San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Ro-Ho Pork, Kuriya and Magpie top takeout spots.
Set the table with culinary diversity
Note:
Shake the Magic 8-Ball and ask whether your favorite restaurants have reopened their dining rooms in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and you’ll get all kinds of answers. But mostly, “Ask again later.”
Ask David Malley of the Japanese ramen shop Kuriya @ Cherrity Bar, and he’ll say that with a capacity of more than 700 at his East Side compound, he can open around 12 percent of his patio and indoor spaces and still feed 75 people.
Ask Eugene Sanchez of the Hackberry Market phenom The Magpie, and he’ll say he doesn’t want to “march forward cavalierly into a potential nightmare of exposure and liability.” Besides, at the 25 percent occupancy the state allows right now, his 22-seat Korean cafe could serve just a few people at a time. The Magpie is all takeout for now.
Ask Jorge Rojo of the Mexican tortas ahogadas shop Ro-Ho Pork & Bread, and he’ll say it still feels too risky. He’ll also say that on a good day, he’s doing 70 percent of his old business with takeout. On a bad day, maybe 30 percent.
“It’s not time to make money. It’s time to just survive,” he said.
With takeout food taken to another level, these three restaurants are doing much more than that.
The Magpie
Fifty percent of The Magpie experience is sitting in that little dining room filled with steam and smells and conversation that goes from loud to loudest, fueled by cold white wine and chef Sue Kim’s vibrant Korean cooking.
Good news: The other 50 percent of the experience is the food, and it’s more than enough to carry the sensory joy of The Magpie home. It starts with traditional beef bulgogi ($17), dressed out with green onions and shiitake mushrooms, resting on a bed of mixed rice and served with banchan side dishes of broccoli in spicy gochujang sauce and turnip-radish kimchi.
The menu varies from week to week, but keep your fingers crossed for bibimbap, an explosion of color, vegetables, rice and chile paste meant to be whirled together like an impressionist painting, topped with a fried egg ($19). And The Magpie’s fried chicken is like nuggets with a passport, soaked in a 23-ingredient soy sauce with layers of flavors, set off by a bacon-cheese biscuit and kimchi ($16).
Here’s what comfort looks like at The Magpie: grown-up mac and cheese made with ziti, three cheeses and breadcrumbs ($14), and chocolate mousse with pistachio cream ($8), with just the right blend of bitter and sweet to suit the times.
Location and hours: magpie.us. Open for takeout noon to 8 p.m. Thursday to Sunday. No delivery available. The dining room has not reopened.
Kuriya @ Cherrity Bar
San Antonio restaurants have adapted to the new emphasis on takeout by putting together family meals at tremendous values. At Kuriya, chef Ernie Bradley assembled an A-team of his strongest players — two bowls of ramen, an order of chicken wings and a six-pack of beer — for $35.
Not just any ramen but pork bone tonkotsu in a rich, milkwhite broth embellished with braised pork belly, marinated ajitama egg, fried garlic and shiitake mushrooms. Or a silky bowl of ramen with a double dose of salty-rich miso with vegetable broth. You get to choose your variety, all with twisty noodles cooked until their spring’s at maximum coil.
Two bowls would cost around $25 by themselves. The extra $10 gets you four big chicken wings, fried crispy then saturated with a sauce that’s sweet but still sets your lips ablaze, plus a six-pack of HighWheel Betty kölsch, a soft and refreshing beer from San Antonio’s Dorcol Distilling + Brewing Co.
A greatest-hits dinner from Kuriya calls for lush pork gyoza dumplings ($7), spicy-crispy katsu sliders made with fried pork cutlets ($8), and steamed buns filled with pork and red bean chile paste ($9).
But to get a taste of what makes Kuriya special, get a pickle plate with ginger and radish and kimchi and ajitama eggs, a $10 bowl full of color and light to go with $6 carryout cocktails like the ruby-red Ron Burgundy with whiskey and wine, or the splashand-dash of Texas Tea with all the liquors and a little Coke.
Location and hours: 302 Montana St., 210-598-0496, kuriyasa.com. Open for takeout 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Friday; noon to 9 p.m. Saturday. Delivery available nearby by calling directly, or online through DoorDash. The dining rooms and patios are open by reservation, with limited walk-up availability.
Ro-Ho Pork & Bread
It’s heartbreaking to see the dining room and patio of chef Jorge Rojo’s modern, colorful sandwich shop so empty. Carousel horses, striking murals, papel picado banners fluttering in the breeze under broad oak trees.
That’s where the heartbreak stops, because Rojo’s carnitas are as good as the day he opened Ro-Ho last year — boiled in oil, then chopped and pulled into feathery strands and barky bites to become the building blocks for tacos, nachos, chilaquiles and sandwiches.
“Sandwich” doesn’t begin to do justice to these freshly baked birote rolls stuffed with carnitas then drowned in spicy tomato sauce to create tortas ahogadas ($8), taken a step further with radishes, lime and showers of cabbage. The sauce comes in a tidy plastic bag for drenching at home.
The carnitas lend their silken power to everything here, including Chilango-style tacos in soft corn tortillas dressed with onions, cilantro, crushed pork cracklings and avocado cream ($2.50 each). Tacos dorados get the same treatment as the tortas, their crispy shells ready to drench in sauce for the messiest taco experience in town ($2.50 each).
Location and hours: 8617 N. New Braunfels Ave., 210-800-3487, ro-hoporkandbread.com. Open for takeout 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, closed Wednesday. Delivery through Postmates, Grubhub and other services. The dining room has not reopened.