San Diego Dining

[Carolyn Tillie]

In your brilliantly-written response to Robert Brown's query about Conde-Nasty, you made a comment about the Restaurants of San Diego.

I lived in San Diego for twelve years and always looked forward to weekend trips to Los Angeles, just because I knew I would be getting an exceptional meal.

I believe San Diego is an otherwise stunning city with decent-enough museums, an okay symphony and opera, fabulous beaches, and a number of enclaves that would lend themselves to haute cuisine, yet nothing of note. It is interesting to note that 25+ years ago, George and Piret Munger had a small chain of restaurants in and around the city, including their ahead-of-time cooking school in Encinitas (I remember seeing Jacques Pepin teach a class when I was a teenager). They seemed so cutting edge back then and I saw their efforts mirrored in Los Angeles a decade later.

I'm curious why you think such a city lacks any high quality restaurants or why there are no chefs of mention making any attempts down there?

[Jeffrey Steingarten]

Dear Carolyn,

I'm stumped as well. L.A. is not a perfect exemplar--it seems to go in cycles, with the past eight years having been relatively dull, though not bereft; now some people believe that L.A. is on an upswing, the capital of haute casual. I'll believe it when I eat it--that is, is it all about sweaters or T-shirts?

When chef Diot from several fine restaurants in France and then a good run in NYC opened Tapenade in San Diego, I had high hopes. and I've certainly had fine bistro meals there; but the last time I visited and asked for the hanger steak, it was off the menu becuase, he told me, everybody returned it as too bloody and too beefy tasting. George at Georges on the Cove hired an excellent young chef, Trey, who uses Chino vegetables (not common in this city) and is capable of innovative cooking; I've heard recently that George and Trey can't understand why a mediocre steakhouse downtown does so much better business than they. On the other hand, Bradley Ogden's (largely by remote control) Artera, located in a pretty uninviting hotel on a mid-county highway exchange, is often excellent and popular. Most other hotel restaurants, some quite lavish (e.g. Torrey Pines Lodge, or whatever it's called, and Rancho Bernardo) have tedious food. Otherwise, chain restaurants and bad restaurants do the best.

It may be something as vague and inexplicable as the idea that people in San Diego county have very little food consciousness and very little willingness to spend lots of money on restaurant meals. There are not many farmers and at the markets, people buy largely on price. The great peach grower Art Lange had a hard time selling his somewhat expensive fruit at Pacific Beach, next to a stand of cheaper, unripe specimens. Yes, there are people like the Mungers and other leaders in the AIWF chapter, but a place needs many more of them to support fine restaurants. Plus, you probably need an active nightlife. Downtown San Diego is often either empty or filled with college kids barfing the streets. (My wife and I are nearly always twice the age of the next oldest customers when we go to the movies.) And you need a certain density, which San Diego still lacks despite the recent building of tall condos on the edges of downtown--and which L.A. is gaining in an odd way, often limited to certain neighborhoods.

Here's another thought: People who move to San Diego and tourists who visit the city do so, I think, for the weather, for the beaches, for water sports and golf, and for tourist attractions like the zoo (way overrated), Sea World, etc. Are these the sort of people who care about food, think about it half the way, and like spending their money on good food? Certainly not.

Jeffrey

[Jeffrey Steingarten]

Carolyn:

P.S. About San Diego: If you think I'm saying that people who move somewhere for the weather are shallow or chronically ill, you're right.

About L.A.: I sounded too negative. I love eating in L.A. Although there's disagreement on the subject, I've had two of my best meals in America at Spago, Beverly Hills. L.A. has probably the best Chinese food in the U.S., the best Korean food, and at times the best Japanese food, though with the moving of Ginza Sushiko to NYC, I believe we've gained the advantage, though I don't believe I could duplicate here the meal I had a year ago at the counter of Mori Sushi with two favorite customers, Mary Sue Milliken and her husband Josh. (It's in a neighborhood without a name, kind of a suburb of Santa Monica.) And I wish we had a restaurant like Campanile, and several others in L.A. And I'm eager to see what haute casual is all about.

JLS

[rgruby]

Is there at least any decent Mexican?

Cheers,

Geoff Ruby

[Carolyn Tillie]

Is there at least any decent Mexican?

Cheers,

Geoff Ruby

Sure - Mexico.

Seriously, if you are in San Diego than there is nothing easier than driving down to TJ or Ensanada (great in the late summer for fresh lobster).

Yeah, there are people who like This Mexican restaurant or That Mexican restaurant in Old Town, but I think they are pale comparisons to what you can get if you drive an hour south.

