San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour: Recent Episodes
San Diego Magazine
Troy Johnson and David Martin talk dining out, drinking up and what’s making news on the restaurant scene.
This week’s Happy Half Hour features mother-and-son duo Lia and Spencer Hunter of Lia’s Lumpia. Their come-up story is a fascinating blend of family tradition, cultural preservation, and innovative culinary fusion that began long before the Hunters’ foray into food competition TV. Spencer learned how to roll the thumb-thin Filipino fried and stuffed rolls from his mom, who learned from her mother, Spencer’s grandmother, who opened the first Filipino restaurant in National City, called San-Loy’s Lumpia and Food To Go. After stints cooking for the Malarkey universe and in the Panamanian jungle, he and his mom decided to strike out on their own with their unique soul food lumpia and other fusion dishes.
If your time spent in OB and Point Loma spans decades, not just years, you likely know all about the Coulon family, proprietors of the well-loved but now-shuttered Belgian Lion. And there’s a good chance that you also know about their granddaughters, Anne-Marie, Jacqueline, and Dominique, who own Point Loma’s The Little Lion, now entering its tenth year of service. Chef and co-owner Anne-Marie joins Happy Half Hour to talk about her family’s storied culinary history and deep roots in OB, what it was like growing up in a restaurant kitchen, and the challenges of running a small but beloved restaurant in an increasingly expensive San Diego.
Martin Short is the Current Mayor of This Food-and-Drink-Obsessed San Diego County Town by San Diego Magazine
This week, Troy and Jackie are joined by Doug Haster, master brewer at Mission Valley’s Puesto Cervecería. Hasker goes way back with beer in this town–he moved to San Diego in 1998 to head brewing at Gordon Biersch’s then-Mission Valley location and stayed until Biersch sold its operations to Puesto in 2019. Not ready to hang up his skates, he stuck with the Puesto folks, tweaked his brewing style from German to Mexican lagers, and carried on the building’s legacy of being home to some of San Diego’s finest suds. These days, Hasker is catching attention for the beer he brewed for the Padres, Puesto’s Clara. He tells us about this special beer and shares stories from his decades spent brewing beer in San Diego.
We’ve got a Happy Half Hour double-header today: chef Michael Vaughn, who is coming up on his first year at the helm of La Jolla’s iconic Marine Room, and also Baja-based superstar Javier Plascencia, whose under-a-200-year-old-oak tree restaurant Animalón just got a Michelin Star. Both chat philosophy, process, and their cooking histories, and as a special bonus, Plascencia drops the details on his super special festival for the 100th anniversary of the Caesar salad.
For podcasts like Happy Half Hour, events like the fair are basically our Christmas. Yeah, we love the rides, the activations, the camaraderie, the merriment. But to be totally honest, we’re here for the food. Dip us in corn batter and fry us. Dust some powdered sugar on our heads. Load us up with fatty, drippy, sloppy, sweet and salty goods. This episode, Troy and the crew hit up the San Diego County Fair, and they brought along Z90.3’s Rick Morton to yuk it up while they test the Fairtastic Food Competition finalists. We also had on Lori Sutherland, who owns fair favorite Tasti Chips, to weigh in. We came, we tasted, we judged, we crowned. Tune in to find out all the winners, as well as all the deets on this year's fair food.
Truffles are food gold, one of the world’s most famous ingredients. Musky, lovely, funky, delicious, expensive, and fickle as hell. Why do some of them taste like cardboard? Did you know you can grow very good ones in the U.S., but that it might take over a decade to yield your first “crop”? On this episode, we pay a visit to San Diego Magazine’s 2024 “Chef of the Year” Brad Wise. He introduces us to his truffle guy, Vincent Gentile of Seminalia Truffles. Vince worked at Alinea with famed chef Grant Achatz until he and his partner launched their own truffle business. We go into some of the myths and science of growing, sourcing, and coddling one of the world’s most rarefied ingredients. We also talk with Brad about his whole-animal butchering classes at Wise Ox, which sell-out a lot faster than expected in a post-pan food world where we’re all more interested in doing the entire food experience ourselves.
He got fired. He sold fruit out of a postal truck. He slept near the citrus. Then he and his family became the backbone of the restaurant culture in San Diego. The wild, never-give-up story of Bob Harrington, his brothers, and Specialty Produce.
This week’s Happy Half Hour takes place from one of the best perches in all of San Diego: Top of the Market. It’s a fully windowed and partially outdoor restaurant, separate and with a more fine dining or special occasion bent than its counterpart downstairs, the equally beloved and lauded Fish Market. To our front is sprawling views of Coronado and the bay. Directly to the right, the Midway, and to the left, a bunch of hotels, docks, and the Coronado Bridge. We sat down with Top of the Market’s executive chef, Robin James, who is, in my opinion, the most San Diego San Diegan to ever do it. His first cooking job was on the line at the iconic Anthony’s Fish Grotto. After that, he got his cooking degree at the Art Institute and became the executive chef at The University Club and Bali Hai. These days, he’s slinging creative seafood dishes at Top of the Market. But what makes him deeply San Diego, despite his life resume and of course being born here, is that his parents met while working at Jack-in-the-box. Come on. He’s a living local legend, and we get the story of his parents’ meet-cute in the episode. In addition to his hometown bonafides, James is a serious cook with an Escoffier tattoo, who is consistently trying to take things to the next level. He said he was always a tinkerer, experimenting with ingredients, often ones that don’t seem to make much sense together, to see what happens. He said he did a lot of that during Covid, while temporarily laid off from work, itching to create, and now he’s stretching his wings more with his seafood menu. One of his more surprising dishes on Top of the Market’s current list are seared sea scallops with Spanish chorizo, dehydrated mushrooms, and big white beans. Scallops, mushrooms, and beans isn’t a dish I knew I wanted, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. James is also cooking an Alaskan halibut on the menu with many green, spring flavors, and served with a punchy tzatziki heavy on the cucumber; he also has a seared octopus served over hummus with pickled red onions and mandolined radishes. There are crudos, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s a chocolate cake a-la Elvis, with bananas, bacon and honey. James assured us there are plenty of classics on the menu, too, like Top of the Market’s famed cioppino, a hearty fish stew the restaurant has been serving for decades. There’s good drinking at Top of the Market, too, James assures us, and the wine list is evidence of that. James and his team have been running thrice yearly wine dinners with top California producers—the next is in September, with Grgich Hills. In the meantime, they also have one of San Diego’s best wine steals: a list of 30 bottles of wine for $30, every Tuesday. We’re not talking two buck chuck or plonk; this is from the real wine list, made specially available for those extra fun people who want to clink glasses on a Tuesday. We also talked the news in this episode: Baja came up big in the reveal of Michelin’s first guide to Mexico. The French tire company gave one star to Animalon (Javier Plascencia and Oscar Torres), Damiana (Esteban Lluis), and Conchas de Piedra (Drew Deckman and Hugo D’Acosta). Many other Baja California restaurants were recommended or named bib gourmands. Taste of Little Italy will be returning on June 18 and 19, 2024 with over 40 restaurants. And OB’s Gianni Buomono Vintners is moving away from its long-held Newport Ave. spot. It’ll be opening near Sports Arena soon.
This week we got out-broadcasted on Happy Half Hour, and we couldn’t be more honored to pass the torch, to, as Troy dubbed it, “the best monosyllabic baseball broadcast duo in the major leagues.” The crew went to Petco Park ahead of the start of the Padres/Rockies series to chat with the voices of the franchise, Don Orsillo and Mark Grant (the Friars lost last night, but there’s another game beginning as I type. Go Padres!). Orsillo and Grant are better known to the masses as Don and Mud, the announcers of our beloved Major League Baseball franchise. The voices of the Friar Faithful, or, as we like to call it, two brotherly types yukking it up as if they were hanging out on a fishing pier, or, as so many fans like to imagine, in our own living rooms. Mud’s been with the team as PadresTV’s color analyst for 29 years, since 2024. He actually pitched for the Padres from 1987 to 90, and was originally selected by the San Francisco Giants with the 10th pick in the first round of the 1981 Draft out of Joliet (IL) Catholic High School. He played parts of eight Major League seasons with San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston and Colorado before retiring from the sport 1995 and beginning his broadcasting career as a sports anchor at KMFB Radio, eventually moving to the Padres airwaves over time. Outside of baseball, he’s a passionate advocate for the Down Syndrome Association of San Diego, as well as the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of San Diego and St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center in El Cajon. Orsillo, beloved throughout the country and the MLB for his 15-year-long tenure at the Red Sox before joining the Padres in 2016, also calls nationally broadcasted MLB games for FOX, FS1 and TBS during the regular season. His numerous accolades include five Emmy Awards for outstanding play-by-play (2003 and 2004 with Boston, 2018, 2019 and 2022 with the Padres) and two New England Sports Best Play-by-Play awards (2014 and 2015). The current Coronado resident and lifelong broadcaster was named Massachusetts Broadcaster of the year twice in 2005 and 2015, and, through his role with the Red Sox, has also appeared in a few movies, including 2013’s The Heat, 2010’s The Town and 2005’s Fever Pitch. Orsillo is also, we learn in this episode, a cult-famous home cook, regularly cooking for friends and enjoying his wares so much that–we also learn!!—he has never tried Petco Park stadium food. No Cardiff Seaside Market tri-tip, no An’s Dry Cleaning Gelato. Nary a Board-n-Brew Turknado in sight. He tells us that it’s hard to get up, considering his job requires him to be tied to a mic. But the real reason he doesn’t dabble in Petco’s many incredible food options is that he’s such a good cook, he just doesn’t really need to eat anyone else’s food (which we respect on this here food podcast). Unable to resist the obvious temptation at hand, and being the friendly trolls that we are, Mud, along with the hosts, ushers Orsillo into his first-ever stadium bite on this show. I won’t spoil the goods here, but it’s worth tuning in to find out because it includes a fried fusion mash-up dish that’s likely to become a Petco Park food icon after this season ends. There’s a lot more brotherly banter to go around, and the truth is it’s best heard wherever you listen to your podcasts, and probably not in this written post, owing to the fact we are talking to some of the most celebrated broadcasters in the game. But we also talk the news: CH is bringing pan-Middle Eastern cuisine to North Park, Rancho Valencia is launching a summer dinner series with newly minted Michelin-starred Baja chef Javier Plascencia, as well as Fauna’s David Castro Hussong, and Izola is staying in East Village by opening its new, enormous Fault Line Park storefront soon.
