SAN ANTONIO — You look at it on your plate and feel like your date should be a cardiologist.
She’ll have to jump into action after about four bites. It’s called the macho tostada burger, and it’s as deliciously disgusting as it sounds. In fact, why bother eating it? Gaze at the refried beans and salsa spilling over a half pound of lean hamburger and real cheddar cheese oozing out from under a glistening, buttered hamburger bun and you may as well just inject it right into your arteries.
Go ahead. Skip the digestion. Head straight to the coronary. Just don’t expect to collect on any life insurance premiums. No company would insure against the macho tostada burger. Not after they saw the ingredients.
It is — please sit down now — homemade refried beans, crushed tostada chips, onions, salsa and a pile of melted cheddar on a huge half-pound hamburger patty inside a bun, toasted and buttered. Frankly, it’s worth dying for, or, in the least, shortening your life.
Besides, aren’t dishes like this what treadmills are for?
I found this ultimate guilty pleasure in a sprawling restaurant called Chris Madrid’s, smack dab in the heart of San Antonio. During the Final Four here, I wanted to get away from my hotel on the Riverwalk, away from the “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” echoing in my ears and away from Mexican food that makes Sloppy Joes look like haute cuisine.
Mexican food on the Riverwalk is mostly rubbish, but San Antonio is known for its Mexican dishes. During last year’s NCAA Tournament here, I feasted on breakfast tacos. This year, I planned to feast on the macho tostada burger. One. That’s all I’d need. And I wouldn’t make any dinner plans that night.
I took a cab 15 minutes from the Riverwalk into a heavily Hispanic neighborhood. Chris Madrid’s is a plain, one-story structure with a little green façade and a simple sign out front. Inside on a Saturday lunch hour, the place was packed. All 16 picnic tables outside were shared by strangers, and I saw no spare tables anywhere inside.
I stood in a line that snaked under revolving fans and T-shirts of Mexican and Greek (as in frats and sororities) themes. In line with me were Latinos, whites, local businessmen and not one Kansas fan with that Jayhawk mascot on his shirt. It was perfect.
The first thing I noticed was it’s a hamburger in name only. Picking it up is fruitless. It’s easier holding a pile of pasta amatriciana . Knife and fork are mandatory. It took three major excavations just to reach the meat.
I could feel my belly growing and my arteries hardening, but I could also taste the creamy warmth of the refried beans covering the lean burger, the salsa offering a cool tang. You know how yummy nachos are after they’ve soaked and softened in refried beans? Picture that taste on a hamburger covered in real cheddar. No condiments needed. On this burger, mustard is about as functional as parsley on prime rib.
Only $5.89 for the macho size (a regular is $4.79), this hybrid was born in 1977, my junior year in college. Where was this burger when I needed it after a three-day binge and a botched press-law midterm? That’s the year San Antonio native Chris Madrid opened his place as just another Mexican joint with burgers on the side.
San Antonio was already known for its bean burgers. But Madrid wanted to add his own touch.
“We just started experimenting,” said Madrid, 57. “One thing led to another. We changed from American cheese to real cheddar. We put things together and made it a little bit different.”
Madrid even took his restaurant to Kumamoto City, Japan, San Antonio’s sister city, with one restriction: no tostada burger. “We had to make the patties smaller because Japanese people aren’t used to the size of the burger,” Madrid said. “But they come over here and have the macho when they come.”
It may shorten your life — but it also may make life feel worth living.
If you go:
Chris Madrid’s, 1900 Blanco Road, San Antonio, 210-735-3552,
