Another Trip to Ruthie's

With the minishment of my erstwhile favourite North Central taquería, the search resumes for a good place to have breakfast tacos in the area between the Loops, along 281. Today, stumped for a place to go, we decided to try Ruthie's again, at the corner of West Avenue and Patricia. I know, it's a little far from 281, but we're getting kind of desperate for a reliably good place out there in Loopland.

We'd been to Ruthie's a little over a year ago and liked it, but it's location is a little out of the way for us. Still, the incomprehensible dearth of acceptable taquerías out that way made us give it another go.

We were greeted cheerfully by one that I take to be the manager, and by two waitresses, who invited us to take any seat in such a way that we immediately felt at ease. In fact, throughout our time there, the staff were remarkably cheerful, and sincerely so. It pains me to have to rate the service so badly, and I am confident that the problems we encountered today were not something that happens routinely; they just, unfortunately, happened to us.

We arrived just before the lunch rush. There were two waitresses handling sixteen tables, which is easy, even without bussers, when half the place is empty. But at 11.30, we got the next-to-last table. Our waitress brought menus and utensils almost immediately, and returned momentarily with our drink orders. We weren't ready to order at that point, so she went off to tend to the other tables. We had enough time to make our decisions and finish our coffee, change our minds, change our minds again, then change our minds yet again before she made it back to us. It was a longer interval than it should have been, but we could see the place was understaffed. The responsibility for that is the manager's, not the waitress's. It may be that someone didn't show up for work, or that a recent vacancy has yet to be filled; or it may be that the manager's too concerned with costs to hire the necessary labour. Whatever: a third waitress did come on duty around noon, but by then the ground was laid, the staff was behind.

Ruthie's serves breakfast all day, but by the time we ordered we'd both gotten out of the breakfast-taco mood. My table-mate went for the super nachos ("I wonder what makes them super," he idly wondered), while I opted for enchiladas suizas a la carte, forgoing the rice and beans, and extra tortillas, that come with the lunch special (since I'm trying to lose weight, or at least not gain any, ahead of beach-related activities planned for later in the year). 

Our first cups of coffee, by the way, were too cool to be satisfactory. Refills, though, were nicely hot, and the coffee itself was good, neither weak nor acidic. Soon the waitress came around with trays of chips for all the tables -- they were apparently just now available from the kitchen -- and then made a round with salsa for everybody. Ruthie's makes its own salsa, using serrano peppers, and while the result is a little on the thin side, it has a strong flavour and a wonderful kick to it. The chips are very thin, crispy and tasty, and not at all greasy.

see text regarding service rating

My co-conspirator's super nachos made their appearance in good time. They were tostadas piled randomly on a plate and liberally doused with well-made beef fajitas and cheese. The side plate of sour cream, jalapeños and guacamole wasn't skimpy either. My only complaint would be that the meat should be cut into smaller chunks, so that it's possible to get some in every bite without the customer having to cut it up; a messy proposition.

My enchiladas suizas also arrived promptly. Unfortunately, they arrived at the wrong table, where the old man who had ordered beef enchiladas didn't notice he'd gotten something else until he'd started on it. I passed the time while my order was being re-made, noshing on the chips and salsa that I'd planned, in my blubber-avoidance efforts, to avoid; and in analyzing, through repeated samplings, my table-mate's nachos. At last my dish came -- and I still ended up finishing first -- and it was very good. Two enchiladas of well-seasoned shredded chicken wrapped in tasty corn tortillas and covered with a mild sauce and a goodly amount of cheese. A few soft chunks of lightly-fried potato added a little variety to both taste and texture, and probably not too much in the way of what my mother would have called empty calories.

The pleasant attitude of the staff, despite the problems I've described, goes a long way in making me think kindly of this restaurant. If I'd had the same kind of misfortune at Blanco Café, for example, I'd never go back (not that I'm likely to anyway). But I expect I'll be giving Ruthie's another chance to impress before too long. 

Ruthie's

Change Isn't Always For the Better: Taquería Los Potrillos

For the past couple of years, Taquería Los Potrillos, on Starcrest, has been my preferred taco-spot on the far North Side. This was not so much because it was particularly good, but because it was the best available in that part of town, from what I could find after a long and arduous, and fattening, search.

But ownership of Los Potrillos has changed (I understand that the former owners have opened a place of the same name on the South Side, closer to their home), and after an initial period during which nothing much changed, the new owners have started to put their stamp on the food. The results are seriously disappointing.

