Lots of Laughs and Plenty to Eat in the New, Improved San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO — Jose Saragosa, riverboat pilot supremo in tank top and shorts, yawed his tourist-packed cruiser to the starboard side of a sister ship, and he asked its captain:

“Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?”

San Antonio has become a city of infinite jest under Mayor Lila Cockrill, who has set about to create a world-class tourist mecca, an international city. Already she has brought San Antonio its first major-league art exhibit--”Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries”--and she has persuaded Mexico’s President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to make a state visit, the first by a Mexican president to San Antonio since Texas declared its independence in 1836.

You can even eat here nowadays. San Antonio, where the Frito was invented in 1942, was once the national capital of cop food: nachos, chicken-fried steak, onion rings and doughnuts. And it wasn’t even good cop food. As former LAPD Sgt. Jack Emery put it, “You could get better Mexican food at a Taco Bell.”

Tex-Mex platters in the old San Antonio were runny and brown, not to mention lardy and underseasoned.

Be ready for a drastic change. New restaurants on the River Walk do wonderful things with oysters and redfish, and light cuisine has made its mark. Where the choices once ranged from bad margaritas on the rocks to Lone Star beer, today you’ll be handed a sophisticated wine list--with fine Texas wines amid the Napa/Sonomas.

Until recently, you couldn’t be too choosy if you wanted to eat along the River Walk, the 2 1/2-mile flagstone and cobblestone path along both sides of the San Antonio River. Today, you still get the mariachis, the flowers, the lush tropical foliage, the gondolas and the joyous al fresco dining, but you also get the stunning redfish mojo y ajo, the smoked shrimp enchiladas and the grilled scallops on a bed of jalapeno fettuccine at Boudro’s.

Two blocks from Hotel Row, at the edge of the posh King William District, you can enjoy the glorious sopa Azteca at El Mirador, but you’ll have to stand in line. Sopa Azteca ? A thick, fragrant soup of chicken, tomatoes, potatoes, avocados, peppers, cheese, tortilla shreds and a hint of maybe cilantro and cumin.

The view is the thing at the revolving restaurant atop the 750-foot Tower of the Americas in HemisFair Park--the front yard of the Plaza San Antonio hotel--site of the World’s Fair of 1968, and the blackened prime rib is worth the dizzying elevator ride.

San Antonio even has a nightclub district these days, along St. Mary’s Avenue between Josephine and Magnolia streets. Bands play everything from zydeco to blues to hard rock. You won’t find any slow nights, not even Mondays. At the hugely popular Tycoon Flats, Ize Box will rock for you while you eat French fries for $1.75 a pound and drink Pearl Beer from long-necked bottles.

The liveliest spot in town is the ground floor of the Embassy Suites at San Antonio airport. Like other hotels in the chain, this one serves unlimited free drinks and popcorn to hotel guests and their friends from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. every day. Unlimited corn chips and salsa too.

But this Embassy Suites issues trays, so you can pick up two hours’ worth of drinks at once without standing in line again. I met one Trinity University student who ordered 10 whiskey sours--and watched him drink them all. How many of the hundreds of drinkers are actually hotel guests is anybody’s guess; I never saw a bartender ask anyone to show a room key.

Hotelkeeping has turned into something of an art form here. At Plaza San Antonio, just south of the Alamo, pheasants stroll the gardens, and concierges order up bicycles for you along with salmon-in-dill-sauce picnic lunches and hand-drawn maps of suggested routes through the historic King William District, where huge Victorian mansions stand dressed for summer in their cheery pastels.

A waiter at Boudro’s touts the guest amenities at La Mansion del Rio, a refurbished mansion on the River Walk. “For just a few dollars more,” he says, “you get true European service.” La Mansion will arrange, for a fee, romantic river barge dinners with tropical fruits and sorbet and champagne for two.

What he knows about true European service is not readily apparent, however. When I refused to order the $42 bottle of wine he suggested, he whisked away our wineglasses, turned his back on our table and was off like a prom dress.

The San Antonio that awaits today’s visitor is 55% Latino, and Latinos are among the city’s First Families. San Antonio, after all, was Spanish and then Mexican long before it was part of the United States. The Mexican Constitution was drafted here.

Much of the Anglo population is new to the city. The doorman at Plaza San Antonio, for example, was imported from Torrance. As a result, all the good Texas drawls in town belong to Latinos. Once, while drinking a Lone Star beer along the River Walk in front of the Hilton, I heard a man say his pappy made his money in the awl bidness. I turned around to see who was speaking, and I found a perfect double for Fernando Valenzuela.

