Photo by menuinprogress.com blog

Thanks to Gustavo Arellano and a post that caught my attention from The Alibi, our most treasured fast food outlet is receiving some adoration in the wake of the Five Guys Burger chain press blitz. Yeah, it’s a chain. There are over 600 of them.

Sez Arellano,

“Allow me, then, to play the game: if we’re going to have a regional burger chain invade our county and go up against our In-n-Out’s and TK’s, why couldn’t it have been Blake’s Lotaburger, the country’s most-ardent proponent of what’s perhaps burgerdom’s greatest manifestation: the green chile hamburger?”

(Note, I have received a couple of emails from Five Guys reps asking me to come in and try their stuff. I absolutely will, but it is a rare chain restaurant that eventually gets a formal review. Maybe they’ll be one. Who knows.)

But Lotaburger gets Lotalove for its fries, the chile cheeseburgers, and just the fact that it is local and pretty gosh-darned good. Not utterly fabulous, not the best in the world, but just plain good.

How often do you get to enjoy something that is unpretentious, local, and good in that way? Enjoy your chile cheese fries and that strangely addicting shake flavor (that Blake’s claims is blackberry but always tasted very odd to me).

After a quick talk with the owners of El Bruno’s Restaurante y Cantina in Cuba it is revealed that the original location of Garduno’s on 4th Street in Albuquerque will be the second location for the beloved El Bruno’s.

For years El Bruno’s has been a welcome stop for all who travel the 550 (formerly the 44) between Bernalillo and Chaco Canyon, Durango, and Farmington. The chile is pleasantly hot, the food FAST, and the atmosphere relaxing like the rest stop it should be. No, it is not the absolute killer best New Mexican I have ever had, but it is really really good and better than anyone could hope for on that stretch.

It will be interesting to see if having the restaurant so close by will make Cuba not as interesting, or if the food will change, or even if I will finally visit one of the forgotten restaurants in Cuba that are probably pretty good and horribly neglected all these years.

Community tables at JJ101 is one of those local things that I “want” to do more. I “try” to make time to go. And yet it rarely happens.

This coming month the quotes are coming off and I’m going, dammit. Why? Single ingredient themes.

Here’s a few choice items from the list:
coconut
stone fruits
banana
tomatoes
soy
peanuts
coffee

She kind of had me at tomatoes, but banana sounds pretty interesting, too. Will there be plantains? Some old-school banana pudding with vanilla wafers? I could totally see them do that with the comfort food tendencies that are borne from their midwestern background.

After all, this is the restaurant that brought us Grandma’s peach pie, fantastic fried chicken, bacon fat popcorn, and Nellie’s own amazing coconut pie. Whoa. I just realized I might need to go to the coconut night as well. I’m having a thing for macaroons lately since being thrust back into the world of Orangette with the blog and reading her book and all.

As per the usual setup, it is $35/person with a table wine included, but tax+tip not included.

Interestingly I’d been driving past the Fastino’s sign for months, thinking it was some weird chainy like restaurant that served noodles. Such is the power of a logo. Not that I want to delve into the ins and outs of logo/branding and design and how to entice your potential customers . . .

Anyway, at some point I found out that it is essentially a second location of Saggio’s, with some tweaks and minor menu changes. This is pretty neato since I like Saggio’s yet never seem to haul my butt over there. Perhaps I am frightened by the looming dessert case, or put off by the insane noise levels in there.

But I will have to investigate Fastino’s and let everyone else know they don’t just serve noodles. They even took it upon themselves to add a note to their sign that says, “Saggio’s!!!”

In a hugely overhyped headline, one of the Van Rixel Brothers, of the chocolate company The Chocolate Cartel is reportedly “in trouble” over pot in their chocolate.

KRQE’s story may get views (and I’m not even going to link to them), but it is so far off the mark I’m a little pissed. They are not in trouble and it seems much of the controversy is at the behest of this story.

So, what are they doing? They are trying to trademark a name: “Bhang: The Original Cannabis Chocolate“, and beginning to manufacture the medical marijuana product in California for sales in California only. That’s it. I was only freaked out thinking they’d stop selling their heavenly truffles and gelato here in Albuquerque, but for now that seems to be not in danger. Whew.

Carry on, cannabis boys. Hopefully everything will work out – it looks like the patent office is starting to have second thoughts about allowing the whole trademark process in the first place. Sheesh. Make me some hemp truffles, too, eh? Those are legal here in NM.