I declared in my December Discovering San Diego post that January would be less busy, well it turned out February was. Since we were not in San Diego for a good amount of February we had little adventures last month. Almost all of the below happened in January. I felt like I had some good things to share for January, even though I’m super late in sharing them 🙂 The March round-up will be shared in a more timely manner.
FOOD
Ironside
LOVE, LOVE it! This restaurant goes straight to the the top of our best of San Diego list. The cocktails are AMAZING!! We have been twice for cocktails and only once for lunch, but based on lunch I’m sure dinner will be just as good. The service was great and all the staff have been friendly on our couple of visits. You can make reservations for lunch and dinner, which is a nice plus in my book. A dinner review will be coming soon, I’m sure.
Nomad Donuts
OMG, these donuts!! As you know, I fancy myself a bit of a donut connoisseur 🙂 and these are GOOD! They describe themselves as European style donuts, which mean they are a little less sweet than traditional. The fillings are all very fresh tasting, utilizing fresh fruit as a base. They also offer really unique fritters that have sweet and savory components, they are just too hard to pass up.
Kettner Exchange
We went here to celebrate P’s birthday. We heard a lot of great things about it, but the food did not live up to expectations. The space is lovely and interesting. The menu is interesting but execution was flat. We had a few dishes that had fried components, and they were too oily and tasted off. I expected a lot more.
WhiskNLadle
A lovely little place in La Jolla, we visited for brunch. Both the atmosphere and the food was great! You could taste the quality of the ingredients used.
Cardamom Cafe
A little bakery/cafe in the North Park area. Very friendly staff and the food was good. We definitely want to go back to try some of their pastries. They offer some good looking sweet and also savory pastries, all jumbo sized. I was very impressed with the amount of flavor the breakfast quesadilla had, and the monte cristo was tasty but a bit bread heavy (though the bread is really light and fluffy, still bread to meat ratio was off).
Eclipse
We have been big fans of their chocolates for a while now, but only this in January finally made it to try their South Park location for brunch. Both of our dishes were very good. I was surprised with how large the potion were, especially for the combo option. I would like to go back and try one of their dessert dishes, we just did not have the room for more food. Reservations can be made for brunch or dinner, they filled up rather quickly around noon.
Bean Bar
The cutest little coffee bar that Shannon introduced me to! It’s right downtown across the street from the San Diego library. The decor is so cute and the place has huge windows, so it is has almost an indoor/outdoor feel. Their espresso is extremely smooth, it was one of the smoothest lattes I’ve ever had. I also picked up a bag of beans for P on my visit and that coffee was also super smooth and well balanced. If you are downtown, you have to go check them out.
Fig Tree (Breakfast)
This was our second time trying out Fig Tree in North Park, once for dinner and now brunch. I got the breakfast sushi, because how could I pass up a dish like that!! Overall I found mine and P’s dish just ok. The rice in the sushi dish was not seasoned at all so it made the dish overall really bland. I would not recommend it, though I loved the idea. P’s dish was much better but even that lacked seasoning, even though it doesn’t look like it. Sorry Fig Tree, but there are much better brunch options out there.
Bobboi Gelato
The BEST gelato!! I’m so obsessed with this place. It’s in La Jolla or otherwise I would have it at least once a week. We have already been twice, and brought some home the second time. If you like coconut you must try that flavor, it’s so so good. I’ve probably went again since I’ve written this 🙂
Swamis
A deli, featuring a huge menu. P and I went once for lunch, and once for brunch. Both times it was pretty full, and we had quite the wait for our food. They don’t really go in order of who ordered first, it just comes out whenever. Both times the wait has been long, at lunch they brought me the wrong sandwich and then brunch they brought mine out but P’s didn’t come for another 20 minutes. The food is good but I’m not in love with the logistics of it all. This may become a call-in order only place.
Snooze
This place is out of control with a line on the weekends. It is a small chain, but we thought we would see what all the hype was about. Every time we have walked by there is a line. We decided to try it out one Sunday morning and got the 15 minutes after they opened, there was a line forming 15 minutes later. The food was very good, though I’m not sure quite up to the waits I’ve seen. I like that you can order a pancake for a side, that was a big plus in my book 🙂
BOOZE
Rip Current
The only new brewery we visited in January was Rip Current’s newly opened North Park tasting room. We certainly visited several repeat breweries/bars, but nothing else new. Shocking!! 🙂 I really enjoyed the beers we tasted on our visit, they have some solid brewing going on. Their hefeweizen I really liked, and I’m not a hefeweizen fan. The space is ok. I think the layout could have been better thought out. The bar area is a too narrow, and it gets really hard to move from the front to the back (restrooms are in the back), plus the place to order is on the narrow side of the bar and that makes it worse. We would go back based on the beers, but look for less busy times to enjoy it.
OTHER
Flagship Whale Watching Tour
I had tagged whale watching as an activity I wanted to do when we first moved to San Diego. January is suppose to be the prime time to catch the most whales according to the site. We enjoyed the trip, but did not see very many whales, and none very close to the ship. We did have a group of dolphins follow the boat, which was super cool. I’m glad we went, but I would not recommend it as a tourist activity. There are so many other activities you could do with the time spent on the boat. The boat trip itself was not all that scenic. We had a nice day out, but it did get cold on the way back. We took the 1:00 pm tour. I would recommend dressing in layers, you can get out of the cold below deck, but I did not want to miss anything. The above picture was the best shot I captured of the two whale sightings.
La Jolla
Here are a few pictures from walking along the water in La Jolla after our brunch in WhiskNLadle. It was a gorgeous day in JANUARY…I was wearing a skirt with no tights, no tights, people!! I’m not sure I can get over how much I love the weather here!! We saw tons of wild life and January is definitely a less crowded time for a leisurely stroll. One sea lion lunged at me while I walked by and P has been telling everyone it attacked me…it was not even close 🙂
Aren’t you jealous of all of this gorgeous weather? It’s something I just can’t get over!
Find out what else we have been up to in San Diego:
