Swicks

Thanks guys, I went through some of the old threads and found some useful info. If you had to choose one special meal is general's daughter better than say Cyrus or Farmhouse Inn? Thanks again!

Hey all, I will be heading up to the Sonoma Area with my family for a few days after Christmas and wanted some sage advice from all of you here. Looking for a few restaurant and winery recs for the area. We will probably be in the Healdsburg area predominantly and most likely staying in Santa Rosa. We are red wine people mostly (Pinot and Zin) but also some non-Chardonnay white. Would love to hit some smaller, less touristy special winerys as well. As far as restaurants go, I have read about Cyrus, and would love to hit it if we can get a reservation on this late of notice, but some other recommendations would be very much apprciated. Thanks and Happy Holidays!

No, you won't find hyper-modern cuisine in SD To date, I am not aware of anyone doing the molecular gastronomy thing either. While San Diego has made some big strides in fine dining, it is not yet near the level of other major cities, especially cities like San Francisco, Chicago or New York. You'll do the city and yourself a disservice by comparing dining in SD to any of them. You can find some very good to excellent food in San Diego, but you probably won't find anything with the ability to knock your socks off. One of the big problems is your location. The Gaslamp is one of the major tourist areas so it caters primarily to tourists. Prices are higher than average and the quality is all over the map. Lots of clubs, but nothing like Gary Danko's in that immediate area. There are some "nice" restaurants in the Gaslamp that are doing some perfectly "nice" food, it's just not extraordinary because, frankly, tourists don't want to pay for it. When Petco Park opened 2 years ago the business in the Gaslamp were all expecting a prtty good bump in their revenues. Didn't quite happen. The lower to mid-range places did okay, but the higher end places did not see any increases. San Diegans were not willing to spend the big bucks on a high end restuarant meal, nor were the tourists. The best meals in San Diego are probably to be found at The Marine Room in La Jolla, El Bizcocho at the Rancho Bernardo Inn, or Addison or Market+ both in Del Mar. The round trip cab ride would probably cost you as much as the meal Syrah Girls recommendation for 1500 Ocean bears real consideration. It's in the iconic Hotel Del Coronado; the chef helped Thomas Keller open Per Se in NYC earlier this year. And while 1500 Ocean has only been open a couple months the local reviews have been really fabulous. Plus it's easily reachable from the Gaslamp without breaking the bank. You can take the water taxi across the bay and then a taxi from the Coronado landing to the hotel. San Diego is still developing it's fine dining sensibilities. Right now there really isn't a "go to" type of place to send people, especially if they're in the Gaslamp. ← Well said Kalypso. San Diego dining shines in many areas, ethnic cuisine being one of them, but its fine dining establisments while improving are in many ways lackluster. I will also highly endorse The Marine Room and Oceanaire.

-Begin Rant- Dear TopChef, Here are some suggestions to facilitate the removal of your show from the crapper. 1. Get it over with and cut everyone but Cliff, Sam, and Illan. 2. Have some reasonable challenges involving cooking actual food in creative manner and that don't involve product placement, "suprises", teams, stupid restrictions, or lack of equipment. 3. Allow us more than .00057 seconds per dish to see and hear about what was created in both the elimination and quickfire challenges. 4. More Anthony Bourdain, Ted Allen, etc, far less Gail Simmons and Tom Coliccio. 5. More Padma in revealing clothing. For God Sakes, be all you can be. Your friend (tentatively), -Swicks -End Rant- Also, cry me a freakin' River Mia.

ahhhh, the bubble lounge, I have a very fond memory from there, its a great spot. That night a longtime friendship turned into a night of passion after a few too many glasses of champagne....she is still a close friend to this day. I have never eaten there, I will have to try it if I go back, great spot though. Congrats on your contract!

I don't know if "straight" up fan is the best term..... I saw him out at a bar in LA once, he definately wasn't just drunk....wow, I would have loved some of what he was on...

I will second the notion about Stonehill and Studio not being casual restaurants, they are superlative but I wouldn't call them "casual" Blue Coral is located in Fashion Island and is excellent. It is a new fish house done by the same group that owns Flemings. I think it borders on casual amd is very good. Bayside is a good reccomendation as well, I think it is one of the more underrated places around. Muldoons is an Irish pub near fashion island and has excellent food as well.

When i was there on the degustation menu they had an option of the hanger steak or the Quail, though things may have changed by now.

That's a pretty tricky argument to make with any fine dining restaurant. Some people have trouble justifying $100 (or even $50) for a dinner. To each their own is what I say. ←

I thought the whole speech that Tom gave about not putting out good things, making changes, etc was interesting because it seemed very similar to what a lot of people were saying about some of his restaurants.

I can still taste the oysters and the egg concotte. Mmmmmm....

Happy belated birthday Russell!! Looks like an amazing meal. So it obviously begs the question...how does Guy Savoy stack up to Joel Robuchon? Perhaps this is an unfair question but given the restaurants it is bound to be an something to think about... Cheers!

Maybe, but I think they have too many team challenges on the elimination rounds as it is, and this time Josie got hit with a double whammy because they had decided two people were going. I thought that was sort of jacked up. ← Yeah, it made sense I suppose. For the main dish of the lunch, I'll agree with Cliff in that the duck was pretty weak, and overcooked.

FYI, i think the quote AB said was "This dish looked like Betty Crocker and Charles mansion spawned a love child and he was cooking for me" If I recall correctly... Good quickfire challenge, though some of the choices blew me away. Why would you choose preparations that you knew required a lot of time when you only had 2 hours? Michelle Bernstein was a great judge, ditto C_Ruark about her thoughtful presentation. Very disappointed overall in the performance on the lunch, I agree with Tom about the teams really not communicating at all on their dishes. Josie and Marisa's "intermezzo" was a terrible idea, just bad, Tom said it right, "Nothing was even cooked". Sad to see Josie go as she didn't deserve it but I suppose that's the way it be...

