Almost Gourmet

It's been a number of years since I last went to a Soul food establishment in Albuquerque. The last Soul food place in Albuquerque I went to was Mahogany on San Pedro and Montgomery. My favorite food critic, Kelly Kopke, from the Albuquerque Journal gave Mahogany four stars and it was not worth more than one. Kelly was great because her reviews were objective and her assessments were normally right on, with the exception of Mahogany. I like Soul food due to the simplicity of it. It may not be your healthiest choice of food, but it's great comfort food. Almost Gourmet is located in a strip mall on San Pedro and Copper; I read about this restaurant in the Local IQ periodical.

The parking lot is small. It has far too many stores for how much parking they have, so I opted to park in the lot south of the shopping center. Almost Gourmet occupies two store fronts, one for the catering and the other for the restaurant. I went to open the restaurant door, but it was locked. I then checked the hours of operations and they were suppose to be open, so I then walked into the catering business to inquire about the restaurant. The gentleman didn't realize that the door was locked. I was promptly seated in their small, modest dining area. The dining area was comprised of mismatched tables and decor that appears from a garage sale; I can understand how a start up business may not have capitol to purchase good furniture so for all intensive purposes the furniture is definitely functional.

The menu was fairly hard to understand and was an off center copy with a margin running down the page on the left side. The problem with the menu was that it did not explain what the dishes were or that sides came with your meal. I ordered the fried chicken meal with mac & cheese and cabbage. The texture of the mac and cheese was great, but it was more noodles and cheese than mac & cheese. The flavor left more to be desired. The cabbage was cut into cubes and was seasoned with what is similar to what you get when you buy corned beef. I was served three pieces of fried chicken, but one of the pieces was a half breast as opposed to a full breast that you normally get at any chicken establishment. The breading on the chicken was good. It was flavorful and the chicken was not too greasy. All in all it was a good meal at a reasonable price. My total was around nine dollars. The alarming thing about the place was that in my lunch hour I was the only customer that was around, no other customers came in to look around, eat, and there was no other traffic besides the maintenance man for the building.

I'm not sure if the restaurant end will fair too well due to traffic. The food and service are good, but not great. Overall I would give Almost Gourmet a rating of two and a half stars out of five.