After six weeks of living on the west end of Galveston Island, about 45 minutes away from town, we welcomed being in San Antonio and within twenty minutes of some really great eats! We found ourselves making up for lost time while still being budget-conscious throughout our two-week stay at the KOA San Antonio/Los Alamos by visiting several local establishments.  Of all the things we tasted during our time there, these are our top five picks for places/foods to try during in San Antonio:

1. Chicken at Pollos Asados Los Norteños
2. Puffy Tacos at Henry’s Puffy Tacos, Ray’s Drive-In, etc.
3. Torta Ahogada at Ro-Ho Pork and Bread
4. Empanadas at Fat Tummy Empanadas
5. Barbecue at Black’s Barbecue

Pollos Asados Los Norteños first caught my eye when I looked at TripAdvisor’s ranked list of all restaurants in San Antonio.  Ranked #2 of 4,301 restaurants listed on the website, what was surprising was the single $ associated with it.  It seemed too good to be true!  But a little more research and a nod from fellow foodie RV travelers had us going there for lunch one afternoon.  This restaurant delivers excellent flavor at an unbelievable price!  Brian opted for the steak fajitas, which arrived as expected on a sizzling platter accompanied by fresh tortillas, charro beans, rice, pico de gallo, and guacamole.  Since the restaurant’s name translates to northern grilled chicken, I ordered the whole chicken ($14.59) which was served with fresh tortillas, rice, grilled jalapeno, grilled onion, lime, and a tomatillo-based salsa verde that was all at once creamy, spicy, and a little bit tart.  The service was quick and very friendly. There’s not a lot of frills here.  In fact, they serve the sides in Styrofoam carryout containers.  Not a bad thing at all as we needed them to pack up our leftovers.  We had enough left from lunch to feed us dinner.  The total for our bill, including tip, was around $55 and worth every penny!

Henry’s Puffy Tacos claims to be the birthplace of San Antonio’s puffy taco.  Arguably, it was at Henry’s brother’s restaurant Ray’s Drive-In where the two brothers experimented with deep-frying corn masa dough until it puffed up.  They marketed them as “crispy” tacos.  In 1978, Henry opened his eponymous business and coined the name “puffy” taco for his restaurant and tacos.  Aptly named for their slightly puffy appearance, these tacos have a crisp exterior and a toothsome, chewy interior.  Picadillo beef, beef guisado, fajita beef, fajita chicken, cheese and beans, or guacamole are among the many options for stuffing these taco shells.  You’ll find puffy tacos on many of the Tex-Mex restaurant menus around town.  With so many choices of where to have them, it’s up to you to find out who makes the best puffy tacos in town.

At RO-HO’s Pork and Bread, we experienced our first, and hopefully not our last, Torta Ahogada.  Named the best sandwich in Texas in Food & Wine Magazine’s article “The Best Sandwich in Every State” published this past January, we were willing to give it a try.  The day we visited, chef-owner, Jorge Rojo, greeted us with a smile at the counter.  He explained that torta ahogada is Guadalajara’s famous street food.  While we haven’t had the opportunity to experience the sandwich in its native land, we were delighted to try this version of it.  Made on freshly baked birote bread (picture a short, perfectly crisp French baguette) with a smear of bean puree, you choose a filling of pork butt carnitas, pork stomach carnitas (buche), or pork skin (cueritos).  They serve the sandwich drenched in warm tomato salsa with cabbage, pickled onion, radish, and lime.  To-go sandwiches come with the tomato salsa in a bag on the side so you can pour the salsa over the top once home, thereby maintaining the integrity of the bread before devouring it.  We ate our sandwich in the restaurant and were encouraged to have the sauce on the side.  We enjoyed dipping the pork butt carnitas-filled sandwich in the salsa and wondered how messy it would be to eat the sandwich if the salsa was on top.   

While Mexican cuisine has a considerable influence on San Antonio’s food culture, many other cultures play a role in this big city’s cuisine.  A stroll through the farmer’s market in The Pearl on a late Sunday morning had us sharing an empanada from one of the local merchants. The only problem was sharing a single empanada!  A small taste of a good empanada found us seeking more.  We read about Fat Tummy Empanadas and decided to try it out for lunch one day.  We’re not the first foodies to find this place.  Guy Fiero visited them on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. We each picked two savory empanadas:  Beef and Potato, Chorizo and Egg, Spicy Beef, and Spicy Chicken.  Served with the best chimichurris I’ve had since I visited Argentina, these empanadas were worth the drive across town.  The dough is tender and each of the fillings packed with flavor.

It would seem sacrilege to write about Texas food without including barbecue.  But not all Texas Barbecue is the same.  For this experience, we decided to make an adventure of it and headed to Lockhart, Texas.  Why Lockhart?  In 1999, the Texas legislature proclaimed Lockhart the “Barbecue Capital of Texas.”  For a town of just 12,000 people to have four big barbecue restaurants, that means a lot of people visit to eat their barbecue.  I’ve written about our day’s adventure to Lockhart.  If you don’t want to drive the 75-90 minutes from San Antonio to Lockhart, consider visiting Black’s Barbecue in New Braunfels. While the original Black’s is in Lockhart, you can get a taste closer to San Antonio.

We weren’t in San Antonio for very long, but we research before and during our visits to any new city.  We don’t pretend for this list to be exhaustive.  That said, we do know what delicious food tastes like, and we are happy to share what we find with you.  If you have suggestions for where we might visit on our next trip through San Antonio, please feel free to comment on this post.