{"id":476748,"date":"2026-10-26T02:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T02:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/476748\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T02:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T02:36:12","slug":"we-tried-la-marginals-puerto-rican-buffet-in-san-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/476748\/","title":{"rendered":"We tried La Marginal’s Puerto Rican buffet in San Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Antonio has its fair share of all-you-can-eat experiences, from Korean barbecue to Chinese buffets<\/a>, but have you ever had all-you-can-eat Puerto Rican food? La Marginal makes lunch easy with its buffet, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Some of the dishes will absolutely have you coming back for seconds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’ve been trying a new buffet every month to test what San Antonio has to offer, and La Marginal<\/a> provided an impressive experience despite a shaky start to the meal. When I arrived at the restaurant around 11 a.m. on Friday morning, the doors were open and customers were seated, but the buffet wasn’t up and running quite yet. In the 20 minutes it took to get the buffet going, I had time to take in the colorful dining room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several walls were painted to resemble the buildings of Old San Juan, using pastels and faux balconies. Rhythmic Spanish tunes blasted from speakers above the dining room, giving the space an immersive feel. The buffet line itself was less of a permanent setup and more like a temporary station you might see at a hotel Easter brunch.<\/p>\n

Once the line opened, it was time to line up, so I did so along with the rest of the customers who were waiting patiently. La Marginal’s buffet ranged from salads to rice dishes to a whole chafing dish filled with paella. At the end, a worker stood by a carving station where customers could request pieces of platanos maduros (caramelized fried plantains) and pernil (slow-roasted pork), among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My first plate featured three different kinds of rice dishes, including arroz con gandules and the seafood paella, and I finished it off with a couple of fried plantains. Though paella is commonly known as a Spanish dish, the Puerto Rican version was rich in flavor and had plenty of mussels, shrimp and fish, making it the star of the plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For round two, I got more of the paella because who doesn’t want more paella? I topped it off with some habichuelas guisadas (stewed beans with potatoes) and some of that pernil from the carving station. Make sure you say when, because I did not and ended up with way more pork than I could finish. And there were desserts to consider, so I tried to keep the second plate to just the classics. Speaking of dessert, do save room for some flan or coconut pudding, because in both cases, it is absolutely worth it to end with a sweet treat.<\/p>\n

My experience may have had a slow start, but it ended on a high note. I’m not usually on that side of town unless it’s to grab Theory Coffee<\/a>, but La Marginal is definitely another reason to make the trek to Nacogdoches Road.<\/p>\n

Find it: 2447 Nacogdoches Road, San Antonio, TX 78217<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio has its fair share of all-you-can-eat experiences, from Korean barbecue to Chinese buffets, but have you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1112,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-476748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysafood","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}