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On April Fool’s Day in 1957, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcast purported to show a family in Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family spaghetti tree. Spaghetti was relatively unknown back then in the United Kingdom so the BBC was deluged by viewers asking for advice on growing their own spaghetti tree. Decades later, CNN named this broadcast “the biggest hoax any reputable news establishment ever pulled.” For my Kim, spaghetti is no joking matter. Her favorite Italian dish is spaghetti with meat sauce, especially the way it’s prepared at Joe’s. She’s a sauce minimalist whereas her husband can bathe in the stuff. She reminds me that the only reason I don’t ever order it is that I lack the dexterity to wrap the pasta around my fork.
Staff required to disinfect surfaces between visits,
Joe’s housemade sandwich bread (some of the best in the metro) is lightly toasted . All subs are served with French fries though a small salad may be a better pairing. Our menu consists of traditional red sauce dishes like our famous Parmigiana and even some of your favorite classics with a New Mexico flare. You’ll feel like you’re right in Nonna’s kitchen, right here in Rio Rancho.
JOE’S PASTA HOUSE – Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Joe is a proponent of not simmering his sauces for hours on end as opposed to the school of chefs who employ marathon-long simmering sessions (which tend to render tomatoes very acidic). That’s one of the reasons Joe’s red sauce is much lighter in color. That means hormone- and antibiotic-free meats and to the greatest extent possible GMO (genetically modified organism) free pasta imported from Italy.
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The cultural anthropologist in me finds it both amusing and tragic that teeming masses congregate for pathetic pasta, mediocre marinara and boring bread sticks. It makes me long for a visit to Joe’s Pasta house in Rio Rancho. Porcine perfection can be found in the form of juicy French cut grilled pork chops in a Chianti mushroom sauce. Chianti is a full and rich red wine that couples well with the mushrooms to imbue the inch-thick chops with a complementary flavor that doesn’t detract from their native pork flavor in any way. In May, 2018 Yelp compiled its first ever Top 50 Places to Eat in Albuquerque.
Much as they might wish for it to happen, no restaurateur can make their restaurant THE hometown favorite. It happens organically and it happens only by the unanimous will and consent of the people. Similarly, it takes the acclamation of the dining public for a restaurant to become THE heartbeat of a community–where residents go to interact with one another in a convivial spirit of sharing a great meal.
Joe, Kassie and their tremendous staff realize that they have to earn those stars each and every day from each and every visitor who dines at their restaurant. Sophisticated stylings include an exhibition kitchen under the cover of a burnished copper awning. The restaurant’s walls are festooned by artwork provided by the Rio Rancho Art Association. As for Joe’s famous red sauce (so good I’ve joked with Joe that he should serve it in a shot glass), the secret is in the tomatoes. Joe’s uses only imported, vine-ripened, hand-picked Italian plum tomatoes which have a wonderful, natural sweetness.
The bisque isn’t always on the menu, but when it is, it quickly sells out. That’s because Rio Rancho may be a landlocked city several hundred miles from the sea, but its citizenry knows great seafood. A large soup cup is brimming with fresh crab, mussels and clams sharing a creamy home with carrots, scallions, celery and a single crostini. The seafood is unbelievably fresh and surprisingly plentiful with sweet crab being especially cherished. The bisque is creamy and thick and is served at the perfect height of steaminess.
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What made our visit exceptional was the close attention that our server gave us. For once it was good not to hear "no rush" when it was time to settle the check and get on our way. Once a year, despite my protestations and whining, I agree to take my Kim to the Olive Garden. It’s a deal we have, albeit one that makes me feel like Faust in the Christopher Marlowe play. Faust, for the non-English majors among you, was a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. In my case, the deal is a visit to Olive Garden once a year in exchange for all the strange and exotic restaurants I want to visit the rest of the year.
New family run bistro opens across the street from Intel - Rio Rancho Observer
New family run bistro opens across the street from Intel.
Posted: Tue, 05 Nov 2019 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Kids menu,
Joe’s version of seafood stew is a wonderful balance of fresh seafood with perfectly prepared pasta served in a large boat…er, bowl. The seafood–shrimp, mussels, clams, scallops, lump crab and Atlantic salmon–are so fresh you might forget you’re in a landlocked state and not dockside. The seafood is served atop a linguini pasta in a tomato basil bullion which allows all ingredients to sing. A sweeter sauce or one more acerbic would not have gone so well with the delicate, delicious, briny seafood, but the tomato basil brings out the seafood’s natural flavors.
Fortunately, both Andrea and Chuck, fixtures at Joe’s Pasta House for years, assured us “nothing will change about the menu, the staff or the restaurant. It will still be Joe’s Pasta House.” Our visit was also made a bit less painful because we were seated next to my friend and colleague Garth Colasurdo and his beautiful family. It was Garth’s first time at Joe’s Pasta House, but judging from the yummy noises emanating from their table, it won’t be the last.
Perusing the menu gave us the same euphoric sensation we always have at Joe’s, a realization that we’re about to enjoy another great meal. Tony, one of our favorite servers, ferried over a plate of Joe’s sliced, warm bread with the restaurant’s incomparable bruscetta. A few years ago, I met Joe and Kassie at their restaurant at the wee hour of six A.M.. While there are myriad chemical processes that occur when bread is baking in an oven, those processes are the furthest thing from your mind when aromas envelop you. Joe’s bread is legendary…and that bruscetta is the very best in New Mexico.
If the aromas of baking bread are its advertising, who needs a Madison Avenue marketing campaign. The green Chile Fettuccine is the best, especially with shrimp! Also the linguine with clams in white sauce is great, just ask for no onions if you prefer. The cannoli is among the best in the city, replete with rich ricotta brought in from New Jersey. The lemon cake zings with a nice tanginess while the German chocolate cake is the perfect marriage of coconut, pecans and chocolate. The meal was great and the restaurant was comfortable despite the freezing temperatures outside.
My choice is always “as much blue cheese as you can carry” and Joe’s delivers with creamy, rich dressing punctuated generously with chunks of real blue cheese. You can also order a wedge salad, Greek salad, Caesar salad and a Spinach salad. They’re all good, but along with the bread they’ll fill you up and you certainly don’t visit Joe’s to fill up on bread and salad. Joe’s Pasta House has none of those advantages, but somehow manages to serve a seafood bisque which transports me back to so many wonderful afternoons on the wharf at Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Rarely will you hear his name mentioned in discussions about the best chefs in the metropolitan area. Some of that is based on the misbegotten perception that red sauce dishes aren’t as sophisticated and challenging to prepare as the “high-brow” dishes served in “Northern Italian” restaurants. He’s not one to crow about his skills and is modest to a fault.
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