For the final stop on our all Mexican lunch week, Z and I decided to hit Señor Manuel's. It's a drab looking building on North Nevada, just north of Austin Bluffs. It's been in town for almost 40 years, and gets a lot of business, so we had to find out why. We ended up bringing a semi-large group of people from work (six total).

The parking lot looked full when we got there, but we went around back and found a huge dirt lot - plenty of room. Judging from the parking lot, I figured it would be crowded, but they seemed to have plenty of tables, and were able to seat us right away.

They brought us baskets of chips and bowls of salsa right away. The salsa wasn't chunky at all, but still tasted good, and was very spicy. I wasn't very impressed with the chips. I'm not sure if they make them in house, but they were definitely not hot out of the fryer. Many of them were burnt around the edges, some more than others. They were edible, in lieu of any other food available at the time.

They had a lot of stuff on their menu that sounded great. I was really torn between the Flautas, the Tamales, and an egg and Chorizo plate. I decided to get the Tamale combination plate with beans (no rice!). When the server brought it out, he told me that they put rice on my plate anyways, and rather than have them take the time to fix it, he just got me a side of beans to go with it, so I ended up getting a TON of food

After the chips, I wasn't too convinced that this place would rock, but after the first bite of my tamales, I knew this was something special. They were topped with big chunks of tender, juicy pork and sauce that was fantastic. The beans were good. Basically, the food was awesome. Everyone at the table seemed to agree as well - even Laura, who doesn't particularly care for Mexican food (she had the Mexican Omelet).

The service seemed a tad slow, and our server was a tad disorganized at the end. Of course, we didn't make it easy on him, having split our bill into 6 checks, so I don't mind giving the guy a break.

Finally, my meal was expensive. My tamale combination plate and an Iced tea ran almost 16 bucks - I paid 18 total after tip. Thats the most expensive lunch I've had in a while.