The chips and salsa are much different, and nothing good has come of that. Before, the chips were an unusual blend of corn and flour tortillas fried up and served out in generous portions; I was particularly partial to the flour tostadas. And the salsa was a delectable in-house concoction that never allowed one flavour to overwhelm the others. It was a nicely balanced mix of tomatoes, onions, peppers, a little cilantro, and seasonings in a sauce that was neither runny nor viscous. Now, chips and salsa at Los Potrillos means what I suspect are commercially-processed chips of inordinately regular appearance, fried just past the point of best quality, and served up with salsa dipped from a restaurant-sized can of (one can only hope) Pace Picante Sauce, and not even the chunky variety. It is tomato sauce, with all the other ingredients necessary for salsa making a perfunctory appearance, as if they had other, more important, parties to go to.

My friend's beef fajita tacos were lousy. Nearly tasteless lumps of meat with only a nodding acquaintance with any kind of seasoning were scattered onto a tortilla and delivered up to an ungrateful palate. There was nothing of interest about them at all.

The stuffing of the migas tacos I had was generous, and tasty enough to insure the restaurant's rating for food would go no lower than it did, but the plate was unduly messy. By the time it arrived, only moments after ordering, my tacos had already leaked a vaguely orange sauce onto the plate, making the outside of the tortilla slick and wet, and threatening the integrity of the taco altogether. And there was no cheese in the mix, a ghastly, even unforgivable departure from previous practice.

Is Timbo's the New Little Hipps?

According to the blurb on its menu, when Little Hipps closed in 2002, a group of its employees got together and vowed to re-create the iconic restaurant. (I've always been curious about why the owner of the original chose to simply close it down, rather than selling it for what should have been a hefty sum.) They found space just off Broadway at the entrance to the Pearl Brewery complex, and opened in 2003.

Anyone who remembers the atmosphere in Little Hipps knows that it will take years for Timbo's to acquire the necessary jumble of idiosyncratic wall hangings, license plates, beer-ad gimmickry, and souvenirs to really be able to claim the same kind of patina; but they're well on their way. The seating appears to be copied from the original wooden booth benches -- if it actually is original, it's been freshened up, which would seem unpardonable in a shrine -- and the place features the same sort of individual juke-boxes as Hipp's had. Otherwise, the place is much brighter, and newer, and cleaner. But given time (a luxury in the restaurant business, but here we are seven years on and they're still going) they should be able to dim the bulbs, stain the floors, and put some scratches and gouges in the furnishings. And eventually, if they last long enough to do that, it will be Timbo's that's the San Antonio landmark, with Little Hipps just a vague memory to an increasingly small number of aging residents.

But the main thing, obviously, is the food. Timbo's has (according to the menu) bought or been given the rights to the name "shypoke eggs", which I can remember ordering with some trepidation, and being vastly relieved to find it was just a name for a particular arrangement of cheeses on a tortilla chip, and not some possibly Scotch concoction of inedible specialty so-called food. They were actually pretty good, too, although not as delectable as a good order of nachos at most any taquería. And once I, in ignorance, ordered a "large" burger -- Timbo's menu is kinder than Little Hipps's was; it actually warns you what you're getting. Until recently, that burger many years ago was the only one I'd ever needed a go-box for. 

The menu consists of burgers and sides. There are a few other possibilities on there -- a chicken sandwich, maybe, or something else for the nontraditionalists among us; but those people don't belong in a temple of tradition like Timbo's, and really shouldn't be encouraged. The choices are, at bottom, do you want cheese, and how much meat do you want in your burger? Selecting a beer is a much more involved decision than selecting a meal.

It has been, obviously, at least eight years since I or anyone else tasted a burger from Little Hipps, and I think Timbo's does a fair job of approximating the experience. Their grill, possibly, hasn't acquired the layer of residue needed to give the patties quite the same flavour, and the burgers as presented do not revel in an excess of lettuce, as they used to at Hipps. They're good on their own merit, but not yet up to the perhaps unachievable standard of Little Hipps. And the tater-tots, which used to be called Hippuppies at the Olde Place, seem pre-fab compared with fading memory. (The tots at the Armadillo, which occupies Little Hipps's old building on McCullough, have more of the look and feel of what I remember from the original restaurant.) 

The service was excellent, which was always the rule at Little Hipps too. In the long run, that, as much as the food, and more than the homage to the departed diner, will keep people coming back. 

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.

Blanco Café #2: Should've Kept Going Down the Road

We were on our way to lunch, heading in on Blanco Road from Park North after a small Christmas Shopping binge, having the usual conversation. You've all had it; it goes like this:

Me: Where do you want to go for lunch?

You: Any place is fine with me.

We came upon Blanco Café, in a little shopping center just north of Jackson-Keller Road. I had never been there; my friend Rick hadn't been in years. So we stopped in.

