San Antonio Current — January 27, 2021

JAN. 27 - FEB. 9, 2021

Hitting Bottom How the pandemic is upending San Antonio's hospitality industry

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sacurrent.com | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | sacurrent.com

in this issue San Antonio Current

Issue 21-02 /// January 27 - February 9, 2021

for imbibers with food sensitivities

Publisher: Michael Wagner Editor-in-Chief: Sanford Nowlin

Vive la France

Editorial

Digital Content Editor: Kelly Merka Nelson Contributing Arts Editor: Bryan Rindfuss Food and Nightlife Writer: Nina Rangel Contributors: Ron Bechtol, Chris Conde, Daniel Conrad, Jade Esteban Estrada, Dan R. Goddard, Lance Higdon, Steven G. Kellman, Hannah Lorence, Kiko Martinez, M. Solis, Gary Sweeney, Leah Thompson, Abe Asher Editorial Interns: Emily DiTomasso, Brianna Espinoza Trevor Flynn, Katie Hennessey, Dana Nichols, Deanna Wilson

Brasserie Mon Chou Chou’s take on classic French dining is both contemporary and commendable

Advertising

Advertising Director: Michael Wagner

Marketing and Events

Marketing and Events Director: Cassandra Yardeni Events Manager: Chelsea Bourque Sales & Event Coordinator: Sky Hawkes Marketing Interns: Julia Bentley

Creative Services

Graphic Designer: Samantha Serna Production Interns: Pedro Macias

Circulation

Circulation Manager: Justin Giles

Euclid Media Group

Chief Executive Officer: Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers: Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services: Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator: Jaime Monzon Senior Marketing and Events Director: Cassandra Yardeni www.euclidmediagroup.com National Advertising: Voice Media Group (888) 278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

Sanford Nowlin

10 Feature

Hitting Bottom

How the pandemic is upending San Antonio’s hospitality industry

San Antonio Current 915 Dallas San Antonio, Texas 78215 sacurrent.com Editorial: (210) 227-0044 / Fax - (210) 227-7755 Display Advertising: (210) 227-0044 Fax: (210) 227-7733 Classified: (210) 227-CLAS / Fax - (210) 227-7733 The San Antonio Current is published by Euclid Media Group

07 News

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Glitter Political

San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea ‘Vocab’ Sanderson Wields Plus-Size Influence

CityScapes

During the tourism slump, San Antonio should kick its addiction to incentivizing downtown hotels

15 Calendar Calendar Picks

16 Arts

Mining a Hidden History

Artist José Villalobos shines light on a gay bracero in new Artpace exhibition

18 Screens

Weight on His Shoulders

JAN. 27 - FEB. 9, 2021

San Antonio’s Fidel Ruiz-Healy served as cinematographer for Sundance dark comedy set in Mormon church

19 Music Pop Art

The Psychoholics aren’t looking to be next big thing, but that doesn’t diminish the fun of the band’s first new release in 12 years

20 Food

New Year, New Noodles The coming Chinese New Year is a perfect excuse to explore San Antonio’s Asian noodle offerings

Rethink That Drink

San Antonio bartender blazes path

Hitting Bottom How the pandemic is upending San Antonio's hospitality industry

On the Cover: Samantha Serna designed this week’s cover, which turns San Antonio’s downtown tourist district on its head.

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SCOOTER RIDING TIPS

Here are some quick tips you need to know before you hop on and ride away: • Riding on sidewalks is prohibited • Must be 16+ • Only 1 person per scooter/bike

• Always yield to pedestrians • Riding in parks and plazas is prohibited (this includes the River Walk) • Park scooters/bikes neatly and out of walkways

For more info visit: www.sanantonio.gov/scooters 6

CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | sacurrent.com

REPORTING

Please report any parking violations or damaged vehicles to 311 or through the 311 app.

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Shortly after President Joe Biden took the oath of office last Wednesday, scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Twitter that he would be a “major check against the administration’s lawlessness” in court. Paxton, under indictment for securities fraud and reportedly being investigated by the FBI for abuse of office, was heavily involved in the effort to overturn the results of the election and reinstall Donald Trump as president.

H

A rough week for conspiracy-peddling MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was made rougher by San Antonio’s own H-E-B, which Lindell says stopped carrying his brand. Along with H-E-B, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s and Wayfair have all also reportedly dropped MyPillow over Lindell’s false claims that Donald Trump won the election.

H

A new study from the University of Texas at San Antonio found that growing numbers of 16- to 24-yearolds in Bexar County are neither enrolled in school nor working amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The report found that in nine San Antonio ZIP codes, the number of young people in that position is 15% or more — considerably higher than the 12.5% national average.

In a time of elevated stress, anxiety and isolation, San Antonio Parks & Recreation is looking for volunteers to get outside and get involved in community. The city is seeking dog park ambassadors to help with outreach events and educate visitors on park etiquette, such as picking up after one’s pooch. — Abe Asher

news

That Rocks/That Sucks

Courtesy Photo / Office of the Texas Governor

ASSCLOWN ALERT

Greg Abbott Held a Public Safety Roundtable and Only Invited the Cops Assclown alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

Last Thursday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott staged a bit of political theater his office referred to in a press release as a roundtable discussion of “legislative priorities to ensure a safer future for the Lone Star State.” Never mind that roundtables are supposed to be deliberative forums that involve a certain amount of give and take.

Hard to imagine how there was much give and take when the nine other folks at the Gov’s table ranged from the deputy executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association to Comal County’s criminal district attorney. Notably absent — especially so in the post-George Floyd era — were any police accountability advocates, criminal defense attorneys, people with mental health expertise or even city mayors.

Like other GOP politicos, Abbott’s been on a law-and-0rder kick lately, figuring that to be a winning ballot-box issue. After Austin’s city council voted last fall to shift funds from police coffers into social services, the governor repeatedly called on the Texas Legislature pass a law stopping cities from cutting police budgets.

He’s also threatened a takeover of the city’s police force.

Apparently, when you’re an assclown intent on getting your way, it’s always best to fill your roundtable with yes men. — Sanford Nowlin

On February 12, after a year of protest against police violence, San Antonio officials will kick off a first collective bargaining meeting with the city’s police union for a new contract. The union will be under the new leadership of President-elect John “Danny” Diaz. City Manager Erik Walsh told KSAT the city’s priority will be establishing new protocols around “accountability and discipline.”

YOU SAID IT!

“[I]f you elevate a flag that has someone’s name on it to the same level that you elevate your national flag, then you are not a patriot; you are part of a cult.”

— former Republican U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of San Antonio in a Washington Post editorial blasting his own party’s allegiance to Trump

San Antonio man Matthew Mazzocco, accused of storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, has been fired from his job as a loan officer at Synergy One Lending Inc. and is facing criminal charges that could land him in jail for more than a year. Mazzocco attended his first hearing last week, where a judge allowed him to remain free while he awaits trail.

Despite doing everything in his power to ingratiate himself to Donald Trump, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was not on the former president’s extensive pardon list last week. Paxton, reportedly under FBI investigation for abuse of office, hasn’t yet been charged with a federal crime. He is, however, under state indictment for securities fraud. — Abe Asher

Facebook / MyPillow

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CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | sacurrent.com

news GLITTER POLITICAL

San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea ‘Vocab’ Sanderson Wields Plus-Size Influence

BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA

A

ndrea “Vocab” Sanderson vividly remembers the first time she moved an audience with her words. She was a young girl, then, a member of a large, nondenominational

church.

