Real puffy tacos, I have found, are only served at Ray s Drive Inn. I believe Ray s invented them, b

It was somewhere around Uzbekistan when I started to really dig No Reservations. Or maybe it was Miami. I Netflixed the show, and it became one of those compulsive choice hotel franchise TV viewing experiences that mind-blowing dramas like The Wire can induce. The TV shows that are so gripping that you breeze through one or two seasons in 24 hours, and there comes a point where you have to pry yourself from the TV and will yourself to bed. But this wasn t a drama. It was a travel choice hotel franchise show unlike any travel show. Who is this Anthony Bourdain $ ^#@! and why is he so badass?
I became hooked because of phrases choice hotel franchise like encased mystery meat. The use of stunt fish. Drunk Zamir and that %* $!# beautiful episode in Romania. Bourdain s love of Southeast choice hotel franchise Asia. His love of the border. His love of Mexico. Food porn. That Bourdain will be the first to admit he s not a culinary innovator. His Rachael Ray put-downs. That the viewer discretion advised label at the beginning of each episode is actually warranted. The techniques and the-way-restaurants-work episodes from which I learned so much. That he ll eat weird food, but he s not known as the guy who eats weird food. That he d rather eat a homemade meal — literally inside someone s house — than go to the obligatory choice hotel franchise gastronomically ostentatious piece of crap restaurant of the moment. And that, when you strip away the rebel TV-personality facade, he s really a journalist, a storyteller.
• When he was ice fishing in Harbin, China, and (given choice hotel franchise the show s poor history with fishing scenes) they actually filmed and showed (in the episode!) the stunt fish being hooked and then dropped in the hole. And in that primordial white-sheet of a vista in the background was the not-staged and very real John Wayne-ish Chinese bar/restaurant owner dancing with his Russian wife on the ice to American rock n roll while Bourdain was freezing choice hotel franchise his ass off holding the rod. That scene needs to go into the Television Hall of Fame for all of its beauty and strangeness and frivolity.
• And I ll never forget his almost apologetic observation to a guide in Laos who was showing Bourdain a breathtaking Buddhist monk ritual: We re here because it s beautiful and because choice hotel franchise we re fascinated by traditional Lao culture, Bourdain said. I m afraid sometimes that because we take pleasure in showing people with these cameras how beautiful this place is, that we help to destroy it. I hope we don t.
That observation didn t come from vanity. It was the perfect explanation of the travel show paradox: these places are admired for their authenticity and peacefulness, and then when they appear on the Travel Channel, visitors begin to eat away at them.
Bourdain has had a handful of touristy moments in nine seasons of No Reservations, but he loathes them. He d much rather stick his face in a bowl of street-vendor noodles or immerse himself in an everyday slice-of-life scene than go to any destination that they made travel brochures for, or heed the advice of, as he so poignantly puts it, Chamber of Commerce platitudes.
So with Bourdain in town for a talk/appearance/whatever you want to call it — Guts and Glory: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain is Thursday night at Laurie Auditorium (Trinity University) — I decided to make a few suggestions where he should go.
Of course, No Reservations ended its nine-season run this week, and now Bouradin is well on his way to new and exciting things at CNN. And apparently he s in town for his appearance and his appearance only. He s jetting ASAP.
There are some basic Bourdain rules you must be aware of before you read my list. One, he doesn t do the River Walk. He wouldn t even consider it. And while I do think part of keeping it real is taking an objective look at things — that is to say that the food on the River Walk isn t as bad as its reputation, that there are some bright spots — it still for the most part sucks.
And any bar or restaurant that has received national attention in the past year Bourdain would absolutely shoot the middle finger at. There are those places that get great press, and then there are the best places. Rarely are they the same. People who know, know. Bourdain wants to experience the Keep San Antonio Lame San Antonio. He eats Austin choice hotel franchise s weirdness two scoops at a time, but he would be in absolute bliss in S.A. s most puro parts. Taco Land, if Taco Land were still around.
You also have to keep in mind that Bourdain s been everywhere. This list isn t about finding the best food/experience in San Antonio, although this list certainly qualifies as such in my mind. This is about finding those places that are uniquely San Antonio, which seems to me is the No. 1 thing Bourdain and his producers look for.
Real puffy tacos, I have found, are only served at Ray s Drive Inn. I believe Ray s invented them, but I could be mistaken. And I don t care if the Castros had their election party at the not-really-West Side restaurant I won t mention here. Ray s is on the real West Side and is legit. I ve tried puffy tacos at many restaurants, and none have the crispiness and pure flavor of Ray s. Crunch happens when you bite into one. At other restaurants, puffy tacos are soggy and start to fall apart one chomp in. Ray s is the real thing.
