Evening In San Marcos...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

SAN MARCOS, Texas - Driving into town from the north, I-35 eventually shows you Exit 202. You take it and follow the access road to the next intersection, turn right and look for Hunter Road about a mile west. If you turn right on Hunter, you'll roll past a string of tree-lined historical houses of the sort that sport parapets and steeples. And just when you think it's merely a looksee at Old San Marcos, there, on the right, is M&M Corner Tacos. The joint looks sort of okay, if you can get past the image of a full-length mobile home possibly being a taqueria.

We didn't stop.

Instead, we drove up a bit and then turned back and headed south on Hunter until we came up on our destination - Tres Hermanas Restaurant and Cantina (see photo above of main entrance). It had caught our attention during an earlier drive, or I thought it had, although when we went looking for it, well, we didn't think we'd been down this way before.

But that's country drives. You think you know a lonely outpost after one roll, but, in smalltown Texas, one just never really knows. Anyway, we found it tucked in the elbow of a modern-looking strip mall, in between a fried chicken joint and a pasta place. Inside, it was owner Sharon Chiu, wife of former mayor David Chiu, who eventually greeted us. The restaurant looks more like something you'd find in the anglo section of Denver or Dallas, but it served its purpose. Obligatory Mexican do-dads lined the walls, including a too-red, football-sized lizard that seemed to have been painted by Diego Rivera. Required beer neon signs hung over the bar in one corner of the high-ceiling dining area.

Its menu is utilitarian, armed with the traditional Mexican fare of enchiladas and fajitas and taco plates, plus a children's menu of largely American grub, like cheeseburgers. No music on this afternoon, not even coming from the kitchen. A piano rested in one corner, there with a well-dressed mannequin at the pianist's stool waiting on who knows what, perhaps a tip jar.

Beef enchiladas came my way; Margaret had a chicken salad. Iced teas, with lemon. Courtesy salsa and chips decorated the table, both sub-par for this hungry cat.

It's not a hurry-up place. Tres Hermanas counts enough tables to seat about 60 patrons. A second-floor verandah adds small tables and highbacks, seemingly for the Happy Hour crowd. San Marcos, home of Texas State University and an estimated citizenry numbering 50,000, rests about 20 miles south of Austin. It is a college town with an assortment of shops and eateries in its old downtown district, pizza joints sprinkled here and there, ready to feed students looking for filling grub under ten bucks.

We ate, paid the $23 tab and left, really because that's what you do when you hit a cafe and finish your meal.

It was an okay outing on a somewhat scorching Tuesday afternoon. No rain was in the air, and the weatherman was predicting at least five more days of 100-plus-degree days. It would have been easy to just head on home and wait on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, where we were sure to get the latest on the bullshit playing in the nation's capital.

Instead, we drove over to the bookstore and I picked up a biography of Zelda Fitzgerald...

- 30 -

[Tres Hermanas Restaurant & Cantina is located at 2550 Hunter Road in San Marcos, Texas. Dress is casual. Cash and all credit cards are accepted...]