Boxcar Boardwalk Takes Shape

All Aboard Deli
Dirty Dogz
One Cute Cupcake Boutique
Box Car Creamery
all at 5300 McCullough

(in The Yard shopping center in Olmos Park, behind Olmos Perk)

For many a year, a line of six old box cars sat vacant in the back of the Yard shopping center, on McCullough in Olmos Park. The owner of the shopping center had an idea, but apparently lacked the will to bring it to life. In the past year, though, that vision has started to blossom, and now the cars are all refurbished, and occupied, and open for business. One is a candle and gift shop, and one is a salon, but the other four have become, just within the last few months, four of the more interesting new small food establishments in town.

Last city inspection: August 2011
6 demerits

The first to open was the All Aboard Deli. I've been two or three times now, and have recommended it to a number of friends; all of whom, I suspect, have promptly forgotten about it. Out of sight, out of mind, no doubt: the biggest problem for All Aboard Deli's success, like all of the excellent new businesses in The Yard, is  invisibility. 

All Aboard Deli features a decade of sandwiches with railroad-related names, a gimmick that comes off as clever without being cloying. Some of the ingredients are rather too new-age for my own tastes — can you say 'sprouts'? — but there are plenty of people in the Midtown area, including some whom I respect and admire, for whom New and Trendy are not necessarily things to disparage, and these sandwiches should attract their interest. I will probably never order anything that boasts homemade mango avocado spread, but there are plenty of other things to interest me: excellent meats, really, really good breads (including a rye that, I find, I must exclude from my general dislike of rye bread), and tasty cheeses (Swiss, havarti and feta; the only real drawback about this place is that, with the low volume of business they presently have, they can't afford to offer a wider variety of cheeses), plus the fundamentally desirable combinations of textures that come from the use of high-quality, fresh ingredients.

My most recent choice was the Train Car Club. (Shouldn't that be the Club Car Club?) Lots and lots of thinly sliced turkey ("Black Forest Turkey," it says on the menu; is that a brand, or a style? I neither know nor care; it was good, and there ends my interest) and equally thinly sliced ham ("Tavern Ham," it says; that must be a brand name; but again, who cares?) with crisp bacon and all the right accoutrements to make the price seem more than reasonable; and all nestled between two marvellous slabs (i.e., thick slices) of a wonderfully tasty and surprisingly light bread. My friend Rick went with the Reuben,* piles of warm pastrami on that excellent rye bread I mentioned, plus sauerkraut (which isn't bad stuff, kids, despite the name) and Swiss cheese, with a homemade dressing. It was all I could do to keep from swiping half his sandwich.

All Aboard Deli is a wonderful out-of-the-way spot, and I'm torn between the desire to see them succeed, and the fear that they will succeed and be ruined for me. 

Two cars over is Dirty Dogz, a very new place looking to capitalize on the current trend toward gourmet hot dogs. Six months ago I would have sneered at the very idea that hot dogs are real food; but then, under pressure from family members, and displaying the lack of resistance that comes from being on vacation, I succumbed to the idea while visiting the gulf coast. OK, I admit it: hot dogs are not just for children, nor is their approbation limited any longer to cookouts, ball parks, movie theaters, visits to Chicago or New York, or quaint little carts on downtown sidewalks in tourist towns. Hot dogs, properly done, can be not just a meal, but a fully satisfying meal.

No city inspection yet

In this case, three hot dogs split between two people proved to be almost too much of a meal. Surprising, because they really didn't look all that big. We tried the Dirty Italian Meatball Dog, the Dirty Stuffed Jalapeño Dog, and the Dirty Kraut Dog. Based solely on the listed ingredients of each, I expected to like the meatball dog best and the kraut dog the least. Didn't happen that way: I couldn't pick a favourite. The kraut dog: nicely grilled onions and lots — even too much, if that's possible — of spicy brown mustard, and the overstuffed Nathan's dog. I wouldn't mind if the bun had been toasted just a little longer; that's true of all the hot dogs we sampled, because they tend quickly to turn to mush with the application of moist ingredients, of which there are plenty. But toasting buns is a finicky thing, so I won't hold the soggy buns too much against the kitchen here. In any case, even with the depredations of mustard (and other liquids) on bread, there was still enough of that crunchy, crumbly texture to titillate the tongue as these hot dogs vanished in quick succession. 

The problem with the Italian meatball dog — I say problem; it was no problem — is that I'm pretty persnickity about all things Italian. What little sense of ethnic heritage I have, being an all-American boy from way back,** is tenuously linked to a couple of Italian grandparents, one of whom could cook and the other of whom could eat, and both of whom could talk about food. So I'm disinclined to be appreciative of generic marinara sauce and commercially available mozzarella cheese; which, naturally, are what one finds on the Dirty Italian Meatball Dog. Still, even I, curmudgeon that I am, and dago-snob par excellence (or should I say per eccellenza?), can't deny that even mediocre generic marinara sauce and commercial mozzarella on generic meatballs out of some food-supplier's stock make, in combination, a delicious meal. It's all in the spices. Add to them a big ol' fat beefy hot dog and a toasted bun (soggy from the mozzarella, yes, but you know the kitchen-sink corollary to the mess-to-sandwich ratio) and you've got something worth having. And at four and a half bucks, I could stay fat on these things alone.

Then there's that stuffed-jalapeño dog: a nice kick to it, but one that sneaks up on you. After one bite I thought about old girlfriends who would just lie there. By the second bite I was picturing fantasies no mere woman has ever lived up to. Marvellous combination of flavours, as in a well-made stuffed jalapeño (and better, in fact, because it has bacon too), but without the deep-fat-frying. Again with the toasted bun infused with all the liquids of the ingredients, but also again, still enough crunch to satisfy that need for texture. Saying this was my least favourite of the three is like saying that big piles of Euros are my least favourite currency, compared to dollars and pounds. I would not turn them down, even in today's international market.

Last city inspection: November 2011
six demerits, half of which
I'd say don't count

So after you've downed a big, thick sandwich or a gourmet hot dog, you're faced with choices for dessert. Your choice becomes a conundrum, a Gordian knot of spectacular finishes, in the guise of businesses located at either end of the row of box cars. At the north end, you've got One Cute Cupcake Boutique, run by two women who know cute, and cupcakes. Being proudly male, I wasn't too enthused by the elevated cuteness quotient of this little bakery, but I couldn't help but be impressed by the cleverness of its operators (not to mention their exuberant enthusiasm for their products) or the variety of goodies on offer. 

the goodies

Having already stuffed myself with hot dogs (and ice cream, but we'll get to that), I couldn't bring myself to have a cupcake. Or, at least, I managed to resist chowing down on half a dozen of these things right then. So I bought a few to go. I'm happy to report that all three managed to survive the three-minute ride home.

