Albuquerque Trip - mostly food report since it rained!
 

I first would like to say THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH to those who helped me prepare for my trip to ABQ for Balloon Fiesta.

We went for the primary purpose of seeing balloons, flying in balloons and taking heaps on photographs. Well, sadly to say, this is the first Fiesta where I took less than 80 photos and most of them were only "ok" due to the sky and lack of rich sunshine. I am happy to say that the only time that balloons did fly was when we had our ride booked - the opening Saturday morning.

We still had a nice weekend filled with lots of terrific food. Seeing that the restaurants turned out to be our primary focus, I thought I'd share some of our favorites. I got the majority of our list from previous visits, citysearch.com or recommendations from locals.

Friday lunch was at my favorite restaurant in Albuquerque. Crepe Michel is always delicious. I didn't see my favorite appetizer on the lunch menu so I asked (as nicely as I could!) if it were possible to serve it if we were in no hurry. Well, with little delay, our baked brie in puff pastry served with mixed greens arrived on our table. Divine. Always Divine. The beef bourgignon crepes were delicious and I threatened to lick the creme brulee bowl. Others in my party had a beautiful, fluffy salmon quiche and a chicken sandwich. I wish we had gotten there early enough to have the Chocolate Charlotte. That is always one of their best desserts.

...more dining to come...

In the vicinity of the University, we really enjoyed burgers at 66 Diner and the breakfast at Mannie's. I would go back to both places in a heartbeat!


The bacon at Mannie's can't be beat and the breakfast croissant was superb. You should have seen the "short" stack of pancakes with fresh strawberries.

Also in the same vicinity, we went to Frontier for burritos for lunch. Wow... not a light lunch at all! They were good but not our best meal of the trip.

I read all sorts of praise about Trombino's on citysearch.com and was very pleased with our meal there. The waiter was very pressed for time but we had everything we needed. The menu had lots of terrific offerings. My cousin ordered a beautiful antipasto salad that she simply loved. My chicken parmigana was good and had just a touch of spiciness to it.

Next time we go here, I would like to have room for dessert. It was all I could do not to drool on the table when I saw one delivered to a table just across from the aisle from us.

On Friday night, we did the walking ghost tour in Old Town. The tour is always an interesting one. I am impressed by the technology that they use on the tour! They had some short videos and EVP at appropriate parts of the tour. They have been on the Travel Channel in the recent past.

One of the locations that we stopped on the tour was Church Street Cafe. This has been our favorite spot for New Mexican cuisine for years. They are terrific for the visitors who can't stomach the chiles. We get "Christmas" - red and green chiles on the side. Normally, we sit outside since the patio is so nice and sunny. With the rain, we sat in the room just past where Sara died. Despite our conversations about her, her ghost chose not to join us for lunch.

ElendilPickle - I wanted to tell you that we really got a kick out of the Tinkertown Museum. What was most fun for us was finding the things that seemed most out of place. I think the objects that gave us the best giggles were the Disney movie characters that were incorporated with the wood carvings.

The sign that made the biggest impact on me is "This is what I did while you were watching tv." Well, insert "surfing the web" and it really applies to me!

Debi (DebitNM) suggested going to Tent Rocks but we chickened out since we were fearful of getting caught out in the rain on the hike.

Now, hindsight said that Saturday afternoon was nice enough for it. I definitely plan on doing it next time.

The Balloon Museum is fantastic. I ran into several ballooning friends and marvelled at the collections. One of the pins in the collection brought a tear to my eye. It was from the gentleman who taught a pilot friend to fly. The stories my local ballooning community tell about him make me wish I had an opportunity to meet him prior to his passing. He really was the best advertisement for the sport.

I thought of you when I got up Sunday morning and looked out the window! :-D I'm sorry things were rained out, but we are really thankful for any moisture we get out here.

You ate at a few places we haven't tried. I've always heard good things about Trombino's, and I really like Church St. Cafe too.

Isn't Tinkertown fun? We haven't been to the Balloon Museum yet. Maybe I should try to arrange a field trip for our home school group - thanks for the reminder!

Lee Ann

Hi moldy, great report. I have done a few ghost tours myself. Those are always entertaining although I don't really buy into that stuff. :-D It sounds like you had a lot of fun and good food.

P_M - We've had enough things happen in the family that we do believe in "some" of the ghost talk. Definitely creepy experiences!

We've done the ghost tour in ABQ multiple times and the tour changes a little from year to year but much of it is a staple portion of the tour. The Galveston, TX tour has to be my favorite since they give you EMF detectors to use during the tour. We took many orb photos that night. San Antonio's tour is excellent for the history but it does seem to have many very tall tales associated with it!

We hope to do one in Houston at the end of the month.

LeeAnn -

The museum was swamped when we were there simply due to the number of balloonatics looking for something to do on a rainy day. I would call to see if they have a docent available to do a tour for the kids. I bet the right story teller could really make it come alive. The little kid in me had a ball on the computerized flight simulator although my results weren't pretty!

I've looked at the Balloon Fiesta website and see some fantastic photos. I wish we had selected the sunny, flyable days! Which days were the best?

Did anyone here get any brag worthy photos?

I hate to say it, but...pretty much every day after you left was great weather. :-) :-/

We took some pictures Thursday night, but I haven't looked at them to see how they came out.

I'll definitely make arrangements with the balloon museum ahead of time. Of course, I have yet to have anyone show up for an activity when I plan them, so it's possible no one will want to come. OTOH, it's in town and it's the balloon museum, so maybe we'll get lucky this time. :-)

Lee Ann

If I could play hookie from work again, I'd go back!

I got some really fabulous photos! we were there Thursday morning and Friday night - perfect weather.

ps. we ate at Sadie's one night... Gorduno's another night... and one day on the way to Santa Fe we ate in Bernalillo at Range Cafe. We also ate at the Fiesta itself. Those funnel cakes are heavenly!

I'm jealous of your good weather and photographs! If you have a chance to post some, I'd love to see them!

what is your email? I will post them later but have a lot to sort out. I can send you some before I post though...

Hey Moldy -- sorry the weather wasn't better for you, but at least you got a sunny sky for your fly!

Enjoyed reading about the various restaurants you tried. I love Crepe Michel too.

Glad the info helped you and too bad you missed Tent Rocks, but hey, they'll be waiting for you when you return [and you will return to ABQ, how could you not??]

Debi

Debi,

Without a doubt, I'll be back. At this point, I've already lost track of how many Fiestas I've attended!

I'm a Balloonatic with a capital B!