It should not shock you to learn that, while not as ready to use it as me, my wife does maintain her own camera close by her person for those opportunities when the documenting of a situation is needed. I say not as ready as me because, generally, she would have to dig through her purse to locate said camera, then hope to get a shot off, where I on the other hand can usually grab it, point and click and have a reasonably clear shot in just a second or two. But when she is out and about our fair village without me, she has to think fast and have the camera at the ready. And Wednesday, she did just that.
It all started with watching KENS 5 Great Day SA show and seeing these two Krazy Vatos. What caught her eye were the little Mexican sweet bread pastries displayed during the show.
Turned out, they were little wallets and key-chains made to look like real pan de huevo. And the Krazy Vatos had opened up an emporium of sorts just south of downtown.
She just had to go! With her mother and nephew in tow, she made it to South Presa and Berkshire and found the fairly new shop and decided to take a look around.
Inside, there is an interesting collection of Puro San Antonio fare; t-shirts with sayings like “Got Tortillas” or your favorite Mexican Loteria card, “El Borracho”.
They shopped around a bit and purchased the aforementioned sweet bread purses then struck up a conversation with the owners, the guys she had seen on TV, Danny De La Paz and Jesse Borrego.
I'll save you the Google-time. Danny De La Paz has been a character actor playing supporting roles, in several dozen movies and TV shows. Remember American Me? He played a Latino in that one. And Jesse Borrego is also been in a long list of movies and such - you know, Fame and all that - but what is really important is that he played The Skinner on season 3 of Dexter! Friends, that alone is worth a visit to Krazy Vatos, but suggest you not bring any sharp objects since apparently he knows how to use them!
Anyway, they chatted a bit and talked about some future film projects that are being developed on San Antonio's south side. How cool is that? So there you have it. Proof that my wife, (the old lady, the other half, the misses), doesn't need me to find something interesting to post.
My daughter had this cool idea last year for me to have some wooden nickels made as sort of a calling card for the blog. She went online and came up with the design you see here.
When I saw that the Wooden Nickel place was not only home to the world's largest wooden nickel, but also a museum of wooden nickels, right here in San Antonio, we just had to go!
Sadly, when we showed up, the world's largest wooden nickel had in fact been vandalized by little hood rats, and to be honest, I just didn't feel like writing about it. Really, it is sickening stuff to be honest. We went inside to order the special Silver Creek 78250 nickels and also learned that the museum was being renovated. We got the order a few weeks later and were pleased as punch with the product (and the price).
Anyway, my wife and I (okay, mostly me) handed them out to anyone interested, left them at restaurants we ate at and even left more than a few strategically hidden in various stores,we shop. And then they were gone.
Just recently, I ordered some more and today I stopped by to pick them up (so check those shelves at HEB - you might just find one). When I pulled into the place, it looked like a total construction site. And there was a guy on a ladder painting the big wooden nickel. Turns out, they are redoing the entire place and of course, refurbishing the world's largest wooden nickel.
I collected my batch of wooden nickels and then had a nice chat with Alex, the manager or owner of the place, I guess, and we talked about all the work being done. Inside, the place is being really remodeled - there were new walls going up and stuff was all moved around. Outside, of course the work on the wooden nickel, and Alex told me that they were adding some coating that would allow them to easily clean off the vandalism brought forth by the next set of taggers.
Alex also told me about the expansion into other printing services and gave me a few awesome T-Shirts to take home to the wife and kids. Just a thought here, but if you blog and ever want to hand out a business card with the name and link to your blog, why not do it with wooden nickels? I'm sure Alex can hook you up.
I'm still sorta stuffed, what with the non-stop baskets of chips and salsa that arrived at our table as a large group of us got our drinks and had our orders taken at Tito's Mexican Restaurant on S. Alamo in the King William area downtown.
Inside the place, it is puro hole-in-the-wall with a bit of flair for the folks who love this part of town, like me. You may recall we did lunch at Madhatters not too long ago and there are just a host of other great places to eat in the area. Each of the places have started out as something else - a house or in the case of Tito's and old store, and the restaurant seems to have come in and built itself into the place. It adds character.
