Category: Closed in 2008

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexican

The Chili Stop – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

NOTE:  On November 15th, 2008, Ron Chavez sold the Chili Stop a mere four months after making green chile a religious experience.  I have not visited the Chili Stop since it changed hands and have heard mixed opinions on the Chili Stop post Ron.  I will update this review after my next visit. Over the years it’s been my experience that almost invariably, New Mexican restaurants which violate traditional New Mexican grammar don’t prepare the object of their grammatical faux pas very well.  The grammatical transgression of which I speak is forgetting the “i” before “e” rule and committing the piquant peccadillo of spelling New Mexico’s official state vegetable with two “i’s” and no “e’s.” It’s entirely forgivable that chile…

Closed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenMariscosMexicanNew MexicoRio Rancho

California Baja Grill – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Several years ago, I introduced my good friend John Bennett to the exhilaration of verbal sparring with the shopkeepers at the mercados of Juarez, Mexico, a vibrant border city in which aggressive bartering is considered not only an honorable sport, but the only way to ensure any semblance of a fair exchange. The shopkeepers expect it and will respect your attempts to purchase their baubles, bangles and trinkets at the price you believe is fair. When John decided to bring back some Mexican coins for his son, a novice numismatist, I advised him to get no more than a quarter’s worth of coinage. As usual he didn’t heed my advice and asked one of the shopkeepers to exchange a five…

Closed in 2008CorralesEnglishGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

The Old House Gastropub – Corrales, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

There’s a European joke that uses stereotypes to deride British cooking, one of the most maligned cuisines in the world culinary stage. As the joke goes, in the European conception of heaven, the French are the chefs, the British are the police and the Germans are the engineers while in the European conception of hell, the Germans are the police, the French are the engineers and the British are the chefs. When it comes to the culinary arts, England is the Rodney Dangerfield of Europe; its cuisine receives absolutely no respect. English food is regarded as bland and unimaginative, especially when compared with the haute (and haughty) cuisine of France. Having spent three years in England and having partaken of…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008ContinentalGone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

The Cup – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Buxom silent screen siren Mae West was so renown for her use of double entendre that she once said, “If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would ask for the double meaning.” When my wife suggested we have breakfast at The Cup, I wondered what she really had in mind. The Cup, after all, did not impress her in the least during our inaugural visit in January, 2007. It was even worse for me as The Cup’s emptiness triggered memories of a dark day in the late 70s when I was the recipient of bad news (the “Dear John” kind) at the only restaurant I can remember as empty as The Cup that night–a long defunct Burger Chef.…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Downtown Gourmet – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

“People who know nothing about cheeses reel away from Camembert, Roquefort, and Stilton because the plebeian proboscis is not equipped to differentiate between the sordid and the sublime.” – Harvey Day I don’t know whether or not Mr. Day intended his quote as a condescending affront toward those lacking appreciation for some of the world’s most fetid fromage, but the truth is, not everyone really “gets it” when it comes to stinky cheeses. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. That’s because there really is a cheese for everyone. It’s one of the world’s most versatile and beloved foods and it has been since the very first cheese was made somewhere in the Middle East around 6000 B.C. Its versatility ranges…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBakeryClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Have Your Cake Bakery & Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Leave it to the wonderfully irascible and irreverent comedian George Carlin to put things in perspective in his retort to a popular English idiom. “When people say, ‘Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.’ What good is a cake you can’t eat? What should I eat, someone else’s cake instead?“. The idiom “to have one’s cake and eat it, too or simply have one’s cake and eat it” actually means wanting more than one can handle or deserves, or to trying to have two incompatible things. Still, Carlin makes a sage point. In Albuquerque’s Far North Valley, Albuquerque diners can have their cake and they can eat it, too. They can also have and eat…

Closed in 2008CubanGone But Not ForgottenMadridNew Mexico

Tocororo Cafe – Madrid, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

New Mexico is a dichotomous land, a land which welcomes contrast and diversity, where the state-of-the-art trappings of modern society are juxtaposed against ancient cultures with traditions that have gone largely unchanged for centuries. It’s a land in which the sophisticated and the rustic are equally at home. It’s a land in which the best New Mexican cuisine might just be found in Cuba (that would be El Bruno and the best Cuban food could well be the one served in Madrid’s Tocororo Cafe. Cuban food in Madrid, you ask. Many people assume (incorrectly) that there are only two restaurants in Madrid–the Mine Shaft Tavern and Maggie’s Main Street Diner, a storefront prop built for the movie “Wild Hogs” and…

Closed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew MexicoSanta Fe

Cafe San Estevan – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

In 1598, don Juan de Oñate led an expedition of Spanish colonists–including eight Franciscan friars–to the east bank of the Rio Grande near its confluence with the Chama River. There they founded San Gabriel, New Mexico’s first capital at a site close to present day Okay Owingeh, one of New Mexico’s great Tewa speaking Northern New Mexico Pueblos. Nine years later Don Pedro de Peralta, established as New Mexico’s capital, “La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asisi,” or “The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.” Spanish explorers and the sandal-shod sons of Saint Francis of Assisi who accompanied them planted the seeds of Catholicism by evangelizing to a large population of…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008FrenchGone But Not Forgotten

Cafe Voila – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Mon ami Francophile who spends months vacationing in France likes to talk about his dining experiences in the land of haute cuisine and haughty waiters, regaling anyone who will listen with tales of surliness, scorn and condescension the likes of which Americans are unused to. His favorite tales of woe involve a churlish waiter at a sidewalk cafe in Paris adept at ignoring customers to the full extent of their patience then tossing menus at them. When taking their order, he will roll his eyes and tap his pencil on the menu as if aggravated that his valuable time is being wasted. Leaving the table, he will swing the menu around and hit at least one customer on the head…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoThai

Tawan Thai Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

Note: This review was written about a Tawan Thai Cuisine location in Rio Rancho that no longer exists. The original Tawan Thai at 200 Wyoming Blvd, S.E., also closed in late 2008. For Rio Rancho’s Thai cuisine aficionados the sky was bleak only briefly. The despair they felt after the closure of Hong Thai was replaced scant weeks later by elation at the August, 2007 launch of Tawan Thai Cuisine. With that launch, the sun began shining brightly as City of Vision residents could once again Thai one on. Tawan, the Thai word for sun, is quickly becoming a shining star (a sun) in the City of Vision’s restaurant scene. Ensconced in the nondescript Lujan Plaza, it is, for many…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2008Gone But Not ForgottenItalianNew MexicoSandwich

Deli Mart West – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno

The human capacity for developing attachments can be a bit of a conundrum. Although my very being is eternally rooted in New Mexico, returning to America in 1987 after three years in England made me feel as if I had left my home behind. Similarly after two years in Massachusetts, I returned in 1979 to my beloved New Mexico with a huge hole in my heart, pining for so many things about my first home as an adult. One of the things I missed most about the Bay State was the tremendously creative things that could be generously crammed inside a sub (make that “grinder”) roll. The polished art of crafting a sensational stuffed sandwich had not made its way…