Restaurants
“You come at, say, nine in the morning, I guarantee you won’t get out before two.”
Opera? On Orange Avenue? I was ambling up Coronado’s main street, trying to figure out what to do for the three hours Carla usually takes to get her hair frou-froued up over here — Diane …
"’ll meet you at the Galley,” says Joe into his cell phone. This was during one of the heat waves. He lives way east of El Cajon, so I knew he was pitching for the …
“Everyone has waited ten years for this,” he says. “People said, ‘It’s I.B. It’ll never happen!’”
It pierces the night. A sharp whistle and then a woolly hoot. First thought: train. But how come a train is running through downtown Tijuana late at night? It’s not far. I can see the …
He’s never seen a chafing dish that rubbed him the wrong way.
‘Oh, no. Midnight!” The guy looks at the dice. Two sixes facing up on the pavement. (Two sixes? Like, twelve. That’s why they call this roll “Midnight.”) He picks up the dice and shakes them …
"Things have been pretty horrible in the Congo for decades. So, their coffee is in this beer.”
Sherman Heights. Around seven in the evening. I’m standing over the grilled onions, breathing in their fumes. And the blackened green jalapeños. Man. You cannot beat this. With most Mexican food trucks, the health authorities …
Determined to tackle something more adventurous, I find my answer in Vietnamese porridge.
Oh, man. Trolley’s crowded tonight. ’Course, Friday night, Blue Line, heading south, what else would you expect? Especially this front car. Everybody’s packed in here so they can get out closest to the line in …
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy,” I say to no-one in particular. Sigh. Actually, no chance of a bottle in front of me. Not tonight. Gotta work. Came …
The golden-brown steaming lake of birria sends wafts of beefy, spicy, cilantro-y, almost mole-ish richness swirling up my nostrils. And now the lime I’ve squirted on it makes it so purr-fect it almost sings as …
Wow. What a difference from last time. I stuck my nose in in early January. This is near the old Central Library, Ninth and E. The sign, “Acme Southern Kitchen” was up, but inside it …