In the dining room we were seated in, they had old life magazine covers along the wall on one side.
Along the other side; odds and ends and a TV or two to catch up on ESPN.
The back of the room housed an interesting looking bar.
But most importantly, we sat down to the chips. I am so spoiled with the lighter, fresher chips and huge assortment of salsa's we find at ChaCho's, but admittedly, this is your standard for most Mexican places, and frankly, they were good. I really enjoyed the salsa but one of the diners with us thought it was too salty. He asked for and they brought out some green stuff and some hotter stuff that looked like ketchup but had a nice little kick to it. I was good with the regular, and certainly had my fair share before lunch arrived.
Speaking of lunch. We had a large group and most folks went the route of ordering from the express menu. I had the #6 Jalapeño Cream Enchiladas which comes with a crispy taco and of course, all the plates come with tortillas, rice & beans. The crispy taco was brilliant! I'm guessing they made the shell as the lunch was ordered and without adding any thing to it, it offered up some drip-down-my-chin greasy goodness (and I do mean that in a good way). The enchiladas were excellent and covered with white cheese and of course the jalapeños. I had small tastes of both the rice and beans and the beans were especially good. I'm sorry to report that I did not try the flour tortilla, simply because I had stuffed my face with the chips.
Another popular choice among fellow diners was the #2 (I know; I laugh just typing it). It is similar to the #6 but instead of being topped with the jalapeños, it has cilantro. A guy sitting across from me seemed to enjoy his.
The #1 is Cheese filled enchiladas topped with Texas Style chile con carne.
And check out the guacamole that came with the order of Nachos a lady next to me ordered. Good stuff.
I may have mentioned before that I am not a fan of the luncheon format that many of you are probably familiar with. It always seems like half the people have received their food and are finished eating just as the other half are beginning to eat. On top of that it takes forever to pay. I will tell you that in this case, the Tito's folks seemed to have a system down and I think we had a pretty decent pace going. You certainly can't blame the waitstaff for people arriving late or not being ready to order. Kudos to our waitress who handled the crowd quite well.
Walking along King William and looking for a bite of Mexican? I don't think you'll be disappointed with Tito's. Got a better suggestion in the area? Tell me about it or leave a comment below.
I try to avoid long winded rants about terrible drivers in San Antonio unless of course I can provide you with photographic evidence to illustrate my points. But it has been brought to my attention by informed readers that I am myself being a bad driver when I speed down Culebra or Loop 410, knee on the wheel and camera zooming in and out for a good shot of the other offender. So, with that in mind and without any pictures to support my claims, I just want to offer a few notes.With the start of the school year underway, it is good that many of you have learned to put down your cell phones and adhere to the 20 MPH limit in school zones. But may I also remind you that, in spite of your best intentions, you do not get bonus points for going 20 MPH outside of the school zones. No, I’m not talking about the person who intuitively slows down when children are walking to school but haven’t yet reached the official school zone. For you, I applaud your common sense and alertness. My complaint is with people who lose all situational awareness and, as if stuck in some sort of trance, do 20 in a 45, not a school, a zone, or a child in sight.
There are two things that I dislike immensely. One is people who are not ready to go when the light turns green. I’m not talking about the person who alertly checks to be sure some idiot isn’t running a red light before proceeding into the intersection; I’m talking about the lady yapping on the cell phone while doing her make-up while yelling at her kids in the back seat to turn down the Disney movie playing on the little DVD player. I have said this before; you need to treat the red light the same way a golfer plays ready-golf. When the light turns green, yell “fore” and go!
The other thing is people who go extremely too slow when they are near a police station or can see a police car within a mile of them. No, no, I don’t expect you to brazenly zip by an officer, doing sixty in a forty, but please, again, how about a little common sense.
I have not had a speeding ticket in years, so Lord knows I am due. In fact, writing this pretty much guarantees that I will get one, just because people who brag about not getting tickets probably deserve at least one every few years. But for those of you who are extremely too cautious, here is a little note: it is okay to do the speed limit (or slightly above) in order to maintain a positive flow of traffic, even when a police officer is present.
