Aldino at the Vineyard
1203 NW Loop 1604 at Blanco
210-340-0000



Big clam sculpture on the bar. Very nice.

Wifey and I were out late and decided we weren't quite ready to go home. We decided to try out a new restaurant. We chose Aldino at the Vineyard.

They refer to themselves as a premiere Italian restaurant. They came thru on that claim.

We arrived about 30 minutes before closing, but we didn't feel rushed and the waitstaff were very courteous and friendly.

I don't remember what I ordered because I procrastinated so long to write this post, but here's a picture of it.



With a serving that big, you'd think there'd be leftovers to take home. You'd be wrong. It was awesome!

The final bill let me know this truly was a 'premiere' restaurant. It was a little in the 'ouch' range. That wasn't a surprise, though. Nor was it a bad thing. We felt the price was well worth the very enjoyable dining experience.

Highly recommend this place for a nice romantic evening with your better half.




If you ate pasta and antipasta, would you still be hungry?

V's Thai Cuisine
226 West Bitters Road, Suite 124
San Antonio, TX 78216
210.495.0122
www.vsthaicuisine.com


A friend recommended V's Thai to me a couple weeks ago. It's a small, family-owned restaurant next door to the Embassy Theater on Bitters.

I ordered the Pad Thai, something I order at every Thai restaurant I visit. I love Pad Thai. Plus, ordering the same thing everywhere I go allows easy comparison.

As do most Thai restaurants, V's allows you to set the spiciness level of the dish. I went for a four out of five. I've learned NEVER to order the spiciest level on a first visit (a story for another time).

The prices were acceptable--not the cheapest on the planet, but by no means expensive. The service was friendly (something you know means a lot to me!) and prompt. The Pad Thai...well it was different.

I've never had overcooked Pad Thai noodles before, but I think that's what happened. It didn't taste bad. In fact, it was pretty good. But the consistency was definitely different, and there were a couple discolored noodles on my plate--burned maybe?

Anyhoo, I believe everyone is allowed a bad day, so I went back this weekend with Helen to give V's a second chance in my belly. Guess what I ordered.


The portion size is bigger than the picture shows; I forgot to get a pic until I had eaten about a third of what was on the plate. Did I mention how much I like Pad Thai?

This time the Pad Thai was much better. Very tasty. Not as good as Mon's Thai on Broadway, and NOWHERE near as good as Rock San on DeZavala, but easily on par with most other Thai restaurants I've frequented.

Oh, and I ordered spiciness level FIVE. It was a perfect level of heat for me.

Bottom line:
Service great
Price acceptable
Food iffy the first time, much better the second.
If you like Thai, I'd recommend V's before or after a movie at the Embassy. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't drive out of my way to eat there.

Mentioned in this post:
Mon Thai Bistro and Sushi
www.monsthai.com

Rock San Sushi and Thai Bistro
www.rocksanrestaurant.com

The Embassy theater
www.santikos.com/embassyex.php





Is it ok to yell 'movie' in a crowded firehouse?

Website: http://www.guadalajaragrill.us/

Helen and I spent a night on the Riverwalk and went walking to find somewhere different to eat.

We found the Guadalajara Grill in the heart of La Villita, and we loved it!

The atmosphere was cozy and neat:


The service was exceptional. Very friendly staff and more than one person waited on us (I hate it in some restaurants when waitstaff ignore your pleas for assistance when you're not "their" table!)

The menu was chock full of Mexican dishes that I'd never tried before (and I LOVES me some Mexican food!)

The prices were NOT "Riverwalk prices". Very affordable!

The waiter/manager/owner (not sure which, 'cuz everyone was so helpful!) recommended the Oaxacan mole chicken. Now that's NOT chicken meat with mole meat. It's mole sauce, with an accent over the 'e' in 'mole'. Unfortunately, I don't know how to insert accent marks in this blog.

Anyhoo, you know what I mean. Here's what it looked like for the 30 seconds before I attacked and devoured it:




The sauce had some chocolate and sesame in it. Sounds funky, but it was friggin' AWESOME!

I highly recommend you go there. You won't be disappointed.









I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Website: http://www.lemongrassthousandoaks.com


Went shopping at Big Lots yesterday at 281 and Thousand Oaks. My lovely wife had bought a can of Smokehouse Almonds for 88 cents there a few days earlier.

She didn't realize that this was a phenomenal price for some great almonds, so instead of buying every can they had, she bought just a couple and then didn't mention it to me for a couple days.

So, as we were sitting together watching TV the night before, she asked if I liked almonds.

