The reasons we decided to visit San Antonio were essentially two-fold. First, Carmen had attended a week-long conference there in 2000 and had enjoyed every minute – well, except for the conference part! My association with San Antonio was by way of my mother who was born two blocks from the Alamo and whose grandparents house was also in San Antonio. I, myself, had never been there.
We decided upon taking a late September trip to San Antonio in order to avoid the most searing part of the summer. The plan worked well. Weather forecasts for the area promised temperatures in the mid 80's and only a chance of an afternoon thunderstorm. The forecast turned out to be extremely accurate.
Our journey began at 2 in the morning when we awoke and got ourselves together enough to make the hour and a half drive to the airport parking lot. A quick shuttle ride later we zipped through the security and were soon sipping coffee and munching Cinnabuns while we awaited our flight. As luck would have it was announced that our flight was to have an hour's delay. We were allowed the option of taking an earlier flight that was leaving immediately. Great! This meant we would arrive in Atlanta substantially early for our connecting flight. Our original arrival time would have had us literally running to make the connection. Once we arrived at the Atlanta airport I decided to check to see if we might be able to switch to a flight that would leave right away. We lucked out again. A wonderful ticket reservationist pounded the keys on her computer for awhile and we were on our way! Thus we were able to maintain our hour lead on our arrival time in San Antonio. We were determined to take good advantage of the added hour.
Within moments of settling into our hotel room, (which, like so many others, overlooked the Riverwalk,) Carmen and I began exploring to see what San Antonio had to offer. We scouted the Riverwalk briefly until we encountered La Villita. La Villita, (Little Village,) is a gathering of small buildings, now shops for the most part, that once comprised the original Spanish settlement from which San Antonio grew. Here we encountered the Guadalajara Grill where we very much enjoyed our first margaritas of the trip while we munched on a huge platter of nachos complete with the best refried beans we found anywhere. Those turned out to be among the best margaritas we found.
After some more trekking around La Villita, a portion of the Riverwalk, and the Alamo, we wandered westward to El Mercado, (The Marketplace,) where we found Mi Tierra Restaurant. Now, everyone seems to speak glowingly only of the breakfasts they have had there. We ate an excellent dinner at Mi Tierra. As it happened, we were seated next to a table at which I spotted an elderly man seated beside a most beautiful guitar. The back of it was all I could see, but it was clearly a very old, handmade guitar. The back was made in two pieces with a dark, possibly walnut strip down the middle that joined the two lighter and somewhat less than perfectly smooth pieces. Although there was nothing particularly ornate about it, there was just something special in the appearance of this instrument. Impulsively, I struck up a conversation with the guitar's owner and soon got a better look. Again, it was only sparsely ornamented with just a bit of inlay here and there. But when the gentleman strummed a few chords on it, the simple beauty of it became at once magnificent. What lovely tone!
Carmen and I soon came to know that the gentleman was one third of a trio of men of similar age who had been performing together at Mi Tierra for some thirty years. The other two men played maracas and a second guitar. Their stated rate per song was six dollars. Feeling that the price was much too low, we paid them considerably more than that to play "Adelita", "Cuando Caliente El Sol" and "Volver,Volver", all of which they did exceedingly well. The other two men played maracas and a second guitar.
I should point out that at a good many restaurants we encountered quite a few small musical groups, variously instrumented, who most often began their conversations with potential customers by offering to perform "Cieto Lindo", which I suppose may be the song most commonly known by the majority of tourists. Alternatively, they might have offered "Malaguena Salerosa" which we also heard a number of times.
The restaurant, by the way, was cleverly decorated with thousands of small, white "Christmas" lights which shown down from the ceiling. Small, thin sheets of shiny, silver foil (Wow! Just try to say that rapidly a few times!) were strung across the ceiling at regular intervals. Each rectangle of foil was decorated with a variety of intricate cutouts of stars, birds, sunrays, etc.. The lights and their reflections added brightness to the room as well as to the atmosphere.
