Episode LI: The Hoppy Monk (SAT)

I celebrated my 33^rd birthday last week and the crew from work wanted to take me out to lunch to get a Reuben. I said thanks, but no thanks. I had a trip to the Hoppy Monk in San Antonio coming up that weekend and I couldn’t be distracted by another Reuben.  We had some great Mexican that day instead.

The Hoppy Monk in El Paso was featured on Episode XL and I often cite it as one of the best Reubens I’ve had. The location in San Antonio has a Reuben de Lengua, which had been on my radar. It was time to check it out and let the world know what happens when you put beef tongue and sauerkraut together.

REUBEN DE LENGUA

“ten-day cured wagyu beef tongue + muenster + sauerkraut + russian sauce + marbled rye”

Appearance – (4.6/5.0)

Lovely stacking.  The marbled rye looks like a cut out cross section of a bullseye. The sauerkraut gives a great visual contrast and the bottom piece has the Russian dressing seeping out.  They may have forgotten the dressing on the top piece. You can also see the salt crystals on the lengua meat and the tiny bits of moisture it pulls out. The fries are generously seasoned with fresh herbs that put some green on the plate.  A flimsy sword/toothpick keeps it all together but overall, a great looking dish. 

Quality of Ingredients – (4.7/5.0)

This one was encroaching on RINO territory (Reuben in name only), by swapping out the corned beef and Swiss cheese, but still had the sauerkraut, marbled rye, and Russian dressing to restore credibility.

Great ingredients and an even better job of marketing them to the customer. The menu and website direct lots of attention to all of the local suppliers and I think that makes the food taste better.  They have the placebo effect working for them here.  When you take a bite, you say to yourself, “Oh yeah, this tastes like it came from that farm I drove by last week in the Hill Country.”  They also have an amazing house made ketchup. Remember, we are in Whataburger country here, so anything that can compete with Whataburger Ketchup and Whataburger Spicy Ketchup has got to be pretty amazing.

This place talks the talk and walks the walk. 

Price – (4.0/5.0)

$11. So this is not cheap, especially for South Texas, but I think the dish as a whole is a good value. For one thing, you know you are paying for the local ingredients.  Another is that they are not shy about bringing you more of the ketchup when you ask. You also know you are paying for the ambiance. There is an awesome beer tap fountain outside and the inside is a long room with community tables so it has the feel of a European beer hall.   

Je Ne Sais Quoi – (4.4/5.0)

Anything that has lengua is going to have a high JNSQ score. I just like this place. I came here a few months back for drinks with friends and that is when I discovered their special Reuben. That was a late night stop with the guys drinking beers and this time I was with my son and two nephews right when they opened early in the day. This place is versatile. The owners are from El Paso, so they have that going for them too. 

Taste – (8.0/10.0)

What happened?! It was too salty for my taste. This might be by design, a marketing trick as old as time.  What do you need with a salty snack? Something to wash it down. The drink menu here is 20 pages long.

I was a fat kid growing up and will be a fat kid for life. I have to watch what I eat (and drink).  I know I can only consume so many calories at a time and I prefer to eat my calories. I realize that this is a microbrew and their whole thing is the beer, I get it. I also grew up in a house where my mother was scared of only three things: scorpions, garlic, and salt. It’s weird. My mom uses very little salt when she cooks and no garlic. So my tolerance for salt is lower than others. What I wanted to do was order a nice local beer, rinse the lengua in the beer to remove the excess salt, then reconstruct the Reuben. I think that would have been awesome. The lengua itself was great and prepared really well. It is a tough cut of meat and usually requires a slow cooker or a pressure cooker to really break it down.  

Overall – (25.7/30.0)

Would I order it again? No.  I had some of my wife’s burger and it was amazing (Burger blogs are a dime a dozen, you can find a write up there); I am getting that next time.  Or maybe the next time I go I’ll drink my calories and get a flight of Texas beer. Either way, I can’t wait to go back.  

Episode XXXIX: Rainforest Café (SAT)

I was back in Texas for the Christmas holiday and my nephew Matthew was very excited for us to arrive. He had been telling us for days about volcanoes, jungles, snakes, and dinosaurs.  You parents out there probably know that he was talking about the Rainforest Café and he wanted to go back. We packed up the family in the car and headed down to the San Antonio Riverwalk to see what all the fuss was about.  It was our lucky day. We got a table right by the Pandas!

Rio Reuben
“classic reuben with corned beef, melted swiss cheese, steamy sauerkraut and thousand island dressing on grilled marble rye”

Appearance – (4.6/5.0)

This Reuben experience started well when the Reuben arrived at the table.  I like the sleek black slate and the double stack presentation, even if it did require a vampire stake.