People who know me know that I have, not to put too fine a point on it, a weakness for baked goods, so I say with some small pride that now, several hours after fetching home these delightful, even whimsical little cakes — including something called the Elvis, and a version of Boston cream pie that I will undoubtedly save for last — two of the three I bought liveth still. The one that has succumbed to my lust was a banana-nut cake stuffed (and I do mean stuffed) with sweet cream cheese filling. The banana chip that graced the top was more a visual treat than a culinary one, but that is the nature of banana chips. The cake was moist and firm and just sweet enough to be pleasing; the filling was very sweet, with a velvety texture and a good creamy flavour. Thank the Lord I only bought one. If I'm very lucky, I will not hear the others calling out to me in the middle of the night.

No city inspection yet.

Toward the other end of the boxcar boardwalk is the Box Car Creamery, open now about a month, I think. It presently offers about a dozen and a half flavours of ice cream. When I asked him where it's made, he said "Up north," which I thought meant, you know, New York or Cincinnati or some other foreign place, so I sardonically said, "You mean, like, Boerne?" Well, yes, turns out Boerne is exactly right. (In the owner's defense, I should mention that he comes from California, where people can't be expected to understand the deep cultural baggage that the term "up north" carries.) It is not, technically, home-made ice cream, but it is certainly artisanal ice cream. Rich, heavy, sinfully creamy ice cream, with intense flavours and no skimping on the ingredients. The chocolate is too chocolate-y to believe, the cookies and cream too thick with cookies. The amaretto peach pecan, my early favourite, proved to be too much for me. I will have to work up to it, I guess. 

With the removal of Justin's from Main Avenue to the Riverwalk, the opening of the Box Car Creamery is an especially welcome addition to the mid-city area, one approaching the promise of salvation. In South Texas, good ice cream is a pleasure in December, but an absolute necessity in summer. Right now this place has very limited hours (noon to five, if I remember right), but if we're lucky it will survive long enough to expand the schedule, and will be there to fill our needs when the temperature outside starts to approach the average I.Q. Let us pray.

* He is so predictable.

** Though still only 49 years.

Good, as Steakhouses Go

Texas Land & Cattle Steak House
201 North St. Mary's Street

(in the Drury Inn, on the Riverwalk 

next to the Sniper Trees floodgate)

Here's the thing about steak houses: if you own an outdoor grill, and are willing to spring for the charcoal and some mesquite chips, and take the time to monitor your piece of meat on the grill, you can make yourself a steak every bit as good as what people seem willing to pay any amount for. 

It used to be that steak houses had access to better quality meats than you could find at your local supermarket, but that's no longer true. The HEB I shop at, much as it irritates me in oh, so many ways, carries some excellent USDA-Prime steaks, as good as any you'd find at any of the big-name places around town. So what you're buying at a steak house is the convenience of having someone else do all the work, and plying you with alcohol and all the good, hot bread you want.

The holiday season is a particularly good time to visit
restaurants on the Riverwalk

Because I have that knowledge firmly lodged in my brain, I can't bring myself to go, any more, to the really high-end steak houses. I've been to all of them, I believe, and I've never yet had a steak that is really worth the exorbitant charges they ask for. When I have that yen to let someone else cook my meat, there are only a few options for me*, and all of them chain restaurants: Outback, which has franchises in twenty countries around the world; Saltgrass, a part of the Landry's Restaurant empire; and Texas Land & Cattle, which at least has the advantage of being Texas-born, though it now has a few locations beyond the light of the Lone Star.

All of these steak houses offer high-quality meat, properly cooked, nicely accompanied, and served in a comfortable setting. They compete on seasonings, which is purely a matter of personal preference, and on gimmicks like Outback's "bloomin' onion" and it's Australian theme. Texas Land & Cattle's gimmicks — it's "signatures" — are the smoked sirloin and the lettuce wedge, both of which found their way to our table last night.

The lettuce wedge is exactly that: a big chunk of iceberg lettuce, gussied up with bleu cheese, bacon, tomato and croutons. As salads go, if you like bleu cheese, this is an excellent choice. It's crisp and fresh, and it's so large you might want to just have the rest of your meal served in a go-box. Personally, I rate bleu cheese right above molded bread on my list of favourite foods, so I opted for the tortilla soup as an appetizer. The creamy broth was reminiscent of the excellent tortilla soup my wife makes, with the added bonus of smoked chicken, which imparted a pleasing flavour, lifting the soup above the ranks of the merely good tortilla soups. The serving should have been larger, the tortilla pieces more plentiful, but overall it was a satisfying prelude to the meal.

The smoked sirloin is the item that keeps this restaurant at the top of my steak-house preferences, such as they are. It is a sirloin, the whole thing, coated with cracked pepper and smoked, which is something I can't do at home. It's the item I've chosen from the menu probably nineteen times out of twenty. Last night my wife chose it (in combination with the lettuce wedge), and it was as good as ever. But I decided to sample some of the other items on the menu for a change, so I went with the TXLC Trio, a sampler plate with a six-ounce sirloin steak (graded USDA Choice, not prime), a mesquite-grilled chicken breast with barbecue sauce, and four medium shrimp (fried or grilled; I chose grilled). The menu lists a rice side-dish, but I got a baked potato instead. 

Having had my soup and two loaves of soft, crusty, hot bread, it's no surprise that about half my entrée made it home to be today's lunch. There is a lot of food on the TXLC Trio plate, enough even to make a curmudgeonly miser like me feel like I got a pretty good deal. (A nice, refreshing drink of bourbon helped, too.) The steak was cooked just a tad beyond the medium-rare I ordered it at, but close enough to call it done right. The chicken was cooked, I would say, just about perfectly too, though I found the barbecue sauce used to be much sweeter than I care for; a common complaint for me. The shrimp were cooked through and nicely seasoned, but the tails were burnt. I don't think it'd really be fair in counting off for that, though, since probably 99% of the customers any restaurant gets wouldn't give a hoot in Hell about the state of the meatless tail. But I'm one of those peculiar people who will usually eat the crunchy little buggers, so I was disappointed that they were carbon instead of calcium.

