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Stories by Brandon Hernández

Happy New Beer: 2012's Best Breweries

There were more new brewery openings than there were months in 2012, and the field is as varied as it is extensive, ranging from veteran brewers looking to challenge the big boys to guys with ...

Fall Forward

San Diego beer-pairing with autumnal cuisine.

Autumns are short in America’s Finest City. The transition from summer’s dog days to mall-Santa season seems like it happens in the blink of a sunglass-shielded eye. But it’s worth taking time to enjoy this ...

Accessible Gourmet Fare

Mid-range restaurants, gastropubs, and shops taking things to the next level.

Nowadays, I spend much of my time eating in restaurants or locked up in my office documenting those experiences. But before I wrote my first word about food, most of my time was spent in ...

Omakase in O'side

Omakase: patrons sit down at the sushi counter, and the chef working it goes to town presenting dishes of his or her choosing, amped to share these items with anyone willing to put themselves into ...

Mission Hills, via Brooklyn

Brooklyn Girl in Mission Hills has been packed since opening.

Brew and ’Cue in Apple Country

San Diego flatlanders open a brewery in the local mountains.

Two Toronados

The word Toronado carries a lot of meaning in West Coast craft-beer circles. For San Franciscans, it’s the name of a bar in the Lower Haight, where the stock has consisted of fine beer for ...

Queso Diego: Cheese Heads, Unite

Cheese-lover, cheese-maker, Jedi cheese-master — most of the world’s population falls into one of these categories. Few foods have such a broad range of appeal. I’m so smitten, I’ve considered lobbying to make cheese its ...

Sour Power

Of all the world’s adult beverages, beer offers the widest range of flavors for pairing with food. The vast number of taste combinations attained through mixing malt, hops, water, and yeast with an endless list ...

Brain Food

Last month, I made my way down to Offshore to meet Tommy Gomes face-to-face, drawn to a culinary-education phenomenon called Collaboration Kitchen. I’d heard Gomes’s name before, most often from chefs on their way to ...

Burger Time

Half-pound cheeseburger, $6.25 The champion bar burger, certainly for the money. It starts with the beef: fine grind, loose pack, superjuicy, good grill seasoning that keeps you taking bite after bite. A medium rare that ...

Beer Town

Passing by this constantly packed spot in the East Village, one would never guess the perseverance it took for owner Arsalun Tafazoli to force it down downtowners’ gullets. His goal was to provide the perfect ...

Nibbles and Drinks

What first drew me in here was Starlite’s informal, relaxed atmosphere, illuminated by a sparkly, starry sky-like chandelier hovering over the sunken bar. Though atmosphere played a significant role, it was the consistent deliciousness of ...

Burrito Especial

At this Five Points hot spot, hefty helpings of flavorful carne asada and shrimp are packed into flour tortillas like a past-his-prime wrestler into fluorescent pink Spandex. It’s a fitting analogy for a venue that ...

Pizza Places

The younger sibling of the larger Arrivederci Ristorante a few doors down specializes in Neapolitan-style pizza. Sidewalk seating gives diners a front-row view of Hillcrest happenings. Servers are likely to speak Italian, and the low ...

The Best Main Dishes from the "Feast" Blog

What follows is a selection of posts from our Feast! blog. Every day our team of foodies posts news and reviews from San Diego eateries. New Menu Trend Leaves Too Much to the Imagination<br>By Brandon ...

Some Rules for Riding San Diego's Craft Beer Superhighway

The recent passage of AB 1014, a bill initiated by San Diego’s own Nathan Fletcher, will make life a lot easier for the individuals behind our county’s craft-beer tasting bars. It also ensures that the ...

R.I.P., Red Velvet

On June 4, I awoke to an otherwise awesome Saturday, fired up the ol’ email, and clicked open a message from one of San Diego’s finest local chefs. What I saw horrified me. One of ...

Beer for Brontos

I am a Car3 — a Card Carrying Carnivore! I love the supple, greasy squish of tender, gastronomically compromised muscle tissue yielding beneath my molars. I enjoy the tart, grassy zing of goats’-milk chèvre, and ...

On Wednesdays, TNT Stands for True North Tacos

Each Wednesday night, North Park’s True North Tavern — a good-time spot for drinkers, foodies (the menu is the product of chef Matt Gordon from next-door neighbor Urban Solace), and all-purpose revelers — holds its ...

The Relation Chef and the Pop-Up Restaurant

Like water funneling down the tract of the Colorado River, it often takes a while for some of the nation’s culinary trends to work their way into America’s Finest City. That’s not to say we ...