San Diego Reader

Stories | Restaurant Review

Gimme More Turkey

Gimme More Turkey

Pasha drew my eye with an ad in this paper, including a coupon for a freebie appetizer platter. Hmm...a new bargain destination? Worth trying? I scurried to the website and found that the restaurant wasn’t just ...

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Another Side of BBQ

Another Side of BBQ

And now, for a completely different style of barbecue: Japanese yakiniku. Sensei Shima, Samurai Jim’s martial-arts teacher, favors Suzuya for it; Jim and his fellow students often eat there with the master after class. Jim ...

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Smoking or Non?

Smoking or Non?

Is it myth or truth that white men can’t “Q”? (Got your attention? Kickle kickle.) Barbecue — meaning Southern-style barbecue — is a black art indeed, requiring a magical confluence of technique, timing, and taste-buds ...

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Arias on the Plate

Arias on the Plate

Old-time San Diegans remember when the Gaslamp Quarter was getting over its “Hey, sailor” sleaze-phase and Horton Plaza was new. Italian restaurants serving affordable food ... More Post a comment

Cook Like a Chef — but Fast

Cook Like a Chef — but Fast

As the economic climate has turned even the well employed into the “working worried,” people accustomed to eating most dinners out are cooking at home ... More Comments (9)

Pursuit of Happy Hours

Pursuit of Happy Hours

“Sometimes life is so good,” I sighed, sipping my dirt-cheap caipirinha. Sam and I watched the ferry pull into the Coronado pier, disgorging commuters marching ... More Comments (8)

La Mesa Goes Downtown

La Mesa Goes Downtown

When the new Gio took over the space of the old Village Garden, the charming neighborhood of La Mesa Village acquired something like a “downtown-y” ... More Comments (2)

Magic

Magic

“There may be trouble ahead/ But while there’s moonlight and music/ And love and romance/ Let’s face the music and dance.” Irving Berlin wrote that ... More Comments (2)

For Frugal Foodies

For Frugal Foodies

Happiness is an ice-cold strawberry Bellini at Bite, made with the first berries of spring, and a $20 four-course dinner from a chef who can ... More Post a comment

Feeling Puckish

Feeling Puckish

It’s odd to think of a glitzy, Angeleno Wolfgang Puck restaurant on a bucolic, wooded college campus, but Jai (pronounced “jay,” like the bird) is ... More Post a comment

Ota, Too

Ota, Too

It’s just beautiful — elegant and spare. Blue lights illuminate the lower half of Hane’s windows all around — useful, since I’m not sure the ... More Comment (1)

The Ambassador of Abyssinia

The Ambassador of Abyssinia

Take my word, the cuisine of the Horn of Africa is fabulous — but to know that, you have to taste it; and in San ... More Post a comment

Cheap Steak Serenade

Cheap Steak Serenade

What is Golden Hill’s edgy Turf Supper Club, along with its tattooed waitresses, doing out in the wilds of La Mesa? Same as it ever ... More Comments (6)

He's Not There

He's Not There

“Mickey Two” (Samurai Jim’s friend, not his squeeze) put out the word: James Beard award–winner and Michelin two-star New York chef Christopher Lee (currently seen ... More Post a comment

At Last, True Thai

At Last, True Thai

Before I write specifically about Sab-E-Lee, you need to know a little about the Thai region called Isaan, Isan, Issan, or Esarn — in English ... More Comments (15)

The Big Eat

The Big Eat

I’d been eating in low-down dives for months. Some were high-rent dives, with coastside views that give them an exaggerated sense of their own value, ... More Post a comment

Crabby Mood

Crabby Mood

This is the winter of my discontent, following the autumn of my growing grouchiness, and the summer of my increasing reservations. It’s the economy, stupid ... More Comment (1)

Some Enchanted Evening

Some Enchanted Evening

Valentine’s Day is the year’s biggest night for restaurants. Who doesn’t love love? For some it’s proposal night; for others, a renewal of vows. Or ... More Comments (2)

Jim and the Volcano

Jim and the Volcano

After nearly nine years in San Diego, I’d never been to any of the Bully’s restaurants and felt a tad guilty about my ignorance of ... More Comments (3)

Pisco Sours and

Pisco Sours and "Kung Fu" Squid

Vagabond was a sensation when it opened in the spring of ’06. As the realtors say, it had a huge edge: location (times three). Restaurateurs ... More Comments (2)

The Chain of Spain

The Chain of Spain

Spain’s on the same latitude as New York, so in winter the rain in Spain must mainly be a pain. I love eating Spanish food ... More Post a comment

2008: The Year in Food

2008: The Year in Food

Where has all the foie gras gone, long time passing? These are bad times! Don’t it just make you wanna throw your shoes at someone? ... More Comments (10)

Restaurant Porn, Italian Style

Restaurant Porn, Italian Style

Olivetto is no relation to the fabled Oliveto up north in the Rockridge District of Oakland — there’s no Paul Bertolli in the kitchen, creating ... More Post a comment

Sushi for All Seasons

Sushi for All Seasons

After looking over the interesting, many-page menu at Azuki, and after trying the miso soup and the first “test roll” (uni, of course) to the ... More Post a comment

French-Kissed Comfort Food

French-Kissed Comfort Food

For a few decades — roughly Carter through Clinton — old-fashioned French restaurants seemed increasingly vieux chapeaux, in view of the lighter, cleaner-flavored “new French” ... More Post a comment

Modigliani Mussels, Absinthe Fountain

Modigliani Mussels, Absinthe Fountain

The current may have swept away the Currant I reviewed glowingly a year ago, but it hasn’t drowned the restaurant’s civilized atmosphere. Last spring, big-shot ... More Comments (2)

Nicole Should Be a Mousse

Nicole Should Be a Mousse

Recession? You’d never know it if you judged by Illume (pronounced ill-LOOM, no accent on the e) and by the light but constant pedestrian traffic ... More Post a comment

Exit the Turkey — Give Thanks

Exit the Turkey — Give Thanks

Printing a list of restaurants open for Thanksgiving has become a Reader tradition, and it’s worth noting up front that nearly every restaurant open for ... More Post a comment

The Kindest Comforts

The Kindest Comforts

The Curse of Samurai Jim struck again — third time in a row. We were heading for a new Caribbean place in the Gaslamp, but ... More Post a comment

Live Butchers — Live!

