Kanome Asian Diner, Albuquerque, NM

I'm rather fond of eclectic cuisine that combines the best features of unrelated regional foods. An example is Lion and Compass in Sunnyvale, CA, which combines French and Mandarin ingredients and techniques.

Kanome is just such a hybrid, taking elements from Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and other Asian cuisines, along with some local favorite elements like New Mexico chiles.

They encourage you to eat family style, so it's a good place to go with a group of three or more. Service is good and the room and the dishes are unusually and especially attractive.

Here are some typical dishes:

• Pureed spinach soup with tofu and taro chips. Delightfully thick and flavorful, it is hard to tell quite what spices are in this, beyond ginger and a trace of garlic, but the flavor is complex and the presentation attractive.
• Firecracker rolls---chicken and chile egg rolls. Served with two of the most magnificent dipping sauces I've ever had, one based on Chinese mustard and the other on peanuts (rather like a mild satay sauce) with liberal amounts of sesame.
• Salmon steamed in banana leaf. Perfectly cooked fish with just a hint of banana flavor.

Everything I've had here has been not only delicious but attractively and creatively presented and with good nutritional value. A good splurge restaurant for picky eaters.

Last updated: 1999/10/18 21:45:43
URL: http://www.nmt.edu/~shipman/food/kanome.html