“I felt that God said something to me,” she says through my computer screen. “So, I went to the microphone, and I told the pastor what I felt God said to me, [and] the whole atmosphere of the church shifted.”

Now 39, San Antonio’s fifth poet laureate continues to make spiritual connections with the city she loves. Even amid a once-in-a-century pandemic and a climate of social unrest.

“It’s speaking a word or taking an action at the right time that can shift an atmosphere,” she says.

As Sanderson speaks, the large, shell-like light reflector in the background, along with her endless curls, remind me of Sandro Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus.

As Venus rose from the sea, Sanderson rose from her church, writing and performing her first poem for a memorial service at the age of 13.

“I feel like everything that I trained for in that church got me to this place,” she says. “I do consider a lot of what I do ministry in a sense, [but] not in a traditional thus-saith-the-Lord-standin’-on-a-pulpit type of vibe. I feel like God and art saved my life, so [I’m] trying to bring that idea [that the stage] could save your life.”

In her senior year of high school, Sanderson began a five-year musical journey with LSC Ministries, a touring gospel hip-hop group, and, in 2001, she had her first open mic experience. The rest, some would say, is herstory.

“Getting the cover of the Current changed my life in 2018,” she says. “I was doing a lot before then, but then people’s perspective of me shifted. I don’t know what it was about that cover, but it lived on the whole year.”

In 2019, I saw Sanderson perform for the first time at a swanky poetry event at downtown tapas bar Carmens de la Calle. Then, a few weeks later, I stood five feet from her at the city’s mayoral inauguration when she captivated political A-listers with a reading of “Rosary Beads,” a poem she penned for the Mayor’s Ball.

“I didn’t get to perform it for [Mayor Ron Nirenberg], and I was really frustrated,” she recalls. “I gave him a copy of it, I think. But I wrote it not even knowing what it was for at the time.”

Jade Esteban Estrada

Sounds like kismet.

“Yes, I feel like there’s a lot of divine providence moments in my life,” she says. “I do believe that we have a destiny, that there are those moments when you feel like, ‘I am walking in my purpose. I am working on the things I was intended to do.’”

Last March, Sanderson was installed as poet laureate — just as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the country.

I ask her what that juxtaposition was like.

“Let me breathe first,” she says before a long, audible exhale. “I pray that I don’t start crying but if I do, I do. I felt not ready, but I understood [that] everything that I’ve been through in life was preparing me for that moment.”

Not only is Sanderson proud to be the first African American to become San Antonio’s poet laureate, she also appreciates the opportunity to represent body positivity.

“I’m plus size, and I want little plus-size girls to grow up and see they can be who they want to be,” she says. “They can carry weight in a room, not just in a physical sense of what their body holds, but in their presence. We need more Queen Latifahs.”

Sanderson acknowledges that as a Black artist — a rapper who does spoken word and slam-style poetry — she’s been a game changer in a space traditionally dominated by literary and academic figures.

“I opened it up,” she says with a smile.

Last November, after shooting the “What Will It Take?” musical public service announcement that encouraged people to wear masks, Sanderson tested positive for the coronavirus. While she was quarantined, she thought deeply about her role during the health crisis.

“I think about the influence that I have,” she says. “If I go and get the vaccine and people see me taking the

vaccine, it could influence someone else’s decision to get it or not.”

After a turbulent 2020, I ask her how she feels about Black History Month this year, which begins February 1.

“I just feel like we’ve come a long way but, right now, history repeats itself, so some of the things that were happening in the 1960s and the 1970s, they’re happening all over again,” she says. “Hopefully, things will change and continue changing.”

In the meantime, she applauds activists at the forefront of progressive change.

“Like the women who started the Black Lives Matter movement,” she says. “You know, strong Black women.”

I ask if she’s a strong Black woman.

“Some days,” she says with a sigh. “But I think that my strength — God’s strength — is made perfect in my weakness. I can acknowledge that my vulnerability lends itself to strength. Being able to cry, being able to be at a loss for words, being speechless, hurting and mourning, all of that lends itself to strength, because when I rise up to do something, all of my heart’s gonna go into it.”

Since our video conversation, Sanderson was inspired to write a song about the deadly and disturbing insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“It was foolish and predictable, meaning it was the culmination of all that is wrong with [former President Donald J.] Trump’s infamous legacy,” she said via email.

When I asked her how she felt the aftermath was handled, she wrote that it was still too early to tell.

“But I hope everyone who participated is vilified, the way innocent Black people are vilified in the media,” she said. sacurrent.com | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | CURRENT

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news

Oscar Noin, who’s worked most of his adult life in hospitality, said he originally underestimated the impact of the pandemic.

a

tions and in-house meetings due to cancellations, according to Visit San Antonio. That amounts to a loss of 634,251 room nights in local hotels and $431.3 million in economic impact.

There are potential wins on the horizon, such as the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament the city was courting at press time. And 59 meetings are still on the books for the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, representing 323,205 room nights and $198.2 million in economic impact.

But economists warn that until vaccines and herd immunity put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, San Antonio’s tourism and hospitality sectors are in for lean times.

Bond bailout

Hitting Bottom

Sanford Nowlin

How the pandemic is upending San Antonio’s hospitality industry

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

W

hen the pandemic began siphoning off River Walk tourism early last spring, Oscar Noin thought he was seeing a repeat of the downturn he’d ridden out

after 9/11.

Noin, the head server at the Esquire Tavern, spent most of his adult life working in San Antonio’s hospitality sector and thought he knew what to brace for. Then, his restaurant closed the day after Mother’s Day, only reopening again for full service in November.

“I started buckling down and saving money once I recognized what was happening,” said Noin, 53. “But I never expected to be out of work for six months.”

After that experience, Noin’s read on what the COVID-19 crisis has done to San Antonio’s tourism and hospitality industry lines up with that of economists and industry observers: it will take years, not months, to rebuild.

The significance of that impact can’t be undersold.

Tourism is the third-largest sector of the local economy, employing one out of every seven San Antonians.

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CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | sacurrent.com

What’s more, experts warn that the industry, which local leaders spent decades and millions of dollars cultivating, will be profoundly and permanently altered once it returns.

“The leisure visitors are what will carry us until things get back to a better place,” said Dave Krupinski, interim CEO of Visit San Antonio, the city’s independent tourism marketing arm. “It will take years to get back to where we were on group travel.”

To be more precise, Krupinski predicts that leisure travel to San Antonio won’t return 2019 levels until 2023 or 2024. Group travel, such as conventions and business meetings, won’t hit pre-pandemic levels again until 2025 — possibly longer.

That latter projection is a big deal because group travel is what fills downtown hotels, and conventioneers on corporate accounts tend to spend bigger than frugal family travelers. Of the 39.2 million visitors that came to San Antonio in 2018, nearly 20% came for business, according to a study by travel research company DK Shifflet & Associates.

As of January 4, the city has lost nearly 260 conven-

In what may be the most profound sign of San Antonio’s tourism woes, the city revealed in December that it’s now covering bond payments on the Grand Hyatt convention center hotel. That city-owned luxury hotel was born through a controversial $282 million bond deal in 2015.

City officials expect to make $13.4 million in payments over the next seven months to keep the struggling hotel in operation. After the pandemic dried up convention business, the 1,000-room property laid off workers and shut down for five months.