Did you know one of the country’s most celebrated sommeliers lives and works in San Diego? It’s true! This week, we welcomed Coco Randolph of Black Radish and San Francisco’s Californios to the Happy Half Hour podcast. Randolph is new-ish to town, having moved here about a year and a half ago from San Francisco, where she helped her family run two Michelin-starred Californios. Her sister is married to its decorated chef, Val Cantu, and the whole Randolph clan (plus Cantu) started the restaurant in 2013. Since then, Californios has been granted many awards and accolades from various organizations (like Michelin), including for its wine program, which is under Randolph's direction. When her Texas-born-and-raised family first embarked upon opening a restaurant, the clan tasked Randolph with being its sommelier as well as the general manager. No idle hands in this crew. The only problem was that Randolph knew little about wine, though she knew she loved Mexican food after having lived there for years following homeschooling and graduating from Texas Tech. No problem. She’s an autodidact, sharp as a whip, and incredibly ambitious. She picked up a copy of The Wine Bible, studying obsessively every second she wasn’t working Californios’ front-of-house. In 2015, just two years after opening, Michelin awarded Californios its first star. By 2017, the restaurant had the distinction of being the world’s only two-star Michelin spot focused on Mexican cuisine. And Randolph’s wine program, which started as a list with a dozen producers and had expanded to a cellar boasting hundreds of the world’s finest vintages and rarest allocations in less than a decade, was awarded the Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator and the Best Wine Restaurants nod from Wine Enthusiast. In 2021, Randolph was awarded Michelin’s first-ever Sommelier of the Year designation; she was just one of two somms to receive the nod. While she’s still involved with Californios and the family from afar, her heart and body are very much in San Diego. She’s growing Black Radish’s wine program exponentially by regularly bringing top producers to town for special wine dinners and other events. And there’s more good news. “I moved here for my lover boy!” Coco excitedly exclaims any time anyone gives her the chance. She didn’t come here for food or wine, but for love, which to me signals she’s planting deep roots. “It’s true, we are fully staying here, building a life,” Randolph confirms. Expect to hear a lot more from Coco wherever anyone’s pouring grape juice in town. In addition to trying some of Coco’s wine selections, of which you can hear more about in the episode, we also talk about the news. Crack Shack is opening its fifth location in Pacific Beach; even more Korean Fried Chicken called Season Ave is arriving to Clairemont Mesa; Eleven Madison Park and Herb & Wood alum Sebastian Becerra is opening Peruvian spot Pepino in La Jolla to much fanfare; Gator by the Bay is in town once again beginning May 9, and Oddish Wine turns 1 on May 11.
Sometimes, it’s the most fun to chop it up with friends. And when your friends include legendary sushi chefs and top DJs, all the better. This week we brought to Happy Half Hour Chris Cantore, a former voice across San Diego’s radio airwaves, and his long-time buddy, North County sushi chef Tyler Mars. Troy goes way back with the duo, having been both a music and food journalist during his career.The pair just launched Needlefish, an omakase and record-spinning pop-up that they plan to take around San Diego, and hope to one day make a brick-and-mortar location. In fact, they held their first event for SDM staff just a few weeks ago to rave reviews.The idea is simple: fresh fish and good tunes, vinyl-only. Cantore says he likes to bring back the classics, like 90’s hip-hop, punk, and stoner rock like Queens of the Stone Age. Tyler pairs that with his own sliced fish creations, served on warm vinegared rice and usually in combination with other condiments and ingredients you haven’t experienced eating sushi before (think thin-sliced prime rib eye and chimichurri, for a non-fish example). Though Needlefish is new, the duo’s idea is not. They both wanted to open up a spot together 25 years ago. But they were scared, and life happened. So did kids, and marriages, and careers, and the transitions of said careers, and Mars’ eventual cancer diagnosis. The latter came in 2021 but Mars is now in remission. “It’s really because of what happened to Tyler that we finally had the courage to pull the trigger on this,” Cantore says. “We realized that life is short, and you don’t know how much time you have left. You have to do what you love to do, and this is what we love to do.”Stay tuned to our pages to find out more about where these guys will be popping up and when. Follow them on @needlefishco on Instagram for the latest updates.We also chat other food news around town including our Best Restaurants issue! Mission Hills’ jewel Wolf in the Woods took home the top prize of Best Restaurant, while North County brunch temple Atelier Manna won Best New Restaurant. Check out all the other critics’ and readers’ picks here. Basic Pizza is also closing its doors, which opened in 2006, when Petco Park was just two years old. It’s moving to the other side of the park, though, so fret not (and, also, it’s the same owner as all the URBN restaurants with similar menus). And, finally, beloved LA Japanese chain Katsuya is coming to UTC with Katsuya Ko, which offers more of an izakaya-style menu geared towards younger consumers.
Jordan Howlett just needs a minute. Give him that, and he’s liable to have you hooked. Thanks to his highly recognizable, signature mirror-selfie videos, Howlett (San Diego Magazine’s cover star for our 2024 Best Restaurants issue) has amassed upwards of 30 million followers across his social channels by sharing fast food hacks and wisdom with deadpan delivery and a genuine love of food. Some 70 million people see his videos every month on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. He's a one-minute, one-man daily Netflix special.But it hasn’t been easy. Growing up financially strapped meant that Howlett’s opportunities were often limited. Stress has been a theme. He’s been belittled and bullied. He slept in his car while chasing a dream. It took a maniacal work ethic and healthy amount of delusion to propel him to the social media stratosphere.“I didn’t realize how creative my parents were until I realized just how much we were really struggling,” Howlett tells us in this episode of Happy Half Hour.Born in LA County, Howlett moved to Oceanside in the fourth grade after spending his early life in the desert town of Victorville. Howlett began attending Oceanside High as a sophomore, where he joined the baseball team. “Originally, I was thinking maybe football,” Howlett says. “I’m on my way to the football field and the baseball coach sees me, and he points me right at the baseball field and says, ‘Why don’t you go over there?’”That interception changed the course of Howlett’s life.At 16, with no sports experience, Howlett became hooked on baseball. Before long, he started dreaming of playing Division 1 ball. He wanted to go pro. But his teammates had been playing since preschool. Howlett had some catching up to do and 100 people—teammates, coaches, everyone—telling him he had no chance. But Howlett didn’t care. He just got to work, training every spare minute, working three times harder than everyone else.It paid off. Howlett found himself on fields he was never supposed to see… at least until Covid killed his baseball career. Then it was back to low-wage fast food jobs—until that work ethic came in handy for growing a social media audience.In this episode of HHH, Howlett joins us in the studio to recount his childhood in Oceanside, his path from awkward high school baseball wannabe to Division 1 athlete, and his road to internet superstardom. Along the way he recalls how his Fast Food Secrets Club came to be, recoils from pickle pizza, and tells us about one of his absolute favorite local spots to eat. Want to see his videos? Follow him at @jordan_the_stallion8.
