A few new tidbits have made my radar – stay with me and we’ll explore all of this new fun stuff together!
FIRST, do not forget that this weekend is the Fiery Foods Festival at the Sandia Resort & Casino. More Scoville units than you can shake a tall glass of milk at and all the outstanding vendors that make hot stuff!
Next, in the space formerly occupied by Delicia’s Diner (where I had some darn good tamales a few years ago), there will be Jamon’s Frybread Cabana – this sounds really interesting. Chef James Trujillo, formerly of the restaurant at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, is going to offer Frybread, of course, but also “Brasilian Street Food”. His heritage just couldn’t be contained any longer and I’ll tell ya, this is awesome news.
The children are our future…chefs! At the end of March (the 28th), the New Mexico Restaurant organization will be putting on a competition for high school culinary wizards where they compete for huge scholarships and the chance to compete nationally. The ProStart Invitational looks for excellence in cooking and restaurant management. Cooking skills = life skills, regardless your future career.
La Hacienda in Old Town is (“temporarily”) kaput. Pretty much every time I see temporarily on a close notice, it’s for good. Sorry.
Apparently we don’t grow enough of our own chile here…. that’s a shame. “The New Mexico Chile Association said countries like China are trying to corner some chile markets. Currently, imports account for 82 percent of the U.S. consumption of chile, officials said.”
And….. after a much hyped waiting period, the former Bumble Bee’s Baja Grill has been taken over by yet another set of Santa Feans and again as a Mexican joint with tacos and such. It’s owned by Mark Kiffin of The Compound. The Compound. That’s serious cred. I hope that Zacatecas Tacos & Tequila does ok, in the end. The talent is certainly there, but is the execution? (And that “Z” looks a little too much like the Getrude Zachary Z…. or is that just me?)
There’s a problem on Urbanspoon that is growing worse – it used to affect Yelp even more so but the ascendance of Urbanspoon has brought it back: any and all reviews that are posted by someone AS THEIR FIRST REVIEW should be suspect, even disregarded completely.
Consider a new Urbanspoon user. Why are they there? Often it is because they have signed up for an account in the heat of the moment – ANGER or ELATION about a restaurant. Many signup from mobile devices, even while they are at the restaurant, lobbing comments about the overall experience without the details that lead to their conclusion.
Based on observation rather than rigorous data collection, most wildly negative or wildly positive reviews are left by users that will never review again. But what builds credibility as a reviewer? EXPERIENCE. And not just general eating experience, but experience sharing one’s opinions with the world in appropriate detail. A review that simply says, “this is great” or “this sucks” is useless. In that case the “reviewer” should just mark the place as “I like” or “I don’t like” and be done with it.
Keep that in mind when you see things like this (one negative, one positive):
Then, do everyone a service and mark their review as “not helpful”. We all appreciate it and the quality and reliability of websites like Urbanspoon and Yelp can get better.
Opening NEXT WEEK in Rio Rancho is the new spot opened by a Seattleite (they know coffee, don’t they?): Cafe Bella Coffee
According to their website and press info, Cafe Bella will feature locally-roasted beans (from where? I’ll find out!). But that’s not what interests me. What interests me is that the owner, Michael Gonzales, will be pulling shots on a crazy expensive Italian espresso machine, and also that he was trained by the Italian World Cup champion barista while they both lived in Seattle.
Will Guiseppe’s be feeling some competition? I hope so. This metro area is far large enough to support several excellent espresso shops. The cafe side of things will be featuring as much locally grown produce as possible, working with farms and small businesses to get the kitchen’s raw ingredients.
So, it all sounds good – I’ll haul myself up the hill and check the place out, and probably post photos to Twitter, too: @dukecityfood
….. but I do. Let’s round up some of the latest restaurant gossip, shall we?
Firstly, I did not know that former co-founder of Relish was Chef de Cuisine at Artichoke Cafe. Go, Tony Nethery!
Next, Nob Hill is abuzz with openings, closings, and speculation. A new spot should be coming in where Bumble Bee’s was – called Z, and owned by the Street Food Asia folks. And, Andre’s quietly closed. Did anyone even eat there, aside from the one horrible Urbanspoon review?
Albuquerque Food News: February 2012
The cafe side of things will be featuring as much locally grown produce as possible, working with farms and small businesses to get the kitchen’s raw ingredients.
