THE DOGRUN

Along the Way: San Antonio With newer design-centric city guides being released on the shelves of bookstores, boutiques, and amazon.com, a trend of more focused tourism for the design aficionado is coming to surface. With city guides by WALLPAPER, or the EAT.SHOP series covering the typical cities like NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, etc…it will be a long time before either of these guides cover San Antonio, as we do not have the large amount of bourgeoisie shopping destinations and swank brasseries to fill a flip book for the consumer tourist. But that is something to be thankful for. In the meantime, as WALLPAPER covers new cities like Buenos Aires and Antwerp, and EAT.SHOP comes out with a fourth edition of EAT.SHOP.Seattle or Austin, San Antonio gets their second addition of “Along the Way San Antonio”, put together by San Antonians Taeg Nishimoto, Jennifer Hiller, Kimberly Drennan, and Denise De Leon. Sure, like the other guides mentioned before, the book is filled with beautiful photographs and appeals to a design-appreciating audience, but the guide directs the tourist to see things they normally wouldn’t see. From a historic military base (Fort Sam Houston), to a local university (Trinity) touting an incredible building stock by famed Texas architect O’Neil Ford, the guide sets the reader on a quest to see sites that only locals would know about and appreciate. They also have more traditional tourist attractions that all visiting San Antonio should know about, but instead of featuring the Alamo, they included the much more grandiose Mission San Jose. As for the food, Along the Way has a few restaurant/bar destinations that could only be found in San Antonio. Among these recommendations, my favorites included La Tuna Bar and Grill, as well as the recently opened Monterey. Both are located in Southtown and have great patios chock full of atmosphere. La Tuna’s menu boasts bar-food done well (like their cheesy burger or fish and chips), with crowd pleasing beer selection at an affordable price. The Monterey’s fare can be defined as ambitious yet familiar, with a changing menu and extensive beer list that spotlights craft brewers. Along the Way San Antonio compiles a genuine list of sites to see that you would expect to get from a friend who has discovered the city and made it their own. *you can buy a copy of Along the Way San Antonio locally at the Twig Book Shop or the McNay.