Bob: Community Picks

Lauda Medara—Accountant

\ Apr 07, 2005

15 min read

Best Community Action Group
Animal Humane Association serves a great purpose. There are so many unwanted dogs and cats in Albuquerque, and AHA does their best to find homes for these sweet animals. People, please, spay and neuter your animals!

Best Use of Local Tax Dollars
We need more bike paths in Albuquerque, and we need to make the ones we have safer. I think a lot of people would ride to work if there was a safe way to get there. The Tramway path is heavily used; we need more pedestrian/bike paths like that!

Best Example of Our Dire Need for More Urban Planning
Lack of Downtown grocery stores

Best Looking City Councilor
Brad Winter

Best Use of Hair on a Local TV Newsperson
Tom Joles has the best hair on TV, bar none! If I weren’t married …

Best Restaurant in which to Pretend You’re More Important Than You Actually Are
Zinc Wine Bar and Bistro

Best Margarita
GarduÃ±os

Best Waitress
Carmen at GarduÃ±os on Montgomery is the best waitress in town. She rocks. My friends and I like Carmen so much that we will wait to sit in her section. She treats us like family!

Best Jewelry Store
Mark Diamond is locally owned, which I like a lot. They have very unique and beautiful jewelry.

Best Eclectic Gift Store
Objects of Desire has fabulous things, and they regularly introduce new inventory. One could spend hours in that store, and still not see everything. It’s a must when I’m in the Nob Hill area.

Best Place to Buy Gifts for Weird Girls
Beeps! Need I say more?

Best Hairstylist
Kimberly at Mark Pardo. She is terrific, and this holds true whether you need an updo for your wedding, or a cut and color. Mark Pardo is also locally owned — a bonus!

Best Local Event at Which to Spend Your Money
Weems Artfest. This is one of my favorite events in Albuquerque. I love to shop for friends and family, knowing that whatever I purchase won’t be found on every corner.

Bob: Community Picks Christianna Cappelle—Manager Of The Gardeners' Guild

Best Plant Nursery
Plants of the Southwest for sure. They have a relevant selection to make gardening in the desert a lot easier. They also have good vegetable varieties in the spring.

Best Bar
Kelly’s. Try the porter. It’s delicious, and I don’t even like dark beers.

Best Chocolate Fix
Let me tell you, I’m kind of a chocolate freak anyway. I hate to admit it, but Starbuck’s came up with the best chocolate experience ever. It’s called Chantico. It’s basically a shot of liquid chocolate. Make sure to take a seat. It’s really that overwhelming.

Best Breakfast
Ironically enough, Chocolate CafÃ© has great breakfasts. They definitely have the best machaca beef in town. It kicks ass. Adding an over medium egg on top of the burrito really just fixes the whole thing. It’s yummy. One of my favorites. Their huevos rancheros stand out from the crowd, too.

Best Florist
Tiger Lily. She’s young and has a new approach to things. She offers a great flower selection when ordering arrangements. Seems really flexible. She’s a good listener.

Best Thai Restaurant
Thai Orchid. It’s real Thai food. If you like hot Thai food, this is the place to go.

Best Place to Get Quick Grub
A tie between Mannie’s and Hurricane’s. Both have good consistent potato preparation. The corned beef hash and eggs at Mannie’s is excellent.

Bob: Community Picks Ed Garcia—Purchaser For Rose Southwest Papers

Best Breakfast
Daily Grind. I like it because of their omelets and scones. Their omelets are very satisfying and tasty.

Best Restaurant for a Quick Lunch
Scarpas. It’s very good food done fast. They respect the fact that you have a short amount of time for lunch.

Best Candy Store
Buffet’s. Because of the candy cane outside … just kidding. They have a heck of a selection, and they have piÃ±on candies.

Best Place for a Wedding Reception
El Pinto. The atmosphere is very nice; it’s quiet and away from everything. The patio is big. The scenery is beautiful and there is plenty of parking.

Best Downtown Bar
Maloney’s Tavern. Nice atmosphere. It reminds me of Cheers. The food is really good, too.

Best Northeast Heights Bar
Barley Room. They’ve got the best beer selection and very good food.

Best Margarita
GarduÃ±os. They are very fruity. They taste like punch, but after you drink one, you’re buzzed.

Best Martini
Martini Grille. The name speaks for itself. They specialize in martinis. The martinis there are special.

Best Barber
Duke Barber Shop in the South Valley. I’ve always gone there. They cut my hair very good. When you walk in, it’s all about sports. They have a TV with ESPN, sports magazines and sports pictures on the wall.

Best Local Event at which to Spend Your Money
State Fair. Because it comes once a year, you have to attend. You end up spending a lot of money because you want to try all the different foods and play the games.