Latest city inspection: May 2011
33 demerits (rather a lot)

The baked potato was steroidally huge, and accompanied with all the fixings we want on a "loaded" potato, including a mixture of cheddar and jack cheese instead of the usual cheddar. If I'd've thought to ask for some jalapeño slices for it, it might have been perfect. (And another benefit to go to a steak house instead of cooking at home is, they don't serve microwaved baked potatoes at restaurants, and we all know there's a noticeable difference.)

The downtown location of Texas Land & Cattle is in a hotel. That would normally be a strike against it for me, because hotel restaurants tend to cater to a clientèle other than the local population. But a steak house is a steak house is a steak house, and besides, this particular hotel can claim some indulgence as part of a locally-owned chain. Besides, the Riverwalk is such a pleasant place, especially this time of year. I've also been to the location on Loop 410, and actually prefer it in some ways (convenient free parking, for example, but when the weather's fine, as it was last night, the distance from door to car is actually a point in favour of downtown restaurants). The interior décor is pleasing if not authentic, and the staff that I've encountered at the downtown location, and not just on last night's visit, has always been of the highest calibre for efficiency and helpfulness.

* There are some good independent steak houses around, but my wife doesn't ever want to go to those places.

Politically Correct Decoration by Committee

For as long as I can remember, the City of San Antonio strung those big old-fashioned coloured bulbs from the trees of the Riverwalk every Christmas. They would spend months, it seemed like, putting them up, checking them for burned-out bulbs to replace, and they would light them up for a month or so, then spend a month or so taking them all down. 

The county courthouse dome from the Riverwalk

Our present city council, not content to let San Antonio enjoy the lameness that is its hallmark, decided to get out in front of the politically-correct trend toward eco-friendly lighting, and spent who knows how much to replace the nearly quarter of a million old-fashioned bulbs with newfangled LED lights — millions of them. These new lights are brighter, the City points out (implying that brighter is necessarily better) and the two million or so lights we now have to decorate our Riverwalk with use half as much electricity as the 200,000 old bulbs did: ten times the bulbs, twenty times the light, for half the recurring costs. 

Not knowing how much the new strings of bulbs cost — knowing only that, when I price them in the stores for my own consideration, I still consider them too expensive — I reckon that, with as many lights as the City puts out every year, that reduction in annual costs is probably enough to make the purchase price worthwhile. 

So I was all gassed up to get downtown this year and see these newfangled lights, and have now done so.

The new lights certainly are brighter. In fact, they are positively garish in their glow. This might not be such an unpleasantry, if the lights were strung gracefully from the branches overhanging the water, as the old ones used to be. But these new ones are wrapped tightly around the trunks and major branches of selected trees, in the already-dated style popular in the early 1990s, to make the trees so illuminated seem like so many dead victims of lightning strikes. Colorful, yes; bright, yes; pretty, in some ways yes. But not nearly as attractive or as graceful as the old dangling strands of barely-bright lights were in years past.

I sure hope that next year, and on into the future, the people who decide how to use these things will devote a little more thought to the decorations than they did this year.

Excursion Along Hildebrand, Part I

After posting my last review, a couple of days ago, I decided to visit some of the other places on Hildebrand that I haven't been to, or haven't been to lately, just for comparison's sake, and to put more substance into my often-stated belief that there are more good taquerías and Mexican restaurants on that street than in all of Loopland. Today was a good start.

Today I visited 

El Manantial Mexican Restaurant

1136 West Hildebrand

(at I-10, next to the railroad tracks)

This restaurant is in one of the seedier-looking strip centers in, let's face it, a not-too-glamourous part of a no-longer-glamourous street. There was a time when Hildebrand Avenue was the City Limits, and by the time they moved farther out, Hildebrand was reaching what would be its peak of trendiness. It has long ago subsided from what was never a particularly frothy avant-garde position, but neither is it continuing to decline. If anything, it's threatening to experience a sort of low-level gentrification. 

But not here by the railroad tracks. It's a semi-industrial area, the natural home of machine shops, contractor supply houses, tattoo parlours and bars you only hear about on the blood-and-guts local news. This particular strip-center is so tatty-looking that I've never considered stopping at whatever restaurant has occupied the space on the end over the years, and there have been plenty of them. (Though I did consider buying the little shopping center when it was for sale a few years back.) El Manantial is only the latest kitchen to set up shop there. 

No city inspection yet.

I wonder if its predecessors in that space were as good. If they were (and plenty of good restaurants have failed in this town, like in any other), then I regret not having tried them. Because El Manantial is one of the best on a street filled with good ones. It is totally lacking in aesthetic attractiveness on the outside, but once in through the doors, you find a large space, brightly painted in attractive colour combinations: two-toned side walls with a terra cotta theme are juxtaposed with muted yellow (my friend Rick calls it "goldenrod"; unlike most men, he knows the names of more than eight colours) on the back walls and a section of ceiling. The décor is for the most part done with more of a thought toward, if not elegance, then cohesion. The exception to this is the area around the counter, in the back, where the tasteful decorator's work concedes to the exigencies of a mom-and-pop business, and all is hand-lettered poster boards advising of specials, rules, and so on. Oh, well.

The place was empty when we arrived, though apparently everyone was just waiting to see where we went to eat, because it filled up quickly when noon came. Many of the people who joined us in the restaurant are regulars, as evinced by the greetings they gave the staff, and each other. We, however, two gringos in a swarm of mejicanos, received service as prompt, as pleasant, and as efficient as any of that regular crowd. Our waitress spoke about as much English as I do Spanish, but between us we got by just fine. I believe she's one of the more effective waitrons* I've encountered lately. 

The food was very good overall. The corn tortillas holding my tacos (made in-house, naturalmente) were medium-thin and not at all lacking in coherence. That's a fancy way of saying they didn't fall apart even though they weren't heavy. Rick's flour tortillas (also made in-house) were good, but unremarkable. The fillings he chose (his usuals, beef fajita and picadillo) were on the high side of average, with plenty of meat, good seasoning, and, in the fajita taco, a good accompaniment of onion and pepper. 

My machacado taco was better than average, and average, as you must know, is pretty good. There was good dried beef in it, and the egg was cooked solid but not dry. The other requisite ingredients were all present, although if anything there was rather more onion than I would call perfect; but it only obtruded mildly, and in passing. It wasn't enough of a flaw to really complain about. Usually I wouldn't let that stop me, but the overall quality was so good that I'm in a forgiving mood.

