mjill's Profile
need help with 2-day itinerary on a budget please!
Wine Vault for dinner. Great value and solid food.
Brooklyn Girl- early review
Went there Friday. Good place. Very VERY Bankers Hill but better lighting. Pork belly was excellent and would bring me back in a second. Overall, especially for a few days in, a solid place that I look forward to revisiting.
High-end sushi in the city?
I think we can agree though that kaz is putting out the more preferable end product between the two, right? I think if you only tried ota once and it was enough years back that you are having a tough time recalling the details you might want to give them another shot.
High-end sushi in the city?
I think you'll find the same situation in just about any high end sushi joint - Kaito, Ota, Toshi San, ect. You have the masters and then the guys who have been doing a few years that are good but not at that elite level. Remember elite level or close to does not grow on trees, it took guys like Ota or Kaz for example most of their life to get to this point and they're older. When you say medicore, did you find the actual quality of the fish lacking or was it maybe not cut to the right thickness?
High-end sushi in the city?
Ota also gets in their own shipments of fish for the 3 restaurants in addition to using local purveyors, which is why in my opinion they're the best in town. The get the best locally plus they can get in the best from Japan or other areas. Not cheap but worth it.
Gabardine--Pt.Loma Open Yet
Not a surprising report. I always found the food at Sea Rocket to be inconsistent at best. Seems the trend continues here as well.
Please comment on my dining list for my 5-day trip to SD
Good list IMO. I agree that maybe you should check closer alternatives to some on your list like hitting Hane over Ota, Prepkitchen Little Italy over Wisknladel or Urban Solace over Moonlight lounge to save yourself some driving time but get the same standards. I'd move George's up the list over Cucina Urbana. Good luck.
Gabardine--Pt.Loma Open Yet
Turning liver into a foie like product is a process. For me quotation marks don't excuse that since the word itself implies you are getting a type of ingredient that was fashioned in a certain way that in reality you are not getting. Good to hear though that at least now it is palatable. At the fw fest, it was not.
Gabardine--Pt.Loma Open Yet
He was serving that at last years food and wine fest. Horrible. Hopefully they've gotten better at pulling that dish off but the big miss is cod liver isn't even close to the same ballpark as foie so the concept is fatally flawed from the get go. Im all for creative menu names, but labeling cod liver foie is basically lying to your customer IMO. Truth in menu.
21st birthday dinner ideas?
I would check with his friends to see what they have planned. You are getting in so late and it is a surprise, so chances are high he'll be in black out mode by then. It might save you a night of anger. Otherwise, I don't see a point in blowing a bunch of cash on places like Georges, TJ or whatever for someone who wants to get tanked and probably doesn't care too much for solid food or traveling too far. La Jolla Brew House or something similar will probably fit the bill.
Whisknladle coming to Little Italy?
Website menus are rarely up to date and in my experience should just be used as a sample reference. Blue plate when I was there was salmon for 18 I believe.
Whisknladle coming to Little Italy?
I have to disagree with you on your opinion that PK should be on par with WNL. It is clear to me at least that they are trying to do casual dining (a little on the hipster side but still very casual) there where WNL is not. In my opinion, I think they nail it - they are just offering good food at reasonable prices and not pretending to be more than that. The space is nice and the food is good. I think 1 menu item was over 18 and that was a steak. The best item I tried, the calamari was 9 and was a big enough portion to have it as an entree if you wanted. Any cheaper and these guys would have to do paninis with sides of mac salad OR just dump from a sysco bag, reheat and serve.
Whisknladle coming to Little Italy?
The food is good. I wasnt expecting much and they won me over, nothing I didnt like. Worth trying for sure. Stuffed calamari was the highlight for me, could eat it again no prob.
WineSeller and Brasserie
Solid place in terms of food and service, worth a try if you have never been.
Modernist Cuisine/Molecular Gastronemy
A lot of the modern fine dining places in town are using transglutaminaes.Wine vault, georges, nine-ten, market. Seeing it in hotels too. Easy application to turn protein scrap into dollars. Chicken nuggets are made with the stuff if you are looking for something less high brow. You also see methocellulose at a few places too in the form of lobster stock sheets and similar ilk. Cotton candy spring rolls are also popping up speaking of Jose Andres.
