Alien Brew Pub’s green chile cheeseburger one of best in town
Alien Brew Pub’s green chile cheeseburger one of best in town
Alien Brew Pub’s green chile cheeseburger is truly stellar.
Dubbed the Alien Burger, this masterpiece towers over the plate with a knife stuck through it. A thick patty of New Mexico-raised beef is grilled to order and then smothered in gooey cheese, piled with appleflavored bacon, onions, tomato, lettuce and deep-fried strips of locally grown green chile. A garlicky mayonnaise coats the housemade hamburger bun, and a massive serving of seasoned curly fries surrounds the plate.
This burger is seriously good. It’s not massive — finishing it won’t earn your photograph a place on the wall — but it is memorable, and it’s certainly filling. It’s one of the best $12.99 burgers in Albuquerque, in fact.
My waitress, Erin, even tells me the burger has won awards at the New Mexico State Fair.
I’m not sure what qualifies a burger as “gourmet,” but this one has tempura-style mild green chile and a housemade garlic aioli. It’s made with a handformed patty and locally sourced ingredients. If this isn’t gourmet, nothing is.
The atmosphere at Alien Brew Pub, though, is anything but gourmet. Five big-screen TVs play sports games, and little models of alien figures are scattered along
the rafters. The decor, which is essentially a caricature of Roswell, is cute and whimsical and, unlike the food, easy to forget.
Alien Brew Pub used to be ABQ Brew Pub, and its rebranding a couple of years ago was mostly in name only — the place still feels like a sports bar with a nice emphasis on the food. It carries Alien microbrews, from the Moriarty-based Rio Grande & Sierra Blanca Brewing Co., as well as other local microbrews, but its focus on food makes the place more than just a neighborhood bar. (Most neighborhood bars don’t have made-from-scratch crèmé brulée on the menu.)
The restaurant is in an office suite near Coronado Mall, so there’s plenty of parking, and its central location makes it a great place for a happy-hour meet-up. Service is excellent, though the food seems to take a while to arrive. Beer lovers will find an extensive list of local microbrews with lots of character, and sports fans will find at least a game or two to watch on the big-screens.
If you happen to visit during the lunch or dinner hour, though, don’t miss out on the restaurant’s signature dish, the Alien Burger. Pardon the pun, but it’s out of this world.