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 …

It’s Hard to Eat With a Paper Bag Over My Head by Naomi Wise I arrived in San Diego nine years ago, a well-spoiled food snob coming down (pun intended) from San Francisco like the …

I arrived in San Diego nine years ago, a well-spoiled food snob coming down (pun intended) from San Francisco like the culinary marshal sent in to clean up an untamed border town. Now, I find …

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 …

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 suddenly peppered the neighborhood — but once the rising entertainment …

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 — despite the long hours and killer commutes that initially …

“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 landward in their varied gaits and garbs. A white-sailed catamaran …

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” restaurant, a sophisticated but family-friendly indoor-outdoor bistro and wine bar. …

“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 at the height of the Depression, and Fred and Ginger …

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 really cook. Bite is one of several good restaurants now …

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 no college dining hall. (The press release says the name …

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 restaurant is otherwise identified at the door. Inside, the streetside …

Take my word, the cuisine of the Horn of Africa is fabulous — but to know that, you have to taste it; and in San Diego, relatively few people have enjoyed the pleasure. With Muzita, …

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 was: serving cook-it-yourself steaks. And now, beyond the basic green …

“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 in magazine ads for Swanson’s new canned stocks) was working …

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 it’s spelled every which way — and get an idea …

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, and I was tired of swallowing slop at any price. …

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 — the stupid economy. For seven months, I’ve been trying …

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 snuggle-up time. Or hoping-to-get-lucky night. The chefs await you with …

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 a local institution. The mini-chain was established back in 1967, …

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 Philippe Beltran and Jerome Gombert chose to open an eclectic …

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 in rotten weather — all that warming olive oil and …

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? A year ago, the glitzy openings of Quarter Kitchen at …

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 legendary handmade salumi from scratch. But, with that out of …

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 accompaniment of lilting Brazilian pop, I made a firm decision: …

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” cuisine fermenting during those years. That was also the period …

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 chef Jonathan Pflueger departed (assisted by a gentle kick in …

This restaurant is closed. 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 in its neighborhood. As for depression, …

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 T-Day is also likely to serve brunch or dinner on …

The Curse of Samurai Jim struck again — third time in a row. We were heading for a new Caribbean place in the Gaslamp, but when we called for a res, the phones were disconnected. …

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 own manure, they lead short, unhealthy lives and periodically pass …

This restaurant is closed. 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 of the meatloaf at Maryjane’s. This …

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 pen-pals, a UCSD social science prof (another expat New Yorker), …

"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 of those Hollywood/Park Avenue size-two types who lunch on a …

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, school-cafeteria lunches, Dick and Jane, et al. Your second childhood …

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 the county’s top chefs and held at several of the …

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 from a stylish stainless spoon to a grease-stained tin fork. …

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 in the window, announcing a new sushi bar with a …

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 of culinary gambol. (Not gamble — I didn’t taste anything …

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 the way but has such a distinctive character that going …

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 a pakora, a poori from a naan. Well, we can’t …

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 years ago, and Aidells's original creations were the start of …

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 minutes from home via my favorite scenic “Secret Freeway” (Pershing …

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. The food was vastly better, the wine list more interesting …

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 him wherever he goes.” Change the last word of the …

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. The mare, ready for her close-up, looked right into the …

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 six-mile run in the morning, and smart, pretty blondes. When …

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 month in a middle-class, family-oriented Deco hotel in South Miami …

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 off San Diego’s shoreline beauty, while sharing food that everyone …

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 the food, and then the second-to-last owner complained that our …