Joe’s is a restaurant we’re proud to call our own and much as we’d like to think it’s our secret and exclusively ours, it’s much too good not to be discovered by the Duke City citizenry. While Joe manages the restaurant’s day-to-day operations, his pulchritudinous partner Kassie oversees the restaurants social media channels, search engine optimization, blog and Web site presence. She’s understandably very proud that Joe’s won’t feed guests anything the Guzzardi family wouldn’t eat themselves.
Comfort food,
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.
Popular Dinner,
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.
Solo dining,
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.
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.
Joe’s Pasta House – Rio Rancho, New Mexico
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A restaurant has to prove itself every single time with every single guest. It must offer a combination of memorable food, a homey look and feel and mostly personable, attentive service. Fast forward some twenty centuries and innovative restaurants such as Joe’s Pasta House are preparing the most indulgent and delicious fried lasagna you can imagine. As expected, your fork will penetrate past a blanket of molten cheese and sink down into layers of delicious strips of lasagna noodles and ground sausage resplendent in one of Joe’s famous red sauces.
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We’ll make you happy.” before proceeding to recommend entrees with a different flavor profile than the dish the guest didn’t like. Joe’s energy, enthusiasm and customer orientation are mirrored by an attentive, well-mannered and highly professional wait staff that is easily among the very best in the metropolitan area. On a list of things I’d rather do, my annual visit to the Olive Garden for a meal of cheese glop or tomato torture ranks somewhere below visiting a proctologist or watching The View. Kim likes the salad and bread sticks and I suspect derives a bit of sadistic satisfaction in hearing me mutter polysyllabic epithets about the “Evil Garden’s” food.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Perhaps the only thing at the Pasta House as warm as the Guzzardi’s hospitality is the bread which arrives at your table shortly after you’re comfortably seated. There may be nothing as comforting as a basket of sliced bread and yeasty rolls baked in-house–unless, of course, it’s a dish of seasoned olive oil and various herbs and spices in which to dip that bread. Joe’s Pasta House goes even further with a complementary plate of bruschetta crowned with a mixture of rich, red tomatoes, chopped onions, garlic and other savory ingredients. At most restaurants you would pay handsomely for such a treat. While Joe’s Pasta House has earned popular acclaim from a faithful customer base, Joe’s culinary skills aren’t always as critically acclaimed.
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