Part of my reason for going on this occasion, in addition to its Right Place, Right Time quality, was that the mom and pop that started the Blanco Café years ago were good friends of my next-door neighbours. On every special occasion that I can think of -- quinceañeras, birthdays, graduations -- Blanco Cafe had been the venue for their celebrations. Then, if memory serves, mom and pop retired and split their culinary empire up among their children; sort of like Charlemagne, and I've heard, though had not investigated personally, that the results were, figuratively speaking, similar.

I can now attest to the truth of those rumours, at least as regards the Castle Hills location. (There are several others around town, and since, reportedly, they don't all share management or ownership, the others deserve their own investigation. We wouldn't want to paint with too broad a brush here.)

The place is not as big as it looks from the outside. It's tucked back in the part of the shopping center farthest off the road, through, shall we say, a decorative arch, with a large parking lot beyond. A couple of letters are missing from the sign on the arch, and yes, that is a clue to what you'll find inside. The place is something of a dump. By comparison, the Blanco Café nearer my neighbourhood, several miles south on Blanco, is also a dump, but it's a chic dump, in that it maintains its ancient charms in defiance of pointless progress. This place is just a dump, on its way to being really seedy. The décor is, in some ways, typical Tex-Mex: calendarios and icons and a few folk-art craft pieces mixed in with advertisements, witty signs ("Customers Wanted, No Experience Necessary"; I don't doubt it), unframed photographs and pictures taken from old calendars. There's soda-fountain seating along the wall by the entrance, and behind the counter are two large, well-lit but mostly empty soft drink cases, such as you might've seen at a Stop-&-Go back when they were around and were called ice houses. The tables are café-cheap, and pretty dinged up. Ours had a wad of paper towels under one leg to balance it, and the top looked like acid had splashed on it. The chair wobbled unsteadily, too.

The service was on the dour side. It took a while -- not a great while, but a while -- for anyone to bring us menus (laminated placemats, machine-folded while still warm so that they won't stay open), and by then we had both noticed that no one on the staff could spare a smile for anyone. Had they been swamped, I could understand if not excuse the sour looks, but while it was building up to the lunch rush, these people looked like they had just come from a union meeting where a strike had been voted. Finally a young woman came with menus and utensils, handed us these long menus, and took our drink orders. She returned a scant moment later ready to take our food orders, while I was still trying to get my menu to lie open. 

No one in the place had the customary chips and salsa I expect at Mexican restaurants. Not that I need chips and salsa, it's just expected at lunchtime. I suspect the absence of these is more related to cost than a concern for the clients' waistlines, and I do find that chips and salsa, like the sign, are a good indicator of what one can expect in the way of quality in the rest of the cuisine. 

Our waitress took our orders on her next visit to our table: cheese enchiladas with beef fajita for me, enchiladas verdes for Rick. A few minutes later she brought us tortillas; since we had nothing else to munch on while we waited, we could devote our full attention to the quality of the flour tortillas. (Someone once pointed out to me that, generally speaking, gringos want flour tortillas, while mejicanos want corn. It's not as uniformly true as it used to be, but I've observed it to be largely true. In my case, there's only one place in town where I routinely ask for corn tortillas; and I see more and more hispanics ordering flour tortillas these days than I used to. The waitress at Blanco Café didn't ask our preference; we got flour.) They were a good size, fairly heavy, a tad thicker than at most other places, but they had a good flavour, almost like naan. There were no survivors.

Rick's plate came out and was put before him. It was attractively done in the usual enchilada pattern: beans at one end of the oval plate, rice at the other, enchiladas down the middle with a lettuce-and-tomato salad for accent.

Eventually mine came out too, after just enough of a delay to start me wondering if I was going to be fed. Mine, too, had the traditional presentation, but with fajita meat in lieu of the salad.

The cheese enchiladas tasted exactly like what cheese enchiladas are supposed to taste like. I'm sure that when the first Spanish gobernador arrived to take up residence in his dusty little palace, now squatting behind City Hall, his cheese enchiladas tasted exactly like these, or he would have lopped off some heads, or done whatever gobernadors did to manifest displeasure. Had this been the only food I ate at Blanco Café, it would have rated five chili peppers.

The fajitas were pretty good too; maybe not five-chili-peppers good, but at least four. The seasoning was excellent, the meat was tender, there was no gristle (although there was a good deal of fat that should have been trimmed before cooking), and they were cooked perfectly well.

Sadly, though, we had other food to consider. Rick's enchiladas verdes were the right colour, but that's where the good news ends. They were tasteless. Not bad, just without flavour. And we both found the refried beans flavourless and runny, a sort of lumpy viscous bleagh. The rice was tastier, but it was too dry, probably from having sat around in the kitchen with the lid off the pot too long.

