Head to Head, or Not: Teka Molino and El Potosino #2

After having breakfast yesterday at El Potosino #2 on San Pedro, I noticed that right next door was a long-time local favourite, Teka Molino. I hadn't been there in many years, so I had the idea of trying it again today, ordering the same things I'd had at El Potosino, and doing a direct comparison between the two Tex-Mex restaurants.

Unfortunately, there's no meaningful comparison between the two, for while El Potosino is a traditional mom-and-pop taquería, Teka Molino is something else. Maybe a Tex-Mex version of fast food, installed in a building worthy of a slightly upscale restaurant.

El Potosino offers a patio out front. This is useless: who is going to want to sit out there, even in fine weather, and suffer the traffic noise from San Pedro a few feet away? One of these days, when they have enough money and the patience to endure dealing with San Antonio's notorious bureaucracy, they'll probably turn it into handicapped parking, or take the building all the way out to the sidewalk. For now, they get by with a minimal effort to make it look attractive, with a hedge and an umbrella table. 

Inside, the place is a paradigmatic taco house. Booths down the wall, tables opposite, a couple of flat-panel televisions tuned to ESPN. Nothing special, just a comfortably ordinary place.

The food is consistenly good. Yesterday's orders were beef fajita tacos, chilaquile tacos, and machacado tacos. All were better than average, while the fajita tacos were exceptional, both for the flavour and texture of the meat, which had been cooked to the point of very slight crispiness around the edges -- mmmm -- and for the quantity. It was impossible to get the tortilla to hold it all. Previous visits got similar results for a number of other dishes; the all-the-way nachos are a memorable example of Tex-Mex done well. And the coffee is good, as well.

The place's weakness is in the service. On earlier visits the staff has been friendly and attentive. Yesterday may have been an anomaly, but I have to consider it. The waitress who brought our menus and took our drink orders seemed preoccupied; the one who brought our drinks seemed pleasant but distant. The one who brought the food was bright and chippy and if she hadn't said she'd be right back with more coffee that might have been the end of it. But she never came back. As we waited with growing impatience, I realized that our entire end of the L-shaped dining room was being ignored by the wait staff. Finally a waitress appeared holding a coffee urn, and gave refills to two tables near the front ... then disappeared. At about the point where I was deciding between going to hunt down the waitress or just leaving in a huff, someone came with coffee. 

Teka Molino is a different sort of place entirely. This is a cross between Burger King and La Fonda on Main. You place your order at the counter, pay, and come fetch your food when your number is called. Then you sit in a space worthy of Monte Vista's best Tex-Mex place (even if the furnishings aren't up to that standard, they're better than at El Potosino next door), with rock walls and tasteful décor and tiled tables, all very clean.

There is no service on offer, to speak of; they rate a single chili pepper only because you don't have to bus your own table, and because the girl behind the counter wasn't grumpy or rude. That's about the best you can expect at this sort of place, so consider it a good rating.

The food was sadly disappointing. My plan of ordering the same thing here as at El Potosino was foiled by the fact that Teka Molino doesn't offer machacado or chilaquiles; but they did have beef fajita tacos, and migas are a close comparable to chilaquiles -- indeed, since neither term is really set in stone, they might as well be considered interchangeable. 

The beef fajitas were just okay. That's is; that's all you can say about the dish. It was seasoned but not particularly well; it was cooked through but not to the point of perfection. It was, on the whole, dull. The migas were similarly uninteresting, mainly I think because there was no cheese involved. The ingredients, put in separately and cooked, remained separate, both physically and metaphysically. Not that the food was dry; it was just lacking in anything noteworthy. The red and green salsas were both runny -- the salsa verde was almost entirely water -- and neither made an especially tasty difference in the food. And the coffee was weak, too weak.

As between the two, unless I'm really in a big hurry, I'll take El Potosino over the next-door competition.