San Antonio is now using tax revenues collected from visitors to cover the payments. That, in turn, siphons off funds otherwise that would have been used for tourism marketing, the arts and historical preservation — you know, stuff that could help rejuvenate the flagging hospitality industry.

Roughly 70% of the Grand Hyatt’s room revenue comes from conventioneers, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

While observers have tallied a moderate comeback of hotel stays outside of San Antonio’s downtown center, the numbers in the center city remain dismal.

Revenue per available room, called RevPAR in the business, was down 67% from third quarter 2019 to third quarter 2020 for downtown hotels, according to San Antonio hotel consultancy Source Strategies Inc. For the quarter, hotels in the center city reported average RevPAR of $33.71, substantially below the citywide average of $38.58.

Making the best of it The hotel numbers show that people are still traveling, just not for conventions and big-ticket vacations, Visit San Antonio’s Krupinski said. As a result, his organization is focusing its marketing efforts on attracting visitors from Texas and surrounding states. It’s also looking at ways to convince families to prolong their stays.

“As we come out of this pandemic, I think we’ll see people much more comfortable traveling closer to

home,” he said.

Visit San Antonio is also launching a snappily named promotional program called “Si San Antonio” that will give travelers a special hotel rate and a card offering discounts at attractions, restaurants and museums.

First and foremost, though, Krupinski said, the city’s hospitality sector must focus on making travelers feel safe as they visit. To that end, it’s encouraging local hotels and attractions to focus on safety and has held talks with billionaire Graham Weston’s Community Labs to provide rapid, low-cost coronavirus testing for hotel staff.

Nationwide scramble While a reshuffling of the city’s marketing efforts may help bring back some business, by Visit San Antonio’s own calculations, we’re still in for a rough ride. There’s simply no advertising budget that will cure what ails us, experts argue.

For one thing, San Antonio isn’t the only city vying to rebuild right now.

The convention and visitors bureau of every U.S. city is undertaking a fullcourt press to attract visitors. Flip open a copy of Texas Monthly, and you’ll find Lone Star State destinations large and small taking out glossy ads to win back tourist dollars.

“If you look at the five major cities in Texas, they’re all completely hammered, especially in the downtown business district,” said Paul Vaughn, senior vice president at Source Strategies. “They’re all pushing to win back that business. It’s very competitive right now.”

Compounding the problem, San Antonio hasn’t landed any recent attractions to give it fresh sparkle for travelers, Vaughn said. While the city’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site may appeal to certain visitors, it’s not likely to be a big draw for families driving in from Waco or Longview for enchiladas on the River Walk.

Another problem is that businesses are rethinking how to approach conventions and other gatherings amid the pandemic. The explosion in Zoom meetings in virtually every industry demonstrates that not everyone needs to be in the same room to make decisions, get training or hobnob.

The long-term result, economists argue, is that businesses will hold fewer and smaller conventions. Those that do occur in the next few years are likely to be hybrid affairs where some folks

Courtesy Photo / Grand Hyatt

get to rub shoulders and run up the expense account while the rest watch from video screens.

“You’re already seeing companies brag to their shareholders that they’re saving money by not traveling for meetings,” Vaughn said. “They’re saying, ‘By not spending that money we’re helping offset our losses.’”

“Economists in general aren’t real big on using tax revenue to attract businesses,” said David Macpherson, a Trinity University economics professor.

“What you end up doing is getting in bidding wars with other communities.

The real winners aren’t the taxpayers in those communities but corporate shareholders.”

City subsidies

Ready to Work

While the travel downturn has been painful for every Texas metro, it’s carried a special sting for San Antonio, which spent big to leverage its history and the River Walk to establish itself as tourism and convention mecca.

The count of the city’s hotel rooms has grown from 18,600 in 1987 to roughly 52,300 this year.

Beyond issuing bonds for its convention center hotel and undertaking multiple pricy convention center expansions, San Antonio has also incentivized hotel development to boost its tourism standing. (For more on that see this issue’s CityScrapes column) Downtown’s Hyatt Regency opened in 1981 with some $10 million in federal aid, for example. Tax abatements also played a part in attracting the Adam’s Mark, Hixon Properties’ Westin hotel, the Hyatt Hill Country, the Westin LaCantera and the J. W. Marriott Hill Country resort, to name a few.

For critics, the hospitality industry downturn is a lesson in why public-sector efforts to bolster private-sector interests are a risky play.

Other states heavily reliant on the tourism business have already been looking for other ways to diversify their economies. Calling the pandemic “excruciating” and “unprecedented,” Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada this month warned that his state simply can’t rely on a recovery in tourism to put people back to work.

“It’s not enough to just aim for a full reopening of our current economy,” he said in an Associated Press report.

We must look forward to the kind of economy that will let our state prosper in the future,” the governor said.

While experts say it’s unclear how much leadership Texas will show in rethinking its post-pandemic economy, there’s at least one potential bright spot locally.

In November, voters approved spending $154 million on SA Ready to Work, an initiative created to provide job training and education to 40,000 San Antonians who lost work during the health crisis.

An economic impact report on Ready to Work by local economist Steven

Roughly 70% of the Grand Hyatt’s room revenue comes from conventioneers, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

M

Nivin found that every dollar spent on the program will yield $85 while costing residents an average of $8.62 per year. Nivin predicted that the program ultimately will yield $5.7 billion in increased wages plus another $7.4 billion as workers spend their boosted salaries.

While the verdict is still out on Ready to Work, observers say it represents a welcome break from San Antonio’s traditional thinking when it comes to economic development — throwing incentives at businesses and hoping we can market our way to prosperity.

“If you invest in people, they’ll have the skills that can be transferable across industries. That’s the better investment,” Trinity’s Macpherson said.

“Human capital has paid off in the past for us, and it will pay off in the future.”

The Esquire’s Noin says he’d like to see San Antonio invest in its homegrown hospitality industry to save what jobs it can. But he also wants it to expand opportunities for the many workers who won’t be able to return to their hotel and restaurant shifts. A half dozen of his close friends have left the business for good, he said.

“When it happens, I think ‘Good for them,’ but I also know we’re losing good people,” Noin said. “And we’re going to lose more. This won’t be over for a very long time.”

sacurrent.com | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | CURRENT

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SCAN TO P E E P OUR MENU! 834 N O RTH WE ST LO OP 410 ST E. 106, SAN ANTONI O, T X 78216

O P E N DA I LY | 11 A M - M I D N I G H T | 2 10 . 34 2. 247 3 | F O L LO W U S @ G O L D F E AT H E R B B

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CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | sacurrent.com

SOMETHING

FOR

E V E RYO N E

news CITYSCRAPES

During the tourism slump, San Antonio should kick its addiction to incentivizing downtown hotels

BY HEYWOOD SANDERS Editor’s Note: The following is CityScrapes, a column of opinion and analysis.

S

an Antonio stands at a crossroads.

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated our economy and caused enormous social and economic pain for our citizens. That pain has been greatest for those who work in the visitor and hospitality sectors. The convention business has collapsed, travel has shrunk, and restaurants have shuttered. It will be years before those jobs return, if ever. That economic devastation has been most pronounced in the part of our city most reliant on visitors and hotel stays — the downtown core.