Quality Tex-Mex isn't all that hard to do. Like all cuisines, it depends on good ingredients, competent work in the kitchen, and some attention to details. It's on these last two criteria that Blanco Café #2 falters.

Twice In A Lifetime!

No one was as shocked as I was when I had to admit that our public officials (or some of them, anyway, probably long gone from office) actually got something right in the way of capital improvements. Now I find that a second Public Improvement has actually proven to be an improvement.

I'm talking about the 281 Superstreet, that section of highway between Loop 1604 and Overlook Parkway, way out in the part of town that we city-dwellers just want to get through as fast as possible. Now that this "superstreet" is completed (and, surprisingly, without unearthing the remains of any commuters who had died in their cars waiting for the light at Encino Rio), we actually can.

I had low expectations for the idea when I first heard about it. Being from New Orleans, the first thing I thought of when the I read about this project was the boulevards around the Crescent City where you can't turn left, but must go a short distance beyond the intersection, make a U-turn, and come back. While that layout may be an improvement over regular intersections, it didn't seem an improvement worth aspiring to.

Yet it is. I've been through that dreaded stretch of road four times now, twice outbound, twice inbound, all four times around lunchtime, when traffic is almost as heavy as at rush hour. I hit one red light in those four trips, and except to make that one stop, my speed never dropped below 45 m.p.h. Kudos to whomever is responsible for this dramatic improvement.

En la calle: La Gloria Ice House

The busy shopping streets in any Mexican city or town are lined with vendors selling all manner of intriguing food; the sounds and smells and sight of the food are one of the things I like about travelling in Mexico. Unfortunately, I've never felt any of it is safe enough to eat, so I always just listen, and sniff, and look. That's why I've been itching to go to La Gloria Ice House, a new restaurant at the Pearl Brewery complex, which bills itself as a purveyor of "street foods of Mexico." Today I got the chance to go, with a friend I had not seen in a few months.

The place is across a parking lot from the main part of the Brewery complex, along Grayson Street and backing up against the River, just about where the new Museum Reach extension ends. It looks fairly mundane from the front, a red-and-brown brick building that resembles a late-1950s suburban ranch-style house. A side patio is well stocked with tables that flow on out onto the lawn, and there's another patio in back, overlooking the river. 

When you enter, you're confronted with a large blackboard giving names and prices; laminated sheets describe the various dishes, which I'm sure all but native Mexicans are mostly unfamiliar with: various tacos, tortas, quesadillas, and other things I don't remember. Bottled beer stands iced down under the menu board; other drinks are available from the cashier, where you place your order.

I went with a quesadilla gringa and the tamal del día; my friend said he was going to get a milanesa, then changed his mind at the last moment and chose a torta de carnitas on a whim.

Our food was good, for the most part. My quesadilla was well-prepared, but wasn't anything particularly exotic; maybe the name should have tipped me to that fact. The tamal was more exotic, and equally well-prepared, with a particularly tasty breading on it. I was, therefore, particularly disappointed in that all the street tamales I've seen in Mexico (and not dared to try) were much, much thicker. This batter was so good that I really would've like to have more of it.

My friend thought his torta was dry. I tried it, and have to disagree. He had a ramekin of sauce on his plate which provided all the moisture needed to bring out the taste of the food, which was good.

The real draw of La Gloria, I've come to believe, is that it's the current Place To Be Seen in San Antonio. We saw more well-known locals there in the space of 45 minutes than I've seen in the previous month. The place is just chic enough to draw all those mover-and-shaker wannabes out of Alamo Heights and Olmos Park just long enough to soak up a little of the reflected glory emanating from those who have already Arrived. Other than that, the ambience (or ambiance, if you prefer), is fairly routine: noisy enough that we could not understand a word our waiter said, a tad close, and kind of like San Miguel de Allende without all those street vendors. (Not good enough to rate a comparison with Guanajuato, or even Zacatecas.) And though it unfortunately lacks the sounds and aromas of the Mexican street, it still provides a relaxed and inviting setting for your rather upscale would-be street food.

Update: I went back to La Gloria just after Christmas, with two other people. This time we sampled grilled fish tacos (tacos pescado zarandeado) and two kinds of "Mexican pizza" (tlayudas tradicional and deshebrada). All the dishes were tasty and satisfying, though nothing in the experience gave me any reason to raise or lower my ratings for the place. It's good, and if you want to be seen, or hobnob with those who are out to be seen, it's the place to go. I suspect that, when the novelty wears off and the beau monde moves on to the next New Thing, what will be left will be a reliably good, enjoyable place to gather with friends who appreciate a cuisine that, for all our city's Mexican heritage, is still exotic to us.