Bob: Community Picks Bryna Browning—Sprint Customer Service Representative

Best Happy Hour
TGI Friday’s. You can get mixed margaritas for $3 and appetizers are half-off.

Best Place to Play Pool
Downtown Distillery. It’s a fun and relaxing environment. They also have free pool nights.

Best Shoe Store
Shoes on a Shoestring. They have very cute shoes at a very reasonable price.

Best Women’s Clothing Store
Fashion Bug. They have the latest fashions and great sales.

Best Store to Ruin Your Credit Rating In
Dillard’s. They have MAC Cosmetics counters and lots of clothes and shoes. I could easily ruin my credit rating there.

Best Bar to Dance In
Sauce. They have a variety of music to dance to. It’s a place where you can have fun and be yourself.

Best Margarita
GarduÃ±os. They have several you can chose from. My favorite has coconut and strawberry in it.

Best Radio Station
94 ROCK. The music that they play and the DJs they have in the morning make it fun to listen to them. They play a good variety of rock music.

Best Candy Store
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Their chocolate covered strawberries and their candy apples are to die for.

Bob: Community Picks Paula Steele And Tracy Ray—Education Specialist/Technical Writer

Best Worst Nickname for a City
Burque

Best Free Wall Painting Service
City of Albuquerque graffiti clean-up

Best Aromatic Restaurant
Taj Mahal

Best Place to Watch Skateboarders
UNM campus

Best Airplane Manufacturer
Eclipse

Best Neighborhood to Get Lost In
We don’t know; we were lost! Somewhere behind Defined Fitness on Juan Tabo.

Best Quirky, Independent Film Theater
Guild

Best Local Place to Experience an African Safari
The Rio Grande Zoo

Best Motivation for Clearing Weeds
City of Albuquerque notice

Best Place to Meet a Drag Queen Who Looks Better Than You Do, Dammit!
Pulse

Best Saab Mechanic
Jeff at Performance Auto

Best Place to Get Free Drugs and Guns
APD evidence room

Bob: Community Picks Suzanne Prescott—Faithful Blogger

Favorite TV Personality’s Mustache That Could Be Boiled to Make a Hearty Soup
Larry Barker from KRQE Channel 13

Best Impersonation of a TV News Program
KASA Fox news

Best Local Media with Alternatives to ‘Mass Deception’
Channel 27 and, of course, the Alibi (open up that blog for everybody though)

Favorite Peeve
Students who think the hollow thumping sound they hear from W’s head is “following a different drummer.”

Favorite Fast Food Not Yet in ABQ
Popeye’s

Best Bed and Breakfast
Cinnamon Morning

Favorite Veterinary Clinic
Lomas Veterinary Clinic

Favorite Community Action Organizations
A tie between Stop the War Machine, New Mexico Friends of Democrats and Revisioning New Mexico

Best Example of Smart Urban Planning
Revitalization of Sawmill area and the Sawmill Community Land Trust projects

Best Use of Local Tax Dollars
Support for Neighborhood Associations through the Albuquerque Partnership

Best Political Stinkeroo
Politicians with untreated drinking problems

Bob: Community Picks Moray—Band On The Run

Best Bands in Albuquerque
Felonious Groove Foundation, Shiva, Rele, Nunchuk and Moray!

Best Venues in Which to Hear Live Music
Journal Pavilion, in the courtyard of Aarons condo( aka Albuquerque High), Atomic Cantina, Launchpad and El Rey

Best Bartender
Duncan Stalls of Anodyne

Best Sushi Bar
Ichi Ban

Best High Definition Production Company/Rental/Record Label
Erudite Communications!!!

Best Temp Agency/Day Labor
Labor Finders

Best Cabinet Shop
O.G.B.

Best Place to Get Laid
The Iron Forest on Sandia Peak

Best intersections to Spot UFOs
Tramway and Menaul, Comanche and I-25, The entire west end of Southern, Third Street and Marble, 98^th Street and Central!

Best Guitar Shops
Encore, Guitar Boy, Marc’s Guitar Shop, Grandma’s Music & Sound and Guitar Center

Best Curbs to Puke on After a Long Night of Binge Drinking
Central and Second Street, Central and Third Street, Central and Fourth Street, Central and Fifth Street, Central and Sixth Street and back again!!!

Restaurants with the Hottest Staff
Outback Steakhouse, Kelly’s, The Library, Billy’s, Stoneface Tavern and Anodyne

Best Radio Personality
Swami Rob of 94 Rock

Best Bars for Aaron to Get Shot Down for Dates
A to Z in the phone book; that would take entirely too long! (Sorry, Aaron.)

Best Locations not to Take a Date:
Olympia Cafe (excessive garlic flatulence, but the best Greek food in town), Ho Ho’s (because you know you’ll have the shits), China Star (because you’ll absolutely have the shits), Fortune Cookie (because you will without a reasonable doubt, shit for weeks on end).

