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A San Diego Food Tour

By Andrew | January 31, 2008

Earlier this month a friend from Montreal came down for a visit and since she’s taken me for some amazing food there I decided to return the favor and take her around to a lot of my favorite local places. Since street food (unless you’re looking for Mexican) isn’t San Diego’s strong suit, I aimed a bit higher and we hit a lot of the mid to higher end restaurants while we were out. Here’s the meals with thoughts as I recall them. (Note, I’m going to be linking to restaurant sites where they’re available and you should pretty much assume they’re going to be flash based monstrosities with crappy ambient techno music (Seriously, whoever started that trend needs to be punched in the throat.).) The choices are really Gaslamp heavy as that’s where I live so I know most of the restaurants. Our week was pretty full so we never did get to make our way into Hillcrest or North Park which is where a lot of the new restaurants are going in. I still have yet to explore that area myself.

Monday:

Kiyo’s Sushi — My favorite sushi bar ever, the fish is always fresh, Kiyo and Sada are always great to be around and they know me pretty well. We didn’t even bother ordering since my friend is about as adventurous as I am so nothing was off limits. Sada just prepared whatever was fresh and fed us until we gave in. She had just flown in that night so it was a really laid back start to the week.

Tuesday:

St. Tropez Bistro — Since Montreal has a lot of amazing bistros I was almost scared to take her here for breakfast. I did, however want to see how one of my favorite breakfast places stacked up. I had the Croque Madam, she had the Croque Monsieur (the difference being that mine had a fried egg on top). I needn’t have worried, everything was enjoyed. I mean, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with bread, ham, bechamel, cheese and eggs. This meal also kept us full for the entire day so that we weren’t hungry again until dinner.

The Hotel Del — We took the ferry to Coronado for a big chunk of the day and we didn’t eat here, but did stop for drinks. The bar outside is usually never crowded and it’s great for sitting right by the beach and having some refreshments. The cocktails are really overpriced, and most of what you’re paying for is the ambiance so it’s worth splurging. This isn’t a place you come to get sloshed at anyway, so a couple of drinks while overlooking the ocean near sunset is perfect.

Red Pearl Kitchen — 7:00 hit and breakfast was finally wearing off so we made our way to the Red Pearl Kitchen. We both mostly did appetizers with one entree. We did my old standbys, the duck beggars purses, Thai chili-glazed calamari, and the miso glazed salmon and she ordered the spicy tuna eggplant appetizer and tofu curry. What’s great about The Red Pear Kitchen is that you’re guaranteed a fantastic meal. Each of the 5 or 6 times I’ve been here, no matter how busy or quiet the place is, they’ve never had an off night. The only mediocre dishes I’ve had there have been the fried rice (kinda soggy) and the lobster cream cheese spring rolls (the cream cheese filling melts and the lobster is undetectable).

Wednesday:

Cafe Chloe — I’m still trying to decide what I think of this restaurant since I’m not sure I’m one of the people who “gets it.” Everything I’ve had there has been well prepared with and tastes good, but there’s just something missing. At any rate I had the cured salmon gravlax crepe torte, which was served cold (unexpectedly) and my friend had the crepes lorraine. Hers looked (and supposedly tasted) great. I’ve never been a fan of cold dishes for the most part and something about the texture and overall sour flavor of my dish really didn’t do it for me. I’ll give them a couple more chances and play around with the menu a bit more before I make my final judgment. I’m almost positive there’s something I’m missing about the place.

The Prado — I really do like this restaurant. It’s a 5 minute walk from the zoo and a world apart. For one you’re pretty much guaranteed a respite from the screaming kids, for another the food and drinks are always great, better than what you’d get at the zoo at any rate. Seriously, get your hand stamped, come here for lunch and then head back to the zoo, it’s better than eating chili out of a bread bowl. A seat on the patio is a must because it it’s somewhat sheltered and overlooks a courtyard at Balboa Park. You can also see sections of the Japanese garden in the distance. I had the paella and my friend had the risotto. Both came in troughs. For a fine dining place the portions are huge but the food was excellent. My preferred drink here is the caipirinha. If you ever get one, make sure to ask for no sugar on the rim, because your hands will be sticky for the next 6 months.