Mike's In The Village: worth the drive, worth the wait

It's been oh! so many years since I left New Orleans, and even if my years there, both as a child and as an adult, were not especially happy -- happy enough, all things considered, but not the kind of happy that other people seem to look back on wistfully -- I still get excited at the prospect of N'awlinz cookin'. So when I read a review of this place called Mike's In The Village in the local disreputable throwaway weekly rag, I just had to try it for myself. Even though it's way the hell out in Bulverde. Bulverde! Why, that's in the next county! (Comal, as it happens.)

Can you say, "Worth the drive"? 'Cuz it is, it really is. 

I went twice, actually; the first time, following my memory of the directions in the local disreputable throwaway weekly rag, I turned at Bulverde Road where it crosses 281. Turns out that's not where it is, so after going somewhere else for lunch that day, I looked the place up on line. Who knew there are like five Bulverde Roads?

This one's actually in the community of Bulverde, and rates an actual freeway-style exit from 281. It has a number, like F.M. such-and-such, but it takes me years of familiarity with a four-digit highway number before I remember it. (Though once I get it, I never forget it; I still remember 2222 in Austin, and 2252, which becomes Nacogdoches Road; and, of course, 1604, which defines the pale of civilization-lite in this part of Texas, just as the Red River defines it in this part of the U.S.A.)

The building, a former bowling alley of the old-fashioned kind (the waitress's brother used to be a pinsetter there) is behind the Exxon station in "downtown" Bulverde, such as it is. A small sign by the road directs you to a nondescript grey clapboard building, which Mike's In The Village shares with a small antique mall (watch your step going in). The dining room added on in back has large windows that look out onto a scene that, with a little imagination, could pass for bucolic. In any case, it's a comfortable setting. The wine bar fills one wall, and though my friend Rick said he couldn't imagine anyone sitting at the bar, I can: I see aging ranchers in denim jeans with bulging old-man bellies sipping reds and whites with younger, professional-looking men in khakis. A few women, professionals also, complete the imaginary tableau. Late some evenings, when the kitchen has closed down, I imagine Chef Mike relaxing there with his fellow Bulverdianites, talking about ol' times down on the Big Muddy. (When I was a kid, we never called it The Big Easy; that was a reference to the Crescent City's much-cherished sinfulness, which we children weren't to know about until it was too late to enjoy it, having left town.)

Anyway, back to reality. The soup of the day, our waitress told us, was creamy garlic. I said I'd have that, but as soon as I opened the menu I changed my mind. I saw the gumbo listed, and remembered that the review I'd read said something good about it. So I ordered that instead. 

It was delicious. The gumbo I recall from my mis-spent youth got its slight heat from a dose of pepper sauce, like Tabasco; this gumbo got its, I think, from the jalapeño sausage. Still, heat is heat, and picante is as good as piquant in my book. This gumbo kind of sneaks up on you; the first taste is salty, but then the piquancy builds and provides the sharp edges around the wonder flavours of chicken, sausage, spices.... I savoured it. I can still taste it in my mind. Excellent, excellent gumbo. Made with a light roux (the kind we called roux blonde in the old days). And no okra. That's a good thing.

Next came the entrées: crawfish étoufée for me, chicken Alfredo for Rick. I told the waitress when I ordered that I wanted her to put half my order in a go-box before I ever saw it -- going to the beach next summer, need to make some effort to avoid embarrassment -- and it's a damn good thing I did. Even the half that was put before me looked like too much food, and it nearly was. (The half that was left over went for the wife's lunch the next day, and for that it was too much food. But then, as an eater, she's kind of a wuss, being all petite and curvaceous and everything.) 

Crawfish étoufée is not a N'awlinz dish. You can get good étoufée there now, but it's a Cajun dish, from down the bayou. If I get my love of Creole cooking from a childhood in the big city, I  get my love of Cajun food from years in Acadiana, that swampy swath of Louisiana beyond the Big River, within sniffing distance of the Gulf. And Cajun food, or the promise of it, is one of the few things that will prompt me to pass on good Creole food, the style I remember from New Orleans. Well, okay, I'll sometimes pick Italian food over Creole, but only if I know it's better than I can make at home. 

But I digress.

Crawfish are in season now, thank God, and Chef Mike has gotten hold of some really fresh ones just for me. Okay, not just for me, but it might as well have been. Crawfish étoufée is perhaps the finest dish In The Whole World, if it's not pizza or ice cream or a really good lasagna. Well, even a mediocre crawfish étoufée is better than the best courtbouillon, which in turn puts your grandmother's enchiladas to shame. And this crawfish étoufée is far, far better than mediocre. It is, possibly, the best I've ever had. It has been, I admit, a very long time since I tucked into a plate of crawfish étoufée in its native land, so I may be imagining things; but it's good enough, anyway, to fool me into believing that. (Maybe I should go spend some time down the bayou myself.... Road trip!) 

