Mark another off the list...
As my wife and I were making our way back to San Antonio from our afternoon in San Marcos, naturally the topic of eating came up. This happens often when we get in the car.
Anyway, since we were near New Braunfels, she suggested that maybe we should stop into the Clear Springs Restaurant off Hiway 46. Hindsight being 20 - 20...
Anyway, she also had mentioned the fact that she has never been to Pappadeaux. That was about all it took and I made a beeline down I-35 and off of Loop 410 and onto McCullough so we could get some.
My only previous experience with Pappadeaux involved a business meeting, an expense account, lots of steak & shrimp and numerous beers, so even though I would be paying this time, I was sort of happy to return.
The first thing you need to know is that the place is fairly big. The place looks mighty friendly on the outside with great landscaping, covered porch with rocking chairs, and just an inviting atmosphere to it.
Inside, there is a fairly large bar area where you can imagine people staying in nearby hotels routinely use for an after work hang-out.
We sat at a table near the center of all traffic; every person entering the place seemed to walk by us and every member of the waitstaff hung out or got their trays loaded in front of us. Sure, we could have asked for a different table, but I like to watch the excitement.
Pappadeux offers something I really like to see in a restaurant and that is a hustling staff. The people were really moving and maybe it was the time that we visited (around 5PM), but our appetiser and food arrived fast.
With our drinks, we got a loaf of hot & fresh french bread that was nothing short of outstanding. In fact, I could have just stopped there, but my wife wanted some too.
We decided to get the calamari as a starter and it was out in a matter of minutes, very hot (which is required for calamari) and it came with two sauces. One was some sort of cocktail sauce that was out of this world and the other was some sort of creamy, lemony sauce that I can't recall the name of, but it was also good.
My wife ordered the fried shrimp and instead of fries had the steamed broccoli. Dude, look at the size of that broccoli! Once she cut away all the excess undercooked parts, she was good with it. She was also happy with the shrimp, though in fairness, it was basically bland. At a Cajun place? Really.
If I had seen a steak & shrimp combo, I probably would have ordered it, but I just didn't see it on the menu. Instead, I went with the ol' standby and ordered catfish and shrimp. How can you screw that up if your a seafood place, right? Can I just say that they give you entirely too many fries? Of course I can, it's my blog. I mean, is it any wonder why people in San Antonio are so enormously fat?
More importantly, it creates a logistics problem. I don't really care for fries, so they just get in the way. Not to worry, the catfish was hot, but again extremely bland.
I know that the Pappadeaux people will spice up your meal if you want it really hot or they will tone it down if you can't handle the pica, but geeze, this crust was just so without taste that it seemed a shame to cover the nicely cooked catfish beneath it. And the shrimp was not special at all. Look, if we were talking about Long John Silvers, I'd be okay, but in case you hadn't seen the menu, prices for this stuff start at about $20.
It's a shame too. We had great service, it was fast - in fact my wife joked that the meal came faster than a lot of fast food places we have been to - and although it was loud, the place has a nice atmosphere. But when you into a place and spend $60, it should be at least as good as what you can get at Chili's or some place like that for $35.
In a head on comparison, I'll put Clear Springs restaurant and their catfish and their shrimp (and their fries for that matter) up against Pappadeaux any day of the week. And I promise it will cost a lot less.
Fire the cook.
You just might recall not too long ago that my wife and I gobbled up some chicken fried steak from a diner in downtown San Antonio called Lulu's. During that enjoyable visit, we observed more than one patron consuming the burgers and huge orders of onion rings, so when it got to be vittles time, my wife suggested we go back to Lulu's and see if they taste as good as they look. I'll cut to the chase now and gladly report, they do.
I don't know what it is, but the place just makes me giggle when I walk in there. The waitstaff yells across the room to welcome you and directs you to find a seat anywhere. I am reminded of Dick's Last Resort, where the wait staff is rude on purpose; Lulu's folks aren't mean, but it seems like they treat you like a regular, even if you aren't. I mean this in a good way of course. At Dick's, you know (or you are supposed to know) it is all part of the shtick. At Lulu's, they just seem to be a crew who gets along really well, and by visiting, you aren't taking away from their good time, so the back and forth between the waiters and the cooks continues on whether you can hear them playfully kid one another or not.
I knew from the word go that I wanted the bacon cheeseburger with some onion rings. First, the onion rings. We really like this style of breading. It is not too crunchy and in fact, it is a little flaky. My wife thinks they just dipped the rings into the same mix they use for the CFS and let it go. You will want to add salt. If you have ever had the rings at Clear Springs, you'll recognize the texture. Surely not the best I've had, but far better than any of the frozen packaged ones you get at many local places.
The bacon Cheeseburger was simply delicious. You can tell it is a handmade patty just from the uneven shape. And it tasted great as did the bacon and the fresh lettuce, tomato and fixin's. For myself, I would have grilled the bun a tad bit longer, but you could tell it was at least thrown on the grill for good measure.