Bob: Community Picks Mary Erwin—Aps Teacher And Mom

Best Bread
The best bread in town right now is at the Marco Polo Market on San Mateo. I go in there on Saturday and pick up three loaves and the kids and I eat most of one on the way home. Spread some kefir on the second one and open a can of their spicy, cracked green olives. Serve it with some Halal sausage, and you’ve got a meal! Give the third to a friend to introduce them to one of the finer things in life or make a pizza with it.

Best Market
Ta Lin’s new and improved market on Central at Louisiana is beautiful and has the freshest seafood in this land-locked state. Plus, the fishmonger is cute. Buy some Lizano sauce to splash on your black beans and check out that growing mustard selection.

Best Wine Shop
When I need wine advice I head to Jubilation at Lomas and Carlisle for good suggestions, reasonable prices and nice selection.

Best Asian Restaurant
I have actually woken in the night craving the Tom yung gai at the Thai Orchid on Central — hot and citrusy. It will cure what ails ‘ya.

Best Fancy Restaurant
If I am going to plunk down some serious change for a meal at night, I’ll hit Zinc in Nob Hill. Call ahead and ask for a view of the kitchen from the balcony to watch the kitchen madness. They are also home to my new favorite bar-that-doesn’t-feel-like-‘Burque, downstairs.

Best Coffee
Michael Thomas on Carlisle!

Best Barbeque
Barbecue in Burque is a little bit hard to find for this Texan. My late father’s smoked brisket remains the gold standard for me. Big John’s at Yale and CÃ©sar ChÃ¡vez has the oak-smoked stuff and real Elgin hot gut. Not a bad combo at all.

Bob: Community Picks Quentin A. Lucas—English Teacher, Rio Grande High School

Best Tea Shop/Best Place to Get Centered
The Summerhouse Tea & Trading Co. This little teashop on Harvard is fantastic. Charlotte, the owner, knows your name and she knows your story, and she can pick up a conversation that she had with you two weeks ago. Her shop is just like a little point in the universe. And the variety of teas there makes it ridiculously wonderful. In the green section, there’s one called Pinhead Gun Powder — it’s really astringent, and there are these tiny little leaves that unfold when you put them in the water. There’s also the Empress Tea that just makes you dizzy, and the Smoked Tea that smells like barbecue. Currently, my favorite tea is Iron Goddess of Mercy. It makes me feel centered — like the iron goddess is gonna slap me upside the head, right back to the center.

Best Hangover Food
Chicharron Burrito with Green Chile from El Modelo. You have to make sure to say green chile, because otherwise they’ll give it to you with chorizo. You can call it in first, and when you get there it’s all ready for you, and it cuts right through a hangover. It’s greasy, spicy and big. You have to cut it in half and eat some for breakfast and the rest in the afternoon. It’s got beans on it and a little bit of cheese — not too much cheese. Oh … so tasty. And if you go right around Christmas, you get a free calendar. I love that calendar; it’s a good New Mexico calendar.

Best Place to Have Mango in Multiple Forms
Anapurna. The mango lassi there is perfectly spiced — it’s excellent. And if you get the Sunday brunch, pancakes with mango syrup, it’s just phenomenal. And they also have really killer muffins.

Bob: Community Picks Brian Diehl—Sophomore, Rio Grande High School

Best Chinese Food Restaurant
Lam’s Chinese Restaurant. This is a family-owned business with really good, traditional Chinese food. It’s all home-cooked, and everything on their menu is so tasty. Their hot and sour soup is especially good — it’s the most distinctive flavor of any soup I’ve had. The environment’s also really calm and peaceful. There’s really no music playing. All you can hear is the clanging of pots and pans while the chef cooks in the background.

Best Place to Buy Music
Natural Sound. I don’t really listen to the radio. I’m more into my own music. So instead, I like to go out and look for new CDs, and Natural Sound has a lot of hard-to-find music.

Best Movie Theater
Century 14 Downtown. My favorite movie theater used to be Madstone, but then it closed. I like that the Century theater Downtown is pretty quiet. There aren’t usually a lot of people there.

Best Local Event at Which to Spend Money
Alibi Crawls. This is the biggest highlight of my year.

Best Place to Watch the City Lights
By the Airport. If you keep going up Rio Bravo, you pass the freeway, and there’s a little parking lot that overlooks the entire city, as far as the eye can see.

Best Park
Tiguex. There’s enough room at this park for a lot of people, and it’s a great environment for kids. Recently my girlfriend and I went there for Easter. We took my puppy and had a picnic, and even though there were a lot of people there for an Easter festival, it was still a really relaxed place. They had a big Easter egg hunt for the kids, and a huge barbecue, and raffles and such. There’s interesting stuff like that happening there all the time.