The real standout was the chilaquile taco. From the first bite, I knew that I had found a truly superior chilaquile. I do not know what about it makes it so good. I thought it was that the eggs were scrambled in butter — they had a very buttery taste — but the waitress was sure it was done in oil. There was plenty of sharp cheddar cheese, not that cheap and common (in both senses of the word) stuff that can't legally be called cheese; and the veggies were grilled to absolute perfection. The chilaquiles themselves — the fried bits of corn tortilla — were also cooked perfectly. They were cut in a square shape, which makes them look less than thoroughly authentic, but that's just appearances. The flavour and texture was right up there with the best.

The only other thing worth mentioning was the basket of tostadas brought to us after we had ordered. The salsa accompanying the basket of chips was good but not noteworthy (by contrast, the salsa verde that came with our tacos was excellent), but the chips were ... oh, let's just say disappointing. A little too thick, a little too greasy. But that was not enough to detract from the total experience of tacos at El Manantial.

* Thanks to Biff and the Hankmeister for that very useful coinage; Biff for thinking it up, and the Hankmeister for passing it on to me.

Yet Another Taquería

Taquerias La Huasteca #3
3901 San Pedro

(at Olmos Drive, just north of the railroad underpass)

There is a building on the corner of Olmos Drive and San Pedro that, in the 20-plus years I've lived in the area, has housed probably half a dozen restaurants. None of them have thrived, or even survived. Most of them — all but one, in fact — opened and closed before I'd even had the chance to try them. The other day I was stopped at the traffic light on Olmos, and realized that yet another restaurant occupied that space now.

It was a fairly long light, so I had the chance to study the building. It's a sort of mid-50s industro-retail space, all plate glass windows with a gaudy orange overhang; a few parking places facing both streets, a warehouse behind, a failed bank (now a lawyer's office, I believe) across the side street, and used-car dealerships on the opposite corners. The name in big letters was amateurishly painted across several of the windows.

Those windows are coated with a glare-reducing shading material that is so dark, it makes the business look closed. If it hadn't been for a small lighted "open" sign above the door, I would have concluded that yet another restaurant had come and gone un-noticed. But this one was still in business; it hasn't even been there long enough to fail.

So today, on my way to take part in the Black Friday shopping experience — something I normally avoid like flavoured mineral water — I took my chance and had a late breakfast there.

In a neighbourhood that has more good taco houses than grackles, why would anybody think there's a call for another one? This is not some novice restaurateur: the same people have another location about a mile away, on Hildebrand, near the Deco-B. They must have a lot of confidence in their ability to draw trade away from the sixteen thousand other good places within a mile. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.

When I try a new taco house for the first time, I like to order things that I'm most familiar with. How can I evaluate a place rationally if I order something I rarely, or never, eat elsewhere? So this morning it was what I think of as My Usual: one chilaquile taco, and one machacado taco, both in corn.

The interior of the place seems cavernous. It's not really that big, but would comfortably hold nearly twice as many tables as it currently has, about a dozen. Or a dance floor; there's room for a dance floor. But instead of music, you have the audio from a television in an entertainment center, rescued from somebody's living room, over in the back corner. And of course the TV is tuned to some telenovela at this time of day. This is where that cavernous room really comes in handy, as I could sit far enough away to ignore the TV entirely (and read a little in my "car book" — I always keep something to read in the car, and it always takes forever to get through; currently I'm reading an interesting and well-written, if somewhat oddly focused, history of New Orleans).

No city inspection yet.

If I wanted to complain (and unusually for me, I don't) I would find some slight fault with the service. It was relaxed to the point of distraction, but good enough under the circumstances, and everything was done correctly. No particular effort went into making me feel welcome; it was kind of like the second week visiting your mom's house. Yes, they're glad you're there but the novelty has worn off.

The food I got was well-made, good enough to justify this additional taco house in the neighbourhood. The corn tortillas had good texture and reasonably good flavour, and they were packed with well-made fillings. The veggies in both tacos had been cooked sufficiently — I find a lot of places are in too much of a hurry at that stage, which is on the way to becoming a pet peeve — but not over done. The eggs were thoroughly cooked without being the least bit dry. And the machacado was nicely chewy, while the chilaquiles had just the right amount of crunch. All that gets the place a rating slightly above average, but I left feeling that it could easily have done it all better. The seasoning seemed mundane, unadventurous. The people in the kitchen seem to know what they're doing; I would just encourage them to try something a little out of their routine.

NOT A RESTAURANT REVIEW

One or two restaurant owners or managers have taken exception to my review of their establishment in the past few years. That's alright: I'm entitled to my informed opinion, and they are entitled to take umbrage when I say what I think. I'm not a perfect critic, but a review I recently spotted on Urbanspoon San Antonio makes me feel like one by comparison.

This appeared on the page for Il Sogno, a trendy, new-ish, Italian place in the Pearl, owned by a guy who's as close to being a celebrity in this town as anyone who owns a mandoline, Andrew Weissman:

Bad service
by Food Lover (1 review)

I took my guest for a birthday dinner. There were six of us.

The food was great, but the service was unbelievably terrible.

First off, our waiter could not pour a bottle of wine evenly. Two people, including the birthday guest hardly get any and he suggested us to order another bottle when we had a plan to order a different kind of bottle next to match the entrée.

Secondly, he could not get our orders right. In addition to that, he kept rushing us. We felt at the point we sat down, they were already trying to hurry us out for next customers.


Thirdly, we order a cake with a candle on it, of course, it is a birthday dinner. They brought a cake with a candle on it, but they brought the cake when the birthday guest was not at the table!!! The waiter did not know what to do so we had to ask a manager to take it back and wait for a right timing.


Lastly, we ordered two pots of coffee, but we had to use a desert spoon to stir the coffee .not to mention they did not bother to bring any sugar when there is a party of six.


I will never use the restaurant for a company event.

I don't know who "Food Lover" is. The fact that he (or she) has only posted one review (and — why pass up the opportunity to quibble? — that he doesn't know the difference between a "dessert" and a "desert") indicates to me that he doesn't really take any serious interest in restaurant dining. 

The fact that he thinks you can get six glasses of wine out of a bottle makes me think that he's the sort of person who either drinks wine straight from the bottle, or gets looped by the second glass & so doesn't know how much he drank after that. 

The fact that he blames the waiter for his guest of honour's not being at the table when the birthday cake came indicates to me that he is a person who looks to place blame anywhere but where it belongs. 

And that makes me think that, if the waiter really did have a problem getting the table's orders right, it was probably their fault, not the waiter's. 

And I will even go so far as to assume that the reason his party was being rushed was because the house staff wanted these people out of their restaurant, but were too considerate to simply throw them out. And I reckon that, if the people at Il Sogno read the review and remembered this party of six, they're very glad not to have the threat of a company event for Food Lover.