This week’s Happy Half Hour extra special guest is a longtime friend of San Diego Magazine, Feeding San Diego. If you tune into our channels, this fantastic organization probably doesn’t need much of an introduction. And if you’re lucky, you would have caught Troy emceeing their gala last month (in a sequin jacket, of course).But for the uninitiated, Feeding San Diego is easily one of the most impressive non-profits in town. We’ve covered food insecurity before in the magazine’s pages. Through our other partnerships with the organization on social media and online, and in this episode, we continue to shed light on one of our region’s most dire problems. In partnership with a network of nearly 350 local community organizations, including local charities, schools, faith communities, healthcare providers, and meal sites, Feeding San Diego collects food and financial donations, moves and distributes food to communities who need it, and advocates to end hunger. Feeding America says nearly 300,000 people in San Diego County, including almost 80,000 children, are hungry. Feeding San Diego is Feeding America’s only local partner food bank, established in 2007, and beyond just banking and distributing food, it rescues 1.2 million pounds of high-quality, edible surplus food monthly from local grocery stores alone. It also manages around 875 pickups of food donations a week from local retailers and provides food assistance to kids, families, seniors, college students, military families, veterans, and the unhoused via about 300 food distribution sites around San Diego County.“There are many faces of hunger,” says Kate Garrett, Feeding San Diego’s Director of Supply Chain, who represented the organization on this episode. “It can be your neighbor, a coworker, a kid your child goes to school with, seniors on fixed incomes living in rural towns, military families, and veterans. Hunger can affect anyone.”Garrett, who in a past life was once a zookeeper at a zoo in Greece and is an accomplished horseback rider, has been with the organization for over six years and was a shortlisted nominee of the Food Chain Global Youth Champion Award in 2022. She’s responsible for figuring out the logistics of all the aforementioned, which is no small task considering the numbers involved. One of the biggest misconceptions about food rescue and re-distribution, Garrett says, is that people assume the food collected is expired or somehow lesser quality. “Our goal is to make food as accessible as possible,” she says. “And not just any food, but edible and nutritious food. Want to make sure that what we're providing is really high-quality and good for people to eat.” She adds that the food they collect is merely surplus, meaning it is still perfectly edible and within sell and use-by dates. A good example she gives is supermarket bread: it’s baked fresh every day, but not every loaf will sell, and they are required to throw it out at the end of the day. It’s still in perfect, fresh condition, of course. But now it’s become surplus. That’s where Feeding San Diego comes in, to give just one example of what they do and the types of logistics Garret manages.In addition to solving local hunger issues (one can dream), we also talked about local food news. Donut Bar opened its augmented reality donut experience on Columbia Street near the waterfront (and SDM HQ), Anime’s Tara Monsod is a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef, California award (the first from San Diego to get this far, ever!), and Shorebird Restaurant, which has outposts in Newport Beach, Palm Desert, and Sedona under the WildThyme Restaurant Group umbrella, will open in Seaport Village some time in 2024.
Our Happy Half Hour guest today is the local chapter CEO of probably one of the most beloved and recognizable charities in the world: The Make-A-Wish Foundation, San Diego chapter. We invited Suzanne Husby, who garnered her title in 2021, to talk all things Make-a-Wish at Matsu in Oceanside. Husby has been with the foundation for 17 years, moving up the ranks from intern to wish coordinator, a few more big titles, and finally ending up as chapter CEO most recently. Her specialty was overseeing wish-granting operations, volunteer management, and medical outreach, and she was key in granting a whopping more than 3,200 wishes for local children. Recently, the Foundation decided to partner with executive chef/owner William Eick of Matsu to host their upcoming gala and collaborate on special appearances to benefit Make-A-Wish. When gala chair Dai Logan first approached chef Eick, it was instant kismet. Logan had been a superfan of the chef while chef Eick has always had big heart for the organization. The pair formed a new friendship and partnership shortly after.In the episode, Husby chats wish fulfillment and details several wish-making missions that have taken place in San Diego during her decades-long tenure at the organization. As we chat, Logan opens up about her Happy Half Hour fandom as well as her recent trip to Japan, during which she existed solely on chef Eick’s recommendations, and shares a special bottle of sake with us that she brought back to the states. Finally, we get the scoop on the foundation’s Make-a-Wish gala which takes place on October 12 at the Park Hyatt Aviara with chef Eick.Closing out the show, Troy discovers radishes at Marisi; Jackie finally finds NY-style pizza that she likes; 24 Suns pop-up is teaming up with IRS Cocktails to open Swan & Fox in Oceanside; the Puesto group is opening a CDMX-style restaurant at The Headquarters; and The Del is opening beer spot The Laundry Pub as part of its new sprawling reno.
“Close my eyes, she's somehow closer now / Softly smile, I know she must be kind / When I look in her eyes / She goes with me to a blossom world”The lyrics to the iconic Beach Boys song “Good Vibrations,” penned in part by Mike Love, are likely about a woman from long ago. But they could just as easily be about the flavors and sensations from his brand new rum, Club Kokomo Spirits.We had Love in-house along with his children who work for the spirits company to chat all things San Diego, award-winning rum, and good vibes on this week’s Happy Half Hour.Also joining us was Geoff Longenecker of Seven Caves, the brand's distiller, who was shaking up mojitos for us in real-time. In case you aren't already aware, he’s one of the preeminent spirits distillers in San Diego. “It’s pretty damn good, isn’t it?” Love whispered loudly to me, leaning in as he sipped. Indeed.Both Love and The Beach Boys have a storied history in San Diego. They shot the Pet Sounds album cover at the San Diego Zoo. They played countless concerts at the Rady’s Shell, Del Mar Fairgrounds, and what was formerly Jack Murphy Stadium; Mike Love used to live in Rancho Santa Fe (where his daughter went to Cathedral Catholic); and, of course, the fact that it’s distilled right here.Love’s aspirations started years ago when he was enjoying a “perfect” mojito in New York with his wife, Jacquelyne, while humming the chorus of his co-authored hit song, “Kokomo.” His penchant for wordplay took over as he uttered the word “Kokomojito,” and ever since, Mike’s dream has been to share the spirit of Kokomo with the world, he says.Currently, Club Kokomo Spirits makes award-winning rum and gin-based canned cocktails and a line of bottled rums. The company prides itself on using high-quality ingredients, including natural sugars and flavors, like a unique blend of demerara cane sugar rum and traditional Jamaican pot still rum.“Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya / Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama / Key Largo, Montego / Baby, why don't we go? / Jamaica…”Again, the song is about something else, right? Or…? Love says, “Kokomo is a state of mind.” He smiles and takes a sip, and grins once again.
Everyone’s favorite Mission Hills karaoke joint, the Lamplighter, has brought its talents down the hill to the Gaslamp—and so has this podcast. The team, led by fourth-generation bar owner Frankie Sciuto, launched the Gaslamplighter, a new upscale cocktail and karaoke bar, in January. Sciuto joins us on the Happy Half Hour podcast today as we check out the bar’s digs.Sciuto hopes the Gaslamplighter will become the go-to spot for San Diego’s nightlife scene, like its successful sister hangs, The Lamplighter and Side Bar. (In other words, it's not just a joint for tourists.) “It’s an honor to follow in my family’s footsteps,” he adds. “After working through the ranks in the nightlife industry from a barback to a bar owner, I am incredibly proud to bring this concept to life.”Surely you’ve heard that the “mob wife” aesthetic is trending on the internet? The Gaslamplighter is that brought to life, and it’s a blast. Designed by GTC Design Studios, the 1,600-square-foot venue took over Ciro’s Pizzeria and Beerhouse. Sciuto says the bar pairs “classic style with a vintage-industrial 1920s flare,” which he hopes invokes nostalgia for better bar-drinking and song-singing days. It’s intended to look like an art-deco speakeasy, with shades of green and navy and plenty of rose-gold metal.Of course, the drinks add to the glitz and glamor. Its cocktails have a luxury bent: Picture a white negroni topped with 24-karat gold, a carajillo, and an “Instagrammable” dirty martini with caviar. Guests will also find a mocktail menu and many more options.Karaoke runs from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. You can sign up the old-school way by putting your name down on a sheet at the DJ booth, but you might want to warm up those vocal cords first—your rendition of “Sweet Caroline” may be followed by a surprise performance from a local underground star. Guests can book private booths or opt for bar seating, and the whole space is available for private rental.Of course, the Gaslamplighter isn’t the only hot spot downtown. News today focuses on the neighborhood, especially with the Pads’ home opener happening this weekend. Otay Mesa’s Vega Caffe replaced Lolitas next to Petco Park with an expanded menu, and Puesto brought back cans of Clara, its 4.7 percent ABV Mexican lager, to Petco Park. Plus, the owners of Verant Group (which is behind such lauded locales as Barleymash, Mavericks Beach Club, Tavern at the Beach, and Sandbar) are opening a new hotel called Casa Nova in Valle de Guadalupe with other partners.
