If you have a chance, head over to Park City. Awesome food and absolutely beautiful. If you're stuck "downtown," Cafe Rio is a decent little Tex-Mex style place. Certainly nothing as good as I'm sure you're used to in Texas, but the best Utah has to offer in that regard. If I remember right, it's on 4th south and about 6th or 7th east??? Yeah, there's really not much else to see downtown...the temple grounds are beautiful to walk around, but other than that I think you're pretty limited. Oh - the Salt Lake Roasting Co. is a really good coffeehouse you can check out, and locals will all know where it is.
I stayed in downtown salt lake before. I was actually pretty surprised at how ethnically diverse it was. We stayed at a Holiday Inn downtown and there was a good Vietnamese restaurant across the street (complete with Vietnamese people eating at it). And a very good taco stand on the street a couple blocks away. We also had dinner at a pretty high dollar steak house downtown and there were quite a few black people there. The neighborhood that we rented the kid's snowboard gear was in a pretty hispanic neighborhood. That said, I know the burbs are full of Mormans. And the snowboard resorts are full of gringos. Also, if you are in Utah in February, you better be making an attempt to go snowboarding or skiing while you are there or you are wasting an opportunity.