"Duh," was what I almost said. But I was hoping to get lucky, so instead I said, "Of course."

She offered the can and when I saw what they were, I mentioned that these were my favorite.

"Oh, really? I guess I should have bought more. Is 88 cents a can a good price?"

After retrieving the almonds I projectile-hacked across the room in surprise, I explained to her that yes, that's an excellent price. Where'd you get them and let's go get more!

Unfortunately, she had bought them at Big Lots. If you're familiar with that store, then you know that good product that's on sale there doesn't last long. And it had been three or four days since she bought these.

So we went yesterday just to check (I mean, geez, 88 cents PER CAN? I had to at least try!) and there were none left.

But that's not what this post is about. Remember that it's a restaurant blog.

So just a few doors down from Big Lots, we notice a restaurant we hadn't seen before, called the Lemongrass Thai Restaurant.

So I think two things:

1. I am a HUGE fan of Thai food.

2. I'm hungry (remember that we had been out searching for food (almonds) in the first place).

So we stop in and it's awesome! From the outside, it looks like just another strip mall restaurant, but it's not.

Inside was a very mellow atmosphere. The tables had nice cloth table covers. And the cloth napkins were folded in a cool little fancy shape.

Lots of choices on the menu. I had the Pad Thai with chicken. I don't remember what my lovely wife had, but I know it wasn't SMOKEHOUSE ALMONDS! But I digress... wait, it was glass noodles or something like that.

One of the neat things I like about Thai restaurants is that most of them will spice up your food. This place was no exception. You can choose from a spiciness level of one to ten. I chose eight on my Pad Thai. Helen chose four on her glass noodle thingie plate.

I had a bite of Helen's level four plate. Whimpy. VERY whimpy. But she said it was perfect for her. My level eight spiciness was almost spicy enough. We'll definitely go back and I'll try level nine next time.

The food was excellent and the service was great. The waitress was very polite and our drink glasses never got empty.

My only issue was that there wasn't a big enough serving to take any leftovers home. Helen disagreed saying, "Oh there was enough to take home. You just didn't stop eating until the plate was empty!"

Ok, maybe she's right, but you know, I was trying to fill the space in my belly that I had reserved for more almonds.

A quick review of our Valentine's Day dinner, 2010.

It's a special occasion, so I'm thinkin' that Freddie's Frozen Custard is probably not a good choice.

After a little Googling on fine dining in San Antonio, I find this link:

http://www.mesoneuropeandining.com/

*click* and I'm suddenly reading a review by the S.A. Express News saying how great the place is. This review RAVES about how good the Caesar salad is and how AWESOME it is that they prepare it at tableside. I'm in.

Hey, what can I say? I like C-salad and I'm a sucker for anything prepared tableside

Let me warn you now, they only do the tableside prep of the Caesar salad IF AND ONLY IF two or more people at your table are having the Caesar salad.

Unfortunately, only one person at our table of two wanted the C-salad. My wife detests it. So I didn't get the salad at all. I mean, half the fun is the show, right?

So now I'm kinda bummed, but then I see this on the menu: French onion soup.

Ok, I've been walking this planet for 4+ decades and I likes me sum french onion soup. I've had it in just about every restaurant I've been in and I think I know a good French onion soup when I taste it. So I think to my self, "Self, let's see how good their soup is." Here's the pic:

There are no words in any language on this planet that can describe how wonderful this was on my tongue. I can say no more except that my wife and I had decided, even before the entree arrived, that we were coming back to Meson, if for nothing other than to have another bowl of the onion soup.

I ordered the trout and my wife ordered the pepper steak. Both were superb. However, being a jaded American with a jaded American palate, I prefer some kick (read: spiciness) in my food. I found the trout to be not as "kicky" as I'd like.

My wife reminded me, as she was grabbing the trout off my plate (SHE loved it; she prefers less kick), that this was "European" dining; less spice taste, more FOOD taste.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever," I said. "If you're gonna eat my trout, gimme your steak."

Turns out it was a good trade. The pepper steak had a FANTASTIC sauce on it, that included cracked pepper (how can you go wrong with cracked pepper on ANYTHING???).

So bottom line: my wife loved the trout (not spicy, but very tasty) and I loved the pepper steak.

We BOTH loved (and would worship with sacrifices of virgin goats if we could) the French onion soup.

The waiter we had was super-attentive and the owner came and visited with us a bit. It turns out that he does not advertise. He gets his business by word of mouth.

So consider this my word of mouth: go there, you won't be disappointed!