My wife went with the cheeseburger and steak fries. You can tell from the picture that they toss on a little Season-all or similar thing on the fries. Cooked just right, not too hard or undercooked, you get the feeling that the guys on the grill know the drill. She was a bite into the cheeseburger when the happy dance commenced and we knew that the visit was a good choice.
As a matter of ranking, I still have not found a place that is as good as my favorite. But if you need yourself a really, really good burger, excellent fries, and some very worthwhile onion rings, Lulu's never closes, and that makes for a Tasty Treat.
And don't forget tomorrow's breakfast while you're there.
If you have lived in San Antonio for a while, you have been to or at least heard of the old Little Hipps burger place that went out of business a while back. Though not affiliated with the previous restaurant, a burger place called Armadillo's has taken over the building at the corner of McCullough and Evergreen near downtown, and that is where my wife and I found ourselves, just in time for lunch today.
The first thing you will notice about the place (aside from the orange color of the metal fabricated building) is that there is little to no parking in front. Not to worry; just across the street you can park.
Inside the place is pretty small, but for our Saturday afternoon visit, there wasn't much of a crowd, so no waiting for a table or anything. My wife liked the fact that the booth we were in had access to the juke box. As some guys seated in the back watched college basketball on the nice flat panel TV, she cranked up a few tunes to add to the atmosphere.
She ordered the regular 1/3lb cheeseburger with everything but onions. We definitely love the way they do the buns - heated and smashed (or maybe mashed is the correct terminology) but I don't know why, that particular style says, "Diner" and we like that.
I ordered the 1/2lb mushroom burger with swiss. They definitely don't skimp on the mushrooms and the lettuce, tomatoes and such all were fresh.
I ordered a medium onion ring for us to share, but they put them all on my plate - I guess that is a basket saving feature. Either way, the onion rings are certainly forgettable. There ought to be some sort of international onion ring texture naming convention so you know what you are getting when you order rings. I am totally opposed to hard, crispy onion rings coatings. Even if there is no discernible taste or seasoning to the batter you use (like these), I can live with it if the coating is not breaking my teeth to get to the onion inside.
The onion rings at Clear Springs are good. The onion rings at Armadillo's seem like something you get in the lunch room at school. If the main en tree, in this case the burger, isn't spectacular (it wasn't bad - just not GREAT), then the onion rings have to make the difference. Great service though.
Look, if you are downtown and would like a neat place to have a burger (I hear from others they have awesome hot dogs), give them a try. The atmosphere is nice and I could see meeting friends for a few beers after shopping or something. But having said that, unless it is convenient, I know a Whataburger that will make it any way you want it, and the onion rings are a lot better.
As if I'm not already a poster child for San Antonio's continual ascendancy to the top of the yearly "Fattest City" race, my wife decided that we had experienced enough restaurant dining this week and suggested I grill up some healthy homemade burgers for dinner. Yea. Healthy.
On our recent outing at Clear Springs, we picked up some of their special onion ring batter, so now, not only would we have some healthy burgers, we'd accompany them with some batter-fried onion rings. That's a vegetable, right?
So, here we go. If you want to know the big secret, the onion rings are chilled in iced water for a while, then dipped in a mixture of eggs and creamer, then covered in the special dried batter mixture. Not enough? After that, a second dunk in the egg and cream and a second coating of the specially seasoned mix.
Sure, they would probably be tasty after two good coatings, but we fried them in a healthy pan filled with oil.
For the burgers, I mixed the hamburger meat with some crumbled Ritz crackers, a sprinkling of sea salt with black pepper and then, once pressed into patties, I sprinkled some dried garlic on them. Yum.
The burgers are cooked in the usual way on my grill, and other than the fact that they aren't perfectly round, I'm sure most of you cook your burgers the same way. They start out on one side...
Then I flip them over and after some point in time, they are finished.
But before I pull them, I have to load up the grill with the buns, slathered with a mixture of butter and honey mustard. Oh, and cheese on the burgers.
Now, back to those onion rings. You know, you could probably just eat these and call it a day, right?
But no burger in our house is complete unless we load up on some bacon. I know, you are probably calling the paramedics as I type this up, but it could be worse.
I could add some mayonnaise, pickles, bbq sauces and more onion rings.
Clear!
I may have to interrupt this dinner report with a quick session of purging if only to allow my stomach to fit conveniently below the computer desk. With that bit of appetizing information, I will now tell you of bar none, the best catfish ever.
Years ago, my late grandparents along with my parents came from Florida for a visit to San Antonio. They stayed at some forgettable time-share place out at Canyon Lake, and during that trip, my grandfather had inquired as to the availability of catfish in the area. Thankfully, the store clerk he had asked had advised him to skip all the local Canyon Lake area eateries, and head directly to Clear Springs Restaurant on Highway 46 between New Braunfels and Seguin. The next day, we made the trip and it was a thing of beauty.
As we all went around the table ordering up the various plates with sides and such, when the waiter got to Boppa as we called him, he asked for a pound of catfish and nothing else to interfere with it. I'm guessing he was about 80 at the time and between sips from a draft beer, he promptly consumed that full pound of catfish and barely did more than eat and smile during the meal.
