Savory Eats In San Diego

Tommie and I are planning our first trip back to San Diego since we left 18 months ago. To give you a sense of our travel priorities, we haven't booked our flights yet and we haven't made our hotel reservations, but we have compiled a list of must-hit restaurants.

Here's a short list of local eateries we intend to visit and which we would highly recommend to anyone living in San Diego or vacationing there. There are a lot of good restaurants in San Diego, and it should be noted that our personal criteria for these must-hit restaurants is based on two things: well-made, unique food for a very good price.

Sushi Deli: Located in Hillcrest, Downtown, and Clairemont, the secret about this place has been out for a while....it's always busy. That's because they offer good sushi for extremely good prices. We used to wait in line before they even opened and get whole platters of sashimi and nigiri for about $.99 - $1.50 a piece.

El Indio: Located at the bottom of Mission Hills (close to Old Town), this place was featured on The Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and we know why. They have a way of packing the most deliciously seasoned pulled chicken into a tortilla shell and frying it just right so that it's not too hard or too soft. And it's not San Diego without good Mexican.

Vagabond: This eclectic little place is in our old neighborhood of South Park and offers a kind of world-food fusion menu. The best time to go is during lunch when you can get a reasonably priced panini with their most delicious pom frites and bread with garlic aoli butter...I don't know what's in this stuff is, but it's amazing.

Crest Cafe: A funky place in Hillcrest that offers a unique twist on home style recipes. This place convinced me to like mangos and brie cheese in a quesidilla (it's one of their appetizers). Tommie's family loves their "East Texas Fried Chicken" (a buttermilk, garlic, jalapeno and tobasco batter). Crest Cafe has inspired us all to recreate these recipes at home but there's still nothing quite like the real thing.

BJ's: This restaurant and brewhouse was a favorite when we lived in UTC. The most impressive item here is on the desert menu. My sister and I first went here with our neighbor who told us we had to get a pizookie. "What's a pizookie?" we asked. We were sold on the words "giant cookie pie" and "ice cream on top." The pizookie arrived in a deep dish pizza pan, warm, gooey and delicious (their deep dish pizza is also good, if you don't skip right to desert). Our friend turned for a few seconds and when he looked back down he yelled, "That thing is almost GONE!" My sister and I agree it has to be eaten in rapid speed before the ice cream melts.

Gelateria Frizzante: We've tried a lot of gelato since falling in love with this gelateria in La Jolla and Downtown, but still nothing compares. Tommie was clinically addicted to their mango sorbeto and I never tried a gelato flavor there that I didn't like (mint chocolate chip was my favorite). The nice thing is that they switch up flavors every so often so you have new ones to try. As an added bonus it's healthier than ice cream and a small cup with its dense consistency will fill you up surprisingly fast.

There are a few more places on our list, but I have to stop before I start drooling.

A Night Dedicated to Candy

Some people LOVE halloween. For me, Halloween is like New Year's: some years it's a blast and other years it's just like any other day. As a kid, the measure of a good Halloween was based on how much candy I brought home and if I could find a good spot to hide it from my sister.

A good Halloween also always depends on if you have a good costume ready, and having a good costume doesn't just "happen" it's a matter of serious planning. My favorite Halloweens as an adult (someone too old to get free candy) were those I had the time and interest to prepare for. It's been a while since I've done this. I knew my first Halloween in California would be a busy one so I put extra effort into my Tinkerbell costume and I ended up wearing it for a week straight...not because I was crazy but because we had dress-up parties and dinners and downtown mayhem to take part in. By the time Halloween actually came around I smelled more like a swamp fairy. That was a recent favorite.

This year, I don't have a costume...just bags of candy I'm secretly hoping I'll get to keep for myself. It's a selfish outlook, I know, but I guess without a good costume ready all I have to base things on tonight is how much candy I have left at the end of it and if I can find a good spot to hide it from Tommie.

End of Fall

It's been a drab fall. Summer was hot; summer was long, and that has made for pretty lame fall foliage around these parts. Strong early fall windstorms didn't help the matter by ripping weak leaves off the trees before they peaked.I've done what I could to recognize the season...put out pumpkins from our final CSA pick up (I can say good-bye to eating vegetables now), binge on apple cider donuts, and heat up mulled cider mix, but the season's gone by fast and pretty much unnoticed. November is almost here and I am not ready for what that means.