Over a period of some five decades, we — or rather, our political and business leadership — succeeded in building a downtown that functions almost solely for visitors. In 2011, HR&A Advisors, commissioned to produce a Center City Strategic Framework Plan, concluded that “downtown has experienced an imbalance of uses: hotels and visitor-centric retail are now the dominant businesses, not only in the immediate core of downtown, but also along many of the area’s major corridors.” And when planner and educator Alexander Garvin (author of The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t and Public Parks: Key to Livable Communities) visited to speak at UTSA’s Downtown Campus, he observed “your downtown is nothing but hotels.”

Our “nothing but hotels” downtown didn’t happen by accident, or purely by market forces. It was built by decades of public plans and subsidies, justified by great piles of outside consultant studies and city staff recommendations. It was just a few years after the conclusion of HemisFair ’68 that the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce commissioned a consultant study of a new hotel project for the Alamo Plaza area. The 1973 Laventhol, Kreckstein Horwath & Horwath report concluded that a new 1,000-room hotel was feasible for San Antonio, enabling the city to “attract national conventions that have been turned away due to lack of accommodations.”

We didn’t get that 1,000-room hotel then. But the argument that a big, new hotel was key to unlocking unheard-of convention business helped induce B. K. Johnson and others to invest in the new Hyatt Regency — well, more accurately, that argument and $6.5 million in federal government dollars.

The Hyatt was just the first in what became a parade

Aimee Wyatt

of public subsidy deals for downtown hotels. Federal Urban Development Action Grant dollars in the 1990s also subsidized Rivercenter Mall, the Marriott Rivercenter and the Emily Morgan Hotel. Then city property tax abatements kicked in, and we extended abatement deals for the Adam’s Mark/Crowne Plaza/ Wyndham in the 1990s, along with similar incentives for the Hyatt Hill Country near Sea World and the La Cantera Resort hotel.

After a decade-long quest for a second 1,000-room hotel flopped, the city used federal empowerment zone bonds to build downtown’s Grand Hyatt, putting taxpayers on the hook to pay off the debt. There was also another empowerment zone bond deal for the Drury Plaza downtown. Then, to make sure we had the conventioneers to fill those big hotels, we needed to expand the convention center — first in 2000, and more recently in 2016.

Every hotel subsidy deal, each of the convention center expansions, was justified by a city staff recommendation, bolstered by multiple bulky consultant studies from the likes of PKF, CSL, and HVS — all of which uniformly told us that more hotel rooms or a bigger convention center would create more business, jobs and “economic impact.”

San Antonio’s hospitality industry now faces a “bleak winter” for the next three or four years, at the very least. There is no way to market our way out of it. No boost in advertising dollars will work. No

blue-ribbon advisory board of local notables will deal with our job losses.

Now is the time to deal with reality. The city’s policymaking process has long been flawed, with staff reports and consultant studies that told us exactly the same thing every other city was told. So, when we invested in a big new hotel, so too did Austin, Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth. And when we expanded our convention center, those same cities, and more, did the same. We need to reconsider our downtown, with the aim of developing its functions and activity centers to attract and serve San Antonians rather than visitors, building a more inclusive city. And we need to assure that those once employed in downtown hotels and restaurants have the first opportunity to learn new skills that can broaden their futures.

When city council set up those previous advisory boards, they were invariably filled with hospitality-sector insiders and the same group of business leaders. We need a far more inclusive process for examining the future of our downtown and our visitor orientation, a process that puts those who depend on hotels and restaurants for a wage at the forefront. An NFL team won’t secure our economic future. We need a reshaped economy to do that — replanned by all who live and work here.

Heywood Sanders is a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. sacurrent.com | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | CURRENT

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CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2021 | sacurrent.com

calendar

urday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, San Antonio Botanical Garden, 555

men and reexamining how they shaped the movement and

Funston Place, (210) 536-1400, sabot.org. — Brianna Espinoza

era they both helped define. The San Antonio Museum of Art will host a virtual lecture with award-winning author Peniel E. Joseph during which he’ll discuss his book in depth.

Along with his joint professorship at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the history department of the University of Texas at Austin, Joseph is a frequent commentator on issues of

race, civil rights and democracy. $5-$10, 5-7 p.m., samuseum. org. — Emily DiTomasso Instagram / @Spurs

FRI | 01.29 SPORTS

SPURS VS. NUGGETS Sparked by a 4-1 road trip earlier this month that included signature wins over the Lakers and Clippers in Los Angeles, the Spurs have found surprising success in opposing arenas to start the season. The winning trend stands in stark contrast to the team’s dismal 13-25 road record last season, which ultimately kept them out of the playoffs for the first time in 23 seasons. San Antonio’s youthful trio of Keldon

Courtesy Photo / Thomas Jenkins

WED | 02.03 SPECIAL EVEN T

SAT | 02.06

Unsplash / Matthew T. Rader

have optimistic Spurs fans eyeing a return to the post-sea-

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: ILIAD, FROM STAGE TO PAGE

son, with plenty of basketball remaining on the schedule.

How does one turn a 24-book Homerian epic into a

THE ALAMO ROUNDUP

Next up for the Spurs is a Western Conference showdown

one-person show? With some determination and plenty

Just in time for the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo,

with the Denver Nuggets, who arrive in San Antonio as

of creativity, Lisa Petersen and Denis O’Hare did just that,

the Alamo is hosting a cowboy- themed day for locals to

a team in flux. After losing forward Jerami Grant to free

bringing Homer’s Iliad to the stage. In this online deep dive,

enjoy online. The day-long Alamo Roundup will include

agency and adding seven new players over the offseason, the

Trinity University professor and Current contributor Thomas

historic presentations about the weapons of the old West,

Nuggets are off to a slow start. However, with Nikola Jokic,

Jenkins dissects the way an alternate version of an Ancient

games, cooking, branding and more. No sign up or link is

Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. still on the roster, they

Greek classic translates from text to a stage production that

required — videos will be posted on the Alamo’s Facebook

remain a dangerous team. 7:30 p.m., AT&T Center, Fox Sports

uses different solutions to produce not only a compelling

page throughout the day. Free, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., facebook.com/

Southwest. — M. Solis

retelling of the myth but also “an intense meditation on

OfficialAlamo. — ED

Johnson, Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker IV already

SPECIAL EVEN T

contemporary American society.” Trinity actor and political science major Anthony Tresca will provide an assist as Jenkins shows how this tale of Trojans and the face that launched a thousand ships transforms from words on the page to an onstage performance. Helmets and shields not included. Free, 5:30 p.m., Trinity University, Zoom, trinity.edu.

