Last weekend brought good tidings for fans of saucy seafood sandwiches in the downtown area, namely me: Supernatural Sandwiches held its grand opening in Little Italy. When I first got hooked on Supernatural, it was …

I’ve been missing out on Filipino baked goods. And considering Valerio’s City Bakery has been making them in National City since 1979, I’ve been missing out for a good forty years. During that time, the …

Fun fact: the State Department has still been issuing passports during the federal government’s partial shutdown. For this, I am grateful. My renewed documents arrived this week, prompting the return of a favorite hobby: studying …

About 55 miles separate the communities of Solana Beach and Julian, but it’s the four thousand feet in elevation that set them apart. One's a beach town, appealing to ocean-lovers and well-heeled shoppers; the other, …

Few meals will ever top the experience of going omakase at a top tier sushi bar. By literal translation, omakase implores the diner to “trust the chef,” and there’s rarely a better argument for doing …

Every time on of my friends travels to Cuba, I start craving the stewed beef dish, ropa vieja. The pictures they share on Facebook never have anything to do with food: it's mostly cars, beaches, …

Some places are just doomed to fail. Specifically this one place in East Village, right across the street from Petco Park. It seems like every time I walk by, there's a new restaurant at 317 …

I was driving past Big Front Door the other day when it hit me: that's not where Big Front Door should be. But it's really close. Two months ago, the six-year-old sandwich shop moved one …

Modern Times Beer has arguably become San Diego beer's most compelling success story. At the time it opened, in 2013, with design-savvy beer cans, a bartop made from paperback books, and a gigantic Michael Jackson …

No offense to all the people in Arizona who got snowed on, but where it really got cold this week was San Diego. It’s been the kind of Southern California winter where your nose is …

A portmanteau is a new word created from combining parts of two separate words, the way we get brunch from mashing together breakfast and lunch. We use some portmanteaus without realizing it, such as bodacious …

The financial fallout of Green Flash Owner of the West Coast IPA trademark, and the first modern San Diego brewery to distribute to all fifty states, Green Flash Brewing Company spent several years in expansion …

To our credit or to our chagrin, San Diego has been the breeding ground for at least a couple of successful fast food chains: most notably Jack in the Box and Rubio’s Coastal Grill. Not …

The value of Mexican food in San Diego keeps rising. I don’t mean the cost, because the costs at all our restaurants have been going up alongside property values, energy costs, and minimum wage hikes …

Two years ago, we were driving through a dark evening storm, heading into the Westfield UTC with seats reserved for a new Star Wars movie at the Arclight Cinema. Entrance to the mall parking lot …

“The beer is just good! That’s why I come back all the time.” So says a guy to my left, loud enough the whole tasting room can here. A few of us nod along. He’s …

In the parking lot in front of the Rainbow Farms Supermarket (4727 Federal Blvd., Chollas Creek) sit a grill and smoker, a back of mesquite charcoal, and flag sign reading: “Pollos Estilo Acapulco.” Chicken, Acapulco …

It’s a coffee roaster right across the street from a Starbucks. Too many apostrophes and a forgettable name will forever doom it to misspelled branding (including on at least one of its own signs). Furthermore, …

If you’re a San Diego beer fan visiting breweries this winter, you may notice the same beer keep showing up on tasting room menus: Resilience Butte County Proud IPA. Your eyes do not deceive you. …

Hopefully, I’m not alone in confusing San Diego’s collection of ranch communities. We have Bressi Ranch, Scripps Ranch, and Carmel Mountain Ranch, plus lesser knowns Black Mountain Ranch and Fairbanks Ranch. Most are suburban enclaves …

There’s nothing easier to find in North Park than a good IPA. But a good lichtenhainer? Only one place that I know about. So, what’s a lichtenhainer? I wondered too. The unsurprising answer would be …

When word broke last year that the hip Italian restaurant in my neighborhood was opening a bodega on the same block, it primed me for a 2018 anticipating all the authentic, imported delights it would …

Turns out, I’ve been ordering cashew chicken all wrong. I’ve been doing so since my picky teens, when I was the opposite of an adventurous eater at Chinese and Thai restaurants. Probably for that reason, …

I hit Rock Bottom on a Wednesday night — the one that’s been succeeding at the brewpub thing on La Jolla Village Drive for 20 years this year. The official name is Rock Bottom Restaurant …

In the food item as bowl domain, few have impressed me so much as the caramel apple dessert offered by the new North Park coffee shop, Deja Brew Lounge. Situated in a converted craftsman bungalow …

