Dining in San Diego

[Swicks]

great recs Kalypso...

I will enthusiastically second the following Cafe 222, Laurel, Tapenade, and El Comal.

For breakfast I also like Hash House a Go Go in Hillcrest

For pizza Bronx Pizza in Hillcrest

←

You could feed a small army at Hash House From the same folks that brought you Hash House comes The Tractor Room an ode to red meat, game and cocktails. Tables are close together, it's a little uneven, but the cocktails and apps are great and, as with Hash House, portions are on the obscene side of generous.

I don't know that I'd recommend pizza to anyone from NYC since most of my East Coast friends lament the lack of even marginally good pizza in SD. A lot of people, however, also seem to like Lefty's in addition to Bronx. And, Caffe Calabria is getting darn close to opening their new wood burning pizza oven and Napoli style pizzas. Yeah, they've been training to make pizza in Italy, we'll see how they do.

←

Crap, you are right, I didn't notice they were from NYC...yeah, definately don't bother.

[mbrowley]

←

[Swicks]

←

San Diego is a big and spread out over a large geographical area, a car is essential as rapid transit is neither rapid nor especially efficient.

The North Park corridor has a lot of new and interesting restaurants starting with

The Linkery a place devoted to sustainable and locally grown products...including some of San Diego's finest craft beers.

For Mexican, well unfortunately, San Diego doesn't really have great Mexican food. We've probably got more taco shop per square inch than anywhere else in the world, but good Mexican is hard to find

Candelas upscale alt cocina Mexican

El Agave in Old Town, if mole is the choice, this is the place. Can be inconsistent

Mama Testa Taqueria devoted entirely to tacos from every state in the Mexican republic. The Mojados de Carne are exceptional (a soup really, rolled tacos cut into lengths and floating in a richly flavorful and spicy broth) or the hard shelled mashed potato tacos

El Comal Since the closure of Chilango's this is the closest thing I've found to mid-range, not dumbed down Mexican food. On Illinois a 1/2 blk. north of Univeristy

Super Cocina - the only place in SD to go for homestyle Mexican cooking. On University between Cherokee and 37th. Very far off the beaten tourist track, locals only. Food is served from a steam table but do not let that deter you. This is truly homestyle cooking and is very, very good. They will give you as many tastes of items as you want. Very inexpensive. Neighborhood can be a bit sketchy, especially after dark, perfectly safe during the day

SD is not really a food destination, but if you look hard enough you can really find some pretty interesting stuff happening around town.

←

[kalypso]

←

In fact, before i read this post, I was weighing Mama Testa's majados vs Super Cocina ~ where I love nearly everything except their carnitas (there's a heavy hand with the canela).

I'm not sure if the Linkery is my hands-down favorite place in town, but if I learned that I only had a week left here, I'd hit it. Maybe twice.

I would add George's at the Cove in La Jolla. I had a dry-aged steak there last week that peeled back the last vestiges of prejudices from an Kansas City upbringing that made us...particular about steaks. It was the best one I'd had since moving to town. The service can be inattentive, but while daylight remains, it's a great view of the ocean to boot.

The Kensington Grill on Adams Avenue can throw down some tasty drinks, good meals, and a respectable cheese board.

←

[syrah girl]

George's at the Cove is great, it is now called George's California Modern. There is a a very nice restaurant at the Hotel Del Coronado called 1500 Ocean where we enjoyed a very nice dinner last December when we stayed at the Del for 3 nights during an anniversary trip.

[cjbleid]

RESTAURANT WEEK! where have you been? anyone......

 

 

[Host's note:  To avoid an excessive load on our servers this topic has been split.  The discussion continues here]

Edited December 28, 2015 by lesliec
Added host's note (log)