This presentation does not surprise me at a corporate location like this. The whole restaurant is carefully planned like an amusement park or a casino.

Quality Of Ingredients – (3.7/5.0)

You know, I wasn’t thrilled with the individual ingredients here. I could go down the list and all of them would fall under the off-the-sysco-truck category.  If this was Vodka, it would be one step above Mr. Boston but not quite to Smirnoff.

Price – (4.0/5.0)

$13.95. On the surface this does seem like an expensive Reuben. You have to remember that you are paying for more than the sandwich, you are paying to listen to the volcano go off every 15 minutes. It freaked both of the boys out, by the way. Danny got up from the table and said it was time to go home the first time it went off.  It is also right on the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. So all-in, it is an ok price.

Je Ne Sais Quoi – (3.8/5.0)

The Reuben itself had little mystique but what the Reuben was lacking was made up for by the Pandas.

Taste – (7.1/10.0)

This Reuben was just not very good and it upsets me. This blog is trying to introduce the Reuben to a new generation and bad Reubens like this one puts people off.  When you have acidic sauerkraut, Caraway/Rye, corned beef… These are strong flavors and need to be handled with caution. It’s like cooking Meth, things can go very wrong. Labs can explode and people die if you don’t know what you are doing.    

Overall – (23.2/30.0)

Would I order it again? No.  Am I going back to the Rainforest Café? Yes. The kids love it and now I know not to order it again. The Sushi tower my sister got was pretty good. Danny loved his hotdog and Matthew ate all of his dinosaur chicken nuggets.

I have a feeling will be right back there next time we are in town. 

Episode XX: Flying Saucer (SAT)

I know, I know. It has been a while since my last post. My inbox is overflowing with anxious, almost angry, emails from fans waiting for the next episode of the Reuben Ranger (Sarcasm). Well it is here and it’s a special one.

We go out west to San Antonio to visit the Flying Saucer. This place has a thinly veiled alcoholic start-up program that they call the UFO Club. You drink 200 beers and they put your name on a plate up on the wall.  There are mini awards along the way to keep you drinking.

You can only get credit for three drinks in one day so it is not really the binge drinking kind of alcoholism, it's more the slow-and-steady-three-beers-does-not-even-give-me-a-buzz kind. Turns out my sister and my brother-in-law have taken the bait and are well on their way to the plate. I am all for this, by the way; I wish they had one here in Atlanta.

REUBEN-ESQUE
“Pastrami, jalapeño-kraut, melted Swiss cheese and thousand island dressing on toasted marble rye.” 

Appearance – (3.8/5.0)

First impression here is the butcher paper on the plate. Hmmmm. We have seen brown paper bags, baskets, plates and butcher paper all working solo but this is an interesting combination. Not really sure what it does. I would say minimal value-added. You still have to wash the plate, right?

One slice of pastrami did not make it in. Oddly enough it looks like the sandwich is sticking its tongue out at me. It obviously does not know how this ends.

There is good marbling on the rye and you can see a slight hint of green in the kraut from the jalapeños.  Also the standard stray pickle and toothpicks; what can you do?

Quality Of Ingredients – (4.1/5.0)

All good stuff here. There is usually a weak link in almost every sandwich but that is not the case here. The pastrami had good flavor and was not too salty. The jalapeños could have had more kick to them.  You could tell the bread was rye without Caraway domination. I guess there was no weak link, but there were no superstars either.

Price – (3.9/5.0)

For San Antonio $8.29 is not cheap. There is also an 8.25% sales tax in the Lone Star State. The atmosphere was good and there were plenty of TVs with all kinds of college football on, so that keeps the score closer to 4.0.  What kept it below 4.0 was the portion size of the potato salad. They are stingy with that stuff. It was really good too, so it made me even more upset. I gave up ordering fries for that. In the end it is a good deal because our server was nice and you could tell she had a big heart.

Je Ne Sais Quoi – (4.7/5.0)The “Esque”, as I like to call it, and the Flying Saucer in general were fun. The jalapeños mixed things up a bit in Reubenland.  I think the JNSQ was sitting at a 4.5 and our server gets credit for the last point 2.

Taste – (8.3/10.0)

I usually base my taste score on the quality of the ingredients then ask myself if the whole was greater than the parts. In this case I say the whole was greater (4.1x2=8.2) although not by much. I think just a little more of a kick from the jalapeño could have really taken this one to another level.  Solid ingredients put together make a solid sandwich. 

Overall – (24.8/30.0)

Would I order the Esuqe again? I am not sure. There are some other things on the menu I would want to try first before going back to the Esque. My wife had a burger that was superb and there are other menu items that feature the jalapeño-kraut.  I would go back to the Flying Saucer for sure and I look forward to doing so.

(This is Matthew, my favorite nephew)