All in all, it makes me feel like I'm a damn good restaurant critic. And maybe I'll take the wife to Il Sogno tonight. 

Potential Unrealized

Bunz Burgerz & More
1012 South Presa Street

(in Southtown, across from Pig Liquors, a 

charming little place y'all should visit)

Southtown feels different from the rest of San Antonio. The congested, urgent newer developments out in Loopland and beyond feel, unavoidably, like Anytown, USA. The postwar developments inside the Loop feel, generally, like comfortably bland sets for Leave It To Beaver. The old pre-war neighbourhoods closer to downtown feel like where your grandma used to live, where you could play stickball in the street and then walk down to the ice house for a soda pop. And downtown feels like, well, like a fairly ordinary city on the day before a holiday, when half the people have taken off early from work, and the rest are just kind of relaxed in anticipation. 

Southtown, though, reminds me of a cross between small-town America and small-town Europe. Not a large area, it's not really easy to get lost in, but it is easy to not be sure whether you want to turn to the right, or to the left. As you travel its few streets, criss-crossing each other at odd angles and turning with the nearby river, you start to decelerate, and very quickly you're feeling the hum of its low-key, slightly quirky trance. You relax. You drive slow enough to irritate the city folk behind you, who are probably from Dallas or somewhere, and so have farther to go to reach a state of bliss. You start to notice the old buildings, the galleries and small offices, the low-aesthetic art, the oddities that surround you. You mellow.

Bunz Burgers and More fits right in. A newish occupant of the pointy end of the building that stretches the entire block, its large glass windows with northern exposure are like the viewscreen on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, except that you're not going where no one has gone before; you're sitting still, and letting it all pass by you. Bright, bright walls of primary colours, broken stucco, only two annoying flat-panel televisions, and a few too many tables more or less lined up in two rows across an oddly-shaped dining room, with the kitchen in back behind a low counter, so pleasing aromas drift out to excite you: you feel comfortable enough because the huge windows make the place feel much more expansive than it is. The volume on the televisions is off (thank the Lord, because they're tuned to different sports stations; the audio would make it hellacious) and, despite the hardness of all the surfaces in the room, even the buzz of conversations at other tables stays in the background. 

The servers are cheerful; a tad overworked during the lunch rush, but they're capable people, and you appreciate the effort they make to get you what you want, and get it right, and make sure you're happy with everything. They seem genuinely glad to have you in their restaurant, so you avoid mention of anything that's less than perfect: just as they are being good hosts, you want to be a good guest. 

Everything, unfortunately, is less than perfect. It is, so far, all potential, unrealized. But the place is young, only about three months old. And it's a burger joint, not an haute-cuisine nosh house. It may yet improve.

The afore-mentioned pleasing aromas wafting in from the kitchen made us eager to try the food. The menu features several varieties of burgers, including an intriguing version of surf-and-turf: grilled beef with charcoal-grilled shrimp; but Rick opted for a slightly more traditional sandwich, the Flamin' Jack (beef, Jack cheese, grilled onions and roasted jalapeños), while I wanted to try the house's version of the Cuban sandwich, the Miami: roast pork, ham and Provolone on a pressed hoagie roll. We also asked for a side order of fries and onion rings, half and half.

Last city inspection:
October 2011
4 demerits

We split the sandwiches. We also split on the verdict for Rick's burger. He thought it was a non-specific "pretty good." I didn't. The onions and cheese were good, and the roasted jalapeños gave the sandwich a subtle but very pleasant kick; but I thought the burger's main feature, the half-pound of grilled meat, was overcooked, to a point where it was bone-dry and had lost almost all its flavour.

My sandwich was not as deliciously messy as the best Cuban sandwiches, but it had excellent taste nonetheless, and the meat in it was finely cooked. But it was kept from being a complete success by the fact that the hoagie roll was pressed almost into cardboard. Some bites, my teeth could barely penetrate the solidity of the bread.

The onion rings were excellent. They were thinly-cut and breaded in a well-seasoned flour mix, cooked long enough but not too long, and served hot and crumbly. If only the rest of the meal had been prepared with as much attention. The fries, on the other hand were a huge disappointment. We received them in two batches (I'm not sure why; the waiter apologised when he brought the first part, then returned with another basket containing more). The first was undercooked and cold, with a greasy texture and almost no potato flavour. The second batch was undercooked and hot, but with the same greasy texture and as little potato flavour as the first. Maybe if they'd been cooked a little longer, in hotter, fresher oil, they'd acquire a bit of crispiness that would help them overcome their limp, flaccid feel. They were a great deal like the fries that keep Chester's from being a really good chain of burger joints.

But like I say, Bunz has only been around a little while, and as much as this sort of cooking has an artisanal side, it ain't rocket science. Clearly the folks behind the counter have some idea of what makes a good burger joint. When they get it right, there'll be one more reason to hang out in Southtown. Until then, though, I'll be finding my burgers elsewhere.

A Surprise, and not the good kind

Cappy's
5011 Broadway

(in Alamo Heights, behind Cappychino's; parking lot entry from Mary D Avenue)

I admit to feeling a certain gratitude to Cappy Lawton and his wife Sue (or Suzy; I forget which she goes by) for resuscitating La Fonda on Main a number of years ago. That place is an institution in the neighbourhood, but one which was on the verge of being dismissed. They bought it, and fixed the problems, and while it may not be the absolute best Mexican restaurant in town — a mythical title anyway, in this town — it's certainly a good one, and charming, and reliable.

The Lawtons had already had success with Cappy's, their signature restaurant on Broadway; and in many ways The paradigmatic Alamo Heights restaurant. It's always been a little on the pricey side, being geared as it is to the upscale end of the '09 zip code, but it's always been a comfortable, charming and enjoyable place for those of us who feel that eating there is an occasionally-worthwhile splurge.

Planning our weekly Friday culinary excursion, I realized we had not been to Cappy's in far too long. We rectified that last night, and I come away feeling an ambivalence about the place that I've never felt before. 

The restaurant itself is invisible from Broadway, but somehow everybody knows where it is. It hides among the live oaks behind its little sister, Cappychino's, a more informal place that is as much bar as café. Cappy's looks and feels like the common room of a medium-range Colorado ski lodge. Wide blond flooring, large glass walls set at an angle to give onto the patio area, a few tasteful if not exquisite paintings; tables with white cloths properly spaced along the walls of the narrow front dining room, a small bar area, the hint of other rooms farther back. It has a feel that is both intimate and open; it is the sort of place where you wish to be seen. 

