BrickYard Pizza

Pizza in the University area is in no shortage. I can think of a few just off the top of my head Papa John's, Domino's, Il Vicino, and Saggio's to name a few. Recently, a friend and I had the problem of no plan. We didn't really have anything on the agenda except mail some bills and eat lunch. We were in the University area and had a lot of options. I mentioned that I had never had BrickYard Pizza and that's how we came to eat there. Like many restaurants in the University area, parking is horrible. We parked in the rear and had to go through the back door by the restrooms. BrickYard Pizza is pretty small with a bar area. There are a few TVs mounted to watch sports. The restaurant could probably accommodate around forty customers. The selection of alcohol here pretty good. On tap they carry Guinness and PBR so it seems to run the whole spectrum of beer quality.

When we arrive we grab a seat where ever we want and waited a few minutes to be greeted by a server despite the fact that they were not too busy. We get some menus and a few minutes. The menu is very simple. They carry basic pizza place menu items like salad, wings, calzones, subs, and of course pizza. The server takes our food order before even before she ask what we wanted for drinks. She may have been off that day, but an observation of what happened. We ordered the large Caesar salad and a medium Meat Lovers pizza. The choice of pan or normal pizza was given and the normal pizza was ordered. When the salad arrived, we were asked if we wanted salad plates and the plates here are smaller metal pizza pans. So we each had two sets of small pizza pans which I thought was pretty cool.
The Caesar salad pictured to the left was pretty good, but your typical Caesar salad: Romaine lettuce, Caesar dressing, Parmesan cheese, and croutons. The portion size was generous for an $8 salad. The pizza pictured below was really good and reminded me of Pie Shack Pizza due to the great garlic crust. The garlic is brushed into the crust and put in with another method the waitress told us, but I cannot recall. I think it was put into the dough, but I'm not sure.

The service was good, but not great. The server like I mentioned before may have had an off day. The decor is simple with a good bar. Overall I would give BrickYard Pizza three out of five stars.

http://www.brickyardpizza.com/

Cosmo Tapas

Is Cosmo Tapas too cool for Albuquerque? Maybe. Tapas seems to be a new trend over the past few years state side. Maybe I need to do some background research into tapas, so this is what I came up with. According to m-w.com tapas are defined as an hors d'oeuvre served with drinks especially in Spanish bar. I looked at the Wikipedia entry as well. While on the topic of Wikipedia, I heard from one of my co-workers that his grand kids cannot use it as a source for research papers. Well I think if it's on Wikipedia it's got to be true...or something.

"In North America and the United Kingdom, as well as in select bars in Spain, tapas has evolved into an entire, and sometimes sophisticated, cuisine. In these countries, patrons of tapas restaurants can order many different tapas and combine them to make a full meal.

The serving of tapas is designed to encourage conversation because people are not so focused upon eating an entire meal that is set before them. Also, in some countries it is customary for diners to stand and move about while eating tapas."

Cosmo Tapas opened where one of my favorite bars, Martini Grille, used to be on Central near Washington. The outside is pretty much unchanged, but the inside is very different from the former establishment. The decor is very well done. They opened up the bar area so it's a little more spacious. The walls were painted a neutral beige color. On the southern wall there are great paintings of landmarks from around the world like the Eiffel Tower. The lighting is much brighter. The interior of Cosmo Tapas is well done.

Pictured to the left is the cover of the extensive menu at Cosmo Tapas. This menu is great. They offer a wide variety of tapas that influenced by cuisine of the world. In my opinion, the menu is mostly influenced by Spanish food. I was impressed by the great selection of alcoholic beverages available here. The bar tender, Jamie, is amazing. His drink ideas are very innovative. I've heard him talk about making a cucumber and jalapeno infused vodka. I did not imbibe, but my friend did. He tried the New Belgium Ranger IPA which I had not seen yet, but is pretty well distributed currently. Like I mentioned before, the selection is good. One beer they carry that I have never heard of is Alhambra Beer from Spain. They carried both varieties the Negra and the Especial Lagers. I will have to try them soon. For my beverage I had a hot tea. The tea selection here is the Tazo Tea collection. I chose the green tea.

After milling over the menu for awhile we ordered the lamb rack with two sauced one of which was a white cheese sauce and bacon wrapped figs stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese. These dishes were served pretty quickly after we ordered. Below both are pictured.

