haunted by the ghosts of its two missing stars

Dad had a conference in San Antonio monday morning, so we jumped in the car and drove out to San Antonio. By way of Austin. Perceptive readers will remember that Austin is not insignificantly north of San Antonio. In fact, we made an extra hour and a half detour to to Austin. For lunch. The Fonda San Miguel has the best buffet I've had. The quality of the food is nearly comparable to Hugo's Houston. The location is pinche charming, through massive old wooden doors, to a hacienda type building with hand painted plates and elegant Mexican handicrafts everywhere.

The food is phenomenal and freshly prepared. Red mole and green mole. Roasted beef, traditionally roasted cochinita pibl with spicy pickled red onions. Tamales with huitlacoche (Mexican corn fungus). We stuffed ourselves. Tay was initially dubious about a 90 minute detour for brunch, but after the first few bites he admitted that it was worth the trip. We waddled back to the car and fought the post SXSW traffic down to San Antonio.

Dad and Neri were put up at some resort out in the hill country outside the city, but, charmed by the historicity, I suggested Tay and I get a room at the Menger Hotel. This was the best hotel in the city, the landmark and center of movie stars and presidents, about a hundred years ago. The hotel bar was where future president Teddy Roosevelt recruited the rough riders for the campaign in the Caribbean. A glittering center of culture, commerce, and politics.

That was a long time ago. A long time ago.

Today, the Menger is a three-star hotel and probably more attractive to visitors for its good location and relatively cheap price over its storied history. It's one of those places where the age has worked against the hotel rather than in its favor. If the elevators had been one of those old cage types, it would have been charming. Instead, we get the just above our heads lay-in acoustical tile in the 1950's era elevators. I commented to Tay that it is the most has-been-iest hotel in San Antonio.

The room smelled like it had just finished being used as an over-chlorinated pool. I thanked the pre-air conditioning construction and opened up the generous windows to vent out the chemical smell while I checked emails.

We met Dad and Neri back downstairs and went out to walk to the Esquire bar. The Esquire bar is one of those places that walks a fine line between being a historic, dapper saloon, and playing at it ironically. Armadillo shell light sconces on the wall with the bar name screen-printed on it. Edison light bulbs everywhere. An ancient old wooden bar and original worn wooden booths.  In the end, I don't even care, it's just kind of fun. We had a few drinks here, I got a finger or two of some Mezcal joven to worry me while dad got his Moscow Mule, and Tay ordered some more interesting cocktails.

We slugged down the drinks and retrieved the car to drive out to Tay's pick for the night, an American restaurant Cappy's. Cappy's was understated, warm, sophisticated dining. It's lack of ostentatiousness hinted at its expense. The food was American southern. Tay and I split the paella which was modified to have a more Italian flavor with a seafood risotto in place of the traditional saffron rice, plus we split a corn and keilbasa sausage chowder to start. The portion sizes were just right to split since we were still engorged from the massive Mexican brunch. The other really good thing was the kimchee flash-fried Brussel sprouts. The food was excellent, although Tay's side order of mac and cheese was pretty forgettable by comparison. The desert of sticky toffee pudding was much more on the creamy bread pudding side, but it was actually scrumptious and the fresh made vanilla ice cream they served it with was even better than the pudding.

After dad dropped us back at the hotel we walked over to the Ocho. I misread the phone's GPS and took us under the LED disco bridge underpass, and as we walked deeper in Stabville, we realized we were going completely the wrong way. We did finally make it over to the historic Havana Hotel where the Ocho was the hotel bar/restaurant. It was a moody, dark place, lit with candles and dim lighting, and with the plush couches, dark corners, velvet, and tropical theme, it was supped to evoke pre-revolutionary cuba. It was also quite dead. A quick scan revealed a scant two couples. Tay and I ordered some tropical drinks and settled on a velvet couch to chat.

Tay started to feel a little unwell, possibly from the unusual decadent richness of our lunch and dinner  and the syrupy grapefruit juice based drink he was nursing, so we called it a night and walked back. Tay's typical diet is a bowl of cereal in the morning and a chicken caesar salad for dinner, so I'm not surprised he was feeling a bit like a booze-soaked foie gras goose.

Despite the hotel's dubious reputation as the Most Haunted Hotel in San Antonio, we both slept really well. When the TV slid violently across the room to shatter the desk chair which spurted blood, I remember wiping some off my forehead, rolling over and falling back asleep. Despite his wildly bucking bed, I don't think Tay even woke up.