El Potosino, 1105 Bandera Road

They’re not exaggerating at El Potosino Mexican Restaurant when the sign on the facade says “Sports Bar & Grill.” Dozens of TVs are mounted high throughout. Behind the long marble bar is also where a lady wearing a headset hands out tacos through a drive-thru window.

I sat at a booth at mid-morning and watched SportsCenter talk about the decline of Aaron Rodgers, which I’ve been saying for a years.

In a brief chat, El Potosino’s owner told me the sports thing is relatively new for the restaurant. I really wanted the tacos to be good, so that I could say something like, “Some of the best breakfast tacos in San Antonio can be found at a sports cantina on Bandera Road.”

But, I can’t.

The most memorable thing from my visit was the hot sauce. There’s a red and a green in sugar pourers. And they’re some of the hottest you’ll find in San Antonio. The burn stayed with me after I paid, left the bar, and while taking pictures of the exterior, got in my truck and was driving home on Bandera.

The red sauce confounded me. It looked fresh tomato-based in color and body, but the taste was more complex. The heat must have come from a red pepper of some sort combined with the tomato. The green was also very good and scorching and tasted like pure pulverized serrano and water.

Too bad, because the tacos disappointed.

The machacado and egg had good flavor, but the meat was such that I actually thought for a second that I was chewing on plastic. It was too off-putting, so I stopped eating. The potatoes in the papa ranchera too mushy. The chorizo and bean slightly stale. The flour tortillas unmemorable. The one bright spot: the carne guisada was tender, and not fatty.

I give El Potosino major points for its affordability: $7 for four tacos. At mid-morning, El Potosino was semi-packed with couples and a couple of families. I really wanted to like this place because serving breakfast tacos in a sports bar on the northwest side is as S.A. as it gets. Maybe the plates are much better than the tacos, which is possible. (My favorite taqueria, which I won’t mention on this blog, yet, I won’t eat the lunch plates). So hopefully, that’s the case.