San Antonio restaurant Aguachile’s deft way with Mexican-style seafood worth the admission price

If you’re a sucker, as it were, for whole octopus, be prepared to shell out more than $70 for any one of five iterations available at the Mexican seafood spot. That’s surely a local pricing record for a cuisine that many reflexively think of only in terms of tacos.

Octopus is also controversial. Its burgeoning U.S. popularity has led to proposals for the creation of oceanic octopus farms. That’s lead to opposition from those who argue that the cephalopod is such an intelligent and charismatic creature that it deserves special protection. Farms are already banned in Washington State, and the movement is gaining momentum nationally.

Be that as it may, when octopus is cut up, as it is in the joyous jumble of seafood that fills Aguachile’s caldo de mariscos, it’s easier to plead ignorance and simply enjoy the tender bits.

The soup’s rusty broth also sports squid rings, chunks of abalone, bay scallops, meaty mussels and shrimp. The flavor only gets more intense as the tide recedes. Think of the caldo as a harbinger of the menu’s bounty to come.

Even a simple tostada de camaron cocido at Aguachile, flanked by chile-dusted cucumbers and sliced avocado, comes across as over-the-top. Whole shrimp laced with a spicy mayo crown a bed of the chopped shellfish, in turn bedded on a duo of shatteringly crisp tostadas sandwiching a layer of plain mayo.

It’s all too big to pick up and too resistant to cutting with a fork to make eating easy. Still, the mess is ultimately worth it. Just don’t worry about finishing if you’ve ordered too much. Guilty as charged.

A michelada, served in a weighty schooner with a heavily crusted rim, seems appropriate at that point. It arrives with a bottle of your choice of beer — Pacifico, in this case — dunked headfirst into the spicy brew. Extracting it without additional mess is half the fun, and some beer will remain for topping off as the level sinks. There’s also a Tajin-crusted wand stuck in the glass to up the spice quotient as needed. You can, and should, do this while also celebrating occasional bursts of music from roving troubadours.

It’s a toss of the coin whether a seafood torre , or tower, is worth the $22-plus it costs. I say yes — at least this once. It’s basically a repackaged shrimp aguachile that’s been packed into a cylindrical form and unmolded on the plate. Surrounded by a moat of salsa verde — roja and negra are other choices — it’s both impressive and fun, not to mention eminently Instagrammable.

The geologically layered cooked shrimp rise above a blend of chopped onion and cucumber that hides a few raw shrimp “cooked” by the aguachile’s lime. You’ll probably want to use the house-packaged tostadas as scoops to deconstruct the dish.

The difference between molcas and molcajetes at Aguachile is apparently one of size and price, with the former starting at nearly $20 and the latter, fit for a foursome, topping out around $40. At $19.65, the molcacampechana is an adequate introduction to the category.

Buttressed by more crenelated cucumbers, the blend of seafood again includes both cooked and chile-cured shrimp, octopus, abalone and surimi, the tinted fish composite that U.S. marketers have dubbed krab.

Fortunately, the faux crab dissolves into shreds in the salsa negra — an umami-rich Sinaloan sauce of soy sauce, Worcestershire, Jugo Maggi and chiles. Just picosa enough, the salsa helped make this a favorite spooned onto more of the toasty tortillas.

Other offerings at Aguachile include tacos, tortas, fried seafood and even fajitas and burritos. Oh, and hamburguesas with everything from beef to chicken to shrimp as the centerpiece.

At the price point of most seafood, I’d personally prefer a more edited menu, but the proprietors apparently know their market. Slowly, the place began to fill up with families as the evening progressed and the noise level mounted.

Fortunately, it was a friendly noise.

Aguachile Seafood
2123 Culebra Road | (210) 276-0302 | 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday | $9-$70

Best bets: Caldos, tostadas, seafood towers, molcajetes

The skinny: Aguachile lacks the obvious decorative charm of a family- and tourist-friendly restaurant such as Mi Tierra, but it compensates with similar noise levels and an almost too-comprehensive menu heavy on seafood. Though pricey compared to less-ambitious Mexican restaurants, visually impressive offerings such as layered seafood towers and brimming bowls of seafood soup merit the tariff. The hefty stone molcajetes stocked with anything from abalone to octopus are also worth their weight.plates, some made from house-cured fish, are available to those who favor food over form.

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