fattiusthebear "because a bear's gotta eat well"

Miyuki is a nice Japanese restaurant that offers the standard Japanese fare. The place seems quite clean and the atmosphere is pleasant. The pricing here is normal for sushi, and you will probably end up spending 15-20 dollars on food.

All the sushi I ordered here and with my friends were brimming with flavor and quite tasty. Unfortunately, the wait was super long. We arrived at the restaurant at like 8, and there weren’t that many people. Yet, we still had to wait like 40 minutes or something until our food arrived. It took long enough for the miso soup to arrive (which costs money to add to a meal). The meal was satisfying, but if you are looking for fast sushi fix, don’t come here.

Note: of the dishes ordered, only a few were reviewed below since I don’t remember the names and the receipt didn’t list them. In general, the sashimi seemed fresh and had a good texture to them.

To tell you the truth, I mainly came here because the name was amusing. Also because the restaurant serves Nepalese food, which I have little experience with. The menu had a variety of foods, such as dumplings, curry, fried rice, and variations of Asian foods.

Instead of bread, they gave us some sort of soup thing. All I can say is that it was strange. I ordered one of their “Yak and Yet Specials” (I don’t remember the dish name; it was weird), which you get a choice of a cheese or mushroom curry, and is mixed with lamb. I chose the cheese curry, but they gave me some of the cheese and mushroom. The lamb turned out to be tender, but I wish it had more taste. The cheese curry was good, but didn’t have that nice medley of spices that I hoped for. The mushroom curry they gave had some well cooked vegetables inside, and turned out nicely. Both the curries had their qualities and went well with the white rice they served. I just didn’t feel the dishes were very outstanding to me.

If I learned anything, it is that Nepalese food seems like an Indian/Chinese hybrid. They like spices, but some of the dishes they cook resemble and taste more like Chinese food. The restaurant itself is clean and good for a nice meal, and there is not a lot of customers, so there is no wait, and the food is probably freshly cooked. That’s always a good thing.

Buffalo Gap Restaurant has more than the usual restaurant. Tables only take maybe about half of the restaurant. The rest of the place is full of different wings you can visit, full of animal heads, nice rocks, western stuff, and so on. There is so much stuff to see and they are all so cool that you can forgive the wait for the food. They warn you to be patient for you food since they cook when ordered, but it’s ok, since you can just look at all of the stuff. There are also pool tables to pass the time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any pictures of the inside since it is prohibited. Also amusing is the fact that they have a buffalo right outside, though I am not sure if they actually kill that buffalo for consumption, or if it is for show. You can also get a great view of the reservoir if you sit in the right places.

As for the food, they offer buffalo and elk burgers, along with other tasty delights such as chicken fried steak sandwiches for lunch. I decided to go with the elk burger and added green chile and cheddar cheese. It was leaner than a usual burger and the texture was a little different, but otherwise it had the qualities of a regular burger. It’s worth trying out the buffalo or elk burger.

A very amusing atmosphere and the tasty burgers makes this restaurant a good place to try out if you are visiting Vallecito Reservoir. Note: this place is NOT the place to go if you are a vegetarian or a strong believer in animal rights. You’d probably just walk out in disgust at all the displays of animal trophies.

Sandiago’s is at the base of the world’s longest aerial tramway, which leads up to the top of Sandia Peak. The decor isn’t eye catching or appealing, although some window seats have a nice view of Albuquerque.

We went the first day they have ever served brunch. The menu wasn’t very extensive, and the prices were kind of high. Of course, I ordered the breakfast burrito. It was humongous, although many other NM restaurants have tastier ones. The waiter was friendly, but he was really slow, and every one that worked here didn’t seem very happy.

The wise thing to do would be to eat before going up Sandia Peak, because you can get tastier for cheaper. Average food combined with slow service and rather pricey meals make this slightly subpar in my opinion.

Blue Corn Cafe is a nice restaurant located near the main plaza of Santa Fe. They are apparently known for their award winning brews along with fantastic food. Everything on the menu sounded really good, and I was tempted to get blue corn tacos, but I eventually fell prey to the breakfast burrito, as I usually do.