If you received this month’s San Diego Magazine, you already know about Warung RieRie. Happy Half Hour host and food critic Troy Johnson dubbed it “the star of the city's thrilling backyard restaurant scene.”Wait. There’s a thrilling backyard restaurant scene in San Diego? Indeed, there is, and the individual restaurants are formally dubbed MEHKOs—Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations.We had Chef Rie Sims and her right hand—husband, sous chef, host, and marketing manager Dave Sims—in to talk about their Sumatran hut that they transported via Bali to their Serra Mesa backyard. In that hut is Warung RieRie, a fine dining restaurant operated out of their home kitchen.“For chefs like Rie, MEHKOs are a way in, or just a different way,” writes Johnson in this month’s review. “Few people can afford to open a restaurant, which can run (at the very lowest end) tens of thousands to millions of dollars and lock dreamers into long-term leases. In 2013, California implemented the Homemade Food Act, allowing anyone to make and sell low-risk foods (granola, jam, the like) out of their homes. Hot meals were a no-go, deemed too dangerous.”“But on Jan. 1, 2019, AB 626 allowed cooks in California to run restaurants out of their homes, serving all but the most notorious get-sick foods (like oysters and tartare). The new restaurants were called MEHKOs.”With a year-long waitlist, Warung RieRie is undoubtedly the city’s most famous backyard joint. We hear about the couple’s movie-worthy love story, their journey from Bali to the US, Rie’s former career as one of the most prominent film directors in Indonesia, and that time she cooked traditional Indonesian food for the Indonesian Prime Minister.As for news, we discuss LA-based Brewjeria Company opening in Chula Vista; Padres will re-debut their “Clara” beer at Petco Park; and Vega Caffe will open just next to the park, as well.
Stop us if you’ve heard the Happy Half Hour cast claim a particular food item was the “best in San Diego” before (to be fair, San Diego Magazine devotes an entire issue to the topic). If we assign superlatives, we tend to stand behind them, so buckle up for the following: We’ve found the best falafel in San Diego. Hands down, bar none, et cetera. Falafel Heights takes up a small storefront on 30th, near Lincoln, in North Park. This block, formerly decrepit due to many closures (Toronado, Streetcar Merchants, and others), is about to veritably pop off. Falafel Heights opened last fall, high-end dive Happy Medium (by Fernside, SDCM, and former CH barkeeps Christian Siglin and Eric Johnson) opened last week, CH’s new Persian spot is currently under construction, and Saigon Coffee is just across the street, as is Second Chance Brewing, and other businesses. Owner and founder Lialie Ibrahim, a staple in San Diego’s running community, opened Falafel Heights after years of pop-ups and people goading her into sharing her exceptionally poppable treats. See, falafel comes in many forms. There’s Egyptian falafel, which is large–almost bready. Baked Lebanese falafel fits in the palm of your hand. Ibrahim’s falafel—quarter-sized balls deep-fried and served street-style as she experienced in Palestine’s West Bank, where she has lived—is meant to be popped as finger food. Dipped in sauces, loaded on fries, or served in a wrap or bowl. It’s addictive, and when served with one of her many sauces, including a hard-to-find Iraqi mango amma, I promise it will stick in your memory.Ibrahim is originally from the Bay Area, where her Palestinian parents settled after immigrating to the United States. She tried her hand at journalism, doing mostly radio work before moving to San Diego. While here, she got into local running clubs, started making falafel for friends with her family’s recipes, and even helped her good friends (part of her running club) start a little old kombucha brand, which would eventually become Boochcraft.“Upon moving to San Diego, I wanted to taste falafel the way I fell in love with it as street food in the West Bank,” Ibrahim says of her desire to jump into the professional frying pan. “I grew up eating falafel made from scratch, which involves soaking the beans overnight, blended with fresh ingredients, and cooked upon request.” She believes that’s the only way to serve it, so that’s how it is at Falafel Heights. Fresh, hot, delicious, and plentiful. She’s even got a mascot, Phil, a walking, talking falafel wrap.In addition to stuffing our faces with chickpeas, we also talked about the news, all of which concerns North Park, and some of which I previewed earlier in this post. Happy Medium finally opened on 30th and Lincoln; Bivouac Adventure Lodge opened last week in a huge yurt-like space next to the original bar room; Trust’s Brad Wise will open a French brasserie next year on 30th and University; On March 13, Black Radish will host a five-course menu with wine pairings from Napa’s El Molino and Memento Mori; and Jersey Mikes and Belching Beaver have both opened in North Park.
To know the illustrious Tony Tee, real name Antonio Ley, is to love him. The Chula Vista-born-and-bred, man-about-town has appeared in popular shows, like Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and Vice News, and he even had a brief career as a politico after he got his law degree in Tijuana. These days, the former party promoter is running a food truck parked in North Park at Fall Brewing. Called Corazon de Torta, it specializes in guisados, and is a local favorite. It’s half of the reason we brought him on Happy Half Hour this week. The second reason? Ley recently started a tennis league in South Bay aimed at increasing Latino representation in the sport and we had the opportunity to feature his work in our February 2024 issue.Hardly an athletic guy until recently, Ley has come to love playing tennis and diving into a more athletic life. “I went into diabetic ketoacidosis one day, landed myself in the hospital, and realized I had to change my life,” he says. At the time, he was a new father who knew things needed to change, so he lost a ton of weight, quit boozing so much, and kick-started an athletic routine. He began playing tennis when he had an idea.“There was a void in the Latino tennis community,” Ley says. “[Latinos] are half of California, but, as far as I know, we have one guy, Emilio Nava, who is on the tour representing us. Pro tennis has serious Mexican and Mexican-American representation problems. It’s an accessibility problem.”To help close the gap, Ley founded the hard-court club, called Club Raquetas, in 2022, intending to introduce more Latinos to the sport. He’s the perfect spokesperson, mainly because it took him some time to get into tennis himself. Also, because he’s got a big mouth and he’s not afraid to use it.Longtime San Diegans might remember seeing a more heavyset, still boisterous Tee leading Bourdain around Tijuana in a pink limousine. They also might remember the professional Mexican basketball team he founded, called the Tijuana Zonkeys, which made Tee a convicted felon (long story). They also might have crossed paths with him during his 15 years as a club promoter south of the border. However you know him, whether it’s tennis, tacos, or Tijuana, Tony Tee is a San Diego legend. In addition to catching up with Tony, we also talked the news: beleaguered brewery Eppig Brewing will open its newest location in downtown, next to Petco Park in the former Stone location; Roman Wolves opened in Little Italy from the Rusticucina folks; Common Theory will open in South Bay this month; Coop’s BBQ is looking for some financial love; and Nat Diego just announced its summer dates (June 28 & 29).And if you’re around this weekend, come join us for our Taste of South Bay event on Sunday, February 25. There will be birria, short rib ramen, guisados, Chamangos, drinks, entertainment and Troy likely dressed in a very loud t-shirt.
