San Antonio restaurant Stixs & Stone’s creative take on Asian fusion is mostly a winner

Culinaria’s twice-a-year Restaurant Weeks can be a good way to take San Antonio’s food temperature — for better or for worse.

If the experience bombs, at least the expenditure was minimal. And if it surprises and delights, you can feel that you got the oyster with the pearl, and at a bargain price.

Such was the case with Stixs & Stone, a modest space awash in fluorescent light but equally bathed in the warmth of a serving family that made one feel immediately at home. The pearl on this occasion, a year or so ago, was an exquisite pan-seared duck dish sauced in a complex hibiscus mole. It far exceeded any expectations I might have had.

It took me a while to get back to Stixs & Stone, this time with heightened anticipation and an awareness of the status of its chef, Leo Davila, as a UNESCO Chef Ambassador. Pesky thing, expectations.

This meal — at regular prices which are nevertheless modest — started well with a couple of appetizers: Korean Fried Cauliflower and a small order of Wok Fried Signature Pork Belly Delight, no less.

Apart from the cauliflower itself, which appeared more steamed than seriously fried, the first app featured a robust, classic Korean gochujang sauce strewn with sesame seeds, and fortunately, it was neither too spicy nor excessively sweet. Dainty wisps of pea shoots were cute but contributed nothing to the taste. Yes, the cauliflower was a little al dente in parts, but that’s far preferable to being mushy. I would order it again, especially since the remaining sauce proved useful elsewhere.

As much as I keep claiming to be weary of seeing pork belly on menus, there’s always the lure of the term “signature.” It implies something the chef is especially proud of. And Stixs & Stone’s chef has every reason to be so with the Pork Belly Delight. The belly of the beast is tender, just meaty enough, and its rendered fat helped lubricate the rice beyond its marriage with what the menu describes as “Texas Chinese BBQ sauce.” Slices of mushroom and bright-crisp broccolini and carrot provided textural and visual contrast. I’d even be happy to order this one again in its entrée iteration.

“Signature” reared its head again in the much-cited Big Red & Barbacoa Taco Flight. You can add a 12-ounce Big Red soda for a dollar — we didn’t — but the elusive flavor and color is otherwise only to be experienced in the house-made corn tortillas. In reality, though, if you didn’t know to look for it, the taste might pass unnoticed. The beloved soda might have more influence if it were used in the barbacoa, but perhaps that’s too much of a cultural clash.

The barbacoa itself is beautiful in a burly way — and no one person should eat all three tacos, it’s that rich. But the various sauces and accompaniments are simply overwhelmed — with the exception of the pickled watermelon, of which I could consume quantities. More, please, as a briny and crunchy contrast to the unctuous meat.

That leftover sauce from the cauliflower appetizer came in handy with yet another signature, the Signature Wok Fried Kimchee Stone Bowl. It basically turned out to be a typical Korean Bi Bim Bap with more variations such as fried or steamed rice, chicken or chorizo, gochujang or Chinese BBQ Sauce. There’s also the option of a fried egg. Take it, then blend everything together with your chopsticks. We chose garlic steak as the main protein, but the garlic was shy and the kimchee even shier. The added cauliflower sauce helped, but even with its assistance the dish didn’t meet those elevated expectations.

Finally, we sampled the our last John Hancock at Stixs & Stone: the Signature Churro Bread Pudding. In its own way, the dessert as proved as bold as Hancock’s flourish on the Declaration of Independence, yet it also managed to seem almost modest.

Despite the fried connotations of the churros, the dish was both less dense and more flavorful than many bread puddings — all this without bourbon or other boozy additives. Assuming that the “signature horchata mousse” described on the menu was what actually appeared to be an amped-up whipped cream, it all came together handsomely with the added influence of a little cinnamon and a swirl of caramel.

Looking back at photos from that Restaurant Weeks dinner, I saw that, in addition to the duck, which is still on the menu, by the way, we were also served a two-tone tart. I don’t recall the flavors implied by the two colors, but I do remember liking it quite a lot.

Two things are suggested by this: The Chef’s Special dessert is worth consideration, and there’s more to Stixs & Stone chef Davila than meets the current menu. If that’s not expecting too much.

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This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 10, 2024.