San Diego eats.

First dinner was at Sadaf, a Persian restaurant in the Gaslamp area. The food was good, but it wasn’t quite the homey, downscale ethnic place I thought I was entering. Like every restaurant I saw in the area, it was upscale, with upscale prices to boot, not really justified by the food. I went with chicken barg, a marinated, grilled chicken dish served with a huge mound of rice. The chicken was moist and mostly flavorful – again with the lack of salt; I’m starting to think it’s a state law out here – and the rice was delicious. But $20 for that? I don’t see it.

Café 222 on Island Street does waffles, and it does them really well. They had several options on the menu – I remember the “basic” waffle, a cornmeal waffle, and a pumpkin waffle that was listed in ALL CAPS, so it must be good – but since I’m a waffle purist at heart, I went for the basic. It was outstanding – crispy exterior, light and airy inside, a classic Belgian-style waffle in a world that thinks that the crap they give you at make-your-own waffle stands in hotel lobbies is good. The basic waffle was $6.25; that plus a big side of sausage patties (generic) and tea ran $13 before tip.

For Friday dinner, I headed up to Pacific Beach to try the lobster tacos at World Famous. I sat at the bar, which I guess is the only way you can get the lobster tacos, and I ordered one fish taco, one shrimp taco, and one lobster taco. On the whole, they were quite good; the fish/shellfish was perfectly fried, not greasy and not overcooked, and the tortillas (flour) didn’t taste like they’d just been thawed. The shrimp taco was easily the best of the three. However, there was one huge problem: All three had cheese, probably cheddar, melted-glued to the tortillas. This is just not right. First of all, outside of a small number of Italian varieties, I despise cow’s-milk cheese. It tastes like spoiled milk, which, actually, is what cheese is. Cheddar is very high on my list of retch-inducing styles of cheese. But the bigger issue here is that even if I liked that disgusting goop, cheese should never be served with shellfish. The flavor of shellfish is far too delicate to stand up to the tangy/rancid taste of cheese. It didn’t even occur to me that they would put cheese on these tacos, so I didn’t ask them to leave it off and ended up doing the scraping trick, watching the cheese as it took some of the tortillas with it. Anyway, World Famous also gets points for serving Thomas Kemper root beer, which made up for the fact that all four beers they had on tap were pale and therefore not worth drinking.

Gelateria Frizzante is tucked away on Island Ave in the 400s; I only discovered it when I walked to a bank over that way before breakfast. I went for a small cup of chocolate gelato, which looked dark in the tray, but the flavor was very disappointing – mild and thin, like milk chocolate, failing to take advantage of the way gelato can deliver very intense flavors due to its low air content (called “overrun”) and melting speed. The texture, on the other hand, was very good, and they do make all their gelato on the premises.

I wasn’t going to give up that easily, so I tossed the last half of that gelato and walked six more blocks to Mondo Gelato on 10th, just south of Island. They actually had a flavor called “dark chocolate” that delivered – ultra-smooth, rich, cocoa flavor, like a cocoa pudding or custard, with that trademark bitterness of good cocoa. I split the cup between dark chocolate and coffee, but the texture of the coffee was grainy; I think they might have flavored it by using double-strength coffee or espresso, which introduces too much water into the mix. (The best way to make coffee ice cream or gelato is to toast a handful or two of coffee beans just until they glisten, then to simmer them in the milk and/or cream to let the liquid absorb the flavors without requiring the addition of more water. But I digress.) Mondo also had a selection of non-traditional flavors like green tea and Hilo malt (!), and about a half-dozen soy gelatos.

Saturday’s breakfast was at Richard Walker’s Pancake House, a pretty popular joint that already had a line by 8:15 am that morning. I’m still trying to figure out why. I ordered banana pancakes, which, it turns out, were make with a sourdough batter – and that’s all I tasted. “Sour” is not a desirable quality in pancakes, and drowning them in syrup isn’t really my idea of breakfast. I also ordered scrambled eggs on the side, and they were dry and clearly came from a giant pan of the stuff. It’s been a long time since I left that much food on my plate at any restaurant.

I never had lunch on Sunday so I had an early dinner en route to the airport at El Indio, a counter-service Mexican restaurant in the Mission Hills neighborhood. It was solid-average, nothing spectacular, although I give them credit for making their own tortillas (you can buy them by the bag). I had the daily special, carnitas with salsa verde, which came with Mexican rice, beans (pinto beans in a mini-tostada shell), three fresh and super-hot tortillas, and a drink for $8.25 or so. It was fine, but totally unremarkable.

