Lone Star Hotel in Austin: Hotel Review

Of course the reception drink at the Lone Star Hotel in Austin, Texas was a bottle of Lone Star, which is a fair to middling beer that I did not get around to finishing. Parts of the hotel courtyard were cordoned off for maintenance, which is never disclosed when you pay over £300 a night upfront for a room. When I stayed in GoldenEye, a luxury resort in Jamaica, they also had construction works going on, but they had the decency and transparency to knock a third off the price.

Aside from having to navigate around orange fencing mesh in the courtyard, the hotel has a very communal and authentic feel. There is a small pool outside the bar area that I didn't see anyone use. Perhaps too cold. When you get accustomed to what Bill Hicks would refer to as Lizard Weather, then any drop in temperature is felt intensely by the locals.

The room had a hostel-type feel, hard floors and sterile. The bathroom was antiquated, but all the amenities were there. Just not for the luxury price point we were paying. At night the courtyard comes alive with campfires and people singing, clutching their acoustic guitars. I put in a request for All My Exes Live in Texas by George Strait, which was met with a slight rebuff and eye-roll from the guitarist, but he complied dutifully.

Politics is at a fever pitch just post election. A passing couple passed our group, hearing our debate on immigrants and asked to join. We welcomed them in and gave them a seat. One of the ladies in our group gave a case study on how her home town Chicago is failing the 'undocumented Americans' and that being a sanctuary city was not helping neither the illegals nor the locals. Our new guests clearly didn't align with the group's political ideologies and dismissed themselves, semi-passive aggressively.

The only solution they had was, 'we're smart people, we'll figure it out.' There is the fundamental problem with the Democratic approach to border control. They believe they're smarter than they are, and that America can be governed on goodwill and lollipops, not policy and tough decisions.

A ten minute walk from the hotel will take you into The Domain Downtown, which has all the feel and trimmings of new money. No homeless, no protests, no problems. We only ate at the Blue Sushi bar, a ten minute walk from the hotel. The bill was astronomical, but the food was unmatched. Dutch Yellowtail, black tuna, and shrimp rolls coated and fried in squid ink were dishes to literally write home about.

I indulged in a sake bomb, the process of which is to balance a thimble of sake on chopsticks atop a pint glass, filled half with lager. One has to slam the table to release the sake through the chopsticks, which deposits into the lager for one to down whole. Ask at reception for a happy

bus tour to some local wineries or bourbon distilleries. Ask at reception for a happy bus tour to some local wineries or bourbon distilleries.