An Average Joe in San Antonio

One of the fun things about having a blog is getting to suggest some of your favorite places to the world.  Locals and tourists alike come to my site and get to find out what restaurants I think are a great representation of San Antonio.  I love sharing what makes this city unique.

It’s always a thrill when someone writes a positive comment on my blog or Facebook page about a review I wrote, so you can imagine how excited I was to be selected as a local food ambassador when Dish Trip came to town.  Dish Trip is the brainchild of Mary Bingham, a Philadelphia based food blogger, where she and her team travels to different cities, meets up with a local food blogger, and explores the culinary scene.

A representative from Dishtrip reached out to me via email with their itinerary and asked me for my suggestions.  After visiting with them, I was excited about their breakfast stop at Blanco Cafe and lunch stop at La Gloria Ice House.  I thought that these places would be a great way to show the traditional alongside the new.

Later, Mary gave me a call about her travel plans and I during the conversation I was so amped up that I was pacing along the front of my house telling her all the amazing places to eat in San Antonio.  There were so many more things to see and do than was listed on her itinerary.  Mary said they landed on Memorial Day Monday, and was curious if I would take her team out to some of my other favorite spots to which I replied, “Of course!”

Day 1

Mary, Amy (the social media guru), Jason (the techie genius), and Gary (the video expert) arrived to San Antonio late in the evening on Memorial Day.  Many of my friends were over at my house for a backyard cookout, so a bunch of us went out to give them a crash course in San Antonio.

After picking them up from the downtown Marriot, we headed for the Hofbrau Quarry, home of the Dosarita.  If you are not familiar, the Dosarita is a schooner of frozen margarita with a Dos XX flipped upside down in it.  While I don’t know if the Hofbrau was the first place to invent it, they were the folks who really popularized it here in town.

The Dosarita from the Quarry Hofbrau; I have to say that I am a fan of it made with Dos Equis Amber now!

Mary and her team were a little skeptical of how the drink would taste, but I assured her that it was going to be amazing.  When we all got our round of drinks, the group from Philly was not disappointed.  Not only were they impressed by the sheer size of the Dosarita, they couldn’t believe how smooth it was.

Mary with Amy at the Quarry Hofbrau drinking Dosaritas.

I actually tried a sip of the Dosarita made with the amber beer and enjoyed it far more than the Dos Equis lager that I typically order.  We had a couple of orders of the queso blanco, with a dollop of guacamole in the middle, which is a perfect sidekick to the Dosarita on the patio.

Since the crew was feeling good from the Dosaritas, I took them to Chachos so they could sample the King Kong Nachos.  There was no description that I could give that would prepare them for the mound of nachos that they were about to experience.

Gary had a great idea to film the making of the nachos, and he got some great footage of how they are actually put together.  When the platter of food arrived at our table, the Dish Trip folks couldn’t believe how large the nachos were and were amazed that they got a bowl of queso as a side!  I loaded the table up with tons of different salsas to dip the nachos in and was excited to learn that they now come with a bowl of enchilada gravy to dip your chips in!

Gary manning the camera at Chacos; he can make anything look good on film, including yours truly.

The Dish Trip crew was a lot of fun, and Mary even went up on stage to sing “Sweet Home Alabama” with the band that was playing that evening.  She sang her little heart out and even changed the lyrics to “Sweet Home San Antonio!”  Such a fun night!

Day 2

The Dish Trip team began their official Dish Trip where they stopped at Blanco Cafe for breakfast, La Gloria Ice House for lunch, and Sazo’s Latin Grill for dinner.  Because I had to work that day, I wasn’t able to go out and about with them, however, check out their video if you want a recap of all the great things they ate.

After their early dinner, I suggested that they chill at Schilo’s and drink some of their world famous homemade Root Beer.  I left work and met them there and we planned out the rest of the evening.

The official Dish Trip was over and it was time to sit back, relax, and have some drinks.  Since I hadn’t eaten, I took them to Titos where I ordered the enchiladas Tejanas and a michelada made with a Victoria beer.  Titos enchiladas are the best in town and I have been a fan of the restaurant since moving here.  Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to try something new, the Dish Trip folks ordered some enchiladas and a puffy taco to try as well.

Michelada at Titos!