Our waiter was with us in a flash. The entire staff was, as always, capable and industrious, but our waiter — I'm pretty sure I recall correctly when I say his name was Rene — seemed to be the best of a good bunch. Another waiter, at a nearby table, made a slight nuisance of himself by going on and on at a graceless pace — think New York — and in an unnecessarily loud voice; but once he finally reached the end of his spiel, calm was restored, and reigned until our leisurely departure.

The menu was a disappointment. There was, I thought, a serious lack of variety to it. It was heavily biased toward seafood, which constituted over half the entrées on offer, and for which I was not in the mood. The only beef dishes available were steaks, which are a fine choice sometimes, and the house-specialty "Heights Burger," with a $16 price tag that would guarantee dissatisfaction for me. The most interesting dish remaining was Mustang Chicken, which was my wife's choice, leaving me either roast chicken or gumbo; neither of which appealed. Off-menu specials included a cut of prime rib, which in the end was my choice, not because I wanted it, but because I didn't want anything else they had.

The city of Alamo Heights can't be
bothered to make restaurant health
inspections readily available on line.

We each started with mushroom bisque, a dark medium-thick soup of the day. My wife thought it excellent; I thought it a little bland, and found the texture off-putting. The outstanding bread Cappy's offers went a long way toward making this course much more enjoyable for me.

On the plus side, that Mustang chicken dish my wife ordered was marvelous. Coated with horseradish and served with a red pepper coulis, it was absolutely delectable, one of the greater taste sensations of recent memory. Unfortunately I only got a single taste, since it wasn't my dish. It was served on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes, with a vegetable medley.

My own plate of prime rib was another disappointment. I had ordered it medium rare. When it came, I hardly noticed that it was served medium — such distinctions are often slight, and beyond the ken of both cooks and customers; I probably would have forgotten to mention it at all had the check, when it came, not shown that somewhere between my lips and the cook's ear, "medium rare" had become "medium" — because it had what I can only describe as an odd density. It was a thick cut, thicker than I was expecting, but had none of the marbling I was accustomed to seeing in prime rib; nor did it have the soft rind of fat that should give it so much flavour. It was tender but not at all juicy, and had sort of a pressed look, as though cooked under some heavy weight. At bottom, I find myself entertaining the suspicion that the meat I was served was not from prime-grade beef; how else to explain the peculiar texture of the meat? It had an undistinguished taste, palatable but not more, even with the aggressive application of a very nice horseradish sauce.

The prime rib was served with delicious mofongo mashed potatoes and the same vegetable mix of green beans, mushrooms and yellow beets* as was served with my wife's dinner. The beans were perfectly crispy, while the  beets were unbelievably tender, making the entire medley a textural thrill one can only expect in the best restaurants.

I had gone into Cappy's knowing that its prices were not of the shy, retiring variety. Had the food been of the quality I had expected from eight or ten previous visits, I would not have been too unhappy. But because it did not live up to expectations, I came away feeling very unhappy about a check that surpassed $80. This dissatisfaction was made sharper, too, by the recollection of a more artful and satisfying meal for about half the cost the week before.

As I say, this is the first time I've been less than completely satisfied with Cappy's. After all these years, it would be too curmudgeonly, even for me, to simply dismiss the place as no longer any good. But next time I go, I will unavoidably approach it with somewhat lowered expectations, and the sense that it will have to work to regain the respect it has lost in my esteem.

* Beets are second on my list of Five Foods I Will Not Eat. These were interesting enough to make me give some thought to revising my list, but on reflection, I still hate beets.

¡Impresionante!

RoMo's Café
7627 Culebra, Suite 107

(at Ingram Road)

The local campus of the Culinary Institute of America has been putting out graduates for a while now, but Rob Yoas is the first alumnus of that campus, that I know of, to open a restaurant locally. He and his wife Monica (who, I understand, is an on-camera talent on one of the local Spanish-language stations) have put this interesting little place into a strip center out beyond Ingram Mall. 

CIA grads have something of a reputation for quality, and the success of some who have been through the program at the New York or California locations allow the school to bask in their reflected glow. If it is "just" a trade school, it's a prestigious one, and one that shows what trade schools can aspire to. This country could use more such trade schools.

The space chosen for this culinary venture is airy, with its very high ceiling painted dark red, its wainscoting and dark furniture set off against light yellow-tinted walls. The décor has a warmth to it that is only mildly disturbed by the two gigantic projection television screens (and five smaller flat-panel sets) that cover three sides. While they seem grossly out of place in a "refined but casual" restaurant, they are, mercifully, placed high enough on the walls that they don't continually assault your vision; even better, they were all turned off.

I was more than a little surprised to find the place so sparsely attended. Contrary to our normal practice, we had waited until seven o'clock to leave home for dinner (to let that awful Loop 410 traffic die down), and arrived at what should have been well into a peak part of the Friday night dinner rush; but there were only three or four tables occupied. And while it had picked up some by the time we left, my impression afterwards is that this place deserves to enjoy the same kind of fashionable buzz as any of the other snob-appeal places in town. It ought to be packed, despite its unfashionable suburban strip-center location.

The waiters on duty — only two, both also named Rob — were attentive and capable. The one whose table we were at seemed tentative, as though he were very new to this table-waiting business, but he had the virtue of not guessing at answers to our questions. If he didn't know, he found out. He was able to give us full information about the unusual food on offer, and was very helpful in our decision making; which was particularly good, because there were so many intriguing things on the menu. I agonized over the sandwiches and entrées on the menu, and on the specials board near the entrance; it was a chore to finally make a choice, but in the end I chose the duck and gator tacos, paired with a Shiner hefeweizen; my wife went with pasta in vodka sauce, with some kind of red wine. I have no interest in red wine so I can't tell you the first thing about it.

Last city inspection: September 2011
A perfect score!

The gator taco was chunks of tail meat (and no, it doesn't taste like chicken; it tastes like gator) that seemed to have a light, seasoned breading on them, served in a flour tortilla with some kind of light sauce and a few familiar vegetable accoutrements. That doesn't sound like much, but it may have been the best taco I've ever eaten. It was certainly the best alligator meat I've ever eaten, much better than I can fix at home (and I take some small snobbish pride in being the only person I know who actually has prepared alligator at home, though not for many years). The only thing that kept it from being perfect was that the oil from the duck taco had coated the outside of the tortilla, making it feel unpleasant to hold.