Jeffrey - thanks oodles. I appreciate the insight and I believe you are basically correct about the inhabitants. I admit, I lived there when I young, thin, and wanted nothing more than to party. But when I discovered good food, I realized I had to drive out of town to get it. I haven't lived in San Diego for over a dozen years and hoped it might have changed but all I hear from old friends is that traffic is hideously worse and nothing else is much better.

Interestingly, a drive east to Alpine produces some rather interesting Basque restaurants (if you like entrails...)

[Jeffrey Steingarten]

Is there at least any decent Mexican?

Cheers,

Geoff Ruby

Sure - Mexico.

Seriously, if you are in San Diego than there is nothing easier than driving down to TJ or Ensanada (great in the late summer for fresh lobster).

Yeah, there are people who like This Mexican restaurant or That Mexican restaurant in Old Town, but I think they are pale comparisons to what you can get if you drive an hour south.

Jeffrey - thanks oodles. I appreciate the insight and I believe you are basically correct about the inhabitants. I admit, I lived there when I young, thin, and wanted nothing more than to party. But when I discovered good food, I realized I had to drive out of town to get it. I haven't lived in San Diego for over a dozen years and hoped it might have changed but all I hear from old friends is that traffic is hideously worse and nothing else is much better.

Interestingly, a drive east to Alpine produces some rather interesting Basque restaurants (if you like entrails...)

The border between San Diego and Tijuana makes me sad and angry. If the border were completely open, San Diegans, only 15 minutes away, would flock to Tijuana for food, and the restaurants would thrive. But the border is blocked by racism and now by precautions supposedly justified by September 11.

As for the first, I drove back from a bluefin tuna farm in Ensenada with its owner, a Harvard educated (wow!) business man in his '60's with Mexican citizenship and a green card that allows him to reside in Rancho Santa Fe, one of San Diego County's ritiziest enclaves. This was before September 11. His name is Philippe and he was driving his new BMW, an extremely luxurious vehicle with a 50-pound farmed bluefin in the trunk. We were stopped at the border and our car diverted to an inspection area, where they viewed the underside of the car through mirrors at the end of metal poles (as though a smuggler wouldn't have known this!) --because Philippe had shown his green card. I had a US passport, not necessary to go from Tijuana to San Diego, and the border guard said to me, wearing jeans and a windbreaker, Ah, Mr. Steingarten, welcome back. He addressed Philippe, who was wearing a conservative and expensive gray suit, as Pancho. This got me angry and I began a long speech, which was cut off by Philippe, who waved me off. He said he is used to this and it doesn't really matter.

Philippe's parents were Jewish leftists who fled from Russia in the '30's, I think, and settled for a while in Paris, where Philippe was born. When the Nazi's threatened France, they tried to emigrate to the U.S. and were rejected, as nearly everybody else was. So they ended up in Mexico, where Philippe's father went into some aspect of the fishing business and somehow sent their son to Harvard. And now he is subject to bigoted ignorant swaggering white border guards with big sunglasses.

I've enjoyed Tijuana and the entire coast down past Ensenada enough that experiences like this didn't stop me, though they slowed me down. But the security measures that followed September 11 did. I'm sure that U.S. policy is entirely logical, although one Mexican woman I know who used to cross the border five times a week to supervise several relatives in cleaning houses in San Diego asked me why they would stop Mexicans--short and square--when they were worried about Arabs--tall and lean--just because both of them had darkish skin. The net effect was that crossing the border back into San Diego County took as much as six hours, and usually four. The best time to cross was at 4:00 in the morning, when two hours might do it. I've had excellent meals in Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada, and lots of truly worthy tacos, but not any longer.

You'd think that San Diego would have many good Mexican restaurants. It doesn't. Nor do Mexican-Americans play any part in the political elite, as they do in El Paso and San Antonio. And people don't pay much for Mexican food in San Diego.

Speaking of Alpine: I know a lamb farmer who delivers his animals (not just the entrails) to Alpine. Now I know why! Can you recommend any good Basque entrail restaurants there?

[Mayhaw Man]

Everyone reading this should give some thought to crossing in Tecate. It is a beautiful little town and only a two lane border crossing and it is never crowded. The drive down through Jamul and Dulzura is very nice (or across Otay Lakes) and the bakery in Tecate (El Mejor Pan) is one of the best in all of Northern Baja. From there it is a straight 45 minute shot over to Ensenada through the Valle Guadalupe, the largest single plot of grapes and olives in all of Mexico (and supposedly the largest single planting concentration of olives in the world, but that might just be bragging).

When you think about delays at the border and their potential length, it is really worth the little bit of extra drive down through East County.

I recieved "It Must Have Been Something I Ate" as a stocking stuffer and started reading it last night. Am enjoying it greatly.