One of their sponsors is Victory beer, a popular craft beer in Philadelphia, and they brought down a few bottles of the seasonal Summer of Love.  Being inspired by the Dosarita the previous night, Mary wanted to create a “Victory-ita” and flipped it over in a margarita she ordered.  I was a little unsure of how it would be, but it made the margarita have an interesting grapefruit taste.  I guess it goes to show that we should experiment more with what we dump in margaritas!

After Titos, we walked up the street to the Friendly Spot where the team was excited to find that they served Victory beer!  Amy has recently become enamored with beer and has been devouring books on the subject.  She loves to try new brews (and has the perfect job to do so!), so she ordered a beer from the 512 Brewery from up in Austin along with Oatmeal Pale Ale from the Ranger Creek Brewery here in town.

After the whirlwind of the previous day and a half, the team was just glad to kick back, relax, and watch some basketball on the outdoor screen.  I really enjoyed getting to visit with them, talk about the differences between Philly and San Antone, and learn how Mary had started her blogging career.

Since Amy was such a beer aficionado, I knew that our next stop would have to be the Blue Star Brewing Company so she could try some of their microbrews.  We ordered a sampler and all got to try six different beers.  The bartender was friendly and told us a little about each brew as we drank it.  I believe that Amy favored the smoky mesquite flavored beer.

Amy enjoyed the beer sampler at the Blue Star Brewery.

After all this food, the only way to end the evening was to take the team to Lulu’s for a 3 pound cinnamon roll and a chicken fried steak as big as your head.  Gary was pretty impressed that the cinnamon roll was note only huge but also really tasty.  Even though we were all full, we put a large dent into the chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and okra as well.

The gigantic cinnamon role at Lulu's! The night is finally over!

They came. They saw. They ate.  The Dish Trip had finally come to an end and all of us were stuffed.  I am so happy that the team reached out to me to show them San Antonio.  I had such a blast getting to meet Mary, Amy, Gary and Jason and learned a lot about professional blogging.  Be sure to check out the Dish Trip Site to see where the team winds up next.

These folks put in a lot of time and effort and it shows in their final product.  It was great for an Average Joe to become a food ambassador for a couple of days. Vaya con Dios Dish Trip team and safe travels on your next adventure!

Check out the Dish Trip article on their San Antonio Trip on Southwest Airlines blog.

Enjoy reading An Average Joe in San Antonio? Download the mobile app, Local Dish, today to read this and other local food blogs on your phone!

Some of you might know that in addition to blogging, I also develop apps on the side.  I was thinking about a way to help food bloggers like myself get their content out in the world and came up with the idea for the Local Dish App!

Local Dish brings in articles from five suggested bloggers for a particular city in an easy to use interface.  You are able to see all the articles related to the city you’re in, or even change your city as you go on vacation to see what’s good to eat!

Sharing your favorite blogger’s articles is easy too.  With a couple of clicks, you can email an article out to a friend or post to your Facebook wall to let all your friends know!

Have a blogger that is not featured?  You can add their RSS feed of their blog into the app so you can always stay on top of what’s happening.

The official release date is Friday, July 22^nd, however, if you want a sneak peek, be one of the first five folks to shoot an email to pinojo [at] gmail [dot] com requesting access and I will respond back with a code for you to get the app today!

I love food and I love technology.  About a year ago one of my iPhone apps was featured in the iTunes store alongside an app called Foodspotting, and I knew I had to check it out.

Since that time, I fell in love with the easy-to-use app and have become quite the fanboy.  I’ve written several posts referencing Foodspotting and asked the SA community to participate in #FoodspotSA day.  Foodspotting has also grown up from a fledgling company to a one of the hottest startups that is looking to explode in the next few months.

Sometimes, however, I can get so excited about something that I forget that not everyone is familiar with what I’m talking about.  Realizing that I may have been more than a little confusing when talking about Foodspotting, I decided to take a step back and explain what Foodspotting is and why I like using the app.

What Foodspotting Does

Foodspotting is an app that is available for download on most mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, Windows, and coming soon to Blackberry) and also a website you can view on your laptop or desktop.  Essentially, Foodspotting allows users to take pictures of what they are eating, tag that photo with the restaurant they ordered it from, and write comments about what they thought of the food.  I like to think of it as “Twitter for Foodies” because you can provide real time updates in the same manner as the popular microblogging platform.