— BE

Facebook / San Antonio Botanical Garden

FRI | 01.29 SUN | 01.31

MON | 02.08

Instagram / @Spurs

SPORTS

SPURS VS. WARRIORS

SPECIAL EVENT

ORCHID WEEKEND

When the Spurs faced the Warriors earlier this season in San

Roses are red, violets are blue … and orchids bloom in var-

Francisco, basketball savant Stephen Curry put on a show,

ious colors depending on the region they grow in. Many of

contributing a smooth 26 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists

these breathtakingly beautiful plants, including some rare

en route to a 121-99 blowout win. Point guard Dejounte

species, will be on display during the San Antonio Botanical

Murray paced the Spurs with 22 points, in an otherwise

Garden’s Orchid Weekend. In partnership with the Alamo

lackluster effort for San Antonio. Following the game,

Orchid Society, the three-day event will allow guests to frolic through the flowers and buy their own orchids or other plants from vendors. For those who want to capture the experience, photo-ops with an Orchid Wall will take place in the Lucile Halsell Conservatory’s Exhibit Room. Famously

Courtesy Image / San Antonio Museum of Art

FRI | 02.05 SPECIAL EVEN T

Curry praised his young squad’s maturity, noting “the good teams can show it from time to time. The great teams have sustained excellence on both sides of the floor.” With an average minutes-weighted age of 26.8 years old, this season’s Spurs squad is the youngest of the Gregg Popovich era. As

include classes — for a separate fee — on how to keep an or-

LECTURE: THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD WITH PENIEL E. JOSEPH

chid alive for more than, say, a week or two. Just because the

Named one of Time Magazine’s Must-Read Books in 2020, The

maybe the best all-around season of his career, look for four-

event is outside, doesn’t mean COVID-19 etiquette should

Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and

time All Star DeMar DeRozan to set the tone, especially if he

be forgotten, though. The garden’s safety policies can be

Martin Luther King Jr. intertwines the stories of the two civil

can avoid early foul trouble and settle into a rhythm. 7:30

reviewed on its website. $12-$15, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Sat-

rights leaders, while analyzing the relationship between the

p.m., Fox Sports Southwest. — MS

known as a finicky flower to maintain, the weekend will also

such, growing pains are expected as the team strives for “sustained excellence” on its home court. In the midst of

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Mining a Hidden History Artist José Villalobos shines light on a gay bracero in new Artpace exhibition

BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

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Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

rotesting “the toxicity of machismo” has become a common thread in the work of José Villalobos, an El Paso native who draws creative inspiration from his experiences as a gay man who grew up in an evangelical Christian family embedded in the norteño culture that pervades the U.S.-Mexico border.

After relocating to San Antonio, Villalobos enrolled in a fine arts program at UTSA and earned his BFA in 2016. The same year he graduated, he was among five local artists invited to participate in the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s Artist Lab, a development program facilitated by the New York-based Surdna Foundation. Titled “De la Misma Piel (Of the Same Skin),” Villalobos’ portion of the resulting show comprised tooled leather belts printed with homophobic slurs in Spanish (“jotito,” “mariposa” and “maricón” among them), ornate belt buckles that together spelled out “joto” and paintings of famed Mexican crooner Vicente Fernandez on scraps of leather. In addition to the defiant reclamation of derogatory terms hurled at homosexuals, “De la Misma Piel” introduced multiple themes that continue to distinguish Villalobos’ work: subversion of masculinity, pointed use of text, interventions on vaquero attire and nods to Fernandez — an icon capable of making even macho men cry.

The following year, Villalobos turned heads as part of the Latinx showcase “¡Ahora!” at Austin’s Mexic-Arte Museum. Anchored by a network of cowboy hats spangled with fringe and suspended from the ceiling like chandeliers, his installation “Sin la S (Without the S)” came to life during the opening reception while Villalobos inhabited the space as a flamboyant vaquero in a fringed cowboy hat and Western shirt adorned with the contrasting terms “macho” and “maricón.”

While that live component tied the room together in a fairly lighthearted fashion, Villalobos’ subsequent endeavors have developed into deeper, darker affairs. In the last few years, Villalobos’ performances have involved him sewing the word “hombre” into the palms of his hands with a needle and red thread; stripping down and flogging himself with a leather belt embroidered with the phrase “Las manos de un hombre no debrerían ser suavecitas como este piel (The hands

Bryan Rindfuss

of a man shouldn’t be soft like this skin)”; and getting dragged by a horse — that one hurt, he acknowledges, but “it wasn’t the horse’s fault.” He also pulled a cow’s liver out of his bloodied shirt and stabbed it into the McNay’s floor in a loaded response to Fernandez’s refusal to accept a liver transplant from a potentially gay donor.

Other recent highlights of Villalobos’ impressive career trajectory include a $25,000 Painters and Sculptors grant from the New Orleans-based Joan Mitchell Foundation, an artist residency with that same esteemed institution and “Joto Fronterizo (Border Faggot)” — a survey exhibition that traveled from Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Texas A&M international University in Laredo.

We caught up with Villalobos to quiz him about “De Los Otros,” a new installation on view in Artpace’s Main Avenue windows through April 25. Evocative of an enigmatic movie set, the installation is built around the true story of a gay farm worker who was part of the Bracero Program that brought millions of Mexican laborers to the United States between 1942 and 1964.

How did you develop the storyline for “Del Los Otros”?

I had been reading and doing research, and I became very interested in the history of El Paso and specifically the braceros. The braceros were Mexican farm workers that were contracted by the United States [during] World War II, and the Rio Vista Farm in El Paso was one of the processing centers. You may have seen photographs where the men are being fumigated. When they would cross over, they would go through this very

A reimagined barrack for braceros anchors José Villalobos’ new Artpace exhibition “De los Otros.”

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exhausting and tremendous journey just to be able to work here. … I also found out that my grandfather was a bracero [and] was part of that specific program. … I started doing research on queer individuals, because when it comes down to something like that, it’s constantly erased. It took me a while to find specific information [about] queer individuals. Were there any? Did they exist? Of course, we’ve always existed, so how come we never hear this type of recognition? I read an essay

by Mireya Loza, who did a series of interviews with a lot of braceros. And there’s a specific man who was known to be gay, and he would cut off the power lines to the barracks in order to lay with other men. In doing so, he [was] maintaining anonymity for both parties. So that’s where this work comes from. In this specific installation, there are two lights that turn on as an indication of non-heteronormative sexual desires. This specific person was known to have a lover. But no one ever knew who it was. So that’s why there are two lights on different beds that light up. I think [this storyline is] very important, because it informs people that queerness has always been around. We’ve always been here, but we’re always struggling to assimilate to a specific environment to protect ourselves. It’s something that we still do today.

Can you describe the installation and tell us how you devised it?

I looked at a lot of different photographs, specifically by Leonard Nadel, a photogra-

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Jeanette Nevarez.

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What about the portion behind the bunks?

Yes. We’re planning two performances. One will be a site-specific video performance that will take place in the Rio Grande River in El Paso, maybe around February. The other one will be a live performance at Artpace. The date for that depends on the whole COVID situation.

[On the other side] is a series of farming hoes. The letters at the top that say “Esto es mi ser” are made out of soil, river water from the Rio Grande and cotton from the Rio Vista Farm fields. … The hoes are actually short-handled

CALL (210) 737-8646!

El Paso-based photographer Jeanette Nevarez captured Villalobos in a hat he hopes to use in a future performance..

pher who documented the braceros. …

Not all the barracks looked the same.

But I saw this one specific [barrack] that was really striking because it was a bunch of wooden bunks just right next to each other, and they weren’t really [large enough to lie down in]. And it was nothing but wood and canvas. That visual was very striking to me, because it’s this time that they have to rest, but it also looks very uncomfortable. They were just bunched up. So, this [installation] is a recreation of those specific bunks. I made them to look like they have been lived in. In the photographs, there were always a lot of pants and hats and shoes. A lot of their belongings would be in cardboard boxes. Very few pillows. They would try to make do with whatever they had. Two of the bunks are embroidered: one reads “tú” and the other reads “yo.” And the piece itself is called Tuyo, which means yours.

It’s a play on words that also brings in the story of this specific individual.

And the two bunks alternately light up every five seconds. So, the one with the [embroidered] heart has a red border and the other one has a white border.