Rick, as I said, went for chicken Alfredo. This Mike guy may have learned his craft somewhere between Esplanade and Carrollton Avenues (I'm just guessing; probably closer to Esplanade), but he's no chauvinist when it comes to cooking styles.  Among the other non-Cajun, non-Creole dishes on offer are "stuffed chili relleno," which, yes, is redundant, but I'm betting it's twice as good as a plain ol' chili relleno. Like a twice-baked potato, maybe.  Anyway, too many places have an Alfredo sauce that relies heavily on glue and some gelatinous substance; not here. The sauce is almost invisible, hiding among the rigatoni, bite-sized pieces of chicken breast, and a sprinkle of romano cheese, but the taste is powerful and transcendent. And the portion of this dish, too, is excessive, requiring a second go-box. (This, however, did not stop my companion from also ordering a crème brulé for dessert, and thoroughly, even excessively, enjoying it. I was seriously tempted by the thought of cheesecake with oreo crust, but thoughts of whales beached on white sand stopped me.)

The service at Mike's was very good, although it took an awfully long time to get our entrées. While we waited we entertained ourselves with speculation about what that guy two tables over was eating; whatever it was, he sure seemed to be enjoying it. (Turned out to be portabella fries with ancho chili mayonnaise, apparently something of a house specialty.) And the view. So maybe the kitchen's a little slow; I don't know. The place wasn't crowded; it was well past the apex of the lunch rush. Maybe they were exhausted back there. But though it took a little while, it proved worth waiting for.

Maybe It's the Music: Sam's Burger Joint

Having said just the other day that I'd never been to Sam's Burger Joint, I stand corrected: I did go, once, maybe a couple of years ago. I had only a few bucks on me and the only thing on the menu I could afford was the chopped barbecue brisket sandwich, which I had, and which, I swear to God, was exactly the same flavour I used to get in elementary school when they served barbecue sandwiches. I mean exactly. And while that may be a good thing, memory-wise (depending on one's primary-school experiences), it's not an impressive thing, food-wise.

So. Having mentioned Sam's the other day in the same breath with other reputable burger places near downtown, it was on my mind while we were deciding where to have lunch today, me and two friends. One, Rick, had been there a number of times; the other, Peter, had never been. 

Sam's sits in a triangle of land between Broadway and 281 on Grayson Street. It's still a somewhat seedy area, despite the recent re-development of the Pearl Brewery just beyond the freeway underpass. Still, it's not an area that feels unsafe during lunch hours. There's a vacant lot across the street, and a new-ish office building across the other street, and the freeway behind. Parking is on the street (some metered, some not) or under the freeway. 

Rick had the bacon-swiss chicken sandwich, which he has decided is his favourite item on Sam's menu. He finds that the seasoning mix they use is somehow special, in a good way, though he can't say exactly why. He reports the chicken to be well-cooked, neither dry nor underdone, and the bacon to be crisp. 

Peter went with the barbecue sandwich, and agreed that, yes, it was just like what the school cafeteria served when he was a kid. I put it to him like this: on a scale of one to five, where one is "I wouldn't put this in my mouth again" and five is "I can't live without this." He gave it "four, maybe three." I take that as a reluctant 3½. I put the same scale to Rick, and he went with a solid 4 for the chicken sandwich.

Myself, I had the "old fashioned" with cheese, a standard hamburger. I'll give it a 3, though to be honest it may not be even that good. It's not as good as anything I've had at Fatty's, nor Beefy's Back Yard, nor Armadillo, nor Timbo's. It would not have been permitted on the same late-night talk show with the burgers we used to get at Little Hipps. The bun, other than having the restaurant's name branded on it, was unremarkable; the meat, though plentiful, was overcooked; and the cheese had a distinctly cheap flavour to it. 

We all had fries with our sandwiches, which were a more solid "pretty good," that is, a 3½. 

Sam's has a music hall out back, not an overly large place, but I understand it's popular with aficionados of the live-music scene here in town. Maybe that's what keeps Sam's in business.

I Hate H.E.B.

I hate H.E.B. Not all H.E.B.'s, just the one on Olmos Drive. The one closest to my house. 