The duck taco was also purdy damn good: a portion of delicious meat topped with a dollop of veggies and a thin ribbon of something white. (I don't remember, now, what it was. Yogurt? Sour cream? Ricotta cheese? Whatever it was, it was good.) Except for the afore-mentioned oil, that dripped off the taco and infested the other tortilla, the dish was exquisite in its flavour and texture.

The vodka sauce on the pasta was light, nicely coloured and tasty. There were chunks of what looked like minced garlic in the mix, and the sauce was unevenly distributed over the pasta. (That's a good thing, actually: it shows that the kitchen isn't taking easy shortcuts, by pre-mixing and re-warming the dish. Of course, in a house that is trying to establish a reputation as a premier-class venue — a distinction well within its grasp — such shortcuts would be shocking and untenable anyway.) The pasta was appropriately al dente, who is rather hard to satisfy on that point. She was quite satisfied. The only downside to the pasta dish was the rather drab piece of French bread served with it, which stuck out like a Kia Rio in the parking lot at Bill Gates's wedding.

This wonderful meal was topped off by a serving of pastel imposible, a traditional Mexican cake. In RoMo's variation, the cake is more an English tea cake than the traditional smooth chocolate cake popular down South. It is served with a rich, sweet cream sauce, and one slice should satisfy two sweet tooths.

RoMo excels in value as well. Food of this calibre is normally priced noticeably higher, yet even with a glass of wine and a bottle of beer, we managed to get out for well under $45, well below average on our weekly excursions into the world of restaurant cuisine. That, my friends, is really impressive.

Bad Watermelon

Bun & Barrel
1150 Austin Highway

(at Exeter Street)

To me, barbecue is like watermelon. 

A good watermelon is wonderfully tasty, and messy. Bad watermelon isn't so much bad as just not good. The universe of watermelons is divided into a great mass of mediocre ones, and a tiny sprinkling of good ones. Very few watermelons are worth the inevitable mess. 

Barbecue, prepared by artists, is also wonderfully taste, and messy. Bad barbecue is okay, but nothing more (until you get into the styles popular in some other parts of the country, which can be revolting). Most barbecue isn't worth the mess.

Bun & Barrel is a restaurant that's been serving up barbecue on Austin Highway for ages. I'm sure when the first Spanish explorers passed this way, Bun & Barrel had an icon on their GPS screens, and they probably stopped in for dinner. Maybe they liked it, maybe they didn't. 

I was last there more recently than the Spanish explorers, but it had been decades; long enough that I had no memory of it, good or bad. So, driving down the road the other day with my faithful sidekick, Rick, and the lunch rush just beginning, we decided it was time to give it a try. 

Outwardly, the place hasn't changed since at least the Eisenhower era, a relentless hold on tradition that I find generally comforting. Inside, the place has surely been spruced up more recently, because the floors and walls and furnishings were clean and neat, showing nowhere near the decrepitude that sixty years will produce in retail property. The theme of the décor, loosely displayed, was the Rock & Roll era of the 1950s and '60s, meaning that the background music being played was mostly old when I awoke to the world. Another comforting thing, though I suspect people who came of age after the Berlin Wall came down are starting to tire of its ubiquity.

Not a large place, Bun & Barrel manages to pack people in at meal times, without having them feel packed in. Service is prompt and cheerful, and the staff's quickness keeps the tables turning over. There is a buzz of conversation in the dining rooms, but it's not so fashionably loud as to deter pleasant conversation.

The menu is almost without surprises: barbecued beef, chicken, sausage, ham; burgers; fried fish for the Friday Catholics; and side dishes that you expect to find in any self-respecting barbecue house. The only departure from the ordinary (besides the absence of pork loin) is the "spicy Thai burger," which I take as evidence to support the belief that Bun & Barrel is now owned by the people behind Tong's Thai restaurant, next door. I had Thai the other day, so I had no interest in that novelty menu item.

The best barbecue I've had — and despite my bias against the cuisine, I've had a lot, being a native Texan born in exile — is moist, tender and complex. That is true of good barbecue whether eaten in Texas, its true home, or in some benighted foreign place like Missouri or Alabama. The barbecue at Bun & Barrel, sadly, was none of those things. The turkey and beef were both dry through and through, and less tender than crumbly; as though they had been dehydrated prior to cooking. The two sauces available in squeeze bottles on the table (one sweet, too sweet for me; the other piquant) did a little to mitigate the lack of good texture, but not enough. The sausage was a little better in texture, but had little in the way of flavour to recommend it.

The side dishes were reasonably tasty, though only the french fries stood out. They, in fact, would probably rank in my personal Top Ten, if I could think of nine other places with really good fries. They were cut with the peeling on, and fried perfectly in good-quality oil. They had a hint of crispiness about them, and an excellent potato flavour on the inside. The beans were in that vague area between good enough and pretty good, with plenty of pork to flavour its thick, rich sauce, but the seasonings just missed the mark. The cole slaw was pretty to look at, and not bad to taste, but its sauce was runny to the point of being water. 

Last city inspection: September 2011
Only 6 demerits

There was something about the ambience of the place that prompted both of us to order malts, something I haven't done three times in my life. The malt flavour in Rick's was much more pronounced than in mine, I guess, because he commented on how clearly it came out, while I suspected that I had been given a mere milk shake. Still, the consistency of the it was excellent, and if I had ordered a milk shake instead of a malt, I would be raving about it, and comparing it favourably to the shakes at places like the Olmos Pharmacy. (No, it wasn't quite that good, but it would have merited serious comparison.)

My Happy Place: Guanajuato hildebrandensis

El Rafas Cafe
1535 West Hildebrand

(between I-10 and West Avenue)

Last city inspection: October 2010
15 demerits

I've often expressed the opinion that there are more good Mexican restaurants on Hildebrand Avenue than in all of San Antonio outside Loop 410. This is not mere hyperbole, but Hildebrand is, by local standards, unremarkable in this regard. All of the major streets, from here to Mission Espada, are lined with mom-and-pop operations that put the O in San Antonio. Hildebrand just seems to be the northernmost outpost of that thick carpeting of taquerías. Get beyond it heading north, and high-quality tacos grow increasingly rare and precious, until, when you can hear the traffic on the Loop, you have reached the taco equivalent of Death Valley.

I don't know why that is. All those people who grew up on the West Side and the South Side — before the people known locally as "Anglos," decades ago, discovered the Joy of Breakfast Tacos — now live on the north side, many outside the Loop; you'd think they would patronize places that make tacos como Abuelita hecha, yet those places seem not to have found their way successfully out to Loopland with the population. Maybe they eat at home?

