maxwellh

This isn't complicated. The current TABC laws make it ILLEGAL for any resataurant with a full bar (beer, wine, liquor) to allow any form of alcohol purchased off-premise from entering their restaurant. It does not mention bars with a Beer & Wine license (i.e. it is entirely up to these restaurants to determine whether or not to allow outside beverages to be consumed inside their establishments). Further: some of us out here sometimes like to take nice (collectable?) bottles of wine into restaurants and not be forced to only enjoy these wines with home-cooked meals. This bill would modify TABC laws to allow us to do that. It would still be up to restaurants to decide whether or not to allow such a thing. It would still be up to restaurants to determine how much (if at all) to charge for such a thing. There is no logical reason NOT to support this bill. So . . . y'know . . . SUPPORT IT ALREADY!

Just curious if anyone has anything to add to this. I'm headed there with a fellow chef for a couple of days, and I'm quickly becoming convinced that there's nothing there worth eating. A little help, please??

I just saw an article in the Current this past week declaring that Big Lou's on WWWhite was good pizza. I'm curious if this can be confirmed. I've also heard good things about Goombah's. I hate to admit it, but I kind of like Rome's, even though I realize it's not "real pizza." I've been up and down on Florio's. I've had some truly horrible pizza at Fralo's in Leon Springs. What I'm reaaly looking for is a good cheese pizza: A pizza that uses good cheese and with a crust that has a little chew. At a place where they're making the dough in house and shaping it by hand and they're using a sauce that tastes like tomatoes, not like a sweet, herbal pot pourri sauce. A pizza that folds without the crust shattering like a cracker(frequently a problem with Florio's). Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Can anyone explain what the difference is between chilaquiles and migas? I've never been able to find anyone able to clarify it to me--is one Austinian and the other San Antonian? I'm curious.

i was surprised that no one else mentioned these two earlier. My wife and I lived in downtown Chicago for five years and we would make the drive up to Evanston infrequently just to eat at Davis Street and maybe catch a movie at the theatre. Great selection of oysters and generally high-quality fish for reasonable prices. Joy Yee's puts out great food for cheap prices too--and don't miss the bubble tea!

Ugh--the sampler platter is the WORST! What's pretty cool about my job is that I am one of only two members of the "Culinary" staff, so in general people usually allow me to make a lot of the dining decisions even though I am very very "junior" to others in a group. To some degree, I do have the luxury of putting my foot down and being somewhat demanding as to which restaurant, which wines, etc. Some times, though, it's just so much easier (especially with large groups) to allow the flow to dictate. And there is almost nothing worse than "draggin" people to the adventurous/interesting restaurants with the knowledge that the meat and potatoes crew might play along to some extent, but are in the end unhappy that they can't just get a steak and creamed spinach.

After looking at menus, and considering whom I'll be with, I really feel like Harvest sounds great. I think I'm going to try to get in there on Tuesday night. Monday will probably be more laid back. Is there anywhere like a great brew-pub or something a little more comfort oriented--best burgers in town, coldest beers, whatever? It could be a pizza, burger, bistro, pub, fishhouse whatever...

I'm headed to Madison next week for Monday, Tuesday. I'm going to be staying west, Middleton, I think? Just trying to figure out a good plan of action for eating. Probably going to be able to do two nights of dinner and lunch on one or two days. So L'etoile and/or Harvest and/or Cocoliquot seem to be the happening places. I saw some people going on and on about Lombardino's, is it still the goods? I'm pretty demanding, but I don't have to go to upscale. I'm not much interested in Tex-Mex (coming in from San Antonio). Anyone have any other options for myself and Michael M?

I'm going to shock you all. I haven't been to La Reve, yet. For some reason, I have a much easier time justifying $100 a head when I'm out of town--this will be remedied soon, though. I'm headed there in three weeks with my wife and some good friends of ours. My current three restaurants are Liberty Bar (we literally eat there 2-3 times a week--Sunday brunch is imperative, no matter what is going on in our lives), Sandbar (now that it's open for dinner, it's at least once a week), and Cascabel (on St. Mary's--truly beautiful and simple MEXICAN food). Quick comments--I found La Frite so-so, but I'm going to give it another chance once the months start ending in 'R' again. I used to work at Silo/Farm to Market in another life, and I haven't been back since I stopped working there--I'm looking forward to seeing what Gus will be up to when he's on the far north side. I've had good and bad experiences at TFtT, mostly leaning toward bad, but entirely due to bad service. It's a good lunch option, food-wise. A lot of the newer ones on your list (Pesca, Las Ramblas, Sage, etc.) are definitely on my short list, but I'm so used to being disappointed that I cower back into my standbys far too often. I need to get over that. Glad this thread started up, as we San Antonians need to stand up and fight for the good places and let the bad ones die.