I think it’s fair to claim that this week’s Happy Half Hour guest is the most special visitor we’ve ever had on the podcast (which is saying something): Jason Mraz, the two-time Grammy Award–winning singer and songwriter who has gone platinum and multi-platinum in more than 20 countries. His tune “I'm Yours” also surpassed one billion streams on Spotify and was the most-streamed song by a solo artist in the naughts. His eighth album, Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride, dropped last June. In other words, he’s kind of a big deal.Mraz lives in North County’s greater Fallbrook area, where he runs Mraz Family Farms, providing companies like Chipotle with a steady stream of San Diego County–grown avocados (and providing this podcast with great talking points). In addition to chatting about his coffee farm and avocado-growing prowess, Mraz shines a light on his upcoming Kaleidoscope community concert, which will take place at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, on Saturday, February 17 at 7 p.m and on Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets will be available via JasonMraz.com this Friday, December 15th at 10 a.m. PT.Mraz will hit the stage alongside performers from eight local arts organizations: A Step Beyond Dancers, Banding Together, Diversionary Theatre, Monarch School Project, San Diego Young Artist Music Academy, Tap Fever Studios, Tierra Caliente Academy of Arts, and Wheelchair Dancers. They’re all beneficiaries of grants from The Jason Mraz Foundation, which is dedicated to improving access to the arts for kids. It’s a cause close to Mraz’s heart for obvious reasons, considering his long, successful career in the arts. We recap it all—the open mic performance that launched his career (which Troy almost missed in favor of a punk show), the Dave Matthews endorsement that helped catapult him to fame, and, of course, his fan-favorite turn on Dancing with the Stars. “Over the past few months, I pushed myself creatively, and physically more than I have indecades,” Mraz says of his time on the show. “I revisited what it was like to be a beginner in the performing arts, to immerse myself in something completely new, finding strength, joy, self-acceptance, and pride as I learned and grew every week.”And Mraz isn’t the only one experiencing growth. We offer reports from the front of San Diego’s ever-expanding restaurant scene: First of all, a hell of a lot of fried chicken is coming to town. South Korean Fried Fave BHC Chicken will open in Sorrento Valley and Dave’s Hot Chicken will open its sixth location in Mission Valley. Plus, tapas and small grower wine spot Finca launched in North Park with a crew formerly from Juniper & Ivy, and Priscilla Curiel will open Mujer Divina on Chula Vista’s Third Avenue.See you next week!More information on the Jason Mraz Foundation:https://jasonmraz.com/foundation/https://www.instagram.com/jasonmrazfoundation/https://www.facebook.com/JasonMrazFoundation/
“It’s not just a spirits company, but a way of life.” That’s what Fierce & Kind’s owners and founders, Cyndi Smith and Basem Harb, say when talking about the ethos behind their company. In addition to peddling high-quality vodka and bourbon, Fierce & Kind donates a whopping 25 percent of net profits to charity. To learn more, we asked them to come on Happy Half Hour.Smith and Harb, former tech entrepreneurs, stopped by the SDM office one Friday with bottles in tow. Fierce & Kind’s American bourbon is aged two years and five months, clocks in at 86 proof, and drinks almost like a Scotch: It’s smooth, accessible. The cloyingly sweet aspect present in other bourbons is missing. This is intentional, Harb says. “I’m a Scotch drinker,” he tells us. He wanted to emulate some of the sippable qualities of Scotch, including its peatiness and vanilla notes. The bourbon is made with heirloom corn and other grains, adding complex flavor profiles that are missing from single-grain Scotch whiskeys.And bourbon isn’t the only creation on the distillery’s lineup that is great on the rocks. While he doesn’t mind a good cocktail, Harb prefers sipping spirits neat. He and Smith wanted to make an exceptionally drinkable vodka that could stand up on its own, sans mixers. The result is a six-times distilled vodka that’s a far cry from the Dubra handles of college lore. It’s creamy and surprisingly light on the finish. It also won gold at the 2023 TAG Las Vegas Global Spirits Competition. Harb said that he’s been doing restaurant tastings around town and may have even convinced some barkeeps to offer it as a sipper.But while the booze is fantastic, there are plenty of excellent spirits brands out there. Why buy from this one? The answer lies in ethics for those who may want to be more conscious about who they spend with. Fierce & Kind operates with an internal stock options program and equity crowdfunding campaign that is currently in-progress, making it an employee- and consumer-owned company. There’s also the aforementioned charity component, which feeds directly into The Fierce & Kind Equity Foundation. The first organization supported by the Foundation is City Heights–based Nile Sisters, which provides predominantly working-class and immigrant women training for healthcare careers. Since the brand is on the newer side, this endeavor is just getting started, but the duo said they will continue to identify and support building “economic opportunities and entrepreneurship in historically disadvantaged communities.”In addition to tasting world-class tipples, we also talk about the news. Shearwater at the Del closed and world-famous Nobu will be taking its place as the final portion of the resort’s $550 million renovation comes to a close; Vegas-based Clique Hospitality will unveil The Kitchen and The Clubhouse in Del Mar with an exec chef formerly from Miho Catering; Burgeon Beer Company opened a new Vista taproom; and Vietnamese-Latin fusion joint Chao XO just launched in National City. Two words: BIRRIA PHO. We’ll see you next week!
In case you haven’t noticed, we just debuted our first-ever issue dedicated to all things South Bay. On February 25, we are also holding our first Taste of South Bay food and drink extravaganza at Novo Brazil Brewing in Imperial Beach. In conjunction with that, we’re also asking various South Bay food folks to come on to the HHH podcast to talk about all things south of the border…of the city of San Diego, that is.This week, we asked to chat with Jose Barajas, a television chef and the owner of Mmm…Cakes, a Golden Girls-themed bakery and coffee spot on Chula Vista’s Third Avenue, near F Street. It opened in 2021 after a huge Covid derailment, a familiar tale—it was originally supposed to open in March or April 2020. And all of that after 15 years of baking in his home studio, as well as other area hotels and bakeries, culinary production teams, and on camera on several Food Network and TLC shows, like The Next Great Baker and Gingerbread Showdown.Mmm…Cakes’ decor is over-the-top, as one would expect from a Golden Girls-laden cake shop. It’s tropical, decadent, and loud, and it’s even got a vintage Tiffany lamp (Barajas told me he bought it on Amazon for a steal). “You know,” he says in the episode. “It’s gotta be good for the ‘gram!” We talk about his various inspirations and just how much damn fun it is to hang out there. Readers of the magazine can also get a peek at our host Troy Johnson’s food feature this month, which shows a few gorgeous images of the space and Barajas’ confectionary creations.Barajas shares his humble beginnings cooking at home with his mom, who decorated cakes. “I started off young, not so much cake decorating, but just cooking. Then my mom started working, and she said, “You’re helping me, so that was that.” He says he took to it because he wasn’t such a great student, but he was super into his art classes. It stuck. When he eventually started working as a dishwasher in a sushi kitchen, moving up the ranks to eventually start training as a sushi chef, he found out he had been accepted to culinary school. One baking class later, and the rest is history—Barajas is a cake guy now.We also chat about his long television career, during which he thrived on camera but especially in production, owing to his recipe he developed while at culinary school and then in his own professional kitchen. He also talks about some of his favorite spots in South Bay, and marvels at how far downtown Chula Vista has come. In food news, Tara Monsod of Animae was nominated for a James Beard award. She’s a semifinalist for Best Chef California and is San Diego’s only nominee, and Tacos El Franc is coming to National City. Earlier this week, we broke the news that the famed Tijuana taco spot will open its first U.S. location at the Westfield Plaza Bonita mall this summer, replacing Funky Fries & Burgers (we’ll call that an upgrade); CH Projects opened LouLou’s at The LaFayette Hotel and temporarily closed the beloved Starlite for renovations; downtown’s Lavo shutters after just over a year in the former Searsucker location; and a food website called “LoveFood” named Smoking Goat’s fries the best in California. We then discuss the merits of truffle fries. Thanks for tuning in. See you next week!
Avid HHH listeners will remember a few episodes back, when we announced that Ramen World, celebrity chef Lauren Lawless’ first restaurant, would open somewhere in San Diego. That opening is imminent, and so we decided to have the cooking show star and Pacific Beach native in to tell us what’s up.Ramen World’s opening is notable for a few reasons, but mostly that it’s the country’s first serve-your-own ramen joint. The model is otherwise popular in Japan and Korea, Lawless told us during the episode. This San Diego location will be the planned chain’s first location, and then she hopes to expand throughout California and to Arizona and eventually the east coast, she also explained.We wondered aloud what the experience would be like: Will there be chefs cheffing the steaming bowls right in front of our faces? Will it be gluten-friendly? How will it be priced, by weight or by ingredient, like with serve-your-own fro-yo? She shared some special details: yes, it will be gluten-friendly; there will also be packaged ramen noodles, as well as a machine cutting and serving fresh noodles for those who’d like an upgrade. She’s still working on the pricing, but thinks it’ll be somewhere in the fro-yo pricing universe.We also get to know Lawless on a personal level, too. She shares stories of the tragic death of her parents and sister, her emancipation from her family while she was still a teenager, how she overcame trauma and abuse (and how cooking played a huge role in that), and how she was working a ho-hum sales desk job when she decided to take a shot at a cooking show audition that eventually changed her life. Lawless has an engaging and warm personality, and she leads with obvious confidence, which is infectious to be around. We hope you feel it through the airwaves, and are similarly inspired about her story cooking her way up through the television ranks, which is where she first met our co-host, Troy Johnson.We also talked the news: RoseAcre, a new multi-experience, design-forward restaurant from Paul Basile and Jules Wilson has broken ground on Girard Street in La Jolla; OB’s The Joint spun off a new ramen spot called The Bowl on Newport Ave; and Spanish and California tapas and wine bar Finca will open on Grim Street in North Park by crew formerly of Juniper + Ivy.
Our HHH guest this week, the legendary Trey Foshee of George’s at the Cove, has been in San Diego’s restaurants for a long time.Actually, scratch that. He’s been in one kitchen during the entire 27 years he’s lived, cooked, and managed here, and that’s in La Jolla at George’s (and its related establishments). In an age where people hop around faster than you can post about a new job on Instagram, there’s something to be said for digging in your heels and perfecting your craft, and, in turn, turning out a generation of decorated chefs whose careers started in your kitchen. That’s exactly what Foshee has done.This year brings the 40th anniversary of the George’s empire, one of the longest-running and consistently most delicious in town. We asked Foshee to come on the pod to talk about changes to the restaurant scene and its menus over time, what he’s learned in the last few years during which he stepped out of the kitchen for the first time and into management, what working with his daughter is like, and to talk about the anniversary celebrations at the restaurant.About those celebrations, they are decidedly stacked with world-class talent, all of which began in Foshee’s George’s kitchen once-upon-a-time. Beginning in January, visiting chefs who once worked there will cook special supper club–style dinners on specific Wednesdays, with two seatings each night. Connor McVey, who went on to work in the Wolfgang Puck Universe; pastry chef Christine Rivera, who was at California Modern for a long time and helped open Sandpiper and now is the executive chef of The Bishop’s School; barkeeps Stephen Kurpinsky and Sam Peters, who helmed the Georges-centric cocktail book Neighborhoods of San Diego; and Christopher Costa of Michelin three-star Meadowood are among the notable guest chefs.Foshee also dishes on his not-so-secret but still effective weapon (and that of chefs around the county): Chino Farm. “Coming to San Diego,” he says of his move to town over two decades ago, “[Chino Farm] was a really big part of it. I won't say it's the reason we came here, but it was a really big fringe benefit. It's one of the reasons why we looked at North County to settle down in, because it's on my way to work. I can just stop off at the farm, and having them in your backyard is just a really special thing.” We also get into some news: Las Ahumaderas, the famous adobada taco spot in Tijuana, opened in Chula Vista; so did Butcher’s Plate in National City’s Market on 8th; Ambrely Ouimette told us she pulled out of her partnership with Hasekura, the omakase-only spot that will be opening in Barrio Logan above Fish Guts. She says she’s got “a full sushi restaurant” and no space, and is looking for takers…same with Hasekura, which now needs a chef; Downtown Chula Vista is hosting their annual Taste of Third event on March 21; and Oceanside’s Northern Pine Brewing Co. opened an Idaho-inspired restaurant by the same name with a former Dija Mara chef at its helm.