SoHo is the best bar downtown. The drinks choice hotel franchise they are making there nobody — NOBODY — in downtown is making or can make. Normally, it would be enough that co-proprietor Lutfy Flores is the best bartender downtown (and I m just going to say the entire city even though I rarely leave downtown these days), but they have the second best in Eddie Martinez, too. It s a purely unique and versatile bar. They can do classic choice hotel franchise cocktails, but wouldn t you rather have a carrot cake martini that actually tastes like carrot cake? For Bourdain, I would recommend the fruit cup, which is a San Antonio thing and actually tastes like a fruit cup. And then put a ghost pepper chili shot on him. Go back to girly with the peanut butter-chocolate martini. Then hit him with an ice pick. A finally a Brisket bourbon. My half-ass attempt at describing SoHo s menu is doing it an injustice. They do Willy Wonka-type stuff there. No other bar downtown comes close to doing what SoHo does. And they don t seek any attention or press. That place gets a crowd almost every night on reputation alone. People who know, know.
Bourdain needs to go to an ice house. Like breakfast choice hotel franchise tacos (which I ll get to in a second), any ice house will do. Naturally, choice hotel franchise Sanchez Ice House is on the outskirts of downtown and so I would recommend that place. But, really, any one that s not in Southtown will do. (I love the Friendly Spot and La Tuna, but this is Bourdain we re talking about.) Unlike SoHo, you re not going to an ice house for the drink experience. They re pure atmosphere — that open-air, cheap furniture of a place with conjunto or Tejano emitting from a jukebox. (OK, he can go to Friendly and La Tuna but AFTER Sanchez.)
Like ice houses, any fruteria will do. But this one on Zarzamora I ve been to many times and it has that ice house vibe with its picnic tables and walk-up window. It s the perfect setting to consume a fruit cup. They re so simple — there s nothing to fruit cups, really — and yet I ll never stop eating them. Sliced cucumber, watermelon, cantaloupe, what have you, topped with Lucas or any kind of chili-salt powder. It s about as refreshing a treat as you can have in these blistering parts.
Not an ice house, but just a cool old-school bar. Yes, it s now populated with hipsters and hep cats, but I never knew it any other way. Visitors are always amazed by the outrageous prices — going the other way. You could can make a night of it there with several beers, 4-5 songs on the jukebox and a bag of pork rinds for $20. And right before closing time, take some beer to go. There are a lot of bars that have the beer-to-go permit, but it just seems cooler when it s done at Bar America.
Where do you start? I m not going to pontificate on S.A. breakfast taco joints. I m not an expert. I m not sure there is an expert there are so many breakfast taco joints in town. So I m just going to throw out Garcia s on Fredericksburg Road. Every single taco I ve had there is excellent, including the brisket and pork chop, but also standards like their carne guisada and bean and cheese. Or, Bourdain and his crew could just take Guadalupe from downtown and head west as it turns into Castroville and, like throwing a dart, see what they find.
These places are dumps. But they re not. These are neighboring bars on South Flores near Travis. And I don t want to disrespect their patrons, choice hotel franchise because they aren t all drunks, but the place opens at 7 a.m. and they get busy at those hours. I went there the night after a drunken episode because I thought I had left my bag. And at 9 a.m. the jukebox was blasting Tejano and the place was packed. It was like it was 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. Except this was on a Tuesday morning. And the bar lady told me if I had left my bag behind that there was absolutely zero chance it would still be there.
As it was told to me by Express-News music writers Jim Beal Jr. and Hector Saldaña, conjunto was born here. If you re not aware, it s the meshing of Mexican and German music, and its unique sound come from the bajo sexto guitar and accordion. I m not an expert on conjunto bars (I ve been to a few) but apparently they are a dying breed. I would just tell Bourdain to see where Flaco Jimenez or the Texmaniacs are playing and go there. The Royal Palace Ballroom hosts conjunto regularly. And Ruben s Place has conjunto every other weekend, according to Saldaña.
So there you go. My Bourdain list. What are some places you think he should go, if he were sticking around more than 24 hours and he still had his show? I know, the whole thing s moot, but it s still fun to imagine.
It was somewhere around Uzbekistan when I started to really dig No Reservations. Or maybe it was Miami. I Netflixed the show, and it became one of those compulsive TV