For several weeks now, my wife and I have been looking for opportunities to visit The Stockyards, primarily a dance hall and saloon arrangement with an, oh by the way, steakhouse tucked neatly into the back. For whatever reason, we just didn't have the time to get over there. This afternoon, our kids were off doing their own thing and we decided to slip in for a late lunch.
But when you show up at 3:30 in the afternoon, you'll get no lunch! Even though the Lunch menu on The Stockyards web page has a menu for daily lunch specials until 4pm, apparently, they don't open until 4pm. How convenient! No problem; we are flexible when it comes to eating. So, we did some errands and returned, hungry and ready for some serious steak.
By way of background, the building that houses this restaurant/dance hall/saloon, was originally opened as a restaurant called the Red Barn. The problem was, the place was huge with an enormously wide-open seating area not unlike an elementary school cafeteria. You could hear everyone but the people at your own table due to the crazy acoustics of the place. It was horrible. It was also the place where on our one and only visit, the waitress literally spilled the plate of food on my wife. Oops! 
Anyway, the new owners must have realized the space was not used correctly and they instead turned it into a much smaller scale restaurant, and a large scale dance hall. Good plan.
You can enter the steakhouse from the side entrance which has a really nice covered patio area. I'm guessing you can sit here and have drinks and wait for your table if the place is busy. 
Inside, lots of wood and a few TVs in case you need to see a score. I especially liked the large wooden booths that can easily hold a regular family of six or a San Antonio family of four. That's just a little joke there.
When we arrived (the second time) we were still the first people there and in fact, no other patrons joined us until we were already leaving. It could certainly be that we are in the midst of Christmas weekend, but I was surprised at the emptiness of the place, given the fact that Rudy's right next door was totally packed. My wife and I wondered about this quite a bit. What if everyone already knows something bad and we just hadn't gotten the word?
Our waiter was very friendly and suggested starters, perhaps the mushrooms or an onion, but to be honest, we had steak on our minds and didn't want to spoil the experience by being stuffed with fried food ahead of time. He took our drink orders and gave us a minute to look at the menu. By the way, in case you are wondering, iced tea is the same price as draft beer, so my wife had a sweetened iced tea that was very good, and I had a Miller Lite that was slight warmer than room temperature, but it was after all, the same price as the iced tea.
We both ordered the house salad with Ranch and it was very good, though certainly on the smallish side. They also give you several pieces of hot wheat bread with some sort of honey drizzled on top of it. That too was very enjoyable.
In no time our steaks had arrived. My wife ordered the 7oz sirloin cooked Medium Well and the loaded mashed potatoes as a side. Her steak arrived Well Done, but not so Well Done that she needed to risk sending it back. I'm sure she meant it as a compliment to me, but within her first or second bite, she told me that my steak is as good or better than this. I didn't try her steak but I took a bite of the loaded mashed potatoes and they were okay.
I went with a 10 oz Rib Eye cooked medium (anything more is a crime) and I got a baked potato and asked for cheese and sour cream. I know this sounds bad, but I just assumed that butter would have been, well, assumed. Apparently not. Since they charge you 25 cents for each extra thing you put on the baked potato and the choices were cheese, bacon, sour cream or chives, I guess I didn't think I needed to say, "Oh, I'll take some of that free butter with my 50 cents worth of extras."
There was nothing wrong with these steaks; I didn't have to fight it to cut it and it chewed easily. But, technically, it did not taste good to me at all, but perhaps that was just the way they prepared it. I didn't ask for any steak sauce as that may have been offensive especially since there was none present on the tables or anywhere in sight. And by the way, you simply should not have to douse a steak in sauce. The cook can do all the fancy marinating and seasoning ahead of time but the eater of the steak should not be doing any messing around with it once served. I couldn't help thinking how good it might have been on a toasted bun with lots of Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce or even slathered with about a pint of the sauce we purchased from Harmon's. But I ate it. And I drank the warm beer. And I ate as much of the dry baked potato as I could get down before running out of warm beer to swallow it with.
I'm not even a huge fan of Rudy's, but it was clear to me why, given the choice, Rudy's was packed and we were sitting alone in The Stockyards. We had great service - and I trust it wasn't simply because we were the only people there, but really, when it comes down to quality and taste, jeez; go to Texas Roadhouse or even Chili's, much less a no kidding steak house, and you'll be a lot happier.