Nope, you're right on FoodMan: Mi Tierra is not good. It's bad. And yes, virtually every native San Antonio-an that I work with would proudly rate it in their top three, if not first overall in the city. There's a weird sort of entropy that happens in San Antonio (I've lived as a non-native in SA off and on for the past 12 years). People just go places because it's supposed to be good. They check their taste-buds at the host stand and don't concern themselves with the quality of the food. Oh sure, you'll get plenty of complaints about the service, but this rarely trickles down to the food. I can not explain it, but it is interesting to note how many truly bad BAD restaurants exist in the city of San Antonio and how precious few great restaurants are in town. Needless to say, I quite literally only eat at three restaurants in the city if I have any say in the matter.

We have a Chinese man in my department, and he had heard that Yao's was good. Again, I'm fairly new at this place, and on a prior trip, I was accused of not acting as "part of the team," so I was trying to make up for this with being in general a good sport--hence, why I didn't ditch. As far as authenticity, I am not Chinese, nor have I ever been to China, but my Chinese co-worker said that there were some things that had a some authenticity to them, as well as plenty of things that were very standard American Chinese restaurant fare. A couple of the "authentic" parts which I enjoyed to one extent or another included a shredded chicken and cucumber appetizer, an interesting duck and "tofu-skin" bar of sorts, a pork belly and tofu entree, and a couple of giant braised pork meatballs. As far as pricing, most of the entrees were around $10 each. Maybe a little pricey for a standard Chinese restaurant, but I didn't think that they were way out of line. All of the Western influences I thought were absolutely necessary to survive in the neighborhood in which it was located. In a sentence: it was better than I had expected, but I obviously would have preferred to go elsewhere. Sambuca? It isn't horrible; it's just very very mediocre. To be fair though, I was there in a private dining area with a 50-person group and a limited menu. It wasn't the worst meal I've ever had, but it was far from the best. It just was what it was. I doubt I would be back. The good thing that's come of this is that it has made me want to go back and spend a weekend there sometime in the near future. I think my restaurant choices would be Dolce Vita, Gravitas and laidback manor. Oh, and I really want to get over there for the market at t'afia.

<<Wrote this to someone checking up on my long weekend, so I thought I'd just post it here for others to read>> Our stay was good, though unfortunately, I spent the majority of my time working. I'm a corporate chef for XXXXX. We have a massive showing at the Southwest restaurant show there. My food experiences were mostly missing entirely from the picture. In four days, I only ate in three restaurants, and in only two of these did I have any say in the matter. Upon arrival we were able to go to Yum Yum Cha Cafe, which turned out to be pretty good dim sum to order. It's over in Rice Village, if you haven't been over there, it makes a nice lunch. The bao are especially quality, as are the little flat chive and shrimp dumplings. First night was t'afia, for the second time this year. I enjoyed the food more than last time: very clean and precise flavors with minimal manipulation (not that there's anything wrong with manipulation!!) I really find Chef Pope's current style to be truly Alice-Waters-like, which I suppose is going a bit out of favor at the moment, but it happens to coincide with what I'm currently in the mood for. Big problem with t'afia is the service which always means well, but frequently fails to execute. Re-silvering the tables is a constant concern--delivery of beverage tends to drag. Servers have too many tables, and there is almost non-existence of bussers/backwaits. I seriously considered writing Chef Pope a letter to ask her to get out in the dining room and look at the service. The food, for that style is nearly perfect, but the service is not up to snuff. Period. Second night, I was forced to eat at Sambuca--a pre-arranged meal with my entire company present (perhaps not all, but at least 30 of them). Food was very mediocre. But you probably knew that already. The only highlight was the server bringing over a bottle of Grand Marnier immediately after serving coffee and asking if I preferred it doctored. After a so-so meal, and when hanging with a group that I don't really want to be with for long periods of time, yes sir: please doctor it thoroughly. Third night, I got overruled for dinner (I would have been happy to try Gravitas, Shade, or--my personal wish--Dolce Vita, which sounds really great.) Instead, a member of our group demanded that we go to Yao's over at Westheimer and Gessner. A long drive from the Four Seasons for sure, and not really what I wanted, but I'm still fairly new, and I'm trying to make a good part-of-the-team impression, so I felt obligated to go. Well, we ended up having a good time. The food was better than I expected, and had some actual semi-authentic dishes (at least according to a Chinese member of our team). The company also turned out to be better than expected, so it didn't totally suck. So that's about it, looks like next time we can make it happen, my wife and I will come down for a night or two just to eat and hang out. I promise we will be making a trip to laidback manor and Dolce Vita on that trip!!

