Biga - San Antonio Riverwalk Restaurant — Restaurant in San Antonio

One line review: Fantastic food, rushed service, great value.

I chose this restaurant for a work dinner based on its excellent reviews, and as far as the food is concerned, we were not disappointed. The restaurant had been taking part in restaurant week. However, it finished the day before our reservation (we couldn't get a table the previous night) imagine our delight when our server, Chris, explained they had decided to extend it. The four of us each ate from the restaurant week simplified menu which was astounding value of $55 per person for 3 courses, one of us also did the basic wine pairing for only $25!

For the starter 2 of us had sherry glazed 1/2 Lockhart quail, poblano corn pudding, salsa matcha, pickled onions, the balance of flavors were good and the cooking of the quail was perfect. A colleague had the Thai inspired vegetable salad, shiitakes and crunchies, sesame ginger dressing, I was able to sample and the crunch of the vegetables with the fusion a Thai inspired dressing was delicious. My other colleague had grilled beets, Texas citrus, lemony arugula, goat cheese, sherry garlic vinaigrette, I also sampled this and thought the flavors married well together, however, it was lacking in varying texture. I would of enjoyed a sprinke of chopped walnut or pistachio to finish the dish.

The only undesired experience which resulted in a unanimous agreement of slightly downscoring service, was the server removing plates from the table while others were still eating, in addition, the entrees arrived while one person was still not finished with thier starter. This was disappointing as the whole experience felt very rushed (we sat down at 8pm and we walked out the restaurant at 9.10pm)

Back to the good stuff, for entree 2 of us had the baked Scottish salmon, mushroom duxelles, toasted panko, farro, wild rice and red quinoa, chicory, tomatoes, citrus beurre blanc, for me this dish was as good as it could be. Excellent combination of flavors, textures ans notes, the salmon was cooked to perfection! My other two colleagues had beef bourguingnon, beef Denver, bacon gravy, carrots, pearl onions, mushrooms & green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, again another well put together dish, the gravy is what stood out as the key component to bring everything together.

And finally the deserts....being from England and being told the Chef is from England I had high hopes for the sticky toffee pudding with English custard and so did my colleagues as 3 of us ordered it, the pudding itself was fluffy and not dried out, the toffee was rich, without being to sickly and the caramelized brown sugar added depth, the custard was served cold, which personally I prefer it warm, however the hint of vanilla through it was a nice balance against the pudding. The other dessert that was ordered was the warm chocolate peanut cake peanut caramel strawberries, peanut praline, vanilla whipped cream, a one word description would be, decadence. For me personally a little too rich, but if you are a fan of chocolate, order this dessert.

Attention from the server was heavily weighted towards one person at the table, who ironically is the least interested in food, but happened to be the one that opted for wine pairing, so for the rest of us, the experience felt less special as far as service.

I didn't catch the bartenders name, but he did a fantastic job of making custom drinks. I had some sort of Berry mocktail.

Overall, for the quality of food I would HIGHLY recommend, however if you are looking for a comfortable, relaxed evening and time to wind down, this is not the place for that based on...

Enjoyed a first visit to Biga last night (Friday) at the invitation of friends. Arrived with very high expectations for an early 5 pm reservation. Greeted nicely and seated promptly. Our waiter was Tucker - who was very good and professional. Some confusion re parking cuz I was sure the Biga website had indicated free parking at Alamo Center (did not see “free” when looked later) but signs at the garage clearly indicated $8 charge for Biga patrons. No biggie. As we got into dining our party chose various appetizers and main courses. For example my wife ordered escargot and rated it highly. Others ordered Romaine salad but found the accompanying fried / grilled Parmesan cheese to be chewy and rubbery suggesting it was not fresh. An assistant brought a replacement of the Parmesan which was good, fresh and crisp. I had Thai inspired salad, which was fine but IMO was lacking “zest” or flavor. For my main I ordered the full portion Fettucine pasta and my wife ordered the half portion of the same. Half portion was generous and sufficient in size. This dish emphasized the veggies making it a lighter and healthier version of a fettucine dish (a good thing) but both my wife and I felt the dish was somewhat light light on flavor. Some had deserts, for instance, I had mango sorbet, which was good and presented nicely. Back to the service aspect, by 6 pm or so, the restaurant was pretty busy and it was obvious that Tucker was covering several big tables / parties so despite his best efforts our meal drug on for quite a while with us finishing up just past 8:30 (having started at 5). Couple of service aspects could have been slightly better, eg silverware was taken away with previous dishes and we had to request replacements (which we brought promptly). The busers did a good job keeping water glasses filled and removing plates. As we wrapped up our dinner our parking tickets were validated and we wound up somehow understanding that we had 3 hours of parking time from the time of the ticket being validated, but in fact it was 3 hours from the time of entry to the garage. So, as we tried to exit around 8:50 pm, having had entered around 4:50 pm we had to pay $25 in parking fees to exit the garage. We did make a call to the restaurant on this and the manager nicely agreed to address this situation for us. So, bottom line, Biga is a top restaurant and we would consider a return visit, but going with 3 stars (call it 3.5) for this particular visit - all things considered and considering the price point (which associates with “high...

This dinner was for a special occasion which I noted in the reservation but it was never mentioned during the service. Overall, it was a decent experience with a mixed bag on the food and drinks. And they need more consistency on service.

Starting with the low point is the service which was a mixed bag. The start was promising with the server attentive but once we started receiving the food, our server didn't even ask how the food was until we got dessert. In nearly all restaurants at this level, servers ask how the food was. And I saw in other tables with a different server were asked how the food was. The water was regularly filled and table cleaned of food crumbs before dessert. So there were positives but I expected more for the price.

The food was better than the service. I often find food in the US over seasoned. These were seasoned to our expectations - closer to European style. The only downside was the Texas Gulf Chicken Fried Oysters which came out cold especially the squid ink linguine. We had to mention it as the server didn't even ask how the starters were. They thankfully removed it from the bill.

The highlights for us were the fresh focaccia bread (though we had to ask for olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip - were they expecting us to eat the bread on its own?), the scallops with grits (great combination and the scallops were perfectly cooked nearly melt in your mouth), the red snapper (surprised me on how well the curry and cous cous complemented the snapper), and the sticky toffee pudding (we asked for them to be generous with the English custard but they didn't but it was still good and not overly sweet).

The middle of the pack were the antelope and quail, the two potato gratin (it is only one portion but used sweet and normal potato), and the drinks. The antelope (which is farmed) was surprisingly tasteless but the rest including the quail and goat cheese tart were as expected. The gratin was fine though you can barely taste the sweet potato but the portion was smaller than expected and not worth the price. The drinks quality depended on the bar tender as the first round was great. The second round was very inconsistent (old fashion was overly sweet and the lemonade was so watered down).

Our table was overlooking the Riverwalk and tables were spaced nicely so that people could have conversations and it wasn't noisy. Bathrooms were clean though I believe there was a sign that they are...