Have you tried The Stockyards and found it to be a great experience? Tell me about it or leave a comment here.
My wife and I actually eat at a lot more places than what I can account for in lunch and dinner reports here. If we really enjoy a place, I think it is the neighborly thing to pass along the information to you - sort of helping a restaurant get more business when they deserve it and letting you know of a good place to eat.
The flip side is, I usually don't write anything about a place that most people already know about or as often is the case, some place that simply isn't any good. Everyone has different tastes, so why should I speak ill of a place that just doesn't do it for me, right?
But in the case of the newly opened J. Anthony's on Culebra at 410, I have been asked by several readers of this Blog if we have tried it yet. So this afternoon, my wife and I stopped in to give it a try. And why not? When have I ever been known to miss an opportunity for catfish?
Make no mistake, this place must be popular. When we arrived just after 1PM, the place was packed. We actually got the only open table in the place when we sat down.
J.Anthony's is housed in the old Barnacle's building, and from memory, it doesn't look as though they have changed anything but the sign out front. The process is simple; order, get a number, and find a seat - they bring the food to you in a little while.
We ordered some onions rings that were brought out first. If you look at these, you can tell by the texture that they are the kind I do not like. There is just something about the texture that I don't like. But, they were hot and the taste was not bad. They wern't over cooked, and that helps.
I ordered the catfish platter. It comes with four planks of catfish (some thin little catfish, perhaps from someone's home aquarium maybe), Cajun styled rice, fries, bread and a pepper. The catfish was certainly edible, but I'm guessing this is what you would get in some sort of institution on fish day. I left several small pieces that I could not identify. The rice was simply inedible. Aside from being dry, it appeared as though someone said as an afterthought, throw some spices in there to make it taste Cajun. But there was nothing Cajun about it. Just nasty. I offered a bite to my wife (on the off chance she might like it) and she nearly spit the forkful on the people at the next table.
My wife ordered a Fish Burger (she wanted a fish sandwich, but the young lady taking our order corrected her twice, telling her it was a fish BURGER. Okay. Anyway, the fish BURGER came with fries and a pepper. The fries weren't bad, though I don't think either of us ate more than a few. The fish sandwich or BURGER if you will, was actually okay. It didn't look appetizing, but once doused with tarter sauce, it was pretty good.
I think one of the popular items, and the reason so many people were there, was that they serve a family platter for a very reasonable price. It is loaded with fish.
Even Dr. Phil made an appearance.
Look, I don't want to bad mouth the place just because we didn't like it and will never return. It happens. Some folks hate Bill Millers, I happen to love it. I know lots of people who think Rudy's is the cat's meow, and I'm more of a Grady's person. So I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from giving J. Anthony's Seafood a fair shake. But I would remind you that Sea Island is just down the road, and not further down Culebra is La PLaya. It's your call.
If you've tried J. Antohony's Seafood Cafe (either the new one or one of the older ones) I'd love to hear your report. Leave a comment and tell me about it.
Ever since our visit to the Tip Top Cafe last weekend, my wife has been regretting the fact that she had a cheeseburger instead of the signature Chicken Fried Steak. I could tell that she had a hankerin' for it when I noticed a huge pull-out from the newspaper with a life-sized photo of a chicken fried steak, complete with gravy staring up at me on my desk for several days.
This afternoon, she called me at work and asked how quickly I could get home because she could stand it no more; we would have to hit Grady's on Bandera Road pronto, PDQ and then some.
Just a word about Grady's as opposed to Rudy's. I find that people are either Grady's people or Rudy's people. I'm a Grady's person. I get the whole thing about Rudy's - you know, served on butcher paper, a little boat of cream corn, maybe a half pound of this, a half pound of that, half a chicken and some sauce. I get it. I just don't care for it as much as other people seem to.
Don't get me wrong - if someone is having a luncheon there, I'll go and enjoy it. But if there was a Grady's and a Rudy's right next door to each other, I'd be in Grady's.
Of course that might be rude if the luncheon was being held next door in Rudy's, but I think you get the point.