When your boss tells you to do something, you do it. When your boss is Troy Johnson, food critic and Chief Content Officer of San Diego Magazine, texting you: “I just left Tunaville. He’s doing amazing stuff. Get Tommy on the podcast,” well, you get Tommy Gomes on the Happy Half Hour podcast.Gomes, a commercial fisherman by trade and blood, is no stranger to the airwaves and pages of SDM. He’s been a guest on the pod a few times before, and we’ve written about him glowingly because of the work he’s doing to improve San Diego’s fisheries and the shopping options for the people who eat from them.These days, Gomes runs TunaVille, a seafood shop at Driscoll’s Wharf in San Diego Harbor that serves local, only. It opened last May. The fish is caught by residents on city boats, and is delivered 10 feet away to the storefront. “It never sees the back of a truck, our fish,” Gomes says in the episode.Tunaville is a partnership with another fisherman and local seafood icon, Mitch Conniff of Mitch’s Seafood, and a handful of other local fishing families who have bought in. Restaurants like Herb & Wood, Solare, and Juan Jasper, for example, are clients, sourcing their treats from the sea from Gomes. Gomes is also tinkering with different fish preparations, some of which we sample on air. He’s experimenting with dry aging tuna—traditions popular in Japan and Spain, for example—and he brought in everything from a gorgeous 15-week aged bluefin slab to mojama, a cured tuna muscle not unlike Jamón Ibérico. It can be found mainly on tables in bars in Southern Spain, and not many places else. Except for TunaVille.While he’s doing all this, Gomes also has a top-rated show on Outdoor Channel, aptly called The Fishmonger. In it, he travels around the country telling the stories of fishing families and their plights of declining stocks, closed fisheries, tough regulations, and other woes of a struggling American industry. We talk about all of this and other issues with sustainability and greenwashing in this episode.We also get into some news: Troy and I discussed our end-of-2023 articles detailing the best new restaurants in San Diego and dining trends we saw last year, some of which we expect to continue into next year (inflation, omakase-everything, more actually-good Italian restaurants, bakeries); cake donut wizards Sidecar Donuts will be opening a new spot on Kettner Boulevard in Little Italy; and Food Network star Lauren Lawless will be opening Ramen World, a serve-your-own spot somewhere in Mid-City.
According to some of San Diego’s finest food minds (umm, us), one of the hottest restaurants of 2023 is easily Bird Rock’s Paradisaea. The Michelin Guide thinks so, too—it recently gave the restaurant, which opened in late 2022, a special recognition for being pretty damn good (and also new).A year or so is a good length of time for a restaurant to find its groove. Ideally, the service kinks will have been worked out, the menu will have found its footing. Paradisaea’s first year also saw the departure of the restaurant’s founding chef and culinary director, Mark Welker. Jeff Armstrong stepped in to take his place. Jeff will kick off 2024 with a new menu. We brought Jeff and his boss, Paradisaea’s co-owner Zoe Kleinbub, into the studio to talk shop. Zoe is a native of Westchester County, NY. She moved to San Diego—where her husband Eric Kleinbub (also a co-owner) grew up—a handful of years ago. The Kleinbubs met moving around in San Francisco’s food circles, and, once they arrived to our sunny shores, it became crystal-clear that they had to open a restaurant here. When an iconic Bird Rock piano store hit the market four years ago, the Kleinbubs instantly moved on it. What followed—the construction and opening process—was an intense labor of love. They tiled the interiors in Josh Herman ceramics and built an expansive open kitchen at the heart of the restaurant’s dining room and operations. In this episode, we also talk about Zoe and Jeff’s long history working together and how his entry into one of Zoe’s kitchens has become a fortuitous union for everyone involved. We each take a few cracks at the restaurant’s spelling, which is difficult to nail on the first try, even for a bunch of writers. We also bungle its pronunciation a few times, but by the end, we’re flying (we promise), unnatural vowel combos hugging in tow.We also talk about the news: Jasmin and Richard Blais released Plant Forward, a cookbook not totally meatless or dairy-less, but instead centered around de-prioritizing meat on the plate; North Park’s hopeful pop-up success story, Long Story Short, is unfortunately no more after just a month of service; and The Busalacchis are back in Little Italy with Zizzo, an Italian cocktail bar serving pan-Mediterranean food. We also played “Which restaurant in North Park will open first?” which is always a fun and mind-bending exercise.Thanks for tuning into HHH this year. We will see you in 2024!
“I said to myself, this was the biggest failure of my whole life,” recalls Tiago Carneiro, founder and owner of Nova Kombucha and Novo Brazil Brewing. In this week’s episode of Happy Half Hour, he’s talking about his business’ epic near-crash-and-burn during the pandemic. Which, if you do some quick back-of-the-napkin math, wasn’t all that long ago. We learn a lot in this episode. Tiago tells us he’s from a restaurant family in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, which is the cattle- and therefore beef-producing region of the country. His dad started in bakeries (giving Tiago his first up-close look at fermentation, a big theme in his adult life) and moved on to restaurants, eventually founding a major Brazilian fast-food burger chain and craft soda brand. Tiago went to college to study engineering, only to feel the pull back to his family roots and switch gears to food science. From there, he launched an award-winning brewery that would go on to become South America’s largest and winningest.To know Tiago is to know that best is simply never enough, so he decided to try to bring his business to what he considers to be the best beer city in the world: San Diego. His wife initially wasn’t down, but she agreed to visit with a pit stop in Los Cabos. I won’t spoil the whole story here, but it involves a very long bus ride up the peninsula to Tijuana, after which the couple finally ended up in San Diego, where Novo Brazil Brewing was born in the Eastlake part of Chula Vista. Enter the pandemic, near-ruin, and a fermentation-experiment-turned-sales miracle, and we have one of San Diego’s most successful beer and kombucha stories—which is saying something in a town known worldwide for its fermented drinks.Tiago’s story is fascinating and inspiring, and it comes across best when he tells it himself. He brought infectious energy, a deep belief in God, and unmatched ambition to the podcast and SDM’s offices. That he also brought Novo’s picanha steak (in an actual cast-iron pan) and burger for us to sample didn’t hurt, either.We also learned that, once upon a time, Troy graduated from Chico State with a poetry degree and a plan to learn Brazilian Portuguese so he could teach English in Brazil. He never made it down there, but he did make his way through language lessons. It is my new favorite fact about our dear host.Speaking of hosts, I (Jackie Bryant, San Diego Magazine‘s managing editor) am joining Troy and David as a co-host. I’ll be handling the news portion of the podcast. This week, that means talking about Il Posto, a fresh Italian joint that will take the place of Eclipse Chocolate on Fern Street in South Park; the replacement of H Street’s Tacos El Gordo with a new taqueria; the arrival of Tahona Mercado in National City; and the new indoor-outdoor, multi-experience seating and dining area on the rooftop at downtown’s beloved Callie. I’ll also be writing these blog posts. Send me some tips, or feel free to just say hi.Cheers to this next era of HHH. We will see you next week!P.S. Just a quick reminder that we will be hosting our Taste of South Bay event at Novo Brazil Brewing’s Imperial Beach location, which has stunning views, the best brewery food, and a whole lot of bells and whistles from all kinds of South Bay businesses just for ticket holders. It’s on February 25, and you can buy tickets here.
“People are always like, ‘You’re a chef I’m sure you’re smoking your turkey,’” says Brad Wise, head chef and owner of Trust Restaurant Group. “But I’ve tried it every way and I’m telling you that old bag is the best.” At his restaurants, he jockeys a nightly parade of red oak to smoke and char meats into various forms of yes. But for Thanksgiving turkey—the good ‘ole Reynolds’ Oven Bag. “I told a friend to try this and he said, ‘No way.’ I said ‘OK suit yourself. He came back a week later and said, ‘OK fine I did it and you were right.’ It’s perfect. The bag basically bastes the bird in its own fat and keeps it from drying out.”This episode of Happy Half Hour, we sit down with Brad at Wise Ox, the butcher shop he took over during the pandemic. The little shop in North Park is a throwback to the days when people knew their meat guy; could ask for different cuts. Starting in the ‘80s, the butchering process was shifted further and further away from public view; little butcher shops were kind of tucked into the back of a larger grocery outlet. “I’m from Jersey,” Brad says. “On the east coast there are all these little butcher shops where you get your meat. You know the guy, he knows where the meat comes from.”On the podcast, we pester Brad for all his Thanksgiving tips. We crush one of the best Philly cheesesteaks in the city.