Just a sidenote: Tex-Mex is actually fairly common in the deep South, and is a virtual staple in some areas. I'm originally from Arkansas, and literally the minority of restaurants don't sport tamales, cheese dip, or both. On a recent trip down there, we decided to take a "shortcut" to get from Hot Springs back to the airport, and we ended up going through a much more rural area than we normally would. There was a quaint diner on the side of the road that looked like they'd do the majority of their business selling fried chicken and greens after church on Sundays. On their sign out front they claimed to serve "The Best Cheese Dip in the County."

Great link! I'm going to have to make a special Saturday road trip with my wife to Lockhart, hit all four places up and write back here about it! I've been reasonably unimpressed with the Q around here (San Antonio), though I did really enjoy BBQ Station off of 410 NE. Sides are inedible, but all of the meat was divine.

There's not a lot at the FMs right now. Mostly seeing cucumbers, early tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash, and that's about it. The farmer's market system here is extensive, but very sparse. The one that we go to (which to be fair, is a recent startup) has literally 4 or 5 farmers at it each week. When we were in Chicago, the FMs were unbelievably great with great selection from all over Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan. I think that people from agriculturally diverse areas are extremely spoiled, and it leads me to feel more strongly that WF is a pretty nice thing to have in a lot of places without much depth to their Farmer's Markets. And yes, the point made about many of us pining for the European-style market is so true. There is just nothing like the markets that I've experienced in Germany and Italy over here. **sniff**

I think your points are valid, and I wasn't necessarily trying to make the point that food being "too cheap" is the problem. I was just saying that I think it's often easier to buy lousy cheap food, and that that's the problem. High-quality, inexpensive convenience foods are few and far between, and that I think is very much a problem. I wasn't trying to stereotype. I was trying to provide an extreme example. Working in the restaurant industry has presented me with heavy interaction with all levels of society, and I genuinely worry about the way that I see many of the less-well-off eating; and I think a lot of it has to do with price and convenience. But if one side of the "bad for you" coin is Taco Bell, the other side is Ruth's Chris. Both are going to kill you before your time, IMHO. And they hit both sides of the economic spectrum. Anway, I've veered too far off topic. If I may jump back on the WF discussion, I actually stopped by there to grab dinner ingredients this evening. I was very impressed with the quality and "wildness" of their seafood. I was very un-impressed by the insane amount of California produce, and the almost non-existence of products from my current location (Texas). I'm in a big, semi-agricultural state here, and there was almost nothing in the produce section that came from Texas. It was perhaps 5%. Makes me wonder about that whole 200-400 mile radius thing in the first open letter. Maybe it's just that in the California Whole Foods like 90% of produce comes from within 200 miles of a store's location, and that somehow balances out the rest of us with the 5% local average.

That's a pretty great recommendation. I need to check on times, but I'll get into Houston some time before noon on Saturday, so the farmer's market might be great to check out (nice spelling, by the way!). FYI: I did NOT do the wine pairings--I created my own by splitting glasses--they were very cool about letting me do that. (As much as I try not to be a wine snob, pretty much every Texas wine I have tried so far has just not hit the mark on multiple levels.) When presented with a great by the glass list, I usually take care of pairings myself. Wonder how the laidback wine list is...not posted on the snazzy website. Still weighing my options, though.

FG, You're ignoring a very important fact here: unprocessed rice, beans, lentils, potatoes, pasta and cabbage differ from Ruffles and soda in one very important way: they take time to prepare. A working single mother shopping for groceries on food stamps may not have the time to boil water and cook pasta for eight minutes. She certainly doesn't have the time to bake a potato or braise cabbage. That's why she buys Doritos and Taco Bell. It's cheap, filling, and takes no time to prepare.

Gotta tell you, Chef, I'm having a really hard time making up my mind on this. Here's the deal: I'll be in town Saturday through Tuesday for the food show. On Saturday it'll be just me and my wife (possible adding a co-worker or two, who knows). We're fans of the gastro-tech style that you seem to be into, but my tastes lately have been veering toward cleaner, Alice Waters-inspired food. That being said, I've already made a reservation for t'afia, where I had a great meal last year that matched the afore-mentioned Waters-style. If it were possible for me to do both yours and Ms. Pope's, that would be the ideal situation, but for just the one meal with my wife, I'm leaning more in her direction. Unless your schedule is changing for the restaurant show, both laidback and t'afia appear that they'll only be available to me on Saturday night... So there's the dilemma! I was hoping for some feedback from egulleteers, but looks like you and I are the only two posting on this forum at the moment...

After reading both letters back-to-back, I second the notion that this sort of discussion is extremely refreshing. It has both renewed my lapsed faith in Whole Foods, as well as encouraged my continued vigilance. Great post!

I'm headed to Houston this weekend, and my wife is pushing hard for Laidback. We haven't been there before, and I'm curious if it really does live up to the hype. A quick menu browse on their website sounds quite a bit along the lines of Keller, Achatz, et al. Having dined at Alinea (Achatz) twice, I would be very impressed if Laidback does manage to pull it off. Anyone care to comment?