Cruising is a good way to begin in San Antonio: Riverboat rides cost $2 per adult, $1 per child, and rival only the Alamo as San Antonio’s main tourist attraction. The pilots freshen up their comedy routines regularly, and set a festive mood.

Teen-agers stand on bridges astride the river and threaten to spit on tourists, but it’s all in fun.

Rides end at the Marriott Rivercenter, a 1,000-room palace set beside a gleaming new high-tech $200-million three-story shopping mall. You’ll find your favorite stores among the 135 in the Rivercenter, but not your Anywhere, U.S.A., merchandise. On a recent Monday, all the clothing in The Gap was blue--peacock, royal and turquoise--while The Gap in the North Star Mall near the airport carried the same goods you’d find at home.

For further malling, Bus No. 551 shuttles from one shopping center to another, and these are knockouts in San Antonio. The North Star has a two-story Gucci, for example. Still, only the Rivercenter is across the street from the Alamo.

From the Rivercenter, you can reach any central destination for a dime. Five trolley routes cover the heart of San Antonio. Maps are posted at every stop. You can ride all day for your 10 cents. But, like most other visitors, you’ll feel obliged to stop at the Alamo.

All that’s left of the Alamo, once a huge mission, is two buildings--a barrack and a chapel. It’s the knowledge of what took place here, that you’re standing on sacred ground, that makes the Alamo a must.

Guides make it clear that the historic 1836 battle was not a simple clash between Anglos and Mexicans, that 10 of the slain defenders of the Alamo were Mexican nationals, that men of many nations were fighting to oppose the brutal dictatorship of Mexican President and Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

In a riveting new 45-minute dramatization of the battle at the five-story IMAX theater at the Rivercenter across the street, we watched Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and Col. William B. Travis fight bravely to their deaths, hopelessly outnumbered by the forces of Gen. Santa Anna.

(The 1960 John Wayne version of “The Alamo” is not considered politically correct in San Antonio.)

For a rainy day: San Antonio’s Museum of Art, not worth a detour in the old days, is exhibiting “Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries” until August. The show opens Oct. 6 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but the San Antonio Museum has been handling only 100 visitors per hour, as opposed to an expected 600 in Los Angeles, so this is a convenient way to view the highly rated collection. San Antonians are thrilled to have this exhibit, the first world-class show to come their way. Heavy lobbying took the exhibit from Dallas, a major player on the world circuit.

And finally, for something completely different, a day in beautiful 343-acre Brackenridge Park, just 10 minutes north of downtown. For a total of $8.50, you can ride high in the skies in a cablecar over the park, take a 3 1/2-mile train ride through the woods and go to the zoo, one of the best in the country, the first to successfully breed a white rhinoceros in captivity.

Better yet, rent a horse for $11 an hour and pretend you’re the one thing you can’t be in San Antonio anymore:

A hick Texas cowboy.

GUIDEBOOK

San Antonio

Getting there: Southwest flies to San Antonio with one stop but no change of planes for an advance-purchase excursion fare of $181 round trip. You must purchase tickets three weeks in advance, and stay over at least one Saturday night.

When to go: Temperatures in San Antonio are roughly comparable to those in the San Fernando Valley, with warmer nights. July and August can be uncomfortably humid.

Where to stay: Plaza San Antonio, 555 S. Alamo, San Antonio, Tex. 78205. Doubles on the River Running package start at $99, including free riverboat tickets. Call (800) 421-1172.

La Mansion del Rio, 112 College St., San Antonio, Tex. 78205. Doubles start at $125, $325 for a suite, (800) 531-7208.

San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter, Bowie Street at Commerce, San Antonio, Tex. 78205. Doubles start at $155, (800) 831-1000.

Where to eat:

Boudro’s, 421 E. Commerce on the River Walk, reservations a must, (512) 224-8484.

El Mirador, 722 S. St. Mary’s St., no reservations accepted, (512) 225-9444.

Tower of the Americas, 600 HemisFair Park, reservations recommended, (512) 223-3101.

Carlos O’Brien’s, a clone of Senor Frog’s in Mazatlan, 3011 N. St. Mary’s Ave., reservations on Saturday nights, (512) 733-3663.

Tycoon Flats, for huge hamburgers and French fries, drinks and free music, 2926 N. St. Mary’s Ave., (512) 737-1929.

For more information: Contact the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau, P.O. Box 2277, San Antonio. Tex. 78298, (800) 447-3372.