It’s also tying it to this sense of white being pure and red being associated with adultery and sin.

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hoes that they would use, which is very hard on your back. Those are the tools that were given to [braceros]. It’s sad, because they had the ability to provide them with other tools, so it’s like a symbol of oppression. … I like to put this very soft touch to [my] work — bringing in the femininity and flamboyancy — which is why I replaced part of the handle with resin. And encased in the resin are flowers. … Each hoe has cut-out text. All together it says, “Esto es mi ser. Soy uno de los otros. This is who I am. I am one of the others.” So, “the others” was actually a term used for people who were gay or queer or just not normal. … I think that this specific body of work will be developing. I already have ideas of what I want to create to [explore] this idea of what “the others” are. … It’s insane how it’s never seen that a gay person or queer person can do this type of [manual labor].

And you’re going to do a performance in the space?

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Fidel Ruiz-Healy / The American Standard Film Co

Weight on His Shoulders

San Antonio’s Fidel Ruiz-Healy served as cinematographer for Sundance dark comedy set in Mormon church

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

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Find more film stories at sacurrent.com

riter and director Gregory Barnes, a former member of the Mormon Church, received permission from church leaders for him and his crew to shoot a short film inside an 85-year-old temple in Los Angeles.

There was one problem, though. The crew didn’t get cleared to actually step into the baptismal pool. So, the members had to work fast before someone came along and told them they shouldn’t be there.

One of those crewmembers was San Antonio native and filmmaker Fidel Ruiz-Healy (The Homefront), a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. On set as cinematographer, he said there was a “guerilla filmmaking aspect” to the project.

“We weren’t really supposed to be in there,” Ruiz-Healy told the Current. “We had a soft permission, but not necessarily to be in there with a camera — or in the water. We were discovering it as we went. When it came down to shoot the scene, it was very spontaneous.”

The prospect of getting thrown out of the church ended up being worth the risk.

The dark comedy The Touch of the Master’s Hand was selected to screen virtually at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 28.

The film tells the story of a young Mormon missionary who must make a humiliating confession by revealing that he’s addicted to watching pornography.

Currently back in San Antonio waiting out the pandemic, Ruiz-Healy, who considers

himself a “good, old-fashioned, non-practicing, Mexican Catholic,” talked to the Current about his experience working on the Mormon-themed short last year, finding out Sundance wanted it and what he’s been doing in San Antonio since he left his home in New York City when the pandemic hit.

What was your initial reaction when you found out the film was chosen to screen at Sundance?

We were all very ecstatic. When you start making movies, you submit them to festivals that make sense for your movie, but you also buy those lottery tickets and apply to the big festivals too. Sundance is a big one. We’ve always applied to Sundance, so to finally get in, it was like, “Oh, we finally did it! Now, what do we do?”

Did you get to see the acceptance letter?

Yeah, Greg sent it to all of us, so we could make sure he wasn’t lying. Actually, Greg got a call first letting him know the film got accepted. But during the call, he had bad reception, so he wasn’t really sure what film festival he was talking to. He had to confirm with them afterward because he was like, “Who just called me? Was that who I think it was?”

What kind of conversations did you have with Greg about the look and feel you wanted to give the film?

For Greg, it was really important to capture

a specific aesthetic. He told me that growing up, the Mormon Church was very insulated and even had its own media. He told me about these educational, borderline soap opera-like Mormon films they would watch on VHS. It’s like daytime television, but with Mormon morals. He wanted to mix that aesthetic into the movie. It’s very glowy and takes this melodramatic approach to storytelling. So, we mixed that with a soft, naturalistic look.

Talk about working as a cinematographer in comparison to being the director of a film.

Directing is very stressful, but when I’m holding the camera as a DP [director of photography], it sometimes feels like there is more weight on my shoulders. When you’re a director, you look at something and sign off on it. But when you’re holding the camera and you’re in charge of the lighting, there’s an extra element to it. Everyone is waiting on me to make it look just right. If I don’t pull it off, it’s like I didn’t even hit the record button.

What have you been doing in San Antonio for the past few months?

A lot of the work I had planned in New York was pushed indefinitely because of the pandemic. So, I’ve been here in San Antonio writing. I’m working on a short horror-comedy with my brother. The working title is Agua Negra. It’s a creature feature set on the Rio Grande River.

Once the pandemic is behind us, is it back to New York?

I’m not sure, honestly. It’s definitely back to New York for commercial filmmaking. But a couple of the movies I want to make would make more sense to shoot them here or somewhere in Texas or in California. I need to figure out what the next chapter of filmmaking is for me.

music

Pop Art

The Psychoholics aren’t looking to be next big thing, but that doesn’t diminish the fun of the band’s first new release in 12 years

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

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here’s an unfortunate post-Pitchfork tendency for the indie music press to reserve all its ink for bands that are generating buzz, seizing hype and poised to become the next big thing.

That’s unfortunate, because it means that a lot of homespun bands making great music but with less grandiose ambitions go overlooked. You know, groups whose measure of success isn’t how many package tours they can land on or whether a major label buys out their contract.

Not every rock band aspires to be the Strokes, Decemberists or TV on the Radio, in other words.

Which brings us to the Psychoholics. The San Antonio rock act doesn’t tour, doesn’t have a publicist and has only released three albums during a nearly 30-year run. It’s hard to image the mostly middle-aged members primping and pouting on the cover of a hipster magazine.

But that’s fine. The world needs bands like the Psychoholics, especially if they’re going to drop albums as strong as 20/20, the disc the group quietly self-released late last year — its first in a dozen treks around the sun.

The Psycholics’ schtick is infusing energetic power pop with enough punkish energy, approachable hooks and stylistic wanderlust to keep audiences guessing. Think of it as the Jam meets Cheap Trick with occasional flirtations with country, folk, ska and whatever else happens to catch the members’ fancy.

20/20’s minute-long opener “Welcome to the Snake Pit” sums up the approach, delivering a straight-up punk raver with a banjo inexplicably springing up from the mix and a sing-along chorus that sounds like it could be lifted from an Irish drinking tune.

“Mardi Gras” takes the band in a snotty garage rock direction, but once again delivers with an accessible hook you could hear a crowd singing along to as it pumps from the jukebox at a Big Easy dive. “Sentimental” manages to sound both countryish and Beatlesesque at the same time, while “Guinea Pig” flirts with ska.

“Home Lobotomy Kit” is a silly rocker that seems to take aim at TV commercials hawking miracle health remedies, while “I’m Insane” lilts into jazzy territory with a walking bassline and swingy refrain.

Courtesy Photo / The Psychoholics

All that genre-jumping may sound disorienting on paper, but 20/20 holds together thanks to the songcraft of Tim Mrak, the Psychoholics’ founder and only constant member. A solid melodic core ties all 13 songs together. For all their flirtations with outside influences, they work because, at their heart, they’re essentially catchy pop tunes.

The album’s closer “Did He Say Turd?” seems to best sum up the Psychoholics experience. It’s hooky and doesn’t take itself too seriously, even if there’s a clear melancholy underlying the self-deprecating — or should that be self-defecating? — humor. “I feel about as wanted as a turd/‘Lackluster’ you could say in a word,” Mrak intones over his strummed rhythm guitar.

While humor and simplicity underly much of what the Psychoholics do, 20/20 never drifts into the cartoonish, self-consciously dumb territory embraced by so many acts with similar aims. Credit goes to Mrak’s bandmates Alvin Khoury, Doug Nelson, Dave Crisci, Charlie George and Tony Rodriguez, all seasoned players who know when to let their chops show and when to dial them back in service of the song.