The lamb was excellent and cooked as I ordered, rare. The bacon wrapped figs were great too. I normally don't like figs, but the combination of flavors and textures was awesome: the bacon made the dish salty with a slight crunch from well done bacon, the figs added a sweet chewy texture, and the cheese gave a nice creamy finish. I thought the gorgonzola cheese would be too overpowering for this dish, but I was wrong. It was a great cheese choice for the appetizer.

What I really enjoyed about Cosmo Tapas was how they mind the details in basic things; for example, pictured to the right is their silverware. The attention to the silverware is impressive: each one is wrapped with a metal wire that the staff bends by hand, the napkin has a great texture and very absorbent to get all the stuff that does not make it into your mouth, and lastly the silverware is made by IKEA, the Scandinavian home product manufacturer. I am not an IKEA fan, but I though it was cool to see a restaurant carry their settings because it's different.

I hope that Albuquerque makes Cosmos Tapas successful. I'm worried that this place may be too cool for Albuquerque or in other words we are not ready to see something like this in our market. I was blown away. The website could use some work: the link to the menu didn't work, the music runs in several sections of each page, and it's not well organized. I forgot to mention the pricing was very reasonable for what we got, the lamb appetizer ran about ten dollars. This place is amazing with great staff. I would give Cosmos Tapas a high rating, four out of five stars.


http://www.cosmotapas.com/

Mad Max BBQ

Rio Rancho was home to one BBQ joint for a number of years that I could recall. The BBQ there is just OK. Recently a new establishment opened up near 528 and Sara close to St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, Mad Max BBQ (MMB). I heard about MMB from the Alibi and Gil Garduno's website. They had a lot of good things to say about this place. I had wanted to try MMB for several months, but eating in Rio Rancho requires a fair amount of planning for me due to where I normally wander the streets. So last Saturday, I decided that I should get in my car and go. I phoned ahead to see what their operating hours were and I was told they close their doors on Saturday at 8 PM. My dinner companions and I arrive a few minutes after 7 PM and the place looks closed. I open the door and the staff of two assured us that they were open and welcomed us in. During our dining experience we only saw one other patron, so I guess Rio Rancho eats early or does not know that MMB is open for dinner. MMB does keep odd hours, but I guess it's more of a lunch place for the Intel folks. MMB is a really small establishment in a low profile strip mall. When you walk into MMB nothing is really extra ordinary. It's small with some Pork and Brew memorabilia for sale, a few trophies , and not too much more. MMB can probably accommodate around thirty patrons comfortably.

The service here is great. One of my dinner companions did complain about the availability of certain menu items. We were not able to buy sausage, piggy cake, and a few other items because they just ran out. I understand my friend's point, but at the same time in BBQ if you run out it's going to take awhile to make more. We were unable to get Texas toast with our meal, but the manager made more than amends and got us some killer biscuits that are not on the menu. What we did eat, pictured to the left, were the St. Louis style ribs, brisket, pulled pork, smokey carne adovada, beans, fried okra and french fries. The fried food was done well. I know that fried food is not as complicated brain surgery or writing the great American novel, but when fried food is done well it's damn good. This was damn good. The okra had a great warm crust with fresh okra with a healthy crunch when bitten into. The fries had a great crunch with warm potato innards. Is smoked carne adovada a "meatball sundae," a meatball sundae is two awesome thing that when combined have a horrible result, the answer my friends is heck no. The smoked pork with red chile is like ranch dressing and pizza, not necessarily an intuitive combination, but you may love it. The brisket is pretty. It has a great smoke ring and color, but the flavor is OK. The pulled pork was good. It had great bark or crust on the outside. The flavor was good, but I ran into the problem of not knowing what kind of sauce to put on. I found the two red BBQ sauces, hot and regular, and one yellow/brownish sauce that I am unsure of what it is. I tried all three and liked the hot the most. The ribs were excellent, but not fresh. Meaning they had been in a warming pan, oven, bath or something like that. I'm not sure, but it's a theory due to how the meat pulled off the bone on the ribs. The ribs were not true St. Louis style: tips cut off, squared up, and a little sweet, but they were spare ribs are tasty. Gil Garduno raved about the beans. I am not a bean fan, but did try them. They were good, but I don't like beans.

We did try the apple pie, pictured on the right, and it was great. The manager is a good chef and whipped up some caramel that added a nice touch to our desert. I thought the presentation of this simple desert was great.

