San Diego

I recently had the pleasure of taking a trip with my lovely wife to lovely San Diego.  We spent a lot of time on the beach, which was as nice and relaxing as it always is.  In between all of that, we managed to drink and eat a lot.  Since the latter is probably a tad more interesting to you, dear reader, here are a bunch of awesome things that you yourself can do in San Diego.

WEDNESDAY

After a copious amount of sleep (we got in at what would be 4 AM Eastern), we had an extremely late breakfast at The Mission (link), which is, rightfully so, one of the most revered breakfast joints in San Diego.  Since we wanted to start off our trip by seeing the beach, we went to the location two blocks inland of Mission Beach, which was nicely nestled in between a bunch of rental properties and other small businesses.   The menu featured an equal amount of breakfast staples and Latino-themed dishes.  The first morning (yes, we went twice) I got the Breakfast Quesadilla (pictured below) while Adrienne got the Mission Chilaquiles.  Both were delicious and appropriately filling, which was good because we hadn't eaten in about 20 hours.  The second morning, we stuck to the basics and both got the French Toast.  Made with their homemade cinnamon bread, it was quite rich while still remaining light enough to not be overly filling, which is an amazing combination of traits for such a dish.

After we took a lengthy walk up and down the beach, it was already well into the afternoon.  Hence, we figured we should probably start drinking.  What would be our only significantly inland journey of the trip took us to the Alpine Beer Company (link) in the town of the same name.  While Alpine is famous for making one of the top rated beers in existence, they are both than just one beer.  That said, I had to start out with the famed Nelson, and it did not disappoint.  Surprisingly light in color (it's the half-drunk one in the front), the beer does a fantastic job blending a subtle rye touch with the right amount of Nelson hops.  Rye beers can often overwhelm with the bitterness of the rye combining with the hops, but this one goes the other direction to make a nice reserved beer that I could drink all day.

Next up in my sampler was Duet, a nice but not superlative blend of two of my favorite hops, Amarillo and Simcoe.  This was followed by Pure Hoppiness which, as you might guess, is a pretty straightforward hop bomb.  The final beer I had at Alpine was the Bad Boy, which was a lovely combination of the fantastic Maris Otter malt and, as the menu put it, "most of the C's.*"  If I had to choose a favorite of the day, it would be either Nelson or Bad Boy, for very different reasons.  Adrienne sampled most of their other non-hoppy beers, and wasn't as impressed by them as I was of mine.  Let that be a lesson to us all.

*For the uninitiated, that refers to the hops that pretty much started the concept of a West-Coast IPA.

Of course, there are a lot of other breweries in San Diego, so we kept plowing along.  Next up was Societe Brewing (link), which is located about ten miles north of downtown.  As with many west coast brewers, the focus there was also on the hop.  While Alpine was able to hit a bunch of different notes successfully, I wasn't as impressed by Societe.  There was a similar breadth of beers, but without as much depth and/or creativity.  That said, I still really liked The Dandy, which brought a little bit of everything together in a very focused manner.  Their highest-rated beer, The Pupil, was not as unified, and their English IPA (one of my favorite styles when done right) tasted bizarrely grassy.  All in all, it was a fine experience, which was enhanced by running into a group of people that we had just seen at Alpine.  This would not be the last time this happened this weekend, which shows that San Diego still has a hint of small-town feel about it, if you look in the right places.

For dinner, we headed to the nearby Hillcrest neighborhood (the area just north and west of the zoo) to visit Ortega's Bistro (link).  We both tended towards the seafood portion of the menu, with me ordering fish tacos and Adrienne ordering the shrimp tacos.  While I enjoyed the contents of my tacos, the best part of the dish was the fresh flour tortillas, which were as rich as any I've ever had.  Additionally, Adrienne's shrimp were about the best she's ever had.  If you're looking for a good Mexican dinner, you can't go wrong with Ortega's.


THURSDAY

Following another morning of eating at Mission and relaxing at the beach, we decided to try one of San Diego's entries in the FiveThirtyEight Burrito Bracket, Lucha Libre (link).  The main reason we chose this one was because it was six blocks from our hotel, which turned out to be quite fortuitous.  The food was great, but what made it truly unique was the atmosphere of the restaurant.  The walls were lined with pictures of Mexican wrestlers (hence the name), and there was even a Champion's Booth complete with all-gold regalia that you can reserve for up to four people.  This probably wasn't my favorite Mexican food of the weekend (the steak and shrimp were both a little dull), but there were enough nice touches (grilled cheese on the Queso Taco) to make it worth our time.