Susan Feniger and Liz Lachman pop. I first encountered their mutual hurricane of wit at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival. They were setting up their table to cook. It looked like a movie set. Lachman immediately cordoned me, made me one of her own. Both of them struck me as whip-smart, funny, alive.James Beard Award–winning chef Feniger and Emmy-winning filmmaker Lachman join us this week on Happy Half Hour, our podcast exploring the world and people of food. They talk life and art and their new documentary film, Susan Feniger: Forked. They’re in San Diego tomorrow to screen Forked at the Coronado Island Film Festival. They’ll watch it with the crowd of food and film people, do a Q&A, cook some food, share some food, shoot the shit.They've been married for a long while, so Forked is Lachman capturing Feniger’s life and creative process on film as only a partner could. All Feniger’s defenses are dropped. We get to see one of the country’s top chefs with her quirks and impulses laid out, vulnerable, as she takes on the maddening process of concepting a restaurant, then bringing it to life from scratch and begging the city to approve everything in a sane amount of time.Feniger has been to the mountain in the chef world. In the '80s, she was invited by her friend (and eventual restaurant partner) Mary Sue Milliken to not-so-casually break the gender barrier in a very fancy Chicago restaurant (the chef had told Milliken he didn’t hire women in the kitchen, period—she proved him wrong and brought Feniger along). The duo left to open their own restaurant in LA, Border Grill, which would become very famous and catnippy for food lovers. The duo—who bicker and play beautifully—were among the early stars of Food Network, making more than 400 episodes of their TV show, Too Hot Tamales. Feniger worked under Wolfgang Puck when he was merely a free-jazzing, mellow-cool Austrian chef making waves in LA. One day, when Border Grill’s buzz in the city was just heating up, Julia Child walked in. She and Feniger became friends. And then, after a long and fruitful working relationship with Milliken, Feniger decided it was time to do her own thing. She embarked on the seemingly endless, intricate, frustrating-as-hell road to opening another LA restaurant, Street, with a different creative partner. This is what Forked documents. It straps us to Feniger's back as she grits and hustles to execute a new dream. And she burns the salmon. Dear god, she burns the salmon. Chefs like her occasionally burn salmon. Susan Feinger: Forked will screen at Nov. 10 at 10 a.m. at the Coronado Island Film Festival.
They got weird with it, and it worked. Understory is a concept bar in the middle of a Noah’s Ark-looking food hall called Sky Deck in Del Mar, where it is surrounded by nine sit-down restaurants. “Understories” are the natural world of shade-craving trees, soils, and organisms in any forest. And so, this bar—along with its own barrel-aged boozes (their Woodford Reserve is used to make a fantastic Old Fashioned)—is filled with plants and plants and plants and white pseudo-tree limbs that look both modern and apocalyptic. It has tables made out of trees millions of years old. When fossils become bars. It’s the shared botanical booze vision of two San Diegans who’ve had success in other food realms. Scott Slater, an SDSU grad who launched his food empires in the many parking lots of Home Depots, eventually coalescing all that R&D into the better-burger enterprise known as Slater’s 50/50 (half the burger patty was beef, the other half was ground up bacon—an oh-duh idea that a billion people couldn’t believe they didn’t think of first). He’s since sold that brand and these are his new ideas. And his good friends Guillaume and Ludivine Ryon, Parisian expats who created one of the city’s finest French bakeries, Le Parfait Paris. Food courts have gone ballistic. And it makes perfect sense. Meal monogamy is out. Gone is the tyranny of forcing four or six or two friends to pick one unifying restaurant that will somehow cater to all of their dinner desires (I believe that’s called Cheesecake Factory, a wondrous place). With modern food courts like Sky Deck trade the Orange Julius and Cinnabons for omakase sushi spots and noodle restaurants and next-wave pizza places. Understory… well, that’s just the loam moat of designer drinks in the middle of all this. And probably why it’s become a hell of a first-date place in San Diego. After all, you have no idea what this new Tinder person truly wants in a meal or life, so bring them to a sea of choices and judge them by what they choose. Then un-awkward the whole night by drinking a craft cocktail in the loam. And, they have DJs (ambient chill, not oontz-oontz) on weekends. For this episode of Happy Half Hour, we sit down for drinks with Slater, Ryon, and the man who runs Understory’s day-to-day, and un-awkwards a lot of lives, Mr. Chance Curtis.
Ain’t easy being a vegan. Harder being a vegan in the Midwest in the ‘90s. Your eating options were the steamed broccoli at the steakhouse (hold the butter), some room-temp air, or learning to cook in self-defense.“That’s why I learned to cook,” says Roy Elam, chef and owner of Donna Jean in Bankers Hill. He’s wearing a death metal t-shirt in our conference room. Actually I could have that wrong. It may be doom core or emo-dream core. So many dooms and cores. Point is, he and David are really getting along on this episode of Happy Half Hour (David plays in a doom or core band you should check out, Weight of the Sun). In the September issue of San Diego Magazine, we tasked our food writer with creating the ultimate guide to plant-based restaurants, or plant-based friendly restaurants, in the city. Donna Jean is on that list. Roy’s been vegan for a few decades, having trained under one of the most-respected plant-based chefs in the country—Matthew Kenney and Scott Winegard at Plant Food in Venice, before becoming head chef at SunCafe in Studio City. He got a call from a longtime friend and one of San Diego’s most prominent plant-based restaurateurs, Mitch Wallis, who owns Evolution Fast Food and Plant Power. He had a restaurant space available, wanted to create a more modern, sleek, attractive place. Elam signed on, naming the restaurant Donna Jean in tribute to his mom, who he lost to cancer.“When she was diagnosed a second time, the doctor gave her a lot of recommendations for foods that would help,” he says. “I was helping her cook, and realized most of them were plant-based. It made me realize, ‘Why wait until something bad happens? Why not just eat more plants?” spots. “I don’t even want to be known for plant-based food,” he says. “I want to be known for just food.” For this episode, Matt comes in and talks music and food and plant-based and family. When you go to Donna Jean, try his pizza. He learned to make the dough by sitting at the counter of Tribute Pizza, asking questions, just watching. He says the cooks there have enormous patience. He’s on his 100th iteration of his dough recipe. We eat it in house amid some conversation about POD and how many hardcore bands come from church backgrounds. It’s got a garlicky white wine sauce, spinach, cashew ricotta, plant-based mozzarella, spinach, pistachio, and preserved lemon-infused olive oil. It’s named “Thunderkiss 65,” a classic White Zombie song. All his pizzas are named after bands parents hate.
On this week’s Happy Half Hour podcast…Pablo Becker named his new restaurant Fish Guts. That’s the kind of humor and gall you need to make it in life. It’s gonna make me like you. It helps that he’s using the 90 percent local seafood, the best damn things pulled off the boats a few blocks from his Barrio Logan fish sandwich-and-taco shop. “It’s crazy to me that you have the best seafood in the world right over there,” he says, pointing out of the SDM podcast studio window at the bay. “And 80-something percent of restaurants here import their fish.” I bite his sandwich. Tell him it reminds me of a Filet-O-Fish if a Filet-O-Fish used fresh local rock fish and brioche buns and the best ingredients from local farms. And if the Filet-O-Fish, all due respect, was twenty or thirty times better. It’s a fantastic sandwich, beer-battered and slathered in a just-spicy-enough Mexican tartar sauce (seared serranos, Mexican herbs). “My restaurant is like 500-square-feet,” he says. “It’s me, a plancha, and a deep fryer.”That tiny space is Pablo’s comfort zone. After it all fell apart, this kind of heads-down cooking is where he found his groove again. A San Diego native (his parents moved here from Mexico City), Pablo had been part of the opening team on Isla inside Vegas' then-newly redesigned Treasure Island. It was widely hailed as one of the best Mexican restaurants in the state. He learned restaurant operations and cooking under his famous chef cousins, Patricio and Richard Sandoval. Richard is one of the most revered Mexican chefs in the world, with 60-plus restaurants flung across the globe. In 2007, Pablo opened one of central San Diego’s first upscale, CIA-style Mexican restaurants, El Vitral. It was terrible timing, signing his lease at the top of the market when the economy was going nuts, and just months before that same economy took a floundering dive into a deep recession.“After it closed, I was going through some stuff,” he says. “My cousin called me and said, ‘We’re opening a restaurant in Chicago, why don’t you come out for a while?’ I said, ‘Nah man I’m good.’ And he said, ‘No, your dad already bought you a plane ticket you’re coming next week.’”Pablo went, figured he’d stay a month, brush the dirt off. He’d eat in their restaurant. He started bugging the cooks—nearly all first-generation Mexican-Americans—to let him cut a few things, tinker on the line. He told his cousin he was ready to get back in the game. His cousin pointed to one of the multiple restaurants they were opening, figured Pablo could run one of them. Be the boss. He was an operator, had all the skills. “No, I want to be a line cook,” Pablo told him. And for five years, a very good restaurateur just cooked. “I learned more about my Mexican culture and roots from those guys in the kitchen than I had learned all my life,” he says. “It was the best five years of my life.”Last year, he came home to San Diego. He opened Fish Guts—a simple, honest fish sandwich and taco shop in Barrio Logan from a guy with a hell of a pedigree. His mom occasionally comes down and helps out. Walk in, and you’ll probably see Pablo in that tiny space—his plancha, his fryer, his prep nook—just like the space he had as a line cook in Chicago, the space that brought him back.
