San Antonio Food: Casa Rio and Mangonadas

After a few days in Austin, I headed south in Texas to San Antonio for a day. Everyone who I spoke to in Austin told me I'd be terribly disappointed with the city and not to waste my time with the two hour drive to San Antonio. I'm not sure why San Antonio has a horrible reputation among Austin residents, but I throughly enjoyed my day exploring the city. I toured Spanish missions, I rented a bike and rode along the San Antonio river. When it was dinner time, I found myself in the San Antonio River Walk section of downtown. I took the canal tour boat ride and had a restaurant called Casa Rio pointed out...

Casa Rio:

Casa Rio is the oldest restaurant along the San Antonio River Walk. That little factoid made me decide to have dinner there. I ate outside along the river where there were nice views of passing boats, people strolling, and a gang of attack ducks that were going up to tables then biting diners if they weren't fed. It was very entertaining.

I ordered the Deluxe Dinner. This came with a cheese enchilada, tamale, crispy beef taco, chili con carne, chili con queso, mexican rice, refried beans, and a guacamole salad. It sounds like a lot of food, but I didn't realize how much it actually was until food started being delivered to my table. I got a basket of chips and salsa first. This was soon followed by the guacamole salad. Their guacamole salad was shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes topped with a big scoop of guacamole. Tortilla chips covered in queso also came out with the salad.

The plate with the rest of the food soon followed. Standout items on the plate were the the tamale and the chili con carne. As with many Mexican restaurants, everything else was pretty standard and tasty enough.

At $11.25, all this food was pretty reasonable. Nice environment and good food. I'd return to Casa Rio.




Cathedral of San Fernando Food Stand:
Later that evening I went to the Cathedral of San Fernando where they had a projection mapped light show on the outside of the building. In the park outside the cathedral, there were a few food trucks and a couple permanent food stands feeding the tourists.

One of the permanent food stands had an interesting menu. They had corn in a cup, mangonadas, and funnel cakes. I had never heard of a mangonada before, so I decided to give it a try.

It turned out a mangonada was basically a Mexican version of an Italian ice. I had a mix of strawberry and lime. It was served in a large cup. The mangonada was sweet and refreshing!