Restaurants

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Kalachandji’s Vegetarian Restaurant, Dallas

Ms. Cinnamon suggested going to a favourite restaurant of her’s for dinner tonight, Kalachandji‘s, an Indian-inspired vegetarian buffet with international flavours. It is one of those places I think you need to know about to find as it is really not marked and is located inside a Hare Krishna house of worship.

I don’t much like Indian food, but the description of this place was so familiar I knew we absolutely had to go there. I just had a feeling about something, and that feeling was 100% bang on. Kalachandji’s is the Dallas answer to my favourite Ottawa restaurant, The Table.

The flavours were mostly familiar and tasted of ‘home’, and it was all just so hearty and wholesome and delicious. Here, the buffet is all you can eat for one low price. From the lemongrass tofu casserole to the cinnamon bread, the almond salad dressing to the pappadams, the tamarind tea to the mango-cashew halvah, and everything in between to sate all but the pickiest palate, Kalachandji’s is going to be a highlight of my winter.

The restaurant has an exterior courtyard that is just exquisite (you can see pictures on their site). It was the perfect place to sit and chat with Ms. Cinnamon for a couple of hours.

Local guides are awesome!

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Breakfast With Half of San Antonio

Croft emailed this morning to ask if I wanted to join them for breakfast before going to Camping World. He had Googled best breakfast in San Antonio, or something along those lines, and got the Magnolia Pancake Haus. It was out in the middle of seemingly nowhere and half of San Antonio was waiting for a table. We had to wait just over an hour to be seated!

Norma went to the spa next door to try to get her eyebrows done, but others had had the same idea and that place was packed, too!

We ended up sitting outside and chatted with the other people waiting. Everyone said that we were lucky to have found the restaurant and that it would totally be worth the wait.

When we finally got a seat, I was pleased that it wasn’t in a super crowded and boisterous dining room. We started off with absolutely delicious coffee, which is always a good sign at a breakfast joint.

Since this was a German restaurant, I made sure to try their sausage, and wasn’t disappointed! My ‘short stack’ of pancakes was light and fluffy. Yum!

Norma had the bananas foster French toast, which ended up being dense slices of banana bread served French toast-style with strawberries and black berries. I had a bite and it was really good! The portion was ridiculous, though, so she brought a lot home. She also enjoyed her two poached eggs on the side.

Croft ordered the specialty, which I will not attempt to spell. It’s a thin pancake stuffed with apples and spices. Really good too (yes, I sampled some of his also!), but there’s no way I could have eaten all that. I’ve really cut back on how much sugar I eat and one bite was more than enough for me.

If you’re into breakfast food, you really need to try Magnolia Pancake Haus in San Antonio!

We headed to the Camping World after. It’s in New Braunfels, north of San Antonio. I have been looking for knobs for my Atwood stove for years and keep striking out. This parts guy was at least able to get me a SKU # for Camping World so I can try to find some at another store along my route. Every other Camping World I’ve stopped at I’ve been told that they don’t have those knobs and good luck finding them.

With breakfast taking so long, we only just got in, at 4PM! I don’t think any of us are going to be eating tonight!

I’m paid up here at the RV park up to and including tonight. I’m pulling out late morning and am expected in Dallas dinnertimeish.

I’ve enjoyed my stay in San Antonio except for one irksome detail that never ceases to surprise me: the internet connection SUCKS. I’ve got full bars on my phone and I have slower than dial up internet! This is surprising considering how close I am to a major city. I had high speed internet on the beach! The other night, I had to download a 200MB file and ended up having to try four McDonalds and a Starbucks in between them to find a connection stable enough to let me download the file, and it still took two hours! I’m trying to do some research right now and sites keep timing out. I am really tired of losing so much time because of a crappy internet connection. Hopefully Dallas will be better!

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Campbell River Visitors

I spent the afternoon with Croft and Norma catching up on everything that doesn’t get discussed on our blogs. They might be staying a second night. If so, we are going on a field trip to Camping World tomorrow. 🙂

I can’t help but marvel at the magic of this nomadic life that makes it such that you not only never know when you will next see friends, but also where you will meet again. It is a very long way from Campbell River to San Antonio, and I don’t just mean in terms of distance.

Norma wanted a Cracker Barrel dinner to celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary (wow!), so I was invited to come along (thank you!). I had the sugar cured ham for the first time (YUM) and took home a lemonade (not overly sweet and made with real lemons, a real treat!).

We had sun this afternoon again (YAY) so I made sure to unplug everything before heading over to Croft and Norma’s. I did that yesterday before going on my walk and came in almost 30AH up. I left at about 58AH down today and came home to a FULL reading. I would be frustrated with my badly working monitor if reader airmon hadn’t posted an explanation for that bizarre phenomenon. Instead, I am doing a happy dance!

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San Antonio’s King William Neighbourhood

Today had perfect weather for a walking tour! Upon my host Teri’s recommendation, I contacted San Antonio Walks for their King William neighbourhood tour. They didn’t have any other takers for their 9:45 a.m. tour today, but they called me this morning to ask if I wanted to join the 1:45 p.m. tour. Indeed!

‘King William’ was actually Wilhelm of Prussia. This neighbourhood was mostly built by affluent Germans in the mid-1800s. There is a lot of focus on the Spanish influence in Texas, but not so much of just how much the Germans contributed to this state. And, yet, there is German everywhere, especially in the town names, such as Gruene.

The King William neighbourhood had a real downslide in the early 1900s but came back up in the middle of the 20th century and is now one of the most prized neighbourhoods in the city. It is filled with beautiful mansions and more modest homes, all abutting tree lined streets, and within walking distance to the San Antonio River and the Riverwalk.

Our guide, Gary, had so much information about the history of the houses and his beloved city and the architecture. I couldn’t even begin to try to summarize it. I put as much info as I could in the photo gallery, but, really, I can’t do justice to a two-hour tour that cost just $16!

I now feel that I can leave San Antonio. I would have had unfinished business had I not done this tour.

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Panera Morning

Gah, another heavy sky day ahead and I was down 45AH this morning. I ran the engine for an hour and gained 7AH, but that still put me at 38AH down and no charging in sight. It was definitely going to be a coffee shop kind of day.

I’d noticed a Panera Bread while running errands the other day, so I headed out there. It’s quiet, the food’s good, there’s power, and I’m even using the wifi since I am going through bandwidth like crazy this month and my cell connection is SUPER slow in Von Ormy (which is strange since I had high speed internet on the beach).

The only downside is that they don’t serve soup until lunch and I didn’t want to be here during the lunch rush, so I’m having to make due with a sandwich when I really wanted a bowl of their broccoli cheddar soup. I may end up taking some to go for my dinner! I did score a free brownie since I had my birthday recently. How lovely of them! It just came up when the gal scanned my card. This is the second or third time I’ve had a freebie in the short time I’ve had and used the card.

It is nice to get an excuse to go out like this, but, really, a little sun would be nice!