Live Butchers — Live!

Face it, the meats at most local chain supermarkets are roadkill. Plumped with antibiotics, hormones, and pesticides and raised in crowded pens ankle-deep in their ... More Comments (4)

Lucky Jinx

Lucky Jinx

Is Samurai Jim a jinx on bargain-price restaurants? Last time it was a vanished barbecue joint that sent us fleeing to the very minor mercies ... More Comments (2)

Heat Lightning

Heat Lightning

Enter the Dragon! I am breathing fire after enjoying the spicy cuisine of Szechuan every night for a week. One of my favorite occasional email ... More Post a comment

Short on Green? Go Green

Short on Green? Go Green

"Why did you choose this restaurant?" asked my friend Mark en route to Tender Greens. A fair question, to be sure, since I'm scarcely one ... More Post a comment

Brought Up by Wolves

Brought Up by Wolves

"Let's do it," said Naomi. Wow. I never thought she'd agree. I wanted her to show me what's going on with these new, like, artisanal ... More Comment (1)

The Second Childhood of Suzy Creamcheese

The Second Childhood of Suzy Creamcheese

Welcome back, Baby Boomers and suburban-raised Gen Xers, to your childhoods. Minus, of course, bedwetting, skinned knees, dorky shoes, schoolyard bullies, mean girls, broken skates, ... More Comment (1)

The Movable Feast Returns

The Movable Feast Returns

Of all the “charity eat-a-thons” in this town, my favorite by far is the Chef Celebration, a series of extraordinary banquets crafted by some of ... More Post a comment

Recession Bleus

Recession Bleus

Everybody’s hurting in this economy except the fortunate few vulture capitalists and hedge traders who got the big tax breaks. But it’s a mighty plunge ... More Comment (1)

Earth-Bound Fish

Earth-Bound Fish

For months before it opened, Mukashi seemed like a presold hit: Everyone who ate at Avenue 5, just across Nutmeg Street, could see the sign ... More Comment (1)

Didn't He Ramble?

Didn't He Ramble?

Girls just wanna have fun, and aging-boomer foodie girls especially wanna have fun at the table (as other options become scarcer). Tabule offers that kind ... More Post a comment

Coming Up Roses

Coming Up Roses

Roseville (named for its first settler, Louis Rose, not a shrub) is a Point Loma neighborhood also called “the village.” It’s a bit out of ... More Post a comment

Indian Cuisine 101

Indian Cuisine 101

Samurai Jim confessed recently he’d never eaten Indian food. Curries, yes — his mother cooks them Japanese style. But he didn’t know a Samosa from ... More Comments (4)

Unchained Links

Unchained Links

Stately, plump Bruce Aidells came from the smoker bearing a bowl in which a sausage and a French roll lay crossed. That was some 30 ... More Comments (4)

North (Park) Sea

North (Park) Sea

When the Linkery moved north and Sea Rocket took over its former quarters, I could barely contain myself. Seafood in North Park, less than ten ... More Comment (1)

Au-Some Cooking

Au-Some Cooking

When I ate at Molly’s during June “Restaurant Week,” the place should have been at least as packed as Ruth’s Chris was the previous night. ... More Post a comment

Track of the Sushi Cat

Track of the Sushi Cat

It’s like that Bible story of Ruth and Naomi: “Whither thou goest, I will go.” Or that girl-group song of the ’60s: “I will follow ... More Post a comment

Git Along, Little Bison

Git Along, Little Bison

A recent issue of Vogue showcased a shot of Nicole Kidman in period costume, gazing aristocratically into the distance from atop a white dappled horse. ... More Comments (15)

Summer Break on Steak

Summer Break on Steak

My pal Samurai Jim is in some ways a paragon of the classic Bachelorus americanus species. He loves good Scotch, good red meat, a brisk ... More Comment (1)

Back to South Beach

Back to South Beach

The summer I was six, my mom and I (plus two platinum-blond, leather-skinned aunts resembling Marge Simpson’s sisters, and a sweet, bald uncle) spent a ... More Comments (2)

A Great Escape

A Great Escape

Red Marlin is the answer. If you can find it. The questions are: Where do you take visitors for dinner when you want to show ... More Comment (1)

Dixie-Fried

Dixie-Fried

Since the last time I reviewed Chateau Orleans for Mardi Gras, 2001, it’s been through at least two changes of ownership. I wasn’t crazy about ... More Comments (6)

Italian Green

Italian Green

The old Naval Training Center at Point Loma is now a perfect new neighborhood, a salmon-colored village with shops, groceries, restaurants, and even an arts ... More Post a comment

Chefs Call Him

Chefs Call Him "Awesome"

Nearly every week, I pour myself a glass of Japanese fizzy-water (Nigori sake), take a deep breath, and call up some rank stranger — the ... More Post a comment

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Win The Unborn on DVD!

Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, ... More