The Weekend Gourmet Dines out for May...Featuring hopdoddy Burger Bar San Antonio #WGDinesOut

For this month's edition of The Weekend Gourmet Dines Out, I'm sharing our recent visit to San Antonio's new location of perennial Austin favorite hopdoddy Burger Bar! This popular Austin-based burger restaurant recently opened at The Rim shopping area in San Antonio -- to much fanfare and excitement. We were so excited when hopdoddy invited Michael and I to come for dinner opening night, and we had a blast! Gourmet burgers, cocktails, and a fun atmosphere you say?!?!? Sign us up! It was stormy when we arrived, but we were quickly seated in the packed restaurant and brought menus to look over. While we decided which burgers to order, we started with an appetizer and cocktails. The signature cocktail of the San Antonio location is the aptly named Alamocitea -- which contained house-made Limoncello, Texas-made Deep Eddy Sweet Tea vodka, raspberry puree, and fresh-squeezed lemon. This gorgeous pink-red cocktail was so good -- sweetly tart like a grown-up version of lemonade. It's the perfect Summer cocktail!

We paired our cocktails with hopdoddy's amazing Green Chile Queso, which is paired with crispy house-made fries for dipping. The amazing fries were a creative spin on traditional tortilla chips. Our meal was off to a tasty start...and then our burgers arrived! I opted for the Magic Shroom Burger, which features a juicy Angus patty, Texas goat cheese, field mushrooms, basil pesto, mayo, lettuce, onion, and tomato. It was DELICIOUS! The beefy patty was expertly cooked, and the combination of earth mushrooms and the herbal basil pesto was out of this world!

We paired this burger with Parmesan Truffle Fries, which came with a decadent truffle aioli for dipping. If you're a truffle lover, these fries are a definite must! The potatoes for the fries are cut and sliced in house, and these are some of the best restaurant french fries we've ever had. We also shared a Sangrita cocktail with this burger. If you love sangria and margaritas, this is the cocktail for you! It contains gold tequila, fresh-squeezed orange and lime juice, and pomegranate grenadine...and it comes with a chile salt rim. This orange-red hued cocktail packs a delicious...and potent...punch.

Our second burger selection was the spicy Llano Poblano. It includes an Angus beef patty, smoky apple-smoked bacon, Tillamook pepper jack cheese, seared poblano peppers, chipotle mayo, lettuce, onion, and tomato. This burger is ideal for the person who loves their food on the spicy side of the flavor spectrum. It's not overly spicy, but it definitely packs a spicy punch. 

To cool our palates between bites, we enjoyed sips of hopdoddy's signature shakes. Each one is spun with their house-made cinnamon vanilla custard for a decadent treat. We had the Caramel Sea Salt flavor, and it was positively addictive! The salt level wasn't overpowering, and it was rich and creamy -- topped with a generous amount of fresh whipped cream and a caramel drizzle. 

We agreed that from start to end, our visit to San Antonio's hopdoddy location was one of the best dining out burger experiences we've ever had! In addition to having great-tasting food, we love hopdoddy's mission: they support a sustainable, local economy and nurture the environment. They work with local food artisans for every location to ensure they support the local food community. They grind all of the meat for their burgers in house every day, and their excellent bar serves a wide range of draft, bottled, and canned craft beer from small brewers located in close proximity to each location. Some of the local craft beers available at the San Antonio hopdoddy location include Twisted X Cow Creek Vienna Lager and (512) Pecan Porter. As this picture shows, hopdoddy definitely has a winning formula on their hands. When we left at 900 that night, the line to get in still stretched outside the door and around the corner. 

We spoke with some of the people in the line, who had been patiently waiting for up to an hour to get a table. Each person agreed that the wait was worth it -- and told us that the hopdoddy waitstaff had brought out samples of beverages and food items for them to try while they waited in line. If you want to try one of hopdoddy's amazing burgers or cocktails, visit their online location finder for the hopdoddy location near you in Texas, California, Arizona, or Colorado.

Disclosure: We were provided a complimentary dinner at hopdoddy Burger Bar San Antonio to facilitate this feature. All opinions expressed are solely my own.