so before sticking their nose into the glass (like anteaters at an ant hole) and sniffing the wine noisily. They then proudly proclaim the wine has notes of oak, berries or butter. Their next step is to gargle with the wine, sloshing it between their cheeks and gums before finally imbibing of its delicate flavors and proclaiming it worthy. In recent years, another adult beverage snob has arisen to give oenophiles some competition in the haughtiness department. They’re called “cerevisaphiles,” a term that refers to beer enthusiasts. Cerevisaphiles turn their nose up at Pabst Blue Ribbon and other “pedestrian swill.” As with their oenophile counterparts, the cerevisaphiles pride themselves on their discerning palates. They will drink no beer before or after its time and are careful to note…

AlbuquerqueAmericanClosed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Vernon’s Open Door – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:51 PM

However well-intended, the corporate world’s “open door policy” doesn’t always have the desired effect of establishing trust between employees and their managers. This became evident during my first corporate gig after leaving the Air Force. My boss, whom Jerry Seinfeld would describe as a “loud talker” spoke at a decibel level rivaling the University of New Mexico’s fabled Pit during a Lobo fast break. Compounded with the fact that our offices were housed in a pod of flimsy mobile offices affectionately called Jurassic Park and it was a recipe for disaster. Though held behind closed doors, one-on-one meetings were hardly private. Paper-thin walls and rickety doors meant everyone within a two block radius could hear my boss. Consequently employees remained apprised of matters–such as employee discipline, pay raises or promotions, for example–not intended for public consumption. At its very worse, we learned of a fellow employee’s dilemma as to which she should treat first, her chlamydia or her dandruff. For fear of bursting out in raucous laughter, we couldn’t look her in the face for a long time. Memories of those failed “open door policy” meetings flooded back to me at Vernon’s Open Door restaurant when my Kim and I…

AlbuquerqueChickenRating: Good

Golden Pride Chicken – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:20 PM

For years Albuquerque’s cruiser culture has made Central Avenue a favorite destination for showing off souped-up cars and causing windows to rattle and eardrums to throb from the pounding bass in audio systems that reverberate as loud as a thunderclap over your head. My friend Carlos who understands urban subcultures more than most tells me cruising Central Avenue isn’t solely about seeing and being seen. It’s about fried chicken, more specifically Golden Pride, Barbecue, Chicken and Ribs (Golden Pride for short). Central Avenue has a Golden Pride location on the Duke City’s far west (a couple blocks east of Coors) and one on the far east side (just west of Eubank). It’s about 12 miles as the crow flies from the east side Golden Pride to its sibling on the west, but it could take you a good half hour (longer in rush hour) to drive that distance. That’s a lot of good cruising. A third location on Juan Tabo may be off the cruiser’s beaten path, but it’s close to family neighborhoods which flock to this poultry palace when in the mood for fried fowl. Still another location, on Lomas just east of University, is an institution for UNM…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2022Gone But Not ForgottenJapaneseRating: ExcellentSushi

Magokoro Japanese Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:20 AM

Emeril Lagasse, the jovial master of the culinary catchphrase, has been known to exhort his studio audience to “feel the love” as he adds a dash or two of something special to a dish. Indeed, love is that extra ingredient many chefs say they add to make everything they prepare taste better. To these chefs, cooking with love is not a labor of love because the gratification they receive is as intrinsically nourishing and pleasing as their cuisine is pleasurable and fulfilling to the diners who partake of it. Asian cultures have known for time immemorial that cooking is more than providing sustenance to sate hunger. They believe cooking and eating can create spiritual awareness and foster community as well as inspire the heart. The Chinese term dim sum, in fact, translates to “touching the heart.” In Japan, there’s a similar term–“Magokoro,” which is translated as “heart of truth” and is considered the basic attitude toward life. Magokoro is used to convey “sincerity, pure heart, uprightness.” It is, generally, the sincere attitude of a person in doing his or her best. Doing her best is precisely what Takako Bowen, the owner and chef of Albuquerque’s Magokoro Japanese Restaurant has done…

AnnouncementsRed or Green - New Mexico Food Scene is on Fire

2015: A Thrilling (And Filling) Year in Food

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Tis the season…for year-end retrospectives in which the good, the bad and the ugly; the triumphs and tragedies; the highs and lows and the ups and downs are revisited ad-infinitum by seemingly every print and cyberspace medium in existence. It’s the time of year in which the “in-your-face” media practically forces a reminiscence–either fondly or with disgust–about the year that was. It’s a time for introspection, resolutions and for looking forward with hope to the year to come. The New Mexico culinary landscape had more highs than it did lows in 2015. Here’s my thrilling (and filling) recap. 2015 was a year of transition for New Mexico’s culinary landscape. By my count, some 25 restaurants shuttered their doors for the last time. Some, such as Tim’s Place, the “world’s friendliest restaurant” had achieved national prominence. Other closures put to rest the dreams of enterprising owners who sadly arrived at the harsh realization of just how brutal the economy and how fickle the business can be. Sill other restaurateurs transitioned to mew adventures, some not in the hospitality industry. We salute those restaurateurs for whom the only failure would have been not to have tried at all. 2015 was another banner…

AnnouncementsGil's Best of the Best

Gil’s “Best of the Best” For 2015

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

It’s the season for making lists and checking them twice, finding out which restaurants were naughty or nice. The advent of 2016 is nigh. It’s with great fondness and more than a little (blush) salivation that I bid adieu and auld lang syne to my most memorable dishes of 2015. These are the baker’s dozen plus dishes which are most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. It would be oh so easy to compile a “best of the best” list from among entrees we enjoyed prior to 2015 and from restaurants honored among my best of the best in previous years, but true gastronomes don’t take the easy way out. We explore new culinary frontiers, seek out new dishes and boldly go where no reviewer has gone before. More than half of this year’s best come from restaurants we hadn’t visited prior to 2015 and includes more desserts than in any previous year. If you’re curious, the one item I enjoyed more often than any other in 2015 is the red chili mocha from Cafe Bella in Rio Rancho. David, Julian,…

AlbuquerqueBreakfastClosed in 2025Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanRating: Very Good

The Burrito Lady – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:07 AM

“It is the blood of the Lunas to be quiet, for only a quiet man can learn the secrets of the earth that are necessary for planting — They are quiet like the moon.” ~Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo A. Anaya For nearly seventy-years, Consuelo Flores’s father harnessed the secrets of the earth to raise some of the best, most piquant green chile in Puerto de Luna, an agrarian community about ten miles outside of Santa Rosa, New Mexico which was made famous by Rudolfo Anaya’s classic novel. He imparted those secrets to his daughter who grew up participating in all facets of the chile “life cycle”–planting, harvesting, roasting and cooking. Today Consuelo, Albuquerque’s beautiful Burrito Lady, demonstrates every day just how well she learned those secrets by preparing some of the most delicious chile in Albuquerque. Consuelo uses only chile of the “hot” variety, admitting it’s not as good as the green chile her family raised. After years of working in other restaurants, Consuelo launched the Burrito Lady restaurant because it’s the only way she could get New Mexican food as good as she makes it home and she wanted to share her culinary skills with Albuquerque. Her perpetual…

Closed in 2017Gone But Not ForgottenItalianNew MexicoTruth or Consequences

Cafe Bella Luca – Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:11 PM

“The qualities of an exceptional cook are akin to those of a successful tightrope walker; an abiding passion for the task, courage to go out on a limb and an impeccable sense of balance” – Bryan Miller Former New York Times food critic The qualities of a truly exceptional cook do not include plying his or her trade under the spotlight of a heavily trafficked metropolitan restaurant frequented by the glitterati and anointed by the cognoscenti or the Food Network. Truly exceptional cooks can shine brightly even outside the big city and media spotlight. Some of the very best cooks and chefs in the fruited plain are relatively unheralded by the teeming masses and remain undiscovered by the the saccharine television food programs. Some of them toil far from the well-beaten-and-well-eaten path and care more about the craft than they do the pursuit of celebrity. Truly exceptional cooks shine so brightly that their reputations for exceedingly high standards and inventive cuisine precede the media stampede. The very best among these exceptional chefs maintain those standards after they’ve been discovered. Though they may appreciate any newfound attention, their focus remains on proving themselves with every single meal and to every single…

AlbuquerqueNew MexicanRating: Very Good

La Salita – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno1:00 AM

While the Spanish word “salita” may translate to “little parlor or living room,” that translation doesn’t fully describe the function of this room in the traditional New Mexican hacienda. Historically, the sala has been the room in which guests are warmly received and entertained, often as a prelude to a grand meal. In colonial times the sala was sparsely furnished with large-scale furniture that could accommodate numerous house guests. It was often the venue in which household celebrations were hosted. Albuquerque’s La Salita restaurant embodies the spirit of the sala because diners are always made welcome and treated like valued friends, not paying customers. A lively wait staff knows regulars by name and can recite their culinary preferences, too. Many of those guests have been patronizing La Salita throughout its five decades of doing business in the far Northeast Heights. In the summer of 2015, La Salita celebrated its fiftieth year of serving the Duke City and there appears to be no surcease in sight. It remains remarkably consistent in its delivery of some of Albuquerque’s very favorite and most celebrated New Mexican cuisine. This beloved local treasure has been recognized by the New Mexico Tourism Department as one of…