What's nice about fall is that it throws in a couple of last minute beauties...days like today which are in the 70's, sunny and crisp. There was a pretty layer of white fog in the harbor today just before the sun was about to push through and I wished that Tommie wasn't at work already so he could grab his camera and take some photos. I wished I didn't have to go to work so I could take a long walk and maybe get more cider donuts because you can never have too many of those. If I ruled the world, I wouldn't just tell people to stay home on snow days, I would tell them to stay home on days like today...probably the very last nice day for six months. No one should spend a day like this in the office.

Dealing With Dealerships

We got our first new car last week and with that came countless hours at dealerships. I have a low tolerance for anything car-related and an even lower tolerance for smarmy salespeople, so dealerships are pretty much my idea of Hell. While visiting Hell last week, I got thinking that if I owned a dealership (i.e. if I had money and knew anything about cars) I would do things a lot differently.

First, I would let people browse the car lot at their leisure without the vultures swooping down the second they stepped from their current car. At the first dealership we visited, it took 5 seconds before a man pulled us into his cubicle to talk business. Thanks for asking me fifty questions about the kind of car I'm looking for before I actually had a chance to look at any of the cars, sir. There is no problem asking if someone needs assistance, but give them time to walk around the car, peek inside, and let them decide if they want to test drive.

I would also let customers test drive alone. I know this requires a level of trust, but copy their I.D., run a background check, hold the keys to their current car, whatever you have to do to give them some freedom. I loathe test driving cars because I feel like I'm back in driving school. This last guy asked me how the back window visibility was while he sat in the middle backseat blocking the entire back window with his giant head. When the salesman is in the car, I can't relax; I can't bond with the car; I can't focus on how it feels to drive it because I'm so focused on not crashing it.

Then when we got back to the office, I would make the process short and sweet. They make a deal, you make a deal, maybe you compromise and if you can't, move on. No need to hold anyone hostage. I love to bargain, but dealerships love to bargain more and they will bargain with you all day if that's what it takes.

Spending the day at dealerships always makes me hungry, actually it makes me ravenous. The very best part of my hypothetical dealership is that it would have a restaurant inside it. It doesn't so much matter what restaurant...after talking numbers for 15 minutes I'm about ready to eat a buffet at Denny's, but a nicer restaurant would be ideal. When Tommie and I got the lease for our Corolla, I was so hungry I could have chewed off the arm of the finance guy, who I still think was a robot the way he kept rattling on when I kept trying to get us out of there. Last week, we had to go back to the dealer after work for paperwork and pick up and I kept thinking about my restaurant idea because that old vending machine in the lobby just wasn't going to cut it.

Getting a new car is nice, but it the actual process of getting it isn't. Personally, if I could just get some Bertucci's rolls in front of me, I wouldn't put off car shopping for so many years.

A Very Decisive Weekend

Some strange force put me and Tommie in a very decisive mood this past weekend: We decided to put deposits down on the places we're going to hold our wedding, we decided on a date, and while we were at it, we decided to buy a new car.

These were big decisions that had to be made, and in our typical fashion we mulled them over for a long time...too long in most people's minds. For the wedding we chose the end of July for a garden wedding in Rye, New Hampshire. The gardens have the potential (weather permitting) to be very cute for photos and a ceremony, and a nearby Inn has a covered outdoor pavilion that provides a perfect spot for our after party. We'll also be close to Portsmouth, NH which has good food options.
With the early autumn chill upon us, we have also been thinking about getting an all-wheel drive car to make winter slightly more tolerable. This weekend we decided on a 2010 Subaru Forester with roof racks (should we ever get those kayaks we think about). It is supposed to be great in the snow, it will fit Craigslist furniture in it, and it’s a light sage color that I like, so my requirements have been met.
Though these are all good decisions, and again, ones that had to be made one way or another, I confess I did suffer a Libraic anti-decision-anxiety-meltdown on Monday when I realized what we had just done. It was a lot to decide on in a short amount of time and I am just not equipped for these kinds of weekends. In the end, underneath all the anxiety, I am really happy with our decisions and glad they are made. Next time maybe I just shouldn’t squeeze them all into one weekend.

Creepy On CamZone

Sometimes I visit CamZone (San Diego's live camera feed) in the winter to remind myself that the sun didn't actually die out...it just died out here...which coincidently reminds me that I'm an idiot for moving back to the land of blizzards and ice storms. And sometimes I visit CamZone just to be creepy. I like to check in on the little world I used to be a part of.
It's 8:30 here which means it's 5:30 there; the sun is setting and I can see surfers carrying boards into the waves to catch the last bit of daylight. Couples are walking along the shoreline, and shirtless joggers are breezing by (again, why am I here?). Maybe it's the sudden chill in the air, but I spent far too much time tonight staring into this little window watching the waves and the people and that funny little place I'm so far away from now.