The next time you are in San Antonio, run, don't walk to the Bistro Bakery of San Antonio.
Why a French bakery baguette served with butter and strawberry jam tastes better than a baguette bought at the local grocery store I do not know, but it does. And so does everything else I tasted at the Bistro. The two days we were in San Antonio we visited the bakery three times. I give credit to my son and his wife for leading the way.
Croissants, baguettes, hard-crusted french bread, and every imaginable pastry, all made by the mostly French-native staff under the guidance of Lucil Watel. Ms. Watel is the mother of one of San Antonio's most popular chef's, Damien Watel.
The Bistro Bakery is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The menu is hand-written on one of those erasable boards and hangs by the cash register. The Bistro looks, feels, and acts like a place that doesn't want a mission statement, or company policy manuals, or cookbooks with pictures. It is more of a family kind of place. I like that. All the food looked and tasted like someone cared.
The lemon tart pictured above? We ordered one -- and it tastes even better than it looks.
Bistro Bakery
4300 McCullough Ave (at Olmos Circle)
San Antonio, TX, 78212-1909
(210) 824-3884
http://www.bistrovatel.com/bakery/
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I'd also like to give a mention to Indigo Hotel / Riverwalk and their very friendly staff. It appears to me that the Indigo people have tried to re-evaluate every party of the hotel and gotten rid of things no one wants and added some color, texture, and atmosphere not found at the average Hampton Inn. This ain't your grand-daddy's hotel, that's for sure (wait a minute, I am a granddad, and I stayed there).
Anyway, I had read good things about Indigo Hotels, so I decided to try one.
They get high marks for the following:
1. Large walk in shower
2. Very comfortable bed
3. Large HDTV
4. No carpet in room. Hardwood-floor tiles, the floating kind used over concrete (much cleaner than carpet).
5. Self-parking. Nearby and inexpensive.
Some of the online reviews mention the hotel being in a rough neighborhood, which I do not think is true. It is a redeveloping neighborhood (the hotel itself is part of that redevelopment), but it appeared safe and comfortable to me. The Indigo Hotel Riverwalk is on one of the newly developed forks of the River and in my opinion is a great setting for a hotel.
Price: I'd put the Indigo in the middle price range. It was a good value.
Minor complaint: Quite a few of the rooms had large, beautiful balconies. Mine did not. I would have liked to have known the price difference between the balcony and non-balcony rooms. I didn't notice them until the evening.
http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/in/1/en/hotel/satsm
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