Tex-Mex

If you lived in Austin back in the 70’s, and wanted primo Tex-Mex, you made the eighty-mile trip South to San Antonio. I made that trip with friends on several Saturday nights, but the trip wasn’t singularly about Tex-Mex. It was also about San Antonio’s atmosphere.

San Antonio was a frisky tourist town, coming of age like an irresistibly sassy teen-aged girl. And there was lots to do — not all of it legal — but the prevailing mindset was “anything goes as long as it’s fun and nobody dies”. Back then, there were the legendary twins of Tex Mex — Casa Rio and Mi Tierra.

Casa Rio
Casa Rio was a haven of respite from the heat. It was located below street level, with outdoor dining along San Antonio’s riverwalk. That river was nasty but the temperature along the river was a good fifteen degrees cooler than the South Texas Hell up at street level.

Every meal came with a heaping stack of steaming tortillas, and it was understood that the leftovers could not be served to other diners, so we did the only reasonable thing. We fed them to the wildlife.

In those days, you could fling a tortilla high into the air over the river and it would never hit the water. Just like a trained dog catching a frisbee, a massive pigeon or blackbird would swoop down and snag that flying treat right out of the ether.

Likewise, if you tossed a tortilla directly into the river, the water’s surface would boil with catfish and carp bouncing off each other like attendants of a punk-rock rave, and not even a crumb of that tortilla would sink uneaten.

Mi Tierra
One Saturday evening, my friend, Don and I got that unquenchable hankering for refried beans and raucous fun, so we jumped in his VW bug and headed South to find Mi Tierra. Less than a six-pack of Lone Star later, we made it to loop 410 on the North side of San Antone and stopped for directions.

The kid at the gas station told us to keep heading South until we hit a specific exit and to make an immediate left and ask someone in that area for additional directions. We did just that and to our amazement, only a block from the exit, there was a bored looking cop leaning against the side of a parallel parked van. Who else could give better directions?

I rolled down my window and asked in my most Texan-friendly accent if he could give a couple old boys directions to Mi Tierra. He was happy to help and began providing a list of left and right turns when he was interrupted by three other cops herding a dozen half-naked prostitutes out of a hotel and into his paddy wagon. Like I said, San Antonio was a frisky environment.

Don and I made it to Mi Tierra and experienced one heck of a Saturday evening. The main dining area was essentially a giant L-shaped aisle with booths along either side. We got seated right in the crook of the L and had a great view of the activities in both directions.

Every person in the place was telling stories, laughing loud, and inhaling Lone Star beer like it was oxygen. The waitresses were feisty and agile. As you might expect, with a crowd drinking that much beer, the traffic to and from the restrooms was heavy and continuous. That’s when I observed the only bona fide miracle I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life.

I’d barely begun digging into a greasy plate of enchiladas when one of those fleet-footed waitresses rounded the corner with a full tray of Lone Stars balanced high above her head. She came with half an inch of sidestepping the drunk cowboy, staggering his way to the restroom but they touched hard enough to separate a single bottle of beer from it’s aerie atop her uplifted palm.

That bottle of Lone Star seemingly levitated from the tray, performed a perfect somersault in mid-air and landed upright on a table two booths away from us. It stuck the landing better than any Olympic gymnast I’ve ever seen. And, along the way, it dislodged half its contents which landed with great fanfare all over the inhabitants of that booth.

The display was mind-bending. And on top of that, the waitress never even paused. She just continued her quest to deliver the remaining beers to another thirsty booth. Those of us who witnessed the event just sat in silent awe for at least ten seconds until pandemonium erupted.

Aging
It’s been fifty years since I spent much time in that Tex-Mex Eden, and lots has changed. These days, San Antonio reminds me of a middle-aged woman still wearing those brightly colored and tightly fitting clothes she wore as a feisty teen.

She hasn’t aged gracefully and letting go of youth is no easy fete. She’s in the 97th percentile of all Texas cities with regards to violent crime, yet you can be fined for throwing a tortilla into the river – but who am I to judge?

Tex-Mex food stole my girlish figure years ago and I’m just trying to grow old without clinging to the past, but it sure would be fun to feed those pigeons and catfish one more time.

A meeting of great minds who think alike