Infected with World Cup fever, we next decided to visit one of the most renowned soccer bars in San Deigo, O'Brien's Pub (link).  The beer list was a little picked over (probably because they were preparing for an Alesmith tap takeover later that night) but any place with Speedway Stout on tap can't be too bad.  There was a nice outdoor area, but we stayed inside to avoid the glare on the screens and stay close to the bar.  The game itself (a scoreless tie between Japan and Greece) wasn't exactly the pinnacle of soccer, but it was a lot of fun to watch with a heavily pro-Japan crowd that whipped into a frenzy at every major juncture.  (Here's a hint to that one fan on the patio - If management has to keep asking you to stop standing on your chair during the game, then you're probably a little too into the game.)

For dinner, we had our fanciest meal of the trip at Richard Blais' new restaurant, Juniper and Ivy (link).  The interior was open in a very modern way, with natural light coming from all directions, and the (Blais-less) kitchen in full view.  The menu was also quite modern - in lieu of the typical entrees section, there were many sections of smaller plates (one section was "Toast").  Since I had no real strategy for attacking such a menu, I deferred to the waitresses' selections, which were fantastic.  I started in the raw section with the Baja Yellowtail, which had the perfect blend of acid and sweetness.  Next, I had the Carne Cruda Asada.  It managed to work jalapenos into the dish in a non-grating way, which I consider quite the accomplishment.  Finally, I had the Black Sesame Churro.  This was a little out of my comfort zone (the sesame smells quite nutty), but couldn't go to a Blais restaurant and not have some weird flavored ice cream (tortilla, in this case).  For your dollar, most of the other places on this list are better, but it was a nice departure to enjoy some smartly conceived and unique dishes.

FRIDAY

Friday saw us enjoy another morning of breakfast and beaches.  Once the afternoon rolled around, we went to one of the many drinking establishments on 30th Street, Toronado (link).  This would turn out to be my favorite San Diego bar, for many reasons.  First of all, the beer selection was awesome.  I had my first ever taste of Russian River - in this case, the well-renowned and excellent Pliny the Elder (which would end up being at every other bar we visited).  Toronado also was the only place I saw beer from Almanac and Alpine (other than Alpine's brewery, of course).  I had a delicious blackberry sour from Almanac, and perhaps the best APA ever from Alpine.  Hoppy Birthday may be another name with an annoying pun on hops, but the beer was so focused and over the top with its hop profile (at only %5 ABV, too) that I didn't mind.  A nice bready malt balanced it out to make it more than just another hop bomb.  It just might have been my favorite of Alpine's beers. 

Toronado has a lot going for it besides just the beer.  The interior is straightforward and a little old-timey, which reminds me a lot of Krug Park in Omaha.  There is also a lovely beer garden out back with room for 50 or so people.  We spent the later part of the afternoon there, drinking beer and playing Trivial Pursuit with the limited cards they had.  The food is also good.  We split a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato) for the second time on the trip, and I would say Toronado's was a bit better than the one we had at Alpine.  It didn't hurt that it came with a huge salad, which is a nice alternative to the typical side of fries.  All in all, this was one of my favorite places in San Diego - make sure to stop there if you're ever in town.

Following our afternoon at Toronado, we headed downtown as we had tickets to the Padres-Dodgers game that night.  We were pretty hungry, so we ventured to Neighborhood (link) for an early dinner.  Neighborhood prides themselves on "combining quality beer, locally sourced food, and intelligent design" and they didn't fail to deliver on any of those components.  While I enjoyed everything, my favorite part would have to be the garlic aioli that came with the steak tacos.  There's a scene near the end of the movie Ratatouille where the critic (voiced by Peter O'Toole) tastes the title dish, and has a spontaneous flashback to his childhood as a result.  For me, the garlic sauce was my ratatouille, tasting exactly like garlic bread fresh out of the toaster oven from my childhood.