Oh. And I have also found that people who like Rudy's don't usually appreciate the brilliance of Bill Miller's. I'm not about to come out and say that Bill Miller's is the best BBQ ever made, because that would be a joke. But the fact that you can get good, consistent food in a fast-food format is awesome. People who like Grady's seem to appreciate that about Bill Miller's.
If you want some really good BBQ, I'm telling you, you have to head north up 281 beyond Mineral Wells (or there abouts - I haven't been able to find any reference to this place on the Internet to confirm the address or town) called Hashknife on the Chisholm. That, my friends, is some good eats.
So, my wife ordered up the chicken fried steak with corn and mashed potatoes. She was so excited she nearly did a jig! - I'm kidding, honey, really. Grady's gets you in the eatin' mood when you walk in. They give you your tea, point you in the direction of all the fixin's like onions and pickles and such, and just about the time you sit down, here it comes.
I ordered up the catfish along with some green beans coleslaw and an onion ring or two. I have to tell you, I love me some catfish and as a general rule, Clear Spring Catfish Cafe between New Braunfels and Seguin is wonderful although the one in San Antonio at Afton Oaks is not bad either. But if you can't make it there, the breading on the catfish at Grady's is done just right for me. Not too crisp so as to make me chip a tooth, but not too soft wear it falls off the fish before you can take a second bite.
I have to report, I wolfed down my green beans, took a bite of slaw, then couldn't hold back anymore and unleashed myself on the fish. My wife made several attempts at offering me a bite of her chicken fried steak, but seriously, I was in an embarrassing frenzy of consumption and had she stuck a fork full of the golden brown delight in my general direction, she may have lost a finger or two.
Grady's gets a solid 3.5 TT's on my Tasty Treat Scale, only lowered because my green beans contained foreign objects - corn I believe. That is UNSAT my friends. Never ruin good green beans with corn. But the catfish was a solid 5 TTs! Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm.
For those concerned, I promptly came home, swapped into my gym clothes and hit the treadmill for a suitable period of time. And I did not throw-up once!
But when you show up at 3:30 in the afternoon, you'll get no lunch! Even though the Lunch menu on The Stockyards web page has a menu for daily lunch specials until 4pm, apparently, they don't open until 4pm. How convenient! No problem; we are flexible when it comes to eating. So, we did some errands and returned, hungry and ready for some serious steak.
Anyway, the new owners must have realized the space was not used correctly and they instead turned it into a much smaller scale restaurant, and a large scale dance hall. Good plan.
You can enter the steakhouse from the side entrance which has a really nice covered patio area. I'm guessing you can sit here and have drinks and wait for your table if the place is busy. 
Inside, lots of wood and a few TVs in case you need to see a score. I especially liked the large wooden booths that can easily hold a regular family of six or a San Antonio family of four. That's just a little joke there.
Our waiter was very friendly and suggested starters, perhaps the mushrooms or an onion, but to be honest, we had steak on our minds and didn't want to spoil the experience by being stuffed with fried food ahead of time. He took our drink orders and gave us a minute to look at the menu. By the way, in case you are wondering, iced tea is the same price as draft beer, so my wife had a sweetened iced tea that was very good, and I had a Miller Lite that was slight warmer than room temperature, but it was after all, the same price as the iced tea.
We both ordered the house salad with Ranch and it was very good, though certainly on the smallish side. They also give you several pieces of hot wheat bread with some sort of honey drizzled on top of it. That too was very enjoyable.
In no time our steaks had arrived. My wife ordered the 7oz sirloin cooked Medium Well and the loaded mashed potatoes as a side. Her steak arrived Well Done, but not so Well Done that she needed to risk sending it back. I'm sure she meant it as a compliment to me, but within her first or second bite, she told me that my steak is as good or better than this. I didn't try her steak but I took a bite of the loaded mashed potatoes and they were okay.
I went with a 10 oz Rib Eye cooked medium (anything more is a crime) and I got a baked potato and asked for cheese and sour cream. I know this sounds bad, but I just assumed that butter would have been, well, assumed. Apparently not. Since they charge you 25 cents for each extra thing you put on the baked potato and the choices were cheese, bacon, sour cream or chives, I guess I didn't think I needed to say, "Oh, I'll take some of that free butter with my 50 cents worth of extras."