So the funny part is that last year when I made this trip, I stayed in Old Town, and one night I ventured out in search of ice cream, heading first for a gelateria called Gelato Vero that has won some plaudits and at least one award for the best gelato in San Diego. I found it no problem, but couldn’t park. There are a handful of spots on the street in front of it, but nothing else close by, and the whole street was jammed because of all of the restaurants there – Saffron, a Thai/noodles shop; a “New York-style” pizzeria (no idea how authentic it was, but I liked the fake NYC subway sign over their front door); Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe, serving afternoon tea and selling goods imported from the UK; and the aforementioned El Indio. Since I was already in the area, I wandered up the block to Gelato Vero. They had just eight flavors, and the stuff didn’t look right in the trays, but the texture was pretty good (not as good as Frizzante’s) and the flavor was nice and strong. Their espresso bean was really dark, almost like Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz (still my gold standard for real coffee flavor in ice cream), and their chocolate was rich although it lacked that slight bitterness that comes from using good cocoa and lots of it. Gelato Vero sells their gelato by the ounce, which is kind of clever, given how different the “small” cups were at Frizzante (generous) and Mondo Gelato (a little skimpy) the night before.

Comments

  1. I agree with your assessment of the dining establishments in the Gaslamp Quarter. With the exception of Cafe Chloe, most of the restaurants in downtown San Diego are overpriced for the food that you are getting and they are really there for the tourist and convention crowd.

    IMO, some of the best food within the City of San Diego is in the urban neighborhoods outside of downtown like North Park and Hillcrest. For authentic Asian food, the stretch of Convoy Street in Kearney Mesa has the best Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese food in the city despite being hidden between strip malls and car dealerships.

    Why didn’t you hit up Hash House for breakfast?!

  2. I wanted breakfast spots that were close to my hotel, since BP started that Friday morning at 9:30 and I needed time on Saturday to pack up, check out, and write a short piece for ESPN. I think Hash House was a bit of a drive, while the other two were places I could walk to. Next time I may not stay downtown so I’ll be more open to getting in the car for breakfast.

  3. As a native New Mexican, I can attest to your Frontier experience in Albuquerque from a few posts back. I cried when I had their Western hash browns after a year’s hiatus. It’s hard to find even passable green chile outside of the 505, but some people from my hometown opened this little corner of New Mexico in Chi town. If you find yourself in Chicago craving green chile (they import it from the homeland) check it out.

  4. Keith – read your chat today and that duck at Mistral sounds delicious, and the mushroom risotto sounded even better. I told my girlfriend about it and we’re debating going and getting two…

    It got me thinking to my favorite duck dish, and it was at no. 9 Park in downtown Boston about a year ago. I think it was two parts of the duck (breast and something else), and the breast was tender and juicy and one of the best things I can remember eating…and at that price it’d better be.

  5. Might have been duck confit – the best way to prepare duck. I was really disappointed in the Mistral desserts, though – a little too clever for their own good.

    Jaques, if the Cubs look like a threat to win that division, I’ll definitely check that place out.

  6. Keith – I’m a recent college grad who’s probably going to law school living in the DC area, who shares your love of great food. I don’t know the next time you’ll be in town, but I figured you probably get sent here occasionally at least. If you would be willing, I would love to get a meal and talk to you about getting started in MLB (I know this isn’t the blog for that, but it was the only way I could think to reach you), especially the contract/legal side of it.

    All I’ve got to offer you is a good meal in DC, but you are an excellent writer and have an opinion on food and baseball that I value a lot.

  7. Hash House in San Diego is overrated. If you’re ever in SD again, go to Big Kitchen on Grape Street. I usually get the Rozie Special when I’m in town. As for good Mexican, you need to go to a Taco Shop, not a restaurant. Cotija’s in Point Loma is my favorite, but most of the ‘Berto’s (Ro’berto’s, Al’berto’s, Ali’berto’s, etc.) are good. I don’t know what they do with the carne asada, but I can’t find good Mexican in San Francisco and it makes me weep to this day.

  8. Hey Keith, two weeks ago in a chat you mentioned I should go to World Famous and Café 222 when I go to San Diego for a conference later this week. I will certainly keep those places in mind. However, I will be in San Diego for a week and mostly around the conference center and downtown areas without a car (though I am willing to and plan to use the light rail). I was wondering if you have other recommendations for San Diego that you haven’t written about here. If not, thats cool, but I trust your recommendations above the random ones I find on the internet. Also, I am an academic researcher so per diems aren’t that big (70 euros), so bonus points for more affordable places.

  9. Fran – every place I’ve been to in downtown SD is mentioned here. The only other time I was in SD was for the 2006 AFLAC game, and I stayed in Old Town which is out of your range. You might wander up to the Gaslamp district for some slightly upscale joints – there’s a Brazilian churrascaria over towards 4th st that another reader liked.

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  1. […] finding it a challenge to feed my newfound gelato addiction.  I took Keith Law up on one of his recommendations, Gelato Vero.  The flavour selection was a little weak, with maybe 8 flavours of gelato and 2 […]