It reads like the sort of thing you have to try at least once. A new Kearny Mesa spot called Brick Bowl dishes up a new way of eating meat, cheese, and bread. Rather than …

Credit Urban Solace as a building block to the lifestyle destination North Park has become. The neighborhood didn’t yet have that national press cachet when Solace rode a rising comfort food trend into what’s now …

The San Diego craft beer community was rocked this week by the news two of its best small breweries are in serious trouble. First, on Tuesday, Rachael and Matt Akin, the husband and wife team …

You don’t have to do anything this holiday season. Despite what the song says, you don’t have to deck the halls, join the chorus, or don any sort of gay apparel. You don’t have to …

A sign near the door of this bakery promises all goods are free of gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, tree nuts, and peanuts. What’s left? I’m forced to wonder. Starry Lane Bakery originally opened out in …

If you watched a lot of Taco Bell commercials in the late 90s, you might have been left with the impression that gorditas are large tacos made with pitas instead of tortillas. However, like a …

They call this North Park tasting room the “world’s first hard kombucha bar.” Not hard to believe given high alcohol kombucha didn’t really exist prior to spring 2016. That’s when Chula Vista-based Boochcraft took kombucha, …

Here’s an awkward faux pas: I showed up at Lane Field Park Market last Sunday expecting to buy produce. It’s not a farmers market. For one thing, there are no farmers: this weekly market is …

I should have been ordering the local catch all along. When North Park’s Beerfish first opened a couple years ago, I went for the fish and chips. They were all right. After it retooled a …

Since the day it opened in 2015, Helix Brewing Co. has offered one of the county’s most appealing places to hang out and drink beer. Though right in the thick of La Mesa’s industrial zone, …

They’ve been labeled a “viral food,” and “cult dessert,” and been likened to silicone breast implants. The Japanese call them mizu shingen mochi, but the internet really fell in love with them in 2016, when …

It’s a large plate, draped with a plantain leaf, atop which sits a stunning variety of foods. There are rice and stewed pinto beans, and potatoes. The rice is topped with a fried egg, encircled …

It’s a rare occasion we get to look at trends emerging in cities like New York and London, and say, That started in San Diego. So credit Josh Hembree and Keldon Premuda of Miramar’s Setting …

What’s the opposite of a sweet tooth? Because for a number of years in my early adulthood I was that. Making student loan payments instead of ordering dessert. Quitting soda and taking up coffee. Learning …

It’s tough to think of a peeted single malt whiskey as moonshine, especially from a recipe as old as any laws in this country. But for decades, that’s technically what Mike Curphy had been making. …

Probably one of the most urban things about downtown San Diego is its motley accumulation of restaurants. Most of the press goes to well-financed, high-volume eateries with glossy interiors, PR representation, and “up and coming” …

Usually San Ysidro means a trip through the world’s busiest border crossing and, ipso facto, tacos for lunch. But this time I’m taking the second to LAST USA EXIT in search of bone marrow. And …

Back in September, in what has become an autumn tradition, the Great American Beer Festival heaped loads of recognition upon the general greatness of San Diego beer. Area breweries claimed five golds en route to …

“There are two sides to every story.” This phrase has been following me around for several weeks. Maybe it’s the alternative facts-age replacement for that cliché of acceptance, “It is what it is.” Whatever the …

I don’t suppose many readers have occasion to go out in Escondido’s eastern sprawl for carne asada. I doubt most of us need to travel a mile to find a choice of spots serving it. …

Drums, giants, and Mother GooseStargazing in Anza-Borrego652 Palm Canyon DriveBorrego SpringsWinter FunIllustration by Ted SkirvanThis year, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park was officially designated an International Dark Sky Community, thanks to years of concerted effort to …

When I heard about a new mariscos food truck parking in Golden Hill, I started fluttering around it like a moth on a porchlight. Mariscos El Chingon has started parking daily in front of Anakin’s …

Pouring nearly 50 distinct brewery collaboration beers this year, the Karl Strauss Brewing beer week party dubbed Collabapalooza (November 10) showcases a San Diego brewing community that remains for the most part interconnected and mutually …

Most breakfast menus tend to be long reads, just not very interesting ones. You’ll find an entire section dedicated to all the predictable variations of eggs, meat, potatoes and toast. Another to pancakes and waffles. …

Let’s just call this what it is: a golden era for ice cream in San Diego. Made from scratch ice cream parlors have been opening up left and right this year, and the latest neighborhood …