Since we ended up eating around 3 and the portions were huge, we pretty much skipped dinner this night.

Thursday:

Breakfast was at one of the touristy Mexican restaurants downtown, it was almost wholly unremarkable.

Harney Sushi — This restaurant couldn’t be any more different than Kiyo’s. It’s an unholy union of a Japanese restaurant, night club and lounge. This place is always loud and packed with college students. For some strange reason I really like the ambiance here, even if it’s not usually my scene. Sushi purists won’t be impressed but if you’re OK with novelty specialty rolls, this is your restaurant. If you’re in the right mood, it’s a lot of fun. The tagline for the place is “Miso Harney”, enough said.

Friday:

Broadway Street Taco Company — This is one of my favorite street style Mexican food places. The food is always good, pretty cheap and the portions are huge. It all adds up to be amazing hangover food. I have to admit that a huge part of the reason for bringing my friend here was for the portion sizes. We have a running joke about Canadian versus American portions. She actually made a valiant effort and got through about 1/3 of her meal. Doubly funny was the vat of horchata she got (shown with a box of Pocky for scale). It was about a liter and a half in total.

Chive — I’d heard about this restaurant and wanted to try it. I wasn’t disappointed. Like most other trendy high end restaurants in San Diego this place has gone for a tapas menu which I think is great. I’ve always been indecisive when looking at a menu, so being able to order 3 or 4 things is right up my alley. Some of the menu items border on gimmicky (like the Kobe beef skewers that are served with a hot stone and oil so you can cook them yourself) but everything we had was excellent. My only quibble is that some of the food that was intended for sharing was really hard to share. There were a couple of menu items that just straight up fell apart when a fork hit them, the beet terrine being one. The lobster sliders completely disintegrated on the first bite and sprayed corn and lobster everywhere. This place gets bonus points for the American Psycho 80s ambiance, complete with bizarre menu items, and lawyers in suits shouting at a large table over in the corner. I got to hear all about vacations to Whistler and Blackcomb since sound bounces off all the reflective surfaces.

On our way back home, the owner of the bar downstairs lured us in since he just got some absinthe in. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to take it as a shot, but I did.

Saturday:

I woke up and I couldn’t feel my face this morning so while I tried to remember the previous night and decide if I was really having a stroke or if that’s what an absinthe hangover feels like we sat around my apartment for a few hours and just went directly to brunch.

The Eggery — Another one of my favorite breakfast places in San Diego, they’re only open until 2. Just off the water in Pacific Beach you can get a quick bite here and head out to the boardwalk and wander around. The menu is massive and there’s not a bad item on it. Coffee and Mimosas are readily available. The portion sizes are also really decent for the price. There’s usually a bit of a wait, but we hit the place between rushes and had a quick meal.

Trattoria la Strada — One of the hundreds of Italian places in San Diego, this place is a pretty stereotypical Americanized Italian fine dining restaurant, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After a full day at PB, OB, Torrey Pines and La Jolla, we were ready to sit down and eat something pretty heavy, preferably incorporating lots of cream. Luckily the menu here is very pasta heavy. It worked really well for my friend’s last night here since we pretty much wanted a good solid meal without getting too experimental. The service here was excellent as always. My tortellini were perfectly al dente and the portions were just filling enough without stuffing my. The prosciutto, Gorgonzola, pear appetizer was also really good.

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In retrospect maybe this should have been titled “A Downtown San Diego Food Tour”, but it’s good to know that there are some higher end restaurants here that serve pretty damned decent food. It’s my understanding that San Diego is just starting to emerge as a food town and with the number of new places opening it looks like it’ll remain that way. Now if I could just get some pho downtown I’d be perfectly happy.

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