Ditto everyone...just dumb challenges. That quickfire challenge had so much potential. The results were still impressive though. Suzanne Goins is an amazing chef, both her places in LA are excellent and very highly regarded.

I heard that, I thought she said she was one of the sous' for the opening of L'Atelier. But now she is the room service cook, that seems wierd to me. I don't know the exact heirarchy of the Robuchon restaurants but I find it interesting that Marcel is listed as a "master chef". Do all the cooks, sous, line, whatever, have this title if they work at JR at the Mansion? He seems young...but then again, what do I know?

add Illan in there as well, i think he has a decent chance. I also laughed at the pastry chef gal.. how can you be a pastry chef at two high end restaurants and fail so miserably?

Amen to that... Interesting episode, the ice cream challange was tough, I agree you have to anticipate your audience but not telling them it was going to be all kids was a bit underhanded. I did have a problem with all the complaining about "comfort food" realated challanges, and, "I'm a 4 star chef/specialist in avant garde molecular gastronomy, I don't do comfort food." What a load of crap. If you are talented chef, and love food, how can you not be exicted to come up with entrees for this type of cuisine. I am pretty sure Marcel doesn't come home from a long day at work and whip up some salsify foam and Adria style apple caviar....please. Clearly some of their chefs want to accentuate their strengths in a higher level of cooking but it seemed snobby and whiny to me. I am not a chef so I can't speak to that but that was my basic thoughts on the matter. Perhaps some chefs can enlighten me as to their thoughts on this.... Surprised Emily got booted, she appeared to have an impressive resume, and I agree with Tess, how in the hell could she have oversalted that badly, unless it was the judges amping it up to justify the booting. I can't believe Michael is still around, did anyone else think that perhaps those two random comments, something about one of the woman tasting the ice cream being fat and the comment about hating kids, had anything to do with her being booted? It just seemed that one over salting mistake lead to being eliminated was a bit harsh. Betty and Marcel....*yawn*... such a dumb time waster, but then again this is reality tv. My final three guess at this point...Sam (probable winner), Cliff, Betty.

One I forgot to mention, primarily because its rather touristy and well known but Croce's in downtown San Diego is a well known Jazz spot with decent food.

Thank you for all the recommendations. My fiancée and I both appreciate the help from everyone. We do not know approximately where in San Diego where we might be. More or less we will know when we arrive. I think a lot of it is going to have to do with where we are going to meet up with old friends. We are both from Northwest Indiana located approximately 1 hour away from downtown Chicago. We are both very excited about the idea of being somewhere that is temporal pleasant rather than the frigid weather of the Midwest. Also, for the both of us, being immersed in the pleasure of true fresh seafood is what makes people like us break out in dance and hymn. I will write back when we get back to give my opinion about everything. Does anyone have recommendations for neat little artesian shops and "chilled" drinking establishments that would be excellent? The jazz recommendation is right up our alley. We are both big fans of old school blue, reggae, and jazz. Thank you! ← Though touristy, downtown San Diego is really really cool, tons of great restaurants, shops, and bars. As for drinking establishments I would highly recommend Thin/Onyx Room, on 5th. www.onyxroom.com for their music schedule. A two level spot and one of my favorites. The top (Thin) is loungey, the bottom (onyx room) is more like a basement club. The Field is a great Irish Pub if you fancy a pint, so to speak. Candelas, a fine mexican restaurant, also has a nice lounge. JBar at the Solamar hotel is a great outdoor bar with a great view of the ballpark. I would also recommend downtown La Jolla, around Girard streets and that area, a ton of nice shops and some nice cafes, and obviously beautiful views down by the ocean cliffs. The Shack, near windansea beach is a great beach bar. And the answer is yes, I like to eat and drink a lot!

Additionally, I forgot to add that I recently had two meals at Oceanaire Seafood Room in downtown San Diego, and both were truly excellent. The qualtiy and freshness of the fish was very very high.

Some good suggestions here, particularly by knoxy. I would highly reccommend Stonehill Tavern as well. Additionally, as knoxy mentioned the Loft at the Montage Resort is also supposed to be very good though I have not dined there. I would also recommend Blue Coral in Newport Beach, great seafood and vodka bar. I would pass on mastros ocean club personally and go to blue coral, similar type of restaurant but I found the food to be better at BC. Right near the mastros are two much better options, Bluefin, for japaneese and Sage on the Coast. Sage is wonderful and I hear a lot of good things about Bluefin, though I have not been there. The sushi chef there is very highly regarded apparantly. For a fun, hip place with interesting small plates and great cocktails, try Aire in Costa Mesa, I love it. Great food, great cocktails, great atmosphere, and a really nice, reasonably priced wine list. For an awesome Sunday Brunch try Bayside restaurant, excellent food reasonable prices for a very nice setting, try to get a spot on the patio. For an old-school vibe and good food try La Cave in Costa Mesa/Newport. Like a throwback to the jazz club times its an underground bar/restaurant with great steaks. I am not sure your ages but it gets pretty crowded with the young bar scene after 9 pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Where specifically will you be in San Diego, I can give a bunch of recs for there as well but it might depend on where you will be. Cheers!

Regarding the lychees and Otto not fessing up until later... I believe Tony Bourdain calls that System D....

Ed Levine has an interesting post on his blog about stopping the Rachel Ray hate, based off of a previous article in the Times: http://www.edlevineeats.com/post/1962

Wow, what a trip! *drool*