I hate the way the parking lot is laid out. I hate the location of the gas station in the parking lot. I hate the way the store is laid out. I hate the way the management is constantly rearranging the inventory on the shelves. I hate the store's inability to keep basic goods in inventory -- how can a grocery store run out of tomatoes, or green peppers? I hate the way they keep changing stock; when I used to shop there regularly, every time I'd find some new product that I like, they'd stop carrying it. I hate that they got rid of the meat market (it's been years, I know, but I still count that among my grievances). I hate the way they increase the selection of processed pre-cooked foods and cut back on things for people who actually cook themselves. I hate the way people bring their kids to the store at 9pm; don't they have any concept of a child's needs? I hate the lines at the checkouts -- if there aren't enough people in line, they close a couple of registers. 

Mostly I hate the fact that H.E.B. doesn't give a damn about any of this. I know this because, several years ago, I wrote a two-page (typed) letter complaining of all the problems with that store, and got the response that they always appreciated hearing from their customers.

One of these days a real grocery store is going to open in this town again -- not merely collections of canned goods like Wal-Mart or Target, not a fru-fru hoity-toity new-age place like Whole Foods (and don't get me started on their parking lot). As it is, I'll drive to Lincoln Heights and pay the higher prices there to avoid the Olmos B (though I also go to Wal-Mart now, thanks to Lincoln Heights H.E.B.'s bakery's refusal, one time a couple of years ago, to sell me two kaiser rolls); but I won't pay the outrageous prices at Whole Foods, unless it's for something indispensable that can only be found there (and there ain't much that's indispensable). When that real grocery store comes back, I'll be there, waiting.

There, now; I feel much better for having gotten that off my chest.

Monte Vista Landmark in Decline? Capparelli's on Main

I think I moved to this part of San Antonio just a year or two before Capparelli's On Main opened, and have been something of a regular there for its entire existence. While it has never been my favourite Italian restaurant in town, it's always been my favourite local Italian; and despite the advent of Ciao Lavanderia, Stefania's Country Italian, and (briefly) Valentino's, it still is. 

But something has changed in the last year or so, and not for the better. 

The reasonable prices, a good wine list, excellent service and very pleasant atmosphere, both inside and out, continue to make it a favoured dining destination for me and, I reckon, just about everybody else between downtown and Olmos Basin. None of that has changed. What has changed is the food. It has lately lost its sharp edge of quality. It's still good, it's just not that good anymore. 

The last few times I've gotten the lasagna, there's been something different about the seasoning of the sauce. Something in the kitchen has changed in the way that dish is prepared. The lasagna at Capparelli's was always my favourite lasagna anywhere, including my own house, and the change, whatever it was, was starkly noticeable. The current version, while still pretty good, can't command the kind of determined loyalty the dish once did.

Last night at Capparelli's On Main, I got the salmon salad. (My wife got the lasagna, so I got to taste it, and yes, it's not what it used to be.) Our attentive waitress brought our wine choices and a basket of garlic bread. They used to have excellent garlic bread, always freshly made. The basket we had last night was decidedly not freshly made, plus the bread itself is different from what it used to be at this restaurant. It's not as good. When our entrées arrived (in good time -- not rushed, not delayed), I was just a little disappointed by the salmon. It had excellent texture and the outer coating was very nicely constituted, but I think it was just the slightest bit overcooked. Not enough for me to send it back, just not as perfect as it could have been. Fortunately, the salad itself was delicious, although this kitchen, like every other in town these days, I believe, has forgotten the ancient and sensible maxim that NOTHING IN A SALAD SHOULD BE LARGER THAN A LADY'S MOUTH, DEMURELY OPENED. We men don't like having huge lettuce leaves to cut or fold, either.

In the past year I've had lasagna and other pasta dishes at Capparelli's On Main, as well as sandwiches and pizza. Everything has been good -- their pizza is almost as good, albeit in a different way, as my favourites in that category; but I'm afraid that things are changing for them, and if that trend continues, I might just have to start going elsewhere more often.

I'd rather not.

A Tale of Two Burgers

I don't eat hamburgers so much anymore. 

Don't get me wrong: I love 'em. It's just that, now that I'm all grown up, I've discovered a world of wonderful foods that I would make faces at when I was a kid. Hard to believe I used to hate onions. And mushrooms. And Chinese food. 

So it was unusual for me to have eaten at two burger joints in three days this past week. On Wednesday, my friend Rick and I went to Fatty's for lunch, because I wanted to go over to the east side to get tickets for the Terri Hendrix concert at the Carver. Fatty's has been my favourite burger joint in town since I first stumbled across it a year or two ago, looking for an east-side Cajun place that's no longer there. You can't miss Fatty's: its bright yellow exterior is like a radioactive glow as you head east on Commerce from St. Paul's Square. 

