Bypassing The Buford
by John Weckerle
Last Friday, our intrepid band of restaurant-testers decided, on a whim, to give the “reinvented” Buford Restaurant a try. The Buford, located on Highway 41 just north of I-40 in Moriarty, closed for a number of months for remodeling, and opened amidst fanfare regarding a new look and new menu earlier this year.
We were a little concerned when we pulled into the parking lot at lunch time on a Friday and saw only one car parked there. It was perhaps even more ominous that, when we entered the establishment, there appeared to be nobody eating. We waited patiently for our server to finish some paperwork at the front desk before taking our drink order, reviewing the menu. Then we left and drove to the East Mountain Grill in Edgewood.
Why, pray tell, did we pick up and leave without ordering? Well, as we’ve mentioned before, your editor does not eat meat or poultry. As it turns out, there is nothing on the Buford’s menu that does not contain one or the other of these ingredients. Even their green chile sauce has ground beef in it – in our opinion, the hallmark of cooks who are covering up the fact that they can’t make a good green chile without it. All the salads had meat or poultry (I suppose, if I had been in the mood for a salad for lunch, that I could have ordered one without the meat, but I wasn’t in the mood for a salad).
A menu so devoid of meatless items is bound to alienate potential vegetarian or pescatarian customers (and those limiting their meat intake for health reasons) as well as those who wish to dine with them, which makes little sense in an economy where everybody needs every last customer they can get (and the Buford is no exception; not a single customer came in during the time we were there). In our opinion, the Buford has shown very poor judgment in configuring its menu, and I do not see myself darkening its door again – at least not until there’s something on the menu I can eat.
208 Responses “Bypassing The Buford”
There’s not enough choice here for dining reviews or a section on local dining to be an option – except perhaps as an excursion into humor. But the gap makes your reviews all the more enjoyable to read. FYI Alpine Alley has a fair selection of vegetarian sandwiches and at least once week, soup of the day is vegetarian
Finally, someone who feels my pain. I live in Moriarty and am a vegan. It is a challenge to find an acceptable meal anywhere in Moriarty. We usually only go to “Subway.” The restaurants in my area’s idea of a salad bar is canned fruit, jello and old looking produce. The few restaurants which offer something that can be modified to be vegetarian usually can not “handle it.” The final produce does not taste good and the servers give odd looks for requesting no meat. We travel to eat a good meal out.
It’s a tough row to hoe, trying to eat without meat in our area – especially there in Moriarty, and especially if you’re trying to stay vegan. The East Mountain Grill in Edgewood tries hard to be vegetarian friendly, and I think that the Greenside Cafe and the Lazy Lizard (both on NM 14) would be more than happy to try and accommodate. I haven’t been there enough times to be sure, but I’d hazard a guess that Sandia Crust Pizza would also do so. For many of us, though, those all amount to a certain amount of travel. For the most part, though, there aren’t yet a lot of options in the East Mountains and Estancia Valley for vegans; it’s either eat in or eat in Albuquerque. Where do you like to go for a good vegan meal?