Image you are at the restaurant Eat At Joe’s and you ordered a cheeseburger (if you are vegetarian, let’s call it a soy burger).  When the meal is delivered to your table, you can take a picture of said cheeseburger and store it in your phone.  After you eat your meal, you decide that you love the cheeseburger so much and you want to tell everyone about it.  You open up the Foodspotting app, upload the photo, tag it with Eat At Joe’s (the restaurant where you got the cheeseburger), and write something like “Oh my goodness! This was a great cheeseburger! Be sure to upgrade to the jalapeño cheddar bun!”

Your post on the cheeseburger at Eat At Joe’s will be published to Foodspotting and will be able to be seen by the people who follow you, or anyone who searches for something “spotted” in the vicinity of Eat At Joe’s.

The Foodspotting landing screen on the iPhone. I wish I could have got the Eat At Joe's example in here, but I just used a stock photo.

So Why Foodspot?

Foodspotting helps you figure out where to go and what to eat.

Have you ever been in the situation where you have to decide where to go eat?  Have you ever been at a restaurant and been torn on what to order?  Are you an average Joe like me and don’t know what all the French terms in a menu mean?  Foodspotting can help solve these problems.

While Urban Spoon, another popular food app, will suggest restaurants in the immediate vicinity based on cuisine and price, Foodspotting shows you the actual dishes that consumers are ordering which can be much more helpful in determining where to eat.  If I need to figure out a place to go, I will open up the Foodspotting app and in a matter of seconds can see suggestions from Foodspotters who have been in the area.  This is really helpful in determining where to dine out.

Furthermore, I will often use Foodspotting while I am in a restaurant to see what other people have suggested.  The app has helped me decide on what I should order and is incredibly helpful to see pictures and comments from folks prior to making a decision.  I am not the most erudite food lover and many a French term is lost on me.  Foodspotting has become helpful in this situation because I can see what a duck confit is prior to ordering it.

Foodspotting lets you have an opinion.

While not everyone has a food blog, most people have an opinion on who has the best pizza in town or where to get the best dessert late at night.  Foodspotting lets you share your opinion with other food minded kind of folks in an easy to do manner.  By posting on Foodspotting, you place an endorsement for your favorite restaurants and dishes for other folks to find.  Not only do you spread the joy of what you consider good eating, you also help promote the establishments that serve up the grub.

Want to take it a step further? Instead of just posting updates on the meals that you’ve eaten, you can create a guide for others to follow.  You can build many different guides to highlight your favorite spots in town.  Anything from your Top Ten 24-Hour Establishments, to Best Vegetarian Breakfasts, or Best Margaritas in Town, the world is your oyster and you can help out of towners and locals alike find some really good spots to eat.

Show the world you’re a food expert.

Similar to Foursquare, Foodspotting offers “badges” that users can earn to show their expertise.  After spotting a handful of chicken dishes, you might become a chicken expert.  Make the rounds to the bar quite often?  Soon you will unlock the cocktail expert badge.

Additionally, users garner tips, or virtual points, each time they post an item on Foodspotting.  Additional tips can be earned as other users “Want It” or “Nom It” or tell you that it is a “Great Shot” or a “Great Find”.  At this point in time, there doesn’t appear to be a way for users to cash in their tips, but as Foodspotting continues to grow, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tied in a loyalty program of some sort.

As you complete guides that other users have published, you can also earn a badge for your profile.  So the next time you are in San Antonio, check out my guide on my Favorite Mexican Food and earn the badge!

Final Advice to Getting Started on Foodspotting

First and foremost, Foodspotting should be something that is fun, lighthearted, and positive.  Because of this I offer the following advice:

1. Always post positive comments.  There is too much negativity in the world, so if what you ate didn’t live up to your expectations, don’t even bother to post it.  Trust me, negative publicity travels way faster and farther than positive publicity.  Use this platform to build up instead of tear down.

(As an aside, I have resolved to take a bit of my own advice and will not be posting negative reviews on my blog.  Granted, I think I have only had three negative reviews since blogging 2+ years ago, but I think my time will be better spent pointing out the positives rather than the negatives.  Sometimes what isn’t said is more poignant than what is said.)

2. Don’t let Foodspotting get in the way of your meal.  Sometimes you will be with folks who get it you can be the table of dorks laughing together taking pictures of food.  Other times you will be with people who won’t have a clue what you are doing or the situation might not be appropriate.

In general, I like to follow this rule: take your picture and put up your phone.  This will make sure that you have the photo so that you can Foodspot later, but it won’t ruin the flow of your meal.  Dining out is an experience you should enjoy with other people, so first and foremost make sure that you are always considerate towards the people you are with.

