July should be a good month for University Heights, with two restaurants coming after prolonged construction periods.

I don’t always cover restaurant openings, mostly because the hype machine doesn’t need my help to keep on rolling. For two places under construction in University Heights, however, I am genuinely excited. July should be a tasty month in UH! …

Adams Avenue coffee shop has punk rock sensibilities and a love of tasty miniaturized pies.

A word to the wise: the name of Normal Height’s new “Broke Girls Coffee Bar” (3562 Adams Avenue, 619-546-8302) abbreviates to BGCB as a play on the former New York City nightclub (CBGB), not the fashion design group (BCBG)! I …

North Park restaurant excels with happy hour tapas deals.

It’s really a shame that I didn’t get to include Cafe 21’s “happiest hour” in the Reader happy hour issue. Either I didn’t know about it or the menu hadn’t been launched in time for the story--maybe a combination of …

Normal Heights bar opens for brunch. Neighborhood hipsters have not had to run for cover.

The Heights Tavern (3377 Adams Avenue, 619-501-3455) has has made a solid bid to stick around and become a part of Normal Heights. At first, the rabble roused themselves over the presence of a second True North opening Uptown. For …

The standard for service in San Diego is lower than it should be and diners need to stand up for themselves.

Since I started reviewing restaurants for the Reader, the only thing I’ve received hate mail over has been my tendency to call out bad servers and poor service. I’ve gone so far as to say that the standards for service …

Orange County waffle sandwich restaurant is doing it right, so why not come to San Diego?

So, I was in Costa Mesa last weekend and I just happened to notice the Iron Press (3321 Hyland Ave, 714-426-8088). Installed in a bourgeois, OC mall and surrounded by corporate offices on all sides, it’s not like the restaurant …

Anybody who likes flavored coffee would do well to make a trip to Old Town.

In some ways, Old Town is a weird, quasi-Mexican Disneyland soaked in overpriced and underpowered margaritas. We go around it at all costs, leaving the curios historicity to the tourists. But Old Town doesn’t totally suck! Harney Sushi is OK …

Mission Hills cafe gets a makeover, adds some booze into the mix, and changes for the better.

Talk about reinventing yourself: Toma Sol Cafe up and decided to forego the coffee shop lifestyle and transform into a wine bar! Newly minted “Toma Sol Tavern” (301 W. Washington Street, 619-291-1159) is a substantial change from the old business. …

The final tally of Ethiopian restaurants following one, hungry writer's attempt to eat at them all.

If I learned one thing from Tour de Cheesesteak, it’s that people demand a reckoning. It’s a tough thing to give out. Every restaurant has its strengths and weaknesses, and deciding which of those makes one place “better” than another …

Stop six of the Ethiopian project is in Talmadge at a second restaurant named Awash, nicer than the first.

Silly me, thinking there was only one Ethiopian restaurant named “Awash!” Turns out there is another, much further out El Cajon Boulevard, at number 4997, to be exact, right next to the Last Call bar, where they serve discount shots …

Back to City Heights for another tasty Eritrean/Ethiopian dinner in an ugly bunker of a building.

After Tour de Cheesesteak, a mere five days of consecutive Ethiopian food is nothing. Nothing, I say! I could do this forever. With a spring in my step, I set out for City Heights and Asmara Restaurant (4155 University Avenue, …

A trip to University Heights' upscale Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurant of note offers sharp contrasts with other restaurants featured in this tour.

Muzita Abyssinian Bistro (4651 Park Boulevard, 619-546-7900) in University Heights isn’t an Ethiopian restaurant per se. It’s more Eritrean. Eritrea borders Ethiopia and the two countries share much in the way of culture and cuisine. For hundreds of years, the …

A strong showing heats up the competition in the contest to be the best Ethiopian restaurant in San Diego.

Stop three on my comprehensive survey of San Diego’s Ethiopian dining scene was Harar Ethiopian Restaurant (2432 El Cajon Boulevard, 619-295-3735). It wasn’t too hard to find, since it’s just down the street from Awash Market. On the outside, Harar …

Secret restaurant in the back of a North Park market has good food, dingy vibe.

For the second phase of my comprehensive Ethiopian excursion, I called upon a friend who claims expertise in these matters. She swore up and down that Awash Market (2884 El Cajon Boulevard, 619-282-8280) was the place to go. “Atmosphere 1, …

Beginning the search in City Heights

New mission: to eat at all the Ethiopian restaurants in town and pick a winner. This was partly inspired by Garrett Harris blogging about running, and partly by a friend who asked me which I liked best. I had no …

Imig’s Kitchen and Bar at the Lafayette Hotel (2232 El Cajon Boulevad, 619-780-0358) has been steadily goofing with their menu since I first went there last fall. For a while now, they were serving a modified bistro menu of smaller …

Mission Hill's sake house of record adds a few tables, makes getting a seat that much easier.

Big news from the world of small restaurants: Izakaya Masa (928 Fort Stockton Drive, 619-542-1354) added a new wing to the dining room that increases the miniature sake house’s seating capacity by about thirty percent. For anyone (like me) who …

New sausage spot in Hillcrest gives Midwestern football food a big-dollar makeover

Salt and Cleaver has been open for a little while, but I hadn’t had a chance to go check it out until just now. The extensive remodel on the building’s interior put a lot of distance between the new restaurant …

Downtown restaurant's new menu reveals clever sensibilities

The spring menu at Saltbox showed me a few things, chiefly that executive chef Simon Dolinky is a smart guy. I say so because he seems to think outside the box with his dishes. Not in a wild, Wylie Dufresne …

Felix’s BBQ With Soul, original to Oceanside, has a location on Euclid Ave in Lincoln Park. It will be a bit out of the way for some people, but there’s plenty of parking and the lunchtime specials are off the …