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.