If memory serves, the margaritas we had at Mi Tierra were made with Cazadores Reposado tequila and Gran Gala. (I have always considered Gran Gala to be an inadequate imitation of Grand Marnier.) Neither the Grand Gala nor the lemon-lime mix with it were quite what we would have wanted but they were good enough for us to order a second – just to be certain. I had the Chiles Rellenos and Carmen had Enchiladas Verdes Mexicanas. The former consisted of Poblano peppers stuffed with cheese, dipped in egg batter then deep fried. The latter was 3 rolled tortillas filled with chicken then smothered with green tomatillo sauce and topped with añejo (aged) cheese. Carmen discovered the green sauce during her previous visit to San Antonio and could hardly wait to savor it again. Unfortunately, although the enchiladas were otherwise very good, the flavor Carmen sought was not in this particular sauce. Notwithstanding that, what I can say with certainty is that the meal was most enjoyable in no small part due to excellent service, atmosphere, and music.
Although we didn't do an extensive search, it seemed to us that good coffee, other than that of Starbucks, was a bit hard to find in San Antonio. Our hotel's "continental breakfast" was a horrid experience at which was served some brownish water which they insisted upon calling "coffee". Thus, each morning of our stay was begun with a short trek to the Starbucks at the Riverwalk. We sipped our coffees while sitting at a table on the veranda where we gazed at the beautiful San Antonio River through the branches of two hundred year old cypress trees. The trees were filled with dozens of sparrows who hungrily eyed the crumbs of my banana bread and Carmen's zucchini and walnut muffin.
Our next meal was a late brunch at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called La Jalesco that a salesperson had recommended. Carmen wanted to compare their "green enchiladas" to those of the previous night. She gave it a "thumbs down". The chicken seemed to have been microwaved rather than braised and the salsa tasted like a few tomatillos had simply been put through a blender. I had much better luck with a dish of what was essentially Mexican-style pork barbeque. It was accompanied by, (as nearly all TexMex dishes are,) refried beans, some Spanish rice, a few chopped onions and tomatoes – a.k.a, pico de gallo, perhaps some guacamole and/or some sour cream. Flour tortillas were at one side. The pork was prepared with some slices of cactus in a sauce that had just enough jalapeno to give it a bit of a bite. It was absolutely delicious!
The evening meal was at the Casa Rio Restaurant on the Riverwalk. We primed our appetites with some wonderful margaritas, made with Patron Anejo tequila and Gran Marnier. This time the citrus mixer was just right. By the time we finished eating we had gone through two each of the 20 ounce margaritas. The meal consisted of a Flauta Plate for me and the Casa Rio Deluxe Dinner for Carmen. Flautas, (flutes,) are corn tortillas filled with Chicken and spices, rolled and fried. Carmen's selection included three enchiladas - a beef, a cheese, and a "Green Chicken" enchilada topped with different sauces and cheeses. Apparently accustomed to dealing with people unfamiliar with tamales, our waitress advised Carmen, "Hon, be sure to remove the corn husk before you eat that".
This meal was also accompanied by some Mariachi music. Further entertainment was furnished by the skilled begging of a few Mallard ducks and a cowbird that wandered around beneath and beside our table. One adolescent duck extorted "payment" by gently nibbling at Carmen's exposed calf. The trick worked. A few taco chips strayed from the table to the ground despite the signs requesting that customers not feed the wildlife. We later saw more than one restaurant employee hand feeding various feathered creatures.
After the meal and the floor show offered by the ducks, Carmen and I wandered along the Riverwalk where we encountered the Arneson Riverwalk Theatre. This is an open air stage upon which there was a Folklorico dancing troupe whose show was already in progress. We later discovered that they put on such shows each evening, Thursday through Saturday. Because of our late arrival we were allowed to watch the show for free. But we would have gladly paid the five dollar admission price. The male dancers were outfitted in black shirts and trousers, each highly decorated with silver conchos and other smaller shiny bits. Their wide, black hats were similarly decorated. The women wore "peasant" blouses, some pulled down to reveal shoulders; some not. Their skirts were each different from one another, each with wide, raucously colorful, concentric rings of material. All had numerous petticoats beneath. Each and every dance move was accompanied by a manual swirling of skirts creating eye-popping, undulating waves of color.
