On the final day of our whirlwind road trip across the great state of Texas and back, we departed San Antonio early in the morning to head to Austin for our flight home. While on the road we decided that we needed to make of last pit stop to fill up our bellies with something delicious to prepare ourselves for the long day of travel ahead. A quick Yelp search in San Marcos, a small college town halfway between San Antonio and Austin, revealed a well regarded kolache shop on the outskirts of Texas State University. As a fan of this Czech-Texan specialty, I knew we had to make a stop.
Upon arriving at the strangely unmarked shop, we found ourselves greeted by the comforting scent of freshly baked sweet and savory pastries. In general, I prefer savory items over sweets, so my selections definitely leaned in that direction. Even the sweet kolaches I selected were just minimally sweet.
I began with the sweetest of my selections, the Poppy Seed Kolache, which is actually not very sweet at all. The texture of the kolache pastry dough was really excellent. It was both flaky and dense at the same time and had a large splotch of crunchy, creamy, nutty ground poppy seed filling. There’s a sort of gritty consistency to it that I bet some people wouldn’t appreciate, but I’m a fan.
I then moved onto the savory Turkey Sausage Patty with Cheddar Cheese Kolache. It was nice for breakfast, though the large, thin disc of turkey sausage is milder in flavor than I’d like. This whole kolache was just a bit too plain for me.
Finally, I ate my favorite kolache of the bunch, the Jalapeño & Cheese Sausage Kolache. Earlier on this road trip, we had stopped in Fredericksburg which is Texas’ Germantown and home to Opa’s Smoked Meats. I had written in that post that I felt it was unfortunate that I would not be able to to sample any of their fresh homemade sausage links because I wouldn’t have any refrigeration on the road. Fortunately for me, Dos Gatos sources their jalapeño & cheese sausage links from Opa’s! This sausage was quite good, packing a ton of moist, snappy, spicy meat inside of the flaky, dense kolache pastry dough. The melty pockets of cheddar inside of the link made for many deliciously cheesy, oozy bites.
If you find yourself driving between Austin and San Antonio make sure to take a pit stop at Dos Gatos to fill up on these delicious sweet and savory Czech-Texan specialties. These kolaches may not be better than the ones from Czech Stop or the Brooklyn Kolache Company, but they’re pretty darn close and certainly hit the spot for me.
Dos Gatos Kolache Bakery
@DosGatosKolache
700 N. LBJ Dr. San Marcos, TX 78666
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jalapeño and cheese sausage kolaches are one of my favorite things in the world
Same here Demetri, have you had the kolaches from Brooklyn Kolache Co. yet? If not, we should have an adventure out there.