3 TAKEOUT ALL-STARS

Thai Dee, Cappy’s, Mixtli are good to-go

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, takeout was the only game in town for San Antonio restaurants. And so they gave it their all, to-go.

Restaurants started reopening May 1 — and they began serving at 75 percent capacity Friday — but not every restaurant’s ready to rock, and not every customer’s ready to roll. If you’re not comfortable sitting in a restaurant dining room just yet, know that Thai Dee, Cappy’s and Mixtli are right there with you, waiting at the curb with a takeout taste of what makes them three of the best restaurants in San Antonio.

Thai Dee

The tiny paneled dining room at Thai Dee is usually packed to the walls with Thai fans and their BYOB wine bottles, with a scrum of people at the front door waiting their turn. Right now and for the indefinite future, the room’s like a museum exhibit, with a lone cashier at the back curating carryout orders.

Even boxed for takeout, Thai Dee’s food radiated big, fresh flavors, starting with the city’s best papaya salad ($10), with ribbons of the crunchy fruit married with peppers, green beans, carrots, tomatoes awash in funky citrus marinade. The tom soup fraternal twins — tom yum and tom kha ($4 each) — resonated with the respective twang of tomatoes and coconut milk.

The appetizer train rolled on with the hot-and-cold crunch of spicy grilled beef salad ($13) and moo ping skewers of grilled pork with a sweet glaze and backyard charcoal character ($11).

Main courses brought the substance and charm of chicken pad Thai noodles with big peanut taste ($12), plus an eponymous Thai Dee curry with deep, tomato flavor spiked with shrimp and pineapple ($14). Green beans with pork ($17) brought the subtle citrus of shredded kaffir lime leaves into clear focus.

Location and hours: 5307 Blanco Road, 210-342-3622, thaideesa.com. Open only for takeout noon to 8 p.m. Monday to

Saturday.

Cappy’s

It’s hard to imagine Cappy’s on Broadway without the warm, lodge-style hospitality that makes it one of the city’s best customer service experiences. But you don’t have to imagine

Cappy’s longtime menu favorites, because they hold up well on the trip from curbside to your home table.

Lamb chops ($28) led a fullsize family feast from Cappy’s, a trio grilled and seasoned with a rosy center, served with buttery mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. Out of the box, it filled a dinner plate from rim to rim, the same as Mustang Chicken ($17), a Cappy’s favorite with a pan-fried horseradish crust, a smart take on chicken-fried chicken.

The menu changes day to day, but you’ll likely find Brussels sprouts there ($10), caramelized with a twangy kimchi vinaigrette. And the kale salad you used to order at lunch was there, stocked with pine nuts, dried cherries and Parmesan cheese ($7). A crab cake ($19) made a guest appearance, stacked tall with crispy edges, plated with greens and a bracing guava lime vinaigrette.

This cocktail you enjoyed at Cappy’s bar waiting for your table? Refreshing take-home versions of the gin-and-lime Vespa ($8) and tart prickly pear margarita ($9) filled the gap.

Location and hours: 5011 Broadway, 210-828-9669, cappysrestaurant.com. Open only for takeout 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

Mixtli

One of the most unlikely outcomes of the pandemic is San Antonio’s best restaurant reinventing itself as a taquería.

Mixtli chefs Diego Galicia and Rico Torres made their names serving multicourse, modernist Mexican haute cuisine to 12 people at a time in their converted Olmos Park boxcar. But at limited capacity, those seatings didn’t make much sense, so this pair of celebrated chefs started packing carnitas, beef short ribs and more into vacuum-sealed bags ready to reheat at home with enough tortillas and fixings for four people.

If this whole high-end thing hadn’t worked out for the Mixtli guys, they’d have made excellent carnitas slingers, the pork braised in seasonings with the right ratio of fat to lean to bark. Folded into blue corn tortillas with fiery red chile salsa, onions and cilantro, those carnitas became street tacos with an attitude ($25 for the kit). Beef short rib delivered the same fatty-rich satisfaction as barbacoa at $27 for the four-person take-home kit.

Supplement the street version of your Mixtli experience with the creamy zest of orange rice pudding ($5) and a quart of fresh tamarind agua fresca ($5). But do it fast, because Mixtli’s sitdown dinners resume Tuesday, and the last taquería orders will go out June 27.

Location and hours: 5251 McCullough Ave., 210-338-0746, restaurantmixtli.com. Taquería takeout orders available for pickup on Wednesdays and Saturdays through June 27. Dine-in service reopening by reservation Tuesday, with seatings at 5:30 and 8 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays.

Photos by Mike Sutter / Staff Thai Dee on Blanco Road is focusing on takeout orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, with dishes like, clockwise from top left, papaya salad, beef salad, pad Thai, tom yum soup, Thai Dee curry with shrimp, moo ping grilled pork skewers and tom kha soup.

Takeout options from Cappy's restaurant on Broadway include, clockwise from center, lamb chops with mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables, house salad with kale, Mustang Chicken, a Vespa cocktail, a prickly pear margarita and a crab cake.

The modernist Mexican restaurant Mixtli in Olmos Park is offering make-at-home taco kits featuring carnitas, left, and beef short rib.