In her very early years my mother and her mother moved to western San Antonio to live with Mom's grandparents at a house on West Commerce Street. Early on our second morning of our visit Carmen and I took a taxi out to that address. Or I should say, to what was once that address. The house no longer stands. Instead there is a wide driveway usurping the space where my Mom undoubtedly once played. Mom always spoke fondly of the time spent with her grandparents. While seeing the house where she once lived was somehow important to me, the fact that it no longer was there was not terribly surprising and only a little disappointing. After all, I was able to get some feel for the neighborhood as it once may have been. That had to be enough.
When we returned from our taxi sojourn into the past we decided to seek out a place to have brunch. The Original Mexican Restaurant was, as its name implies, the first Mexican restaurant in San Antonio as well as the first in the United States. I selected their Huevos Rancheros and helped Carmen to finish her dish of Nachos. Both were excellent! The Original Mexican Restaurant has two locations, one on Commerce Street and another on the Riverwalk. It fit our plans better to try the one on Commerce. As with some of our other eating adventures, we wished we could have returned to sample more of their menu. I'm reasonably certain that we had margaritas before and/or with our meal; but I can't dredge up any details as to how they were made or with what except that Triple Sec may have been involved.
This, our final full day in San Antonio was crammed with events. After our visit at the Original Mexican Restaurant, we took a short, very informative carriage tour of the city surrounding the Alamo. Afterwards we strolled through a three storey antique store. Somehow we wound up on the west side of town near a restaurant called La Margarita. I think you can guess what we did next. They made very good margaritas. We opted to have them made with Patron Anejo tequila and Gran Marnier. The mixer they used was just right. I think we agreed that those and the ones we had at Casa Rio were probably the best we had in San Antonio. But just to be sure, we revisited the Guadalajara Grill and tried theirs again. I think Carmen would agree that all three places make excellent margaritas. Later we took a very well guided boat tour of the Riverwalk. In retrospect I believe we probably would have benefitted more by having taken the boat tour on our first day in order to become better oriented to the area.
Our final TexMex meal of the visit was at Rita's on the River. As the name implies Rita's is on the Riverwalk, but we were happy to sit under roof due to an impending thunderstorm. The cloudburst began moments after we ordered our first margarita. Now for a word of advice: avoid ordering 40 ounce margaritas! However, this admonishment is not for the reason you may envision. The real problem with the huge margaritas we ordered was that the ice melted before we could finish them. The price seems at first to be worth the difference; but the enjoyment diminishes with the exponential dilution of the flavor.
I chose the steak and chicken fajita dish, "3/4 pound of fajitas served on a hot skillet with sautéed peppers and onions". Carmen had the burrito plate, "Our large, flour tortilla filled with your choice of chicken or steak fajita topped with our enchilada sauce and melted cheeses". Somehow after all that I still managed to make room for some of the best Mexican fried ice cream I ever had.
Again, the meal was accompanied by another group of three musicians. One played trumpet, who, like all of the other trumpeters I saw, always pointed his trumpet toward the river and away from the diners. I thought this was extremely considerate. Another played a small guitar, the name of which I promptly forgot, which sported all nylon strings – no wound strings at all. The third musician played a guitarron, (a large bass guitar,) giving me an opportunity to see one up close. I had always marveled at the way this instrument is usually held, with its face pointed upward at a sharp angle. I discovered there is no choice in the matter. The body of the instrument comes to a broad point in the back, leaving no alternative in how it is held. I only saw this one guitarron being played. I understand that there are some that are flat-backed and simply look like a very big guitar. I noticed that on many of the songs played on the guitarron the bass line consisted of two-note chords or octaves rather than the alternating notes that perhaps may be heard more often.
We began the next morning as we did all of the others. We sipped coffee on the Starbucks veranda while watching the river go by. It was earlier than on previous mornings and so we got to watch the Riverwalk come alive. All too soon it was time to return to the hotel to pack and before long we caught the shuttle to the airport. As we began our journey homeward we congratulated ourselves for seeing and doing so much within our allotted time. We had eaten as much TexMex food as was humanly possible, perhaps with an unconscious wish to take it home with us. We had tasted enough margaritas to learn that there are three requisites for a good one: top shelf tequila such as, Patron Anejo, Gran Marnier, and a quality, flavorful mixer. We had seen as much of San Antonio as time allowed and were deeply impressed by the experience. We don't know if we will ever afford a return visit; but we will certainly treasure our memories of San Antonio for the rest of our lives.