As a cook-turned-sailor stopping at ports of call throughout Asia, Nang Thai was on the lookout for details that defined the cuisines he encountered. And now, as the owner of Asian Grill on Gibson, he’s more than happy to stand by your table and tell you about his various epiphanies. Like that time in Chiang Mai, Thailand, when he first ate beef cooked with pineapple: The way the fruity sweetness interacted with the slices of beef made an impression on him. That’s why it’s on his menu, which is a selection of some of his favorite dishes from the Eastern Hemisphere.

Come for the emissions testing, come back for the duck soup. That's the brilliant business model that almost was, but isn't. It turns out 2000 Vietnam Restaurant and Saigon Express Emissions Testing, in an attached garage on Zuni and San Mateo, are separate businesses. But I'm still coming back for the duck soup.

If Talin Market is the center of Albuquerque’s galaxy of Vietnamese restaurants, May Hong is a far-flung planet. It's tucked into a strip mall on the southeast corner of Eubank and Montgomery, next to a tattoo parlor.

Albuquerque's Vietnamese population became established in the ’70s, thanks to Air Force marriages and a State Department resettlement program that brought approximately 3,000 South Vietnamese to New Mexico. Today, one in three Asians in Albuquerque is Vietnamese. And so we have an abundance of Vietnamese cuisine in the Duke City, a very fortunate thing for all of us.