How to use a roasted pig knuckle?
Soup, sauce, beans, braising anything, ect ect....
When done braising it with whatever else you want to taste better or making a sauce, take the knuckle apart and use the meat in tacos. Freestyle it, this type of product is cheap and has endless possibilities in terms of application... It just need to be cooked for a while in order to soften up and be made tender.
Craft & Commerce in Little Italy
Do you suppose this might be a city ordanance or building code thing? City council does not like senior citizens distrubed.
Craft & Commerce in Little Italy
Delicious food is delicious food. A pint of Pliny goes down well with a super spicey corndog.
Craft & Commerce in Little Italy
Corn dogs are about as signature of American comfort food as any. C&C does them well too. You weren't going to the right places in sf. Mission district had quite a few places that served them and their dogs were made in house, which C&C doesn't do. One of my favorites was wrapped in a very heavily
peppered jack, dipped and fried. Very good.
Craft & Commerce in Little Italy
That's probably the height of douchbaggery too.... not to beat a dead horse but they're in the hospitality business. C&C has a good thing going but they also have a mega marketing machine behind them too, which skews reality in regards to F&W nods, ect. Go up to SF and this bar is one of a million versus one in a million. .
Local Hero, Tender Greens
I don't know. I remember in college getting all the time half sandwiches of grilled chicken and a side of mixed greens salad that if you put it on a plate would be essentially what you'd get at TG if you ordered a salad with grilled chicken. TG has taken it up a notch, no doubt but to say they are have invented something not seen before or have done anything super original to be comparing other places as ripping them off is quite a streach.
Local Hero, Tender Greens
TG is not as an original business model as you'd like to think. Several places have done the same concept well before tg was ever thought up. Im sure anyone who has visited Silver Greens in Santa Barbara has thought that TG has outright ripped off their concept, even down to the similar sounding name. The place has been doing business since the late 90's up there. I think the take away here is that restauranteurs have seen that people are willing to pay a little extra for food with quality ingredients, which is why you see a lot of the same type of places opening up.
Best Mexican in Hillcrest or Anywhere
I had to get some car work done up in Kearny Mesa recently and the shop was next to Super Sergios. Cabeza tacos off the charts good and for only 4.50 I think for 4 grandes. Maybe not the best in town but they're pretty damn good.
Las Cuatro Milpas is another good spot. I don't know if it is so good though to warrant the line down the street but I've found the rolled tacos to significantly help with hangovers.
San Diego's Best Restaurants Zagat
Zagat is not an arbitrary ranking. The ranks are based on the average of the submitted reviews from members. So in essence this top 10 is based on people's experiences. Their system imo is much more reliable than yelp's. You can get people's experiences on yelp. A solid 80% or so of those experiences being garbage but you can see in the posts certain truths about a location if everyone complains about the same thing.
This is a pretty solid list of what I would consider most of the best places in SD. There is maybe a place or two I would take off in favor of other places or move a spot up or down in the rankings but overall it is fairly close to the mark for me.
Cavaillon
Maybe but prices weren't on the cheap side before. Having eaten there a few times I can say the food was really good, just not worth the drive out there on a semi regular basis from downtown. I just don't see this move attracting a large volume of customers, even if the turbot is off the charts.
Cavaillon
I find it interesting that a Chef who is relavtively nameless locally is jacking up prices after the prior chef who had a solid local reputation couldn't make it work for less.
Blanca--Last Night Tonight
That is a bit of a bummer. I was looking foward to them doing something in Mission Hills, which was kind of hinted at. I know he is doing a lot of pop up events at El Take It Easy.
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El Take It Easy
3926 30th St, San Diego, CA 92104
Toshi-San Sushi and Shabu-Shabu - secret spot?
Glad you like Toshi's Rod. I've always had great experiences there, its just too bad it can be a pain in the neck to get to if there is even lite traffic. Try the lobster dinner next time. They'll bring out a monster and cook it 3 ways for you. Since its local season for it, you'll get a great experience.