3. Try to get a good picture. I am the world’s worst at getting a good picture, but I still try.  Inevitably, my pictures are always shot straight on and lack any artistry.  My girlfriend’s tactic, which I have recently adopted, is to tilt the camera to get an “artistic shot.”  You can use Instagram to spice up your pictures as well.  There was recently a really good article posted on Foodspotting’s blog by Ultraclay on how he takes pictures of his food.  Apparently there is more to it than just tilting your camera.

Go Get Started!

Now that you have some of the basics on how to Foodspot, go download the Foodspotting app and get started! If you have any further questions, be sure to check out their blog or leave a question in the comments section of this post for me to answer.  Be sure to follow Average Joe in San Antonio on Foodspotting to see all of the good stuff that I am eating! Have fun and I look forward to seeing what you spot!

One of the staples in San Antonio is the taco.  We eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Tacos can be found in mobile food trucks, hole-in-the-walls, lobbies of where we work, and high class restaurants.

But to paraphrase the Bard, would a taco by any other name taste as sweet?

Recently there was a discussion at my workplace about the difference between a taco and a burrito.  This launched a huge discussion between the nuances of each item.

I have experienced this conundrum firsthand.  Growing up on the South Plains, I always referred to the breakfast meal of eggs, bacon, and cheese in a tortilla as a “breakfast burrito.”  Coming to San Antonio, many of my coworkers kept asking me if I would like a bean and egg “breakfast taco.”  I kept declining because I could not understand why anyone would want a crispy taco shell with beans and eggs first thing in the morning.

It took several months before I realized that breakfast tacos in San Antonio did not come in a crispy shell but rather a soft tortilla.  After becoming enlightened to this fact, I have happily ordered breakfast tacos ever since.

Graph of I-20 Theory of Tacos courtesy of Garrett's Graphs

This led me to develop what I refer to as the I-20 Taco Theory.   Interstate 20 more or less cuts Texas right in the middle as the road travels East to West passing through DFW and Midland before swooping down South to El Paso.  People who live either side of this line have drastically different views on tacos.

San Antonians and people who live South of I-20 cannot imagine calling the tortilla wrapped treat anything other than a taco.  To them, a burrito is anything that comes in a larger tortilla, a la Freebirds.  By default, anything  purchased in the morning is in a normal sized tortilla so they logically refer to it as a taco.  If they want a hard shelled taco, they will always specifically ask for a “crispy taco.”

The contingent who lives North of I-20 referred to the morning item as a breakfast burrito.  This group feels that by default the word taco implies a crispy shell.  Folks North of the line refer to anything in a tortilla as a burrito although there are some factions who deviate and call the smaller tortilla item a soft taco.

Tacos or Burritos? Weigh in with you thoughts on the comments below!

You then have the people who live right on the line who are confused on whether to call an item a burrito or taco.  There are tons of places in the DFW Metroplex that serve tacos and an equal amount that serve burritos.  These Texans have adapted and just call it by the name that is at the restaurant.  The only exception might be in El Paso where it seems that it more often than not referred to as a taco.

While I am not advocating for either the use of the word “taco” or “burrito,” it is my hope that this article can at least provide some insight to those travelling to Texas or within Texas to understand what the heck they should ask for depending on what city they are visiting.

Being in San Antonio for the past six years, I have adopted “breakfast taco” into my vernacular.  However, when I use this term while visiting my parents I often get funny looks and quickly say, “I mean, I’d love a bacon and egg breakfast burrito.”

What are your thoughts on the differences between tacos and burritos? Do you agree with the I-20 Taco Theory?  Let me know in the comments!

A few years back, I happened onto a blog of artist Jamie Stolarski and saw where he created a piece for the San Antonio Spurs that could be cut out and attached to a veladora, or candle that is used to hold vigil. The art shows a calavera in a Manu Ginobili jersey and asks for “protección.” I thought it was so cool, and immediately made my own veladora that I keep on my desk throughout the playoffs.

After posting the picture to Twitter and Facebook, I got a lot of questions on where folks could print out the image and make their own candle. I searched on google and realized that the original blog was shut down, but reached out to the artist to get permission to post the image. Jamie graciously allowed me to post the image so be sure to download it, make a veladora, and cheer on the Spurs against the Grizzlies tonight!

Go Spurs Go!!!

(Image Courtesy of Jamie Stolarski. Be sure to click the image to get the full sized version to print out.)