That was back in the mid-90's and both Meemo and Boppa are gone, but I get a warm feeling when I think about catfish and I have a special fondness for Clear Springs. When they opened new restaurants here in San Antonio (one at Afton Oaks and the other over off of Bandera Road which closed soon after), I thought it would be so wonderful, but I have to be honest, I like the feel of the original on Highway 46.
Okay, so on to tonight. Eating lunch - any lunch today was a mistake; wolfing down half a muffeletta was plain silly. I might have been better off fasting for a week or so. Nevertheless, we had plans to take my son and his girlfriend out for an early birthday dinner and he decided he wanted Clear Springs. The one issue I have with the Afton Oaks location is the location. Those of you who live in Stone Oak or the greater 1604 - 281 nightmare, I just don't know how you stand the traffic.
When you arrive at the Afton Oaks Clear Springs, you are taken away from the traffic and road rage, and welcomed into a quiet, down home atmosphere with lots of trees and a porch reminiscent of an old country home.
Once inside, they mix the look of your standard Chili's full of old stuff mounted on the walls and ceiling beams with the atmosphere of a hunting lodge. Add in a huge bar and it is time for a cold beer and a hot serving of onion rings.
Unless you have a group of 5 or 6, the small order of onion rings are plenty. Trust me on this. My wife and I are pretty particular about onion rings and onion blossoms and such. The trick with these is, dip them in Clear Springs creamy tarter sauce. You simply can't go wrong. Or eat them plain. You still can't go wrong.
I had this idea that I would just order up a small plate or maybe even share a plate with my wife. But once I started seeing the plates come out for the people seated around us, it was clear that I had to go with the Fisherman's Platter. You get both catfish and shrimp. And these aren't the tiny little shrimp that resemble sea monkeys, I'm talking good sized shrimp breaded and fried.
My wife went with just the shrimp (she can't bare to eat catfish, what with it being a bottom feeder, but she is cool with the shrimp).
Some how they have it timed so just as you take that last bite of onion ring, the food comes sizzling out to your table. The standard sides are fries, Cole slaw and ranch style beans, but I substituted some green beans with mine. They also serve up some tiny little hush puppies that come equipped with little chunks of jalapeño pepper in them.
The most important thing you need to know is that the breading on the catfish (and the shrimp and the onion rings) is not some sort of overpowering super seasoned mixture. Far from bland, it simply gives you a surface for which to hold the aforementioned creamy, heaven-like tarter sauce on. One of my huge complaints about some catfish I have had is that it is so crispy and crunch that you feel like it is work to eat. I try not to over use this phrase, but I mean it when I say that your catfish will simply melt in your mouth, and regardless of what you had for lunch, you will simply consume it all and consider getting a pound to go.
Another thing to consider when dining is the wait staff or lack there of. At Clear Springs, they know they have a crowd coming for dinner and they have the wait staff to handle it.
I will tell you this, you pay for what you get. The Fisherman's Platter is $12 or $13, but well worth it. For those of you not down with the seafood, you can still go and enjoy burgers or steaks or chicken, though in all the times we have been, I couldn't tell you what any of it tastes like. 
Clear Springs always has and always will be a Tasty Treat in my book.
And, they have a nice beaver.
Oh, and apparently, Colon is Good.
Anyway, she also had mentioned the fact that she has never been to Pappadeaux. That was about all it took and I made a beeline down I-35 and off of Loop 410 and onto McCullough so we could get some.
The first thing you need to know is that the place is fairly big. The place looks mighty friendly on the outside with great landscaping, covered porch with rocking chairs, and just an inviting atmosphere to it.
Inside, there is a fairly large bar area where you can imagine people staying in nearby hotels routinely use for an after work hang-out.
We sat at a table near the center of all traffic; every person entering the place seemed to walk by us and every member of the waitstaff hung out or got their trays loaded in front of us. Sure, we could have asked for a different table, but I like to watch the excitement.
With our drinks, we got a loaf of hot & fresh french bread that was nothing short of outstanding. In fact, I could have just stopped there, but my wife wanted some too.
We decided to get the calamari as a starter and it was out in a matter of minutes, very hot (which is required for calamari) and it came with two sauces. One was some sort of cocktail sauce that was out of this world and the other was some sort of creamy, lemony sauce that I can't recall the name of, but it was also good.
My wife ordered the fried shrimp and instead of fries had the steamed broccoli. Dude, look at the size of that broccoli! Once she cut away all the excess undercooked parts, she was good with it. She was also happy with the shrimp, though in fairness, it was basically bland. At a Cajun place? Really.
If I had seen a steak & shrimp combo, I probably would have ordered it, but I just didn't see it on the menu. Instead, I went with the ol' standby and ordered catfish and shrimp. How can you screw that up if your a seafood place, right? Can I just say that they give you entirely too many fries? Of course I can, it's my blog. I mean, is it any wonder why people in San Antonio are so enormously fat?