After dinner, we still had plenty of time before the game and just a little bit of room in our stomachs, so we headed to Heavenly Cupcake (link) for some dessert.  This was one of the few places from our honeymoon that we re-visited, so you could we liked it a lot.  The frosting on my strawberry cupcake had the perfect blend of sweetness and tartness, with a lightness about it without losing substance.  The cupcake craze can be overbearing at times, but places like this make it worth it.

Finally, we ended our day at Petco Park, watching the aforementioned Padres game.  We had tickets directly behind home plate in the 300 section, which gave us a lovely view of both the game and downtown San Diego.  Petco is one of the nicest parks I've been to, both for the open and unique feeling of the stadium, and for the wide selection of craft beer available all over the park. I had a lovely evening watching a close game and enjoying a freshly-tapped Sculpin.

SATURDAY

I haven't written much about the beaches we visited, largely because they're all roughly the same.  There is some variation in the terrain and surrounding communities, but pretty much anywhere you go on the coast of San Diego will be nice.  That said our final day at the beach was a bit different.  We headed just south of Torrey Pines, climbed down a steep trail to Black's Beach (link), and took a nice stroll up the beach and back.  Torrey is probably my favorite golf course, so I was excited to take a walk just beneath it.  The beach was quite lovely and secluded, as you can tell from the picture below.  That seclusion just happened to lead to the most interesting discovery of the day: Apparently, Black's Beach is a nude beach.  As we made our way back to the trailhead, we noticed one nude person, followed by another, and shortly by a bunch more.  Us clothed people were still in the majority.  Still, we could tell that as the temps continued to rise, so to would the amount of nudity.  Thus, we enjoyed the rest of our walk at a moderate-to-brisk pace, and climbed the cliff back to the civilized world.

For lunch, we went to In & Out Burger.  I don't feel like I need to write a full paragraph on this, because you probably all know how awesome it is.  If you don't know how awesome it is, just go there next time you're in California/Arizona/Texas. 

The highlight of the trip came next, as we wandered over to the nearby Modern Times Brewing (link).  Getting there was not the easiest, as it's located in between strip malls, strip clubs, and ugly looking industrial buildings, with thoroughly unnecessary one-way roads surrounding it all.  Once we were there though, it was perfect.  Just the unique wall art and bar made out of books alone were enough to make it an interesting place, but of course the beer is what makes it special.  Adrienne and I each got a sampler of their four main beers, and each was solidly above average at the least.  Most great breweries are known for their special high-gravity beers, but making a solid line of "normal" beers is perhaps even more indicative of the quality of a brewery.

The highlights of the afternoon were many.  Black House is a fantastic coffee stout, with a little more subtlety than you might expect from a brewery that roasts its own coffee.  Blazing World is a IPA/APA/beer that is either really good or one of the best things I've ever had.  I couldn't quite tell which it was, even though I stole most of Adrienne's sample (don't worry, I traded her my Black House).   I have had beers that are more Simcoe-forward; this beer instead opted to blend it with Nelson and Mosaic to make quite the alluring combination.  Finally, there was my favorite of the day, Fortunate Islands, a hoppy wheat that rivals Gumballhead in it's domination of the category.  It is basically the same beer, except with a Citra-Amarillo blend instead of straight Amarillo.  Like the can says, it tastes like wizards.*

*Modern Times might have my favorite beer packaging of all time.  Not only do the cans look nice, but they also have the ingredients (even the malts!), as well as fun descriptions:

Not ready to be done with our revelry, we headed to the third top-100 bar of the trip, Hamilton's Tavern (link) in central San Diego.  We were probably a touch burned out at this point, so we didn't enjoy this as much as our other stops.  That said, it was still a great place with a good selection of beer on tap.  And taps, lots of taps:

For our final meal in Southern California, we stopped at another participant in the Burrito Bracket, El Zarape (link).  Whereas Lucha Libre had been more representative of the "new wave" of eateries, El Zarape was a much more old-fashioned establishment, complete with a too-small kitchen tucked in behind the counter.  Adrienne ordered entirely too much food, while I ordered just a lot of food.  My chicken burrito came with few frills, but was as delicious as anything I ate on the trip.  You could say it was too juicy, but that would be a ridiculous thing to say.

And with that, our trip came to an end.  Almost everything we did was a highlight in some way, and I would recommend you do just about everything we did on your next visit to San Diego, if you have the time.  And if you don't have a next visit to San Diego planned, well, you should plan one.