Bandleader Tim Mrak pelts the crowd with ping-pong balls during a Psychoholics gig.

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The Psychoholics are primarily known for over-the-top live shows, which are likely to include bunny rabbit costumes, round-robin guest spots from other local musicians and props like giant inflatable eyeballs. The pandemic has put those spectacles on hold, and Mrak maintains that he’s in no rush to get back to the stage.

“When the masks are gone, the Psychoholics will come back out,” he said during a recent phone conversation.

In a perfect world, that absence should give 20/20 a more receptive audience. Without props and schtick to get in the way, there’s more room to dive into the music and enjoy it on its own terms. Based on 20/20’s appeal, let’s just hope it’s not another dozen years before Mrak and crew bless San Antonio with another long player.

The Psychoholics’ 20/20 is available on CD or via download at psychoholics.biz.

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

New Year, New Noodles

The coming Chinese New Year is a perfect excuse to explore San Antonio’s Asian noodle offerings

BY RON BECHTOL

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he next time you slurp a noodle, pause to ponder this: its history stretches back at least 4,000 years — which makes the association of noodles with long life in the celebration of Chinese New Year doubly meaningful.

According to archaeologists who uncovered evidence of prehistoric pasta at a site in northwest China, noodles made of millet had improbably been preserved in an upturned bowl in the debris of a giant earthquake. “Thin, delicate and yellow, they resembled the traditional La-Mian noodle that is made by repeatedly pulling and stretching the dough by hand,” a scientist involved in the excavation told The Guardian.

In 2021, stretched noodles still abide. And Chinese New Year, which arrives on February 12, makes a perfect excuse to explore their many forms.

Asian restaurants with “noodle” in the name are an obvious starting point for a deeper dive into Chinese cuisine in San Antonio, and Shifu Noodle at McCreless Market is one of the newest. The owners, Chrystal Yi and Wendy Jiang, hail from China’s Hunan and Sichuan provinces respectively, and their menu offers many auspicious dishes worth attention. Dan Dan, a typical Sichuan street food, is most often made with a thin, round wheat noodle and can be served warm or cold. Shifu’s version — with minced beef, peanuts and preserved mustard greens — is relatively mild, as are the

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CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2020 | sacurrent.com

fresh mushroom (flat rice) noodles with chicken, egg and the ubiquitous Sichuan peppercorns. In contrast, San Antonio’s Sichuan House cheekily labels its version on the menu as “Not Dan Dan [garlicky cold],” and they arrive unabashedly aflame with chili oil.

The array of noodle offerings is impressive at Ming’s on N. St. Mary’s, where the varieties include sweet potato, rice, egg and mung bean. The eatery is chef-owner Ming Qian’s latest and most ambitious. Consider dishes such as the Sichuan, Summer, or Lucky Dragon chilled noodle bowls, all served with a variety of greens.

Mala sweet potato noodles appear either served in a warm bowl and or in soup. Consider kabocha squash or pork belly — or both — as optional extras. The coconut curry rice noodle soup and the nouc cham rice noodle bowl represent the respective noodle cultures of Thailand and Vietnam.

Korea also takes noodle chilling seriously. Don’t be surprised if a bowl of cold and sturdy buckwheat noodles, or Japanese soba, at a Korean restaurant arrives complete with ice cubes — and a healthy dab of fiery gochujang, or chili paste.

At the cafe tucked inside Seoul Asian Market at Harry Wurzbach and Rittiman roads, one dependable option is Kalgooksoo noodle soup, grounded in knife-cut wheat noodles. The spicy Jjol Myun noodles are made from wheat with additional starch to enhance the chew. But

Ron Bechtol

you are hereby challenged to order the spicy Korean cold noodles at least once. Ice cubes not promised.

Although Japanese Yakisoba sounds like the noodles should be buckwheat, they’re actually a thin Chinese wheat noodle, testimony to the lack of borders in the noodle world. Look for the stir-fried dish at places such as stalwart Niki’s Tokyo Inn, where you’ll also find the traditional udon soup, comprised of thick wheat noodles in a gentle broth.

Flat rice noodles typically appear in dishes from both Thailand and Cambodia, as do the traditional “glass” or mung bean noodles. At Thai Esan & Noodle House, you’ll find both: rice noodles in the ever-popular Pad Thai and stir-fried clear glass — also called “cellophane” — noodles in the classic Pad Woon Sen. Cambodia is represented by Golden Wat, a former pop-up project of Pieter Sypesteyn and his Cambodian-American wife, Susan Kaars-Sypesteyn. The duo hopes to reopen in Sypesteyn’s former Cookhouse space in mid-February. Once that happens, look for rice noodles with pounded fish in the Mekong Magic.

Also seek out the stir-fried glass noodles with pork and mushrooms.

Looping back to those hand-pulled noodles, if you’re lucky you can catch the action through the kitchen window at Lucky Noodle House on West Avenue at Blanco Road. The hand-pulled wheat noodles come either wide or narrow — take your pick or ask a helpful server.

The wide noodles in the hand-pulled noodles stir fried with beef were at once tender and bouncy. The thinner version worked just as well in the cold noodles with abundant garlic sauce.

In fact, those proved the best for slippery slurping and trying to keep the noodle as much in one piece as possible to ensure a long life.

No cutting, in other words.

food

Rethink That Drink

San Antonio bartender blazes path for imbibers with food sensitivities

BY NINA RANGEL

A

fter years of suffering debilitating migraines, San Antonio bartender Karen Tartt decided she’d had enough.

Dizziness, nausea, motion- and color-sensitivity — among other symptoms — plagued her daily work as a craft cocktail bartender and Texas whiskey brand representative.

Finally, she found a professional who offered a diagnosis.

Tartt leaned that she suffered from vestibular migraine, a neurological condition that presents itself to sufferers after experiencing triggers that can include altered sleep patterns, stress and certain food items. After her 2019 diagnosis, she embarked on a research journey that bore bad news.

She discovered that red wine, champagne and dark liquors are a big no-no for VM sufferers. Those libations tend to contain more sulfites — pesky preservatives the American Migraine Foundation considers possible triggers for headaches.

So, what was a craft cocktail bartender with a VM diagnosis to do?

Armed with nearly two years of research, she launched Tartt Drinks, a blog packed with knowledge gleaned from other leaders in the food-sensitivity world, including Heal Your Headache author Dr. David Buchholz and Texas-based VM blogger The Dizzy Cook.

Tartt Drinks also offers cocktail recipes aimed at folks with common food sensitivities such as citrus, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, beers and dark liquors, all of which may cause residual side effects for VM sufferers.

We spoke with Tartt about food sensitivity-based diet changes, making zero-proof cocktails and the future of modified and boozeless cocktails in San Antonio.

What interest have you seen in sensitivity-based cocktails since you started working on them for yourself?

