What's going on, Albuquerque?

The Art of Eating

The Albuquerque Museum is a welcome jewel in the Duke City crown. Where else in town can you find a suit of ancient armor with an arrow hole, a well-thought-out permanent collection, a traveling Egyptian exhibit and some great pasta sauce?

You won't find the pasta sauce hanging on a wall, but you will find it in the City Treats Cafe just inside the museum entrance near the gift shop. This small, from-scratch restaurant (the only things they don't make there are the ranch dressing and the sandwich bread) can offer a pleasant respite from your Old Town and museum hopping activities.

The menu is small, consisting mostly of sandwiches and salads along with some soup and entree-of-the-day options. Vegetarians won't find much to order. There are a couple of cheesey sandwiches and a salad that fit the bill, but little else.

My pasta du jour consisted of penne with sun dried tomatoes, shrimp, shaved romano, fresh spinach and basil in a white wine cream sauce with a chunk of sage foccacia-style bread. The shrimp was perfectly cooked and not chewy while the sauce stole the show by managing to be both rich and light and the same time.

My vegetarian dining buddy tried the Meatless Meaty sandwich - which is a sort of grilled cheese on overdrive with mushrooms and pesto cream cheese with a side salad.

If you like your grilled cheese overstuffed, this would be a good fit for you. She wasn't so fond of it, but chalked it up to personal taste. The house made honey dijon dressing hit all the right notes without skimping on the spicy mustard flavors.

We topped the meal with their tiramisu. Thankfully, it wasn't overloaded with sweetness. The tastes of espresso and brandy had me happily digging out the lady fingers from the mascarpone. Our whole bill came out to about $21.

There is free Wi-Fi at the cafe, making it an option for a small lunch meeting. I'd love to see them offer a daily vegetarian entree so I could take my family for a visit, but I'll at least be going back to sample another pasta offering. It was a pleasant surprise to find a cream sauce done right after slogging through so many thick and flavorless options around town.

City Treats Cafe
2000 Mountain Rd NW
In the Albuquerque Museum
242-5316

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Comment by gregmondro on December 20, 2007 at 11:28am: I'm assuming that the pasta du jour is what is pictured in the first image of this post? If so, it looks delicious!

Thanks for the recommendation, as I'd of never have thought about a place like this (located in the museum). Also, thanks for including the address, something I wish more people would do when they post about restaurants here in the Duke City. :)

Comment by Edith Grove on December 20, 2007 at 12:04pm: Yep...that's it in the picture. Yum.

Comment by Adelita on December 20, 2007 at 8:02pm: I love the ABQ Museum and it's restaurant. I have many friends who work there, so it's nice to be able to visit and have a very nice lunch with them. I love their grilled cheese sandwich!

Comment by W2M on December 21, 2007 at 9:35am: In all honesty, I found the Egyptian exhibit layout to be very confusing... I think that rather than set it up as a trip thru time, which I would prefer, they grouped all the Pharoah-ic pieces together, the funereal objects together, the 'daily life' stuff together... I find it unusual and confusing to have 6th dynasty pieces next to more recent dynasty objects...
I dont know if the ABQ museum folks set it up, or it is the work of another museum, but I did not like it at all........ it felt out of context to see the various dynasty mummies all lined up... if it would have shown a comparison of art thru the dynasties or something else that made sense to have them all alltogether, then that would have been interesting... but to treat them as "woohoo, look, some mummies." is just pandering to the MTV Public...

Comment by QingyuanMama on December 21, 2007 at 4:30pm: I'll add my thanks foir posting this; I wouldn't have thought to try it. Rudolfo Carillo, I'm encouraged by your comments; I've been missing the occasional drive to the Met in NYC I used to make when there was a really wonderful exhibit.
Can I segue to a question about another museum cafe? I've been to the one at the Aquarium three times over several months, each time hoping that it might improve from the last disastrous visit. WHAT is with the service at that place? Each time I and the other parties around me have waited 15-60 minutes even to be acknowledged once we're seated, and it's gone downhill from there. I know; I brought it upon myself by continuing to go back, but I figured with all the complaints I heard the manager getting, it might have gotten better. Any scoop?