Fortunately for me — and that is, of course, all that really matters — Hildebrand Avenue is close to home.

One of these many good Mexican restaurants is El Rafas. It's a little out of the main Hildebrand culinary cluster, being west of Interstate 10, but as it's right up there with the best of the best on that stretch of city street, it's worth the short extra drive. My friend Rick and I went there the other day for a late breakfast.

Jardín Unión, Cd. Guanajuato
photo by Gorgo

One of the things I like best about El Rafas is that the people who run the place are Guanajuatense. My love affair with comida tipica mejicana began decades ago with a plate of chilaquiles con huevo in a tiny, crowded restaurant that spilled out into Jardín Unión. Most of my good friends in Mexico live in Guanajuato, or are from there; all of them went to school there, and no matter how much they move around, when I think of going down to Mexico, Guanajuato is the place I think of. (Sadly, none of my pictures from there are digital, but I'm thinking of getting a scanner. It's just a shade too much technology for me now, though. Meanwhile, I have to use somebody else's pictures.)

Anyway: when I need a dose of memory, El Rafas is the place I go. The food is food that I could get at any of the thirty or so restaurants I know in Guanajuato (even if I can never remember the names of them: the place in the jardín; the place on the road to Dolores Hidalgo; the place that looks like a church; the place down the street from some other place ... you get the idea). If I had an abuelita to make tacos for me growing up, this would be the food I'd've grown up with. It's delicious, it's familiar, it's good quality. It's like another home.

But there's something else I particularly like about El Rafas: the feel of the place. No matter what time of day I go there, it always feels like it's full of family. Not that I get involved in the conversations going on around me; it's just that the place is always full of unusually chatty people.

Go to most decent taco houses, and you'll find people talking sotto voce, consciously keeping their conversations among themselves. Or people sitting by themselves, reading books or newspapers, or sitting silently with companions. But at El Rafas, it seems somewhat de rigueur for people to speak, not loudly, but in their happy voices, and the conversations are distinctly animated. Everybody's talking cheerfully and sincerely, like a TV family around the dinner table on a show from before Seventies Angst took hold of our culture. It all makes you glad to be a part of it. Even I, the laconic curmudgeon, tend to talk more, and more cheerfully, at El Rafas. (This may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly feels good.)

Otherwise, the restaurant features reliably good service and good prices. I almost hate to say such nice things about it, because it's already a challenge to find a table there, some mornings.

Not Worth the Drive

Las Salsas
2018 San Pedro

(a block north of Woodlawn)

I started going to Las Salsas not long after it opened. It was conveniently located, just a few blocks down the avenue from my house. The first time I tried it, I thought it was pretty good. The next time, not so much. The time after that, pretty good again. The next time, it was back to being not so good. Every time I ate there was like a voyage of discovery: would the chips be light and crisp, or stale and chewy? Would the seasoning be artful and delicate, or heavy-handed and unpleasant? Would the food be too hot, too cold, or just right?

In time, I stopped going. It was just too lousy too often. But now, after maybe seven or eight years, my friend Rick and I decided to give it another try.

Wish I'd stayed home.

Inside, not much had changed. It's got two large dining areas, each with room for about 40 people. They've replaced the mix of tile-topped and plastic tables for some with a bamboo veneer, nicely painted in primary colours, and all the chairs now match. The walls are a light yellow with occasional patches of trompe-l'oeil broken-stucco design, which despite being somewhat dated is not unpleasant. A few standard paintings of pretty Mexican village scenes compete with what look like reprints of old magazine ads rough-framed in cypress. The train track still runs around room just below the ceiling, but there was no train. (Years ago, often as not, the train would be derailed at one turning or another; maybe they just got tired of climbing up on a stool to fix it.) The dining area is clean and bright, though I wouldn't want to sit at a table by the window in the afternoon sun. 

The staff greeted us warmly when we came in, and the waitress was with us quickly as we chose our seats in the near-empty restaurant, giving us menus and taking our drink orders. We decided quickly, and then bided our time awaiting her return until Rick wondered out loud if they were having to grow coffee beans in the back. When the coffee arrived, it was lukewarm and even weaker than I like it — and I don't care for strong, acidic coffee.

Last city inspection: April 2011
10 demerits

We each ordered our usuals: beef fajita and picadillo tacos, on flour, for Rick; chilaquiles and machacado tacos, on corn, for me.  

My first bite of my chilaquile taco was disappointing: it seemed flavourless, almost unpleasant. I decided, though, after a few more tastes, that the problem was with the corn tortilla. Home-made, it may have been, but it lacks the flavour that a year of preferring corn to flour has taught me can be infused into a tortilla. The filling, though, was nicely made, and plentiful. The appropriate amount of time had been taken to sauté the vegetables and fry up the chilaquiles — the little strips of corn tortilla that give the dish its name — which, I might mention, were of an appropriate size. (Ordinarily I wouldn't even bother to say this, but recent experience has shown me that not every greasy-cuchara cook knows how big they should be.) The addition of a little red salsa moved them up the scale of quality, and if I were basing the entire review on this one dish, I'd give it four chili peppers. Three and a half, with the tortilla.

Sadly, though, the chilaquiles con huevo in my taco were the high point of the meal. The machacado taco was a disappointing version of the dish, machacado con huevo, that I have come to appreciate as much as chilaquiles. It was served in an equally bland corn tortilla, and while it was cooked properly, it had only a suggestion of the dried meat that gives the dish its name. Still, it would have deserved a rating, independent of all else, of three chili peppers, as overall it had good flavour, and fairly good texture.

Rick's tacos bring the ratings back down to merely average. His flour tortillas were more flavourful than my corn tortillas, but that's just because flour tortillas are intrinsically tastier than corn tortillas. These are run-of-the-molina tortillas. In the universe of flour tortillas, these rank right in the middle, below HEB and above Mission. The picadillo was seasoned, but artlessly, and was not so much moist as greasy. The fajita meat was barely seasoned, and overcooked, perhaps because the slices were cut too thick in the first place to cook through properly.

I thought the prices at Las Salsas would be better than they are. While coffee service, at $1.50, was reasonable, I thought the taco prices were well above where they should be. Small change, perhaps, but even putting aside the question of quality, $2.25 is about 30¢ too much for machacado, and $1.95 is about 20¢ too much for chilaquiles. The overall bill was about a buck more than it should have been. It becomes a question of where to draw the line. If the food had been better, I might not have minded the pricing excesses. But as it is, I do.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a Tums.