My daily commute takes me right past SAPD’s Westside substation on Culebra and it amazes me how people who are driving perfectly normal suddenly freak-out when they see police cars hit the street. They immediately position their hands at 10 and 2, and reduce their speed to 5 or 10 miles below the posted limit.
I also notice what the police officers are doing. They are busy looking at their fancy laptops so they can go out and look for criminals. They are not immediately pointing radar speed guns so they can issue the first ticket of the day someplace miles from the patrol they are trying to get to.
And in the afternoon, it is the same thing. Do you suppose some officer wants to pull you over for doing three miles over the speed limit when he is literally minutes away from the end of his shift? I think not. I don’t think officers are lazy, just realistic.
You paranoid drivers who drive in packs and want to block me in so I can’t get around you, that is what makes for a good dose of road rage. Forget the speed limit or the speed you are going. If you find yourself driving in the left lane with open space in front of you and a car is up on your bumper behind you, you are going too slowly. That is the rule and if you violate it, I think the Electric Chair is suitable punishment. Let me be clear: if you are doing 100 MPH, even in a 30 MPH zone and there is free space ahead of you and you have a guy on your ass behind you; get the hell out of my way!
Also, If you are driving and the car in the lane next to you is going the same exact speed as you, either speed up or slow down so that those of us behind you two morons can get around you. Otherwise, you are creating a blocking situation which leads to road rage.
And finally, a note about road rage. In spite of my displeasure with your impolite driving, road rage is something I simply don’t participate in regardless of how bad my fellow commuters piss me off. I am a laid back enough person to recognize that there is simply no place, including work, that I have to be in such a hurry that I can’t just relax, turn up the radio and enjoy the drive behind your pathetic, slow, ten miles under the speed limit, ass.
The fact is you could be preoccupied because you are reloading. Take your time my friend; I have plenty of space on the disk in my camera, and I enjoy posting your antics from time to time (as long as I can safely take the picture). Drive like an ass, just don't shoot.
If you don't live in SA, you may not be so easily entertained by an hour or two of solid, aquifer filling, grass watering, temperature lowering rain.
We have set records for the number of 100+ degree days in a month this year. AlGore may actually pack-up and move here.
All that aside, I offer you a few minutes of San Antonio rain, before we go back to the ol' fireball which is certain to return tomorrow.
My wife and I found ourselves on the south side shortly after noon today and when the topic of lunch came up, she casually mentioned Bud Jones amongst a list of several other eateries we had not been to in years.
Bud Jone's has been around since the late 1950's and is one of those places that everyone seems to know about. I know I had been before, but I couldn't tell you when it was or what I had - it must have been easily 10 or 15 years ago.
So we pulled in and found parking in the back lot - the place was doing an extremely brisk business, which I suspect is pretty much the way it is all the time there. In case the location might make you nervous, I will tell you that there was a security guard perched in a little deer blind dutifully watching the lot for any shenanigans that might be going on.
We were seated directly across from where people enter and wait to be seated. I wasn't exactly thrilled about the location at first, but after a while, I realized it was a good place for inspecting the clientele. My wife asked me at one point if I thought that many of the patrons seemed to be a little "odd"? Oh sure, I could have simply set the camera up and photographed each party arriving, but that might have been noticeable. Please don't get me wrong; there were plenty of your normal people entering for some after church lunch or perhaps a family get together. It just both struck us that during our 45 minutes to an hour sitting there and seeing every person who entered or left, there was an above average number of circus freaks, twins, oddly shaped individuals and people who seemed to be from other planets. But I like that in a restaurant; it makes me feel at home.
Our entrees came with a choice of soup or salad. My wife had the vegetable soup and I had the house salad with Ranch. The soup was good and the salad was just right. Oh sure, I would have liked some croutons, but I'm not complaining.
My wife ordered up a platter called "The Net" that came with two planks of fish, some shrimp and some great onion rings. The onion rings were simply awesome, though you do need to eat them while they are hot (as it should be). The onions had a sweet taste and the breading was done just right. The shrimp were also excellent. Butterflied and fried, not too crunchy. The fish was Alaskan Cod and my wife enjoyed it enough to join the clean-plate club.