A three-star Michelin chef has opened a burger joint in San Diego. It’s called Tanner’s Prime Burgers.Exclamation point. Another one. Some hyperactive emoji. Pass the fries.The chef is Brandon Rodgers, who cut his teeth in San Diego years ago. He originally moved here to work with Tony DiSalvo, a nationally known chef who was heading up the former Jack’s in La Jolla. Rodgers then joined Gavin Kaysen at El Bizcocho (now Avant). He cooked on Iron Chef with Kaysen, and their team defeated Michael Symon in “Battle Octopus.” Rodgers then went to Napa, where he spent a year at the French Laundry and met fellow chef Corey Lee. He helped Lee open Benu, and the restaurant would get three Michelin stars with Rodgers as chef de cuisine.Brandt Beef is the force behind this exclamation point. The family owned beef company in San Diego, with their headquarters above Ranch 45 in Solana Beach (their ranch is two hours east in Brawley). They’re pretty renowned in chef circles because of the ethos—a multigenerational family operation, treat their animals right, no drugs, no antibiotics, single-source beef, no B.S. Just a highly respected, small-ish operation in an industry that’s dominated by four major multinational beef companies. Tanner’s is named after Eric Brandt’s son.So this week on HHH, David and I sit down with Brandon and Eric and hear the story. And we crush a burger made with New School American Cheese (you can hear about this project in last week’s episode with chef Eric Greenspan), some beef tallow fries (the best kind), an ice cream sandwich made with beef tallow and Brandon’s wife’s cookies.It is a phenomenal burger. And Rodgers, Brandt, and Greenspan will be serving that burger, plus another specialty of Eric’s at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival this weekend.
“He was wearing two dog tags. The bullet went through the first dog tag, but the second deflected it down into his ankle. The bullet’s still in his ankle.”As Ky Phan shares on this week’s Happy Half Hour podcast, her father’s dog tag with the terrifying hole not only saved his life, but eventually became the ticket to a new life for his young family. The Phans are from a small village in South Vietnam, near a river where they would pull crabs, snails, and shrimp. They’d boil them in pots, seasoned with what grew around them—like garlic, lemongrass, lime leaf—and eat them as a family with their hands. It’s how the kids loved to eat. They had to hide that from their father—aka “Papa”—because he wanted a certain decorum and manners for his family (mom took the kids’ side, playfully acted as lookout for when he was coming home from work). During the Vietnam War, their father fought alongside the U.S. After he was shot, after that dog tag intervened, he was placed in reeducation camps (forced labor camps) by the Communist government. He remained a prisoner of war for five years. “There was a humanitarian organization that helped anyone who’d been a prisoner of war for over five years move to United States,” explains Ky in our office, seven months pregnant, using a blowtorch to melt cheese on oysters. “But there wasn’t any paperwork in war. How would you prove that you were a prisoner of war? So my dad showed them that dog tag.”The Phans settled first with family in Houston. There, their aunt showed them the art of the southern seafood boil, a spicier version of the way they’d eaten in Vietnam. Their dad worked as a nail technician (in the podcast, Ky shares the fascinating story of how Vietnamese-Americans came to dominate the nail salon industry in California, and how it’s traced back to an actress who starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds). Eventually, they relocated to San Diego. Her father ran a small fast-food restaurant in City Heights, where Ky and her sister Kim learned the business. They kept their family’s seafood boil tradition alive with backyard cookouts—hundreds of pounds of seafood on picnic tables—until they finally decided to translate that experience into their first restaurant.From day one, the line was around the block for Crab Hut. It’s a straight-forward concept—a plate filled with dungeness crab, king crab, lobster, shrimp, you name it, ladled in sauce. But it’s also a family tradition that followed them halfway across the globe, a family ritual. Their story, this week on HHH. Come meet the family and taste what they make at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival Grand Tasting on Sept. 9.
“He was wearing two dog tags. The bullet went through the first dog tag, but the second deflected it down into his ankle. The bullet’s still in his ankle.”As Ky Phan shares on this week’s Happy Half Hour podcast, her father’s dog tag with the terrifying hole not only saved his life, but eventually became the ticket to a new life for his young family. The Phans are from a small village in South Vietnam, near a river where they would pull crabs, snails, and shrimp. They’d boil them in pots, seasoned with what grew around them—like garlic, lemongrass, lime leaf—and eat them as a family with their hands. It’s how the kids loved to eat. They had to hide that from their father—aka “Papa”—because he wanted a certain decorum and manners for his family (mom took the kids’ side, playfully acted as lookout for when he was coming home from work). During the Vietnam War, their father fought alongside the U.S. After he was shot, after that dog tag intervened, he was placed in reeducation camps (forced labor camps) by the Communist government. He remained a prisoner of war for five years. “There was a humanitarian organization that helped anyone who’d been a prisoner of war for over five years move to United States,” explains Ky in our office, seven months pregnant, using a blowtorch to melt cheese on oysters. “But there wasn’t any paperwork in war. How would you prove that you were a prisoner of war? So my dad showed them that dog tag.”The Phans settled first with family in Houston. There, their aunt showed them the art of the southern seafood boil, a spicier version of the way they’d eaten in Vietnam. Their dad worked as a nail technician (in the podcast, Ky shares the fascinating story of how Vietnamese-Americans came to dominate the nail salon industry in California, and how it’s traced back to an actress who starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds). Eventually, they relocated to San Diego. Her father ran a small fast-food restaurant in City Heights, where Ky and her sister Kim learned the business. They kept their family’s seafood boil tradition alive with backyard cookouts—hundreds of pounds of seafood on picnic tables—until they finally decided to translate that experience into their first restaurant.From day one, the line was around the block for Crab Hut. It’s a straight-forward concept—a plate filled with dungeness crab, king crab, lobster, shrimp, you name it, ladled in sauce. But it’s also a family tradition that followed them halfway across the globe, a family ritual. Their story, this week on HHH. Come meet the family and taste what they make at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival Grand Tasting on Sept. 9.
Eric Greenspan didn’t do what he did—go through the years of training at the world’s best restaurants, slog and hustle and cut a metric **** ton of onions and carrots, become one of SoCal’s star chefs, make his way onto national TV, open an L.A. restaurant that earned raves from everyone, including Jonathan Gold—to become known, widely, as “the cheese guy.”
But he’s not mad at it.
“As a chef, you’re going to give me this identity and platform that will ultimately expose you to the other things I do? I’ll take it all day long,” he says.
At his former restaurant, The Foundry, instead of the usual cheese board appetizer, he decided to use the American classic–grilled cheese. It was just a different platform to expose his guests to new and interesting foods, whether it be jams or meats or sauces or pickled things. It took off. People went ape. He even wrote a cookbook,
Greenspan’s done a few big things. He beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef. But his newest project should make him an American icon if there’s any justice in the world. He reinvented American cheese.
American cheese, as most know it, is the single-serve ditty in plastic, made of powders and emulsifying agents. It is perfect as a melting agent for burgers, but not really tasty or particularly attractive, especially now that we’ve all awoken to a new dawn of truly good cheese.
So Greenspan created it. Calls it New School American Cheese.
“As a chef you’re looking at raising the quality of every ingredient, and that was always the one ingredient I couldn’t find a better version of, no better alternative,” he says.
So he created it. Real butter, real cream, aged cheese. I’ve gotten a chance to taste it on a smash burger–just a simple riff of meat, bun, and New School—and it’s fantastic. We filmed a TV segment and the whole set, even the part-time vegans, were floored.
Eric comes on the podcast to tell us the creation story. He’ll be cooking burgers and featuring New School at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival, one of its first forays into the market.
Ice cream shops don’t usually spawn modest empires—but this one did. Born and raised in Coronado, David Spatafore opened a little scoop place, MooTime Creamery, in 1998. He built it in the same neighborhood where he grew up and met his wife. Now, his food hall, Liberty Public Market—the market that started the trend in San Diego—is the epicenter of life in Point Loma. He’s got a steakhouse, Stake, and a flip-flop-and-tiki-