Culinaria at Cover 3

Every year San Antonio has Restaurant Week, or as we call it, Culinaria.

Participating restaurants have a special prix-fixe menu for lunch and dinner, which gives people the chance to try a whole bunch of dishes and restaurants for a fraction of the normal price. Plus, a portion of the tickets go to benefit the programs that Culinaria does throughout the year.

It's always been something I've heard about but haven't had the opportunity to do, until this year.

I actually lucked out and won two free dinner tickets to Cover 3.

Neither John nor I had ever been so we were excited to get dressed up (more so me than him) and take part in something we both love: eating good food.


Cover 3 is a dimly-lit, business casual restaurant with tons of TVs tuned to whatever sports game is relevant. I know I've mentioned how I hate restaurants with TVs but as this was actually part of the whole experience I didn't mind it.

When we arrived, our waiter gave us a drinks menu and I ordered, on his recommendation, Carrie's Cosmo.

Which tasted a bit like a watered-down, liquored, Jolly Rancher. 

Because we were there for Culinaria, we had a special menu to order from. For our appetizer we decided on the Ahi Tuna.

The noodles and the tuna had a slight sweetness to them with soy sauce and black sesame seeds. The wasabi as you can see is a bit runnier than usual which actually gave each forkful the right amount of heat. I would eat an entire entree plate of this, if I could. It was that good.


Next up, I ordered their Onion Soup and John got their Cover 3 salad.

The onion soup was sweet from the carmelization of the onions but meaty and beefy from the broth they used. Each soup is served in its own bowl that they cover with cheese and then stick under a broiler so you have to break into the cheesey-gooy top to get to the onions underneath. I'd never had onion soup before but I would definitely eat it again.

For the main entree I chose their Filet Mignon with garlic mashed potatoes.

The steak was cooked to perfection. I barely needed the steak knife they gave me. It was seasoned with only salt, pepper, and the Gorgonzola butter they put on top. The potatoes were garlicky, super creamy, and of course, delicious. Though it was good I felt that maybe I should have gotten something different. I know it's hard to cook a steak to perfection but I would have liked a bit more diverse flavors. Steak and potatoes are always a good combination but I probably should have ordered something else to see what flavors they could combine.


Last we each had our pick of dessert. I ended up eating the Peach Pudding Cake.

The cake seemed to have coconut and tons of vanilla. It was super sweet and delicious. Even though this was a single serving, after all the food we had I couldn't finish it.

John had the Brownie which I took a bite of but found that it was so decadently chocolately that I wouldn't have been able to eat it.

All in all, we had a really good time. Our waiter was awesome too. It's always amazing to me how much more enjoyable a dining experience is when you have a good waiter or waitress. He was funny, very helpful, very knowledgeable, and came around to check on us at just the right intervals.

We definitely want to go back. I want to try one of their burgers which they have been ranked #12 in Texas Monthly for. And their flatbread pizzas looked good as well.

This first Culinaria experience was great. I look forward to doing it again next year!