I have lived in San Antonio since moving here from El Paso in June. I can understand both 1liner's preference for El Paso tacos, and the comments of others that there is greater diversity in the Mexican food in big, non-border cities, such as San Antonio. And I can definitely state that I've had some good tacos in this city. The thing that drives me absolutely crazy about the local Mexican food scene, however, is the green sauce. Be it green enchiladas or green tamales, instead of being made of green chiles, as God intended, the stuff we get here is tomatillo based. At first I thought that this sacrilege was unique to the restaurant I was eating at, but every restaurant I've eaten at, with the exception of Chuy's, only has that blasted tomatillo sauce. And Chuy's food reflects the fact that it is part of a large chain. I would love to love to find a good local restaurant where I can order a plate of green enchiladas and have them prepared the way the Almighty intended.
And speaking of green chile, while some local stores, especially HEB, do sell Hatch green chiles in the late summer/early fall, that drives me crazy as well. I wince everytime the locals refer to the fruit as "Hatch peppers" instead of green chiles, but I was still excited to buy some last year. I head to my local HEB, see that they are charging $0.79/lb., and pick up a box to restock my freezer. I then ask around to find out where to get them roasted. The answer: they don't roast them at that particular HEB. So I put the box back, look up the nearest HEBs on Google, and make four or five calls until I find one that does roast them. I drive to that HEB, and find out that they pre-roast them there, and roasted "peppers" are $2.49/lb. I ended up getting about half of what I was originally going to buy, which was a mistake, as I've had to go easy on the chile this year, am still almost out, and chile season is still months away.
The morals of this story?
1. Order tacos in San Antonio, just stay away from the green enchiladas and tamales, and
2. If you move here, encourage your friends and family to visit you around September, and offer to reimburse them for some roasted chile.