The staff was hospitable and allowed me to see their wood pile and smoker. They have a commercial grade indoor smoker, pictured below. The wood I think was pecan from the appearance of the bark, but the staff was unable to confirm what type of wood it was. From what I read from Gil's blog, MMB does not commit to one style of BBQ. This is true, but it's hard to commit to one style. All in all a good BBQ joint. Service is great, the decor leaves more to be desired, and the food is pretty good. The big complaint from my group was that when they run out of food they are out. The premature closing on a Saturday night at 7 PM was weird, but the staff more than accommodated us, but maybe it's a Rio Rancho thing. I would give Mad Max BBQ a score of three and a half stars out of five.

May Hong

There is a saying about bad pizza, that there is no such thing as bad pizza. Is there such a thing as bad pho? I used to think that like pizza there was no such thing as bad pho, but I was proven wrong the other day. Pho is a beef noodle soup that is a Vietnamese dish that is one of my favorite meals. I recently read something in a local publication about May Hong and how it is one of the few Vietnamese restaurants in the heights. I did not recall eating there in years and my family does not go there or talk about it. I found out why on my recent visit. May Hong is located in a strip mall off of Eubank and Montgomery. The restaurant is a hole in the wall kind of place. There are old booths with some tables in the center. The restaurant can probably accommodate about 50 people at a time.

I feel that the key to a good pho is good broth. The broth is the back bone of pho. A good broth had layers of flavor like sweetness from the sugar, to the spices from the spice bag that is boiled with your pot of beef bones for a few hours. This pho broth was beef broth at best. Pho is supposed to be greater than the sum of it's parts, but the sum of the parts did not equal anything good. I ordered the Pho Dac Biet which is supposed to have several cuts of beef including tripe, brisket, and rare beef. I did not get the tripe. The staff was not attentive at all to refill my water or answer my question, and I had the lunch time constraint. I ate the bad pho. When I was able to flag someone down about the pho they informed me that they do not carry tripe or tendon. So thirsty from my one small glass of water and unsatisfied with my bad bowl of pho I left May Hong with $8 or $9 less + tip. May Hong will not do in a Vietnamese food pinch unless you can tolerate the watered down beef broth, bad ambiance, and inattentive service. I would give May Hong a rating of one out of five stars.

Pepper's Ole' Fashion BBQ

Recently I had the opportunity to try Pepper's Ole' Fashion BBQ that is located at 303 San Pedro. This place used to be where Almost Gourmet used to be. I do not know the story of what happened, but it is no longer there. I am going to make the assumption that this is a hard location for a restaurant. This location is not in a modern strip mall by any means. The location saw better days about 50 years ago. It's a clean restaurant, but it is was not built to house a restaurant like the one that occupies it currently. Pepper's does serve "Soul Food" that is similar to what Almost Gourmet served, but it also serves BBQ.

One of the old sayings I've heard about BBQ joints is that you can tell a lot by the pile of ash at a BBQ joint. I agree with this statement, but ash is normally kept out of sight to the patrons. Based upon me not seeing the ash piles, I have to start with the beginning of where the ash comes from, the wood. The wood will tell you what type of meat you can expect to taste; for example, apple wood is mild and will make meat that is a little sweet and mesquite will burn hot and will make meat with a really strong flavor. Above is a photo of one of the piles of wood at Pepper's BBQ. When I came upon the counter to place my order, I was able to identify the pile of wood as mesquite. I asked the owner, Daniel "Pepper" Morgan if my assumption was correct and he confirmed my observation. I then proceeded to ask him about the other piles and he said he couldn't tell me, but he does use a blend of three woods to smoke. I can respect not disclosing certain details about how your BBQ is made. I ordered the combo plate that came with ribs and brisket. I got a choice of two sides and I went with the mac & cheese and the fried cabbage. I had never heard of fried cabbage until I ate at Pepper's. I looked it up later on and it is a Soul Food classic. As I understand, it's basically cabbage cooked with bacon. The mac & cheese was excellent. It had some cheddar cheese baked on top that gave it nice touch. The dish came with white bread and a sweet potato corn bread. The sweet potato corn bread was amazing. It was sweeter than normal corn bread and it was very moist. Brisket came in two forms: chopped and sliced. I opted for the sliced brisket. The brisket was tender and flavorful. The ribs were spare ribs and very good. I felt the sauce was not your traditional Texas style sauce.

Pepper's is cool because of the variety they offer in Soul Food and BBQ, side dishes, and daily specials. They have Soul Food Saturday where they serve things like ox tails and pigs feet. Pepper's is pretty good BBQ, but the total package is not great. I would give Pepper's Ole Fashion BBQ a rating of two out of five stars.