Lunch Report: Beef & Bourbon...

Beef & Bourbon over on San Antonio's east side on Rigsby off of Loop 410 south has been a long time favorite of my wife's family. I'm not sure how they found the place, but we have gone there a few times a year for as long as I've been in the family. That was why it was sort of shocking that we actually considered walking out of the place today.

I should tell you first that we got off to a late start with lunch. In fact, we sat looking at the Google with our Entertainment coupon book in hand searching for a place to eat for probably twenty minutes, then because we were both super hungry, decided to go in the general direction of a particular barbecue place and see if anything caught our eye. That was probably the first mistake. I'll spare you the details but we zig-zagged ourselves through the city looking at potential eating spots, and it seemed as though anyplace that caught our eye was not open on Sunday. Finally, the idea of Beef & Bourbon popped into my head and we just headed straight there. Only problem was, it was at least 2PM and we still had not even had breakfast!

It almost looks like the place has been remodeled or painted or something since my last visit. I know the sign is different. When we saw the "Help Wanted" on the marquee, we had no idea it would have a real impact on our lunch.

When we walked in, the lady at the register told us to just find a seat anywhere. We found a booth and sat down and started to look around at the other diners. After we had waited for about five minutes, it occurred to us that there were several other tables where nobody had glasses of tea or food of any type. We did see a few waiters hitting tables on the other side of the room, and from what we could overhear, there were apologies issued, but no real details of what was going on.

Now understand, we were both really, really hungry. A few more minutes had gone by and still, no waiter, no nothing. My wife was the first one to mention getting up to leave (we have only done that at one other place that I can recall), but when I saw the cash register lady walk up to a table of folks who had come in after us, I was already getting up to walk out. But the lady took their drink order, then came and asked us what we'd like.

Then, a busboy walked by our booth and muttered that he was about to walk out. That of course got our attention, and now, we were going to stay even if it took all night to find out what was going on (and get something to eat).

Beef & Bourbon is like an older style restaurant. I would say that most of the patrons are of grand parenting age, and today, the crowd was clearly the "just got out of church" bunch.I often feel under-dressed if I go into the place in shorts or even jeans since many of the folks wear a jacket and tie to dine, but really, casual is okay. In fact, anyplace that has the menu built into the place mat on the table, I think casual is pretty much authorized.

As we sipped our tea and ate about 4 or 5 packs of crackers each, we overheard a waiter tell some folks at a table near us that the server for our section was M.I.A.; one bus boy had been hauled away by the police just moments earlier and two other waiters simply did not show up for work. Once again, we started thinking about getting up and leaving a few dollars for the iced tea and heading out. But as if on cue, the cash register lady came and took our order.

The waiter that had been serving the other people came and brought us our salads and apologized for the service and thanked us for being patient. There seemed to be three waiters working the room we were in (there are several different rooms in the restaurant), but the guy who helped us was clearly busting his ass to make things work. My wife also mentioned that if she had seen wait staff milling about doing nothing, she'd be upset, but all of the waiters were running in and out of the back trying to keep things going. No telling what was going on in the kitchen. By the way, the salad is always good but the highlight is the home made (I'm assuming) Ranch Dressing. If they sold this stuff by the bottle, I'd buy it.My wife told me that if I was trying to make up for not taking her to Texas Roadhouse the other day, this wasn't going to work since instead of steak, she was ordering the fish platter. The fish is a a large plank of Cod or something, fried to a golden brown and served with thick steak fries. The tarter sauce also seems to be freshly made in the kitchen and has a good taste to it.

I ordered the rib eye steak with jumbo shrimp and a baked potato loaded. I forgot that "loaded" means they give you a packet of sour cream and a little cup of government cheese. I suppose it is all good, but my preference is to have it all fixed up in the kitchen so it is nice and melted when it comes to me. They can't touch the baked potato at Texas Roadhouse, but really, as baked potatoes go, it is fine. The steak was fine and I was glad to see that the cook understands what "medium" means. The two shrimp that came with the steak were huge and very good. Not over fried at all and they had a good taste.

Aside from the rough beginnings and almost getting up to leave, once our order was taken, things were fine and our waiter really went above and beyond to accommodate all the diners in the place, and we tipped accordingly. When we left, our waiter stopped us and apologized again for the service, but really, we think he made the best of a crappy situation.

Beef & Bourbon is a quiet dining experience. There is no loud music blasting or TV's showing football; you can actually talk at a normal conversation level and not leave the place with your ears ringing. On the other hand, you won't break the bank trying to fill up. Portions are generous and the price is more than reasonable.

Have you been to Beef & Bourbon? Has your busboy been taken down with a taser? Tell me about it or leave a comment below.

Lunch Report: Texas Roadhouse...

Call us weak, but when we need a little beef, we don't stray too far from the house, and when I'm not throwing a few slabs of beef on the grill out back, we have the Texas Roadhouse just down the street at Loop 410 and Ingram.My daughter had a hankering for a good steak; she reports that New Jersey and the assembled restaurants within an hour of her home are simply inadequate in the steak department - and she needed the lovin' that can only come from TRH in SA.

On a side note and totally unrelated to this story: You can purchase the steak knives; you don't have to steal them. In fact, my wife has purchased enough Texas Roadhouse steak knives, complete with burlap sack pouches, that we could probably start our own franchise. We'd just need some steak. And some plates, and a place to cook the food and such.They start you off with hot bread and some cinnamon butter. I could do without the cinnamon, but what the heck. Yum.I've told you before, I love their house salad. Chilled bowls and fresh ingredients. Awesome.I had the 1/3 rack of ribs and loaded baked potato (the potato is still in my refrigerator, due to the fact that I'm a lightweight.)My wife had the 6 ounce steak cooked Medium well...And my daughter had the same steak cooked medium. The medium simply melts in your mouth. Yea, after I inhaled my ribs, I had little tastes of the steak.

So, in case you need to get some meat, I'm still happy with the Texas Roadhouse, and you should hit it - just call ahead.

Dinner Report: Chili's on Valentine's Day...

Yesterday - Valentine's Day, I got off work and got home as quickly as possible so I could pick up my wife and zip out to someplace to eat. By 5PM, we were in the truck heading out of the neighborhood and I was on the phone to Texas Roadhouse to do the ol' call ahead deal. It isn't reservations, but they do put your name on the waiting list at the time you call, so for a long wait, you at least have a head start.

Apparently, everyone of you had the same idea! I call and the girl takes my name and then for the first time, reads me some long disclaimer about the circumstances of my call. She tells me that she is putting me on the waiting list, that it isn't a reservation, based on my expected arrival time I was only getting a ten minute head start in waiting and such. I mean, it sounded as though she was trying to talk me out of the whole thing. Finally, I interrupted her and asked, "Well just how long is the wait?"

"Oh" she says as if it was no big deal, "with your ten minutes off, about 80 minutes." Did I mention we call Chili's the ol' standby?

So we walked into Chili's, were seated immediately and I decided that I was going to have something different. I always get the chili and salad, everytime I go. But I figured, tonight, I was going for something different. For the first time ever, I ordered a steak from Chili's. But first, my wife ordered some kind of new version of onions. This isn't the onion blossom, and it isn't onion rings like you'd think of onion rings, these are sort of fried, then sauteed onions, almost like what you would put on a burger.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that we ate the whole order, because these things have extreme gas written all over them. Thankfully, the mashed potatoes we had with dinner seemed to counter any disturbing affects. Or effects, I never can remember.So my wife gets her little steak - it is some sort of Honey Barbecued kind of deal. She likes her steak cooked medium well and is happy if it is closer to well than medium.I got the steak (ordered medium, but got still kicking) and baby back ribs. Now before you get all grossed out at the picture, I didn't take a photo of half eaten food - but the waitress wanted me to cut into everything to be sure it was done enough before she would leave. Of course, my steak is still raw, but there is no way in hell I would send something back to the kitchen. That's just asking for a sweaty guy to do an around the world on my steak, and I'm not interested in what he's servin'!

Needless to say, for lunch today at work, I had a steak cooked in the microwave so as to get it to at least a medium, and it was mighty fine. My ribs were awesome! I swear I inhaled them, sucking the meat off the bones then wildly licking at my mustache and beard in some circular motion with my tongue to get the rib sauce off. I guess it was a scene; some creepy old guy walking by the table winked at me and gave me a thumbs up!

Anyway, that was dinner at Chili's. By the time we got up to leave, the crowd, most likely tired of waiting at Texas Roadhouse had made their collective way to Chili's because the line to get in was backing up outside. Ha!