The prickly pear iced tea was supposedly quite good, so I got one of those (I mean, how many times am I really going to have the chance to order this?). It wasn’t overly sweet, but had a good amount of flavor. I think I drunk like 3 cups at least. The breakfast burrito wasn’t overly large, although it was fat and full of egg. I’d say it was a success. The beer here also looked really good. I sampled one from a friend, and it was tasty. Too bad I can’t order beer. =P

Anyways, this was a great restaurant that I look forward to going back to so I can try many of the other delicious dishes they offer. I am not too sure if it is 4 or 5 stars, but I’ll throw it a four for now. Oh, and the waiter was really nice and accomodating. Definitely good service.

Garcia’s is a bright, festive restaurant, that you can order to go or eat in. There are parrot figurines, sombreros and pictures all over the place. They offer all the usual suspects of Mexican food, though New Mexico-fied, and you can make your own combo for pretty much anything. You can also order breakfast any time, so I fell for the allure of the smothered breakfast burrito.

The prices are very reasonable, and most dishes are below $10. If it is your birthday (like a friend of mine’s), you get a humongous sopapilla (some sort of sweet, fried dough I think) covered in whipped cream and sweets. The fact that you get this for free and its so big is pretty awesome. A New Mexican restaurant worth checking out for sure.

This bar is a small, unspectacular tavern in a tiny town in New Mexico. You would most likely wouldn’t go into it ever, if it weren’t for the fact that GQ and the New York Times rated it as one of the best burger places in the nation. GQ said it was the 7th best best burger place. That says something.

The tavern has a TV for patrons to watch, and it is a low key place, with some amusing decor, such as a lion with a hat. The person who works the tavern is really nice and everyone instantly was comfortable with her. While the menu was full of tasty sounding burgers and other stuff, I stuck with the Buckhorn burger, their classic. I also shared some chili cheese fries, which were good, although almost too drenched in green chile and cheese.

As expected the burgers were great, and definitely rate high in my book. This small tavern is the place to go if you ever past by this small town for some reason.

I finally got to try Tibetan food, and I wasn’t disappointed. The was impressed with the place at first glance. It isn’t a large restaurant, but it is decorated with lots of banners and such, which I assume are Tibetan. There was also this cool spinning thing on table right in front of the door. It had a cool design and was very amusing. The decor was excellent, and also had an amusing map of Tibet and flower Christmas light thingies.

The menu was small, but packed a huge variety of dishes inside of it and had daunting names. They had dumplings, pastries, curry, noodles, a beef patty thing, Tibetan sandwiches, and so on. I caved into getting the most expensive thing on the menu: beef pastries. I wasn’t disappointed. It came with four large pastries which were crispy. My friends got dumplings, and they loved them. We also shared a thing called pak. It is apparently made from bali flour or something. It was soft, and delicious, and you can get it savory or sweet (we got the sweet one). A couple of friends got Tibetan tea. It was surprisingly salty, and wasn’t the best tea I’ve had before, though it was different.

The service here was very good. Our waitress told us about various dishes in great detail. She explained some Tibetan ways and she was very helpful. She also refilled our water often, asked if we wanted anything often, and packed leftovers for us.

Cafe Tibet was a good experience, and I look forward to going again, probably to try the dumplings since it seemed to be a hit.

You can tell right off the bat that this is the place where Asian people hang out at night. There are many groups of young Asians roving around the parking lot, waiting for a seat. The restaurant itself looks pretty nice, with large windows, and a very nice patio area which provides much more seating for the restaurant.

After finally getting to sit, I got to look at the extensive menu. While it has traditional Chinese food, it has a very nice dessert and boba menu. There are tons of different flavors and all the tea is authentic. None of that powdered milk tea crap like at many other boba joints. I was extremely disappointed though that they ran of almond milk tea, so I decided to try plum milk tea. Let’s just say I wish they had the almond milk tea.

Guppy is probably best known for its shaved ice. If you get the large version, it is pretty much a mountain of shaved ice. My friends and I got the version with fruit, and it was loaded with various fruit goodies. Seeing the mountain of shaved ice was truly a sight to behold. It also helped that it tasted pretty good, with all the fruit being ripe and the ice had milk in it too to make it even better.

Guppy is a great place to go if you want to get some dessert or hang out with friends at night. There might be a wait though, and the service can be spotty at times since it is busy.