Then, on Friday, Rick and I went in search of a place called Mike's In The Village, which, according to a review in the local throwaway weekly rag, was about a mile east of 281 on Bulverde Road. We didn't find it -- who knew there are two or three Bulverde Roads, all jumbled up in roughly the same area, and two of them crossing 281? We turned at the first crossing, went east a ways, then turned around and went west until we were sure we'd gone much farther than it was supposed to be. (Looked it up on the Internet, found that it's a mile west of the second Bulverde Road crossing, the one that leads to the actual town of Bulverde.) Anyway, not finding it, we went instead to a burger joint we'd passed called Beefy's Back Yard, a mile or two south on the east side of 281. Since I'd just been to Fatty's a couple of days before, I intentionally ordered the same thing I'd had then, so I could make a head-to-head comparison.

Fatty's has the edge on the food itself. Every other time I've been there, it would easily get five out of five; this time, though, the bun spent a few seconds too many on the grill, and was slightly scorched. That's the only food-related issue I've ever encountered there, unless you count servings being too big. Which I don't, even if I complain about it. (Hey, I'm a curmudgeon; I'm supposed to complain.) The onion rings we split this last time almost made up for it. The batter is absolutely superb, deliciously seasoned, the rings thick and juicy, and fried to perfection.

Then there are the pinto beans. Fatty's always has a tub of really, really, really good pinto beans with jalapeños sitting on a table off to the side, for guests to help themselves. I restrained myself this time, and only had one bowl. Okay, maybe two. But no more than two...this time. Anyway, beans are beans, but these beans are fantastic.

Beefy's burger was as big, and as juicy as Fatty's had been. In fact, too much so. I had to put a napkin down in my plastic basket, so that anything dropping from my sandwich wouldn't cause a splash in the puddle of oil that dripped out. Still, the taste was good, the ingredients fresh, and the cook's work in producing the sandwich was careful: nothing was overdone, nothing underdone. That's harder than it sounds to accomplish.

The onion rings at Beefy's were good, as good as at Fatty's in all but the seasoning of the batter. I don't know what Fatty's puts in its batter -- I suppose I could ask, or figure it out on my own, but I haven't done either -- but it comes out tastier than the product at Beefy's. That's not really a complaint; as I said, the rings were good. It's just an observation.

While Fatty's gets the edge on the food, Beefy's gets the edge on ambiance. Fatty's is all linoleum and glass, cultivating a vaguely Up-From-The-Ghetto look and feel. Beefy's has a honky-tonk atmosphere, which I prefer for just about every purpose. I personally think all city council meetings should be held in honky-tonks. (Congress, on the other hand, should meet in an elevator, so they can't sit down.) Beefy's is probably a new-ish place, but the feel is genuine, and pleasant. And if you have kids, Beefy's is definitely the better place to go; it's got a game room off to one side, and a large outdoor "back yard" where you can dump your little brats while you relax.

Since these two places are so far apart -- about 20 miles -- they don't really compete for business. And, in the end, the products on offer are similar enough that convenience is likely to be the most frequent deciding factor in choosing between them and the hundreds of other burger joints around. In fact, driving from one to the other, you'd have to pass within half a mile of at least three superb burger joints. (I mean, of course, Armadillo's, Timbo's, and Sam's -- the last of which I only hear is good, having never eaten a burger there.)

Comments on Comments

I recently received a vituperative comment in response to one of my recent restaurant reviews. I've received a number of such comments from one individual who does not like my reviews, yet apparently can't stop reading them. I say "one individual"; that is an assumption, based on the shared characteristics of those comments: in addition to being, as I said, vituperative, they are uniformly ungrammatical, internally inconsistent, and, where not jejune, irrational. 

The poor grammar I don't mind so much. After a few years of reading things on the internet, one sort of grows accustomed to it and becomes more adept at ignoring or overlooking it. The internal inconsistencies of a comment I am also, usually, willing to overlook, in the expectation that anyone of reasonable intelligence reading it later will notice them as well, and mentally devalue the commentator on the basis of res ipsa loquitur. And besides, such inconsistencies are a normal part of human thought and feelings, even among the best-educated, as anyone who's read a few court opinions will know.

Jejune comments, such as the one I recently received, which boils down to a bombastic version of "Oh, yeah?" and actually used the phrase, "Who do you think you are?" are not worth my consideration. I left that sort of discussion behind on the playground, back when I was still excited about playing tee-ball. I don't miss it, and choose not to indulge it anew here. Such comments will not be posted.

And irrational comments will not be posted either. Authors of such comments are directed to the San Antonio Express News web site, where it seems that any comment, no matter how poorly thought out, no matter how devoid of sweet reason, no matter how unencumbered by the anchor of reality, is welcomed. You people who need to articulate (a charitable choice of words, I aver) wacko views on any subject can go there and spout venom to your heart's content. Or start your own damn blog.