I used to have a regular guest that would sit at my bar and drink a really beautiful rhum agricole, neat. I never understood why he drank it that way, because it’s so much better

Courtesy Photo / Karen Tartt

when it’s mixed with something, and when I finally asked him about it, he told me that he was severely allergic to citrus. Citrus is also an issue for me and a lot of other VM sufferers, so I would always have him try my new citrus-free recipes. Now, I focus on requests that I get from people who are looking to enjoy a cocktail without the side effects from ingredients their bodies are sensitive to. I am currently working on a pineapple-less piña colada recipe for a lady who can’t have pineapple, using Granny Smith apple, ripe peach and ascorbic acid to pump up the acidity. It’s actually really beautiful, and now this person can enjoy her “vacation in a glass!” Taking requests has been really fulfilling for me, because I miss having that connection with people, which is such a huge part of what I love about bartending.

Back up. Ascorbic acid in cocktails? Just how easy is it for folks to create these cocktails at home?

It’s really easy! A lot of the products I use to adjust acidity levels Courtesy Photo / Tartt Drinks in cocktails are readily available online, so I usually tell people to make sure it’s food-grade before they purchase it. I like to approach this from a very transparent and empowering place, sharing exactly what’s in that glass and what has been changed so that people know what is replacing the ingredi-

ents that are harmful to them.

In terms of the pandemic, what are your thoughts on adopting modified cocktails as a facet of a larger health and wellness program?

I feel like the current state of things is so emotionally taxing for people, and I’m really glad the culture surrounding using alcohol as a coping mechanism is changing. Five years ago, it wouldn’t have been as accepted to order a boozeless cocktail. Sometimes you just need a break, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

What are you most looking forward to in this space that’s being created for people who are making wellness-driven cocktails?

I’m glad you say that, because I feel like I’m seeing it, and am never sure if I’m just being hyperaware of it because it’s my focus. I really, truly hope that it gains legs and takes off. I’ve been very lucky to have the support of other folks in the VM community, even having one of my zero-proof cocktails featured by the National Headache Foundation for their New Year’s Eve cocktail, and that wouldn’t have happened without the support of others who are working with modified diets just like I am. I’ve had conversations with people who I think could be considered cocktail purists, who have issues with my trying to make modified versions of classic cocktails like a Manhattan. I feel like, if someone couldn’t enjoy this cocktail in its classic form, but now can enjoy something similar without painful side effects, what’s the issue here? How much purer can you get?

Find more food & drink news at sacurrent.com

food Vive la France

Brasserie Mon Chou Chou’s take on classic French dining is both contemporary and commendable

BY RON BECHTOL

T

he Classic Parisian brasserie, at least in my recollection, is a bustling, brassy kind of place.

It’s full of brusque and busy black-jacketed waiters, alive with the clank of dishware on marble-topped tables, possessed of menus touting modestly priced specialties such as choucroute garni or gigot d’agneau with haricots blancs. Mirrors abound, often reflecting the mounds of oysters on ice that may dominate the dining space. Beer on tap — since the name means brewery in French — flows freely, as does cheap wine.

That Brasserie Mon Chou Chou is very little like this should in no way diminish your appreciation of its take on tradition.

The Pearl’s recent culinary acquisition has taken over the space once operated by the CIA’s Nao and erased every trace of its existence. Gone are the open training kitchen and the woodsy dropped ceiling, now replaced by brassy light fixtures, black chairs and tabletops, comfortable brown banquettes and a new mosaic floor.

The young waitstaff is black-aproned — though they might call you “boss” instead of studiously ignoring you in the French manner — and the serving pieces are emblazoned with Chou Chou’s name in the manner of the classic Brasserie Lipp. And despite the lack of lamb with white beans and sausages with sauerkraut, the menu items do hew to simple, French tradition.

I would personally be happy just to sit and revel in Brasserie Mon Chou Chou’s exceptional bread service — the crusty loaves come from a bakery in Houston, the cult-status butter from a village in France’s Charente region — plus the exquisitely correct salade Lyonnaise with its frisée, lardons and croutons; some haricots vertes and a glass or two of grenache or gamay.

But I suspect some will visit feeling flush and frisky. If that’s the case, keep the salade but replace the breadbasket with the open-faced sandwich au fromage raclette. At $16, it’s a tad pricy.

However, the expenditure is worth witnessing staff scrape oozy and fragrant 22

melted cheese onto a split baguette from a cut wheel that’s been held to a vertical heat source. It’s also worthy of sharing, since the tiny mound of accompanying cornichons can’t possibly mitigate all the magnificent but excessive cheesiness on its own. Word to the wise: don’t do this if you’re thinking of capping your meal in French fashion with cheeses from the impressively domed trolley that will be wheeled to your table. No matter how good, there’s only so much cheese a body can take in one night.

A less calorically challenging appetizer is the pastry-domed bowl of lobster bisque, redolent of shell and blessed with just enough buttery meat. Another option is the plate of charcuterie du jour. Ours consisted of crunchy, lightly pickled onions and curried cauliflower, some thinly sliced cured sausage, a mosaicked slab of pistachio-studded terrine de campagne and a portion of pâté de lapin — with the prize going to the rascally rabbit. Rabbit also makes a return in the entrée section’s lapin a la moutarde avec tagliatelles.

Based on experience, I think of rabbit as more a bistro dish, but I’m happy to see it here regardless. The tender, Texas-raised critter is braised, served in a punchy Dijon mustard sauce and accompanied by toothy, house-made tagliatelle noodles. Don’t think Thumper from Bambi — just enjoy it.

There are no nostalgic Disney associations with the steak on the menu, a 12-ounce New York strip. Served in its basic form with lemon and parsley-accented compound butter — other sauces such as shallot-red wine and Béarnaise are available but not really necessary — ours was cooked precisely as ordered. It came with a mound of comme-il-faut frites — fries prepared precisely as they should be: crisp on the exterior and melty in the middle. Despite its classic status, a side of Carottes Vichy was less impressive.

Many classics populate the dessert menu, among them profiteroles with dark chocolate and Crème Brûlée a l’Ancienne — both worthy choices.

Should your choice be the cheesecake

CURRENT | January 27 – February 9, 2020 | sacurrent.com

Ron Bechtol

BRASSERIE MON CHOU CHOU

312 Pearl Parkway, Building 2, Suite 2102 | (210) 729-1377 brasseriemonchouchou.com Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Entrée price range: $18-$38 Best bets: Sandwich au fromage raclette, New York Strip, rabbit in mustard sauce with noodles, salade Lyonnaise, Alsatian cheesecake The skinny: Mon Chou Chou sports a contemporary take on the traditional French brasserie, while the menu hews to the classics such as snails, steak tartare with frites, coq au vin, rabbit in mustard sauce and profiteroles au chocolat. Service is as knowledgeable as one might expect from jeune San Antonians, the pace of the dinner isn’t rushed and the wine list is nicely tailored to the cuisine. Pay homage to the service of simple breads with exquisite butter or get folle with Bouillabaisse Texane — it’s almost all good.

from Alsace, the historic home of the brasserie, you’ll find it delightfully less dense and tangier than the typical American rendition. I often find that poached pears need a tad more time in their red wine bath, but I order them anyway, and would do so here again — if only for the crackling almond tuile that serves as a virtuous border wall between the fruit and its accompanying ice cream.

As a parting shot, and in case you don’t know already, “chou” translates

as cabbage in English. And despite that, mon chou chou (or mon petit chou — little cabbage) is a term of endearment.

Oh, those romantic French.

Cabbages notwithstanding, it appears that Brasserie Mon Chou Chou is poised to become a sweetheart on the San Antonio dining scene. With the guidance of consummate food pros Philippe Placé and Laurent Rea, this should not come as a surprise.

Mask up and make une réservation tout de suite.

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