Category: Sandwich

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Coda Bakery – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

JP, my former boss at Intel used to pride himself on consistently working “half days.” If you’re thinking you’d like a job where you work only four hours a day, you’ve misinterpreted his definition of “half days.” To him, half days is a literal term meaning twelve hours a day. When most of us are done for after only nine or ten hours, he was just starting what he called his “second shift.” Very few of us have the stamina, initiative and especially the passion for what we do to work “half days.” I know restaurateurs for whom half days (or longer) are standard six or seven days a week. Because they spend so much time in their restaurants tending…

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Sammys Cafe & Deli – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Most foodies have pondered the expession “Never trust a skinny chef.”  Maybe you’ve even mused if there’s any truth to it.   Your line of thinking probably goes something like this: “If a chef’s cooking is any good at all, how can that chef possibly resist stuffing himself (or herself)?”  With this train of thought, every chef should look like Paul Prudhomme, the brilliant Creole-Louisiana Cajun chef who once weighed more than 500 pounds.  Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who’s not shy about expressing his opinion, called the notion that you shouldn’t trust a skinny chef “BS.”  To the contrary, the volatile Ramsay believes “In order to be consistently excellent, a chef must “stay fit.” As my friend Bill Resnik and I…

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Pine State Biscuits – Reno, Nevada

Gil Garduno

In 2020, Ted Lasso burst onto the pop culture scene.  Not long thereafter my friend Alonna Smith, the brilliant owner of My Indian Stove practically begged me to watch it.  She realized that with my penchant for British comedies, I’d love the laugh-out-loud show about an American soccer coach who assumes the help at a Premiere League soccer team in the United Kingdom despite not knowing anything about soccer.  Lasso is the master of the one-liner as well as the bringer of balm during heart-warming scenes.  He’s warm and fuzzy…and as usual, Alanna steered me in the right direction. On the second episode of season one, Ted began the practice of bringing freshly baked biscuits to the football club’s owner…

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all’Antico Vinaio – Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Garduno

Whether a sandwich shop calls its bill of fare a submarine, hoagie, po’ boy, grinder, hero, bomber or just plain “sandwich,” one commonality is that most sandwich shops have an “Italian” sandwich.  Beyond that, the actual Italian sandwich varies in composition as well as in preparation.   Typical ingredients include layers upon layers (especially on the East coast) of paper-thin capicola, salami, pepperoni and ham often drenched in a vinegar, mayo or mustard and  topped with shredded lettuce, fresh tomatoes, sliced onions, and cherry peppers.  There is no one standard as to what constitutes an “Italian,” not that most of us would care much. Also falling under the purview “Italian sandwich” are panini which are constructed with grilled Italian bread,…

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Cheese & Coffee (Uptown) – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Imagine canoodling in a hot tub with your sweetheart while enjoying a brilliant symphony of light courtesy of the aurora borealis as you both sip on hot coffee in which reindeer cheese bobs luxuriously.  It’s likely you find that romantic scenario very appealing save perhaps for seeing reindeer cheese floating atop your hot coffee.  While that scenario may sound unreal…maybe even surreal to most of us, it’s a reality in Finland where cheese is a favorite addition to a type of coffee called kaffeost.  Not just any cheese can make the cut, however. Finnish folks only use a particular type of cheese called leipäjuusto which translates loosely to “bread cheese.”  Despite that translation, “bread cheese” is one-hundred percent cheese.  There’s…

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Diane’s Bakery & Deli – Silver City, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

In 2011, New Mexico Magazine recruited several local food writers and asked us to introduce readers to ten of “New Mexico’s Best Eats” in several categories:  Best Green Chile Cheeseburger, Best New Mexican Soul Food, Best Fine Dining, Best Enchiladas, Bet Vegetarian New Mexican Food, Best Road Food, Beste Local Seasonal Ingredients, Best Contemporary Native American Food, Best Chocolate and Best Carne Adovada.   For the most part, writers waxed eloquent about “the usual suspects” in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The most noteable exception was Lesley S. King, a distinguished writer who graced New Mexico Magazine’s as the “King of the Road” for years.  Lesley declared The Land of Enchantment’s “Best Road Food” to be the Hatch Benedict from Diane’s…

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Tully’s Italian Deli & Meats – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

The sense of smell, more than any of our other senses, influences our ability to recall past events and experience. From among the five senses, fragrance is considered the most potent medium for conjuring up memories. True enough, some of the most enduring sensory memories of my years in the Boston area are reawakened thanks to the amazing aromas that greet me each time I visit Tully’s Italian Deli & Meats on San Mateo. It is with increased rarity that you find an authentic Italian deli which greets you at the door with the incomparable aroma of pastas, meatballs or sausages simmering in a perfect marriage of tomato sauce, garlic, basil and oregano. It’s also rare to find an Italian…

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Slate Street Billiards Bar & Grille – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Discovering a bubbling crude…Texas tea, black gold, oil that is, transformed Jed Clampett from poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed to a millionaire residing in a Beverly (Hills that is, swimming pools, movie stars) mansion.  Moving from a tiny ramshackle hovel to a luxurious and palatial dwelling brought with it one surprise after another for Jed and his family.  Among them was “a good strong eatin’ table” upon which “you could serve up a whole barbecued steer.”  Jed’s nephew Jethro who graduated at the top of his glass…”by a good foot” found out from a friend that the room in which the fancy eatin’ table was centered was called a “billy-yard room.”  Ergo, the table was a “billy-yard…

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El Guero Canelo – Tucson, Arizona

Gil Garduno

If asked to participate in a word association exercise, any well-traveled foodie undergoing psychoanalysis would find it easy to name the first food that comes to mind when a city is mentioned: Philadelphia – the Philly cheesesteak sandwich; Boston – baked beans; Chicago – Italian beef sandwiches; San Francisco – sourdough bread; Milwaukee – butter burgers; San Antonio, New Mexico – green chile cheeseburgers.  You get the point.  Some foodies might not know that Philadelphia is the birthplace of liberty, but they know about Geno’s and Pat’s King of Steaks and their decades-long battle for Philly cheesesteak supremacy. You might find it strange that seemingly pedestrian foods would be the defining cuisine of burgeoning cosmopolitan cities, historically significant metropolises and…

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Ted’s Hot Dogs – Tempe, Arizona

Gil Garduno

Reading Becky Mercuri’s magnificent Great American Hot Dog Book had the same effect on me that Fifty Shades of Grey had on soccer moms throughout the country.   How can someone so food obsessed not delight in such beautiful prose as “Western New York is definitely hot dog country and the preferred method of cooking is charcoal grilled.”  Charcoal grilled!  There goes another foodgasm.  New Mexicans don’t have to travel all the way to Buffalo, New York to experience these magnificent charcoal grilled libido activators.  We only have to go to Tempe, Arizona to sate our hunger…or lust, in some cases. Ted’s Hot Dogs was a precursor to the modern food truck.  In 1927, Theodore “Ted” Spiro Liaros began operating…

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Sage Bakehouse – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno

Bread.  We’ve been told it’s bad for our health, that it’s loaded with carbs and gluten.  Western doctors admonish caloric-overachievers to reduce our consumption of bread.  These dispensers of dietary information are at a loss to explain Emma Tillman.  When she passed away in 2007, the daughter of former slaves was an American supercentenarian and, for a few days, the world’s oldest living person.  She passed away at the young age of  114 years and 67 days.  Emma Tillman ran her own baking and catering service for about sixty years.  She prepared the staff of life for dignitaries in the state of North Carolina which proclaimed an “Emma Tillman Day” to commemorate her 110th birthday. Eleven years after Emma Tillman…