As soon as I saw the catfish on the menu, I knew that was what I would be having. It came with 2 smallish jalapeno hush puppies that were tasty, though not as jalapeno'ee as I expected. The catfish planks were huge. In fact, it was almost tough to work with them on the size of plate they give you. I guess I'm more of a catfish nugget person, but the taste was good and like the onion rings, the breading was just fine. The tarter sauce was also good. The plates are really loaded, and though I realize I am not required by law to finish everything they give me, it just tastes so good. I did leave the fries, since I had been stealing onion rings and shrimp from my wife's plate, but my wife says they were good.
There are several dining areas within the place and it seems like they have quite a large staff running around to serve everyone. In spite of it being a large place, it feels very homey and old style diner like. I think they probably could stand to remodel, but then again, why bother as long as the food is good, and for us, it was.
Have you been to Bud Jones? Got any favorites from their huge menu? Tell me about it or leave a comment below.
Rest assured that my wife and I get numerous suggestions from readers and acquaintances on places we ought to check out for lunch, and we do appreciate them all. But every once in a while, a place intrigues me enough to shoot right to the top of the list. 
That was the case the other day when a co-worker of mine mentioned the name of a restaurant he used to frequent years ago on North Flores called M.K. Davis. Don't let the outside appearance fool you into thinking this is a dive. At least wait until you see the inside.
M.K. Davis Restaurant and Bar has been around since 1956. I'm sure it would be safe to say they have only remodeled a few times since then, but regardless, the place is clean, service was good, the price was cheap and most the food was good. I really liked how they customized the heavy wooden chairs and benches with the MKD logos. 
Since it is a restaurant and bar, you won't be surprised to find a long bar on one side that takes the full length of the restaurant. I'm guessing more than one patron has skipped lunch and gone straight for the schooner full of beer.
I specifically like a place like this because they clearly have an established clientele (how else do you stay in business this long) and they have a rounded menu so you can come in more than once in a week and not have to have the same thing. They offer everything from Tex-Mex standards to burgers, fish, shrimp, steaks and sandwiches.
My wife was looking for something light and opted for the Ham & Cheese on toasted bread. It comes with chips on the side and for $3.25, this is quality fare for those on a budget or just trying to get a quick bite.
I of course would need to test the onion rings. They bring you a huge basket full, easily enough for a table of four people, but sadly, we were disappointed with the taste. In fact, there was no taste at all to the crispy breading and salt didn't seem to help. If you are a fan of the onion rings at places like Lord's Kitchen or even Red Robin, you'll want to pass on these.
I ordered the 1/3 pound cheese burger. It comes on a super soft, grilled bun, a handmade patty and served with tomato, pickles and chopped lettuce on the side. I love it when I can control the amount of lettuce going onto my burger. No complaints at all with my cheeseburger, and for $3.55 in a sit down restaurant, this is a hard deal to beat. 
When we first sat down, my wife ordered a lemonade and I got my usual unsweetened tea - both of which were fine. But as I sat waiting for the lunch to come, I could not bare the idea of being in M.K. Davis and passing up on the huge 32 ounce schooner, so I flagged the waitress down and had one delivered to the table. I know; 32 ounces. The next thing you know, you'll find me camped out in front of a convenience store with a quart of Miller Highlife kept cool by a brown paper sack asking passersby for spare change to get a Wall Street Journal. But in fairness, the beer was served quite cold and the thick glass kept it nice and frosty for the duration.
In the end, I can appreciate the charm of this place and certainly expect them to continue to be around for some time to come. Think about the Tip Top Cafe and how old that place is. There is something nice about grabbing a quick bite in a place that wears its history on the walls and tables and staff.
Got any stories about M.K. Davis? Tell me about it or leave a comment here.
Am I the only person who gets the feeling that each time they have to delay putting us into the next stage of tighter water restrictions, it just pisses off the people in charge of water? I mean really, when we get the slightest amount of rain to make our aquifer rise just an inch as opposed to dropping a foot, I just know there is some bureaucrat slamming his fist on the desk yelling dammit!
Enjoy the drought... and some rain.
This morning my wife and I headed down to the Pearl Brewery where they are holding the weekly Farmers Market now. We had heard a few good comments about it and were eager to see it for ourselves, especially since we had been by when it was still a work in progress.
We were lucky to find a parking spot in the lot just under 281 and made the short walk toward the Full Goods building (I guess that is what it is called). 
Lots of people out and about and I could sense from the people we passed by that this was more of the Organic Crowd. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but you would understand if you had a line up of 6 people who regularly shop at Whole Foods and another 6 people who shop at a regular HEB. I'm sure that based upon clothing, shoes, and accouterments, you could pick out which 6 were the Organic Crowd.
The entire area is clean and very welcoming. There seems to be a lot of people who are somehow working for the place, helping people with directions and such. Inside the Full Goods building, it looks pretty spiffy with all sorts of solar powered things and I especially liked the huge ceiling fan that looked big enough to be a helicopter rotor. The building is obviously still working on attracting tenants, but I think it will be a nice place to visit once more shops are open.
The Farmers Market itself was set up in a back parking lot and it was pretty much full with vendors. And as you could imagine from the description of the clientele, I'm pretty certain all the vendors were strictly organic type farmers.
We attempted to purchase some Bison jerky, but the guy was sold out. We actually thought about purchasing some of his Bison steaks, but had no way of keeping them cool since we were not headed directly home. Maybe next time.
Halfway through the market, we decided to go down to the Pearl Springs portion of the River Walk. It is really, really nice and if it had not been for the heat, we probably would have walked more than just a few hundred yards of it. I'll post the pictures I took of it on the Flickr Page, but I did want to show this lucky dog who decided to take a dip.
They have a small lock system for diverting water, it appears, to some of the water features. This small little water line is about 16 inches wide and maybe a foot or so deep. This lady was walking her Greyhound when she decided to cool herself off. I can't recall the dogs name, but my wife thanks it was Ginger. Anyway, she and her owner attracted lots of curious onlookers.
Back into the Full Goods building, we went into the one shop that was open and thriving. The Mellisa Guerra store is half art store and half kitchen store. We went in and it was very impressive and worthy of a look around. At some point though, we felt a little uncomfortable by the young lady who would accost customers and politely request that she take the items they wanted to purchase and hold them at the counter.
That's fine I suppose, but it got a little old being followed around to see if we would pick up something else to purchase, and naturally need to have it placed at the counter to save us from having to carry it ourselves. WTF? We cut our shopping short and while we stood at the counter waiting for the cashier to locate our items, my wife said she would just as soon not make the purchase. And our surveillance officer standing behind us seemed not to mind one bit.
Don't let our uncomfortable experience sway your opinion, I suspect riffraff like us should just learn to deal with it.
We really enjoyed it otherwise and will certainly return, though I suspect if we need anything from the Mellisa Guerra shop, we'll handle it online. Okay; not likely.
It all started with watching KENS 5 Great Day SA show and seeing these two Krazy Vatos. What caught her eye were the little Mexican sweet bread pastries displayed during the show. 
Turned out, they were little wallets and key-chains made to look like real pan de huevo. And the Krazy Vatos had opened up an emporium of sorts just south of downtown.
She just had to go! With her mother and nephew in tow, she made it to South Presa and Berkshire and found the fairly new shop and decided to take a look around. 
Inside, there is an interesting collection of Puro San Antonio fare; t-shirts with sayings like “Got Tortillas” or your favorite Mexican Loteria card, “El Borracho”. 
They shopped around a bit and purchased the aforementioned sweet bread purses then struck up a conversation with the owners, the guys she had seen on TV, Danny De La Paz and Jesse Borrego.
I'll save you the Google-time. Danny De La Paz has been a character actor playing supporting roles, in several dozen movies and TV shows. Remember American Me? He played a Latino in that one. And Jesse Borrego is also been in a long list of movies and such - you know, Fame and all that - but what is really important is that he played The Skinner on season 3 of Dexter! Friends, that alone is worth a visit to Krazy Vatos, but suggest you not bring any sharp objects since apparently he knows how to use them!
Anyway, they chatted a bit and talked about some future film projects that are being developed on San Antonio's south side. How cool is that? So there you have it. Proof that my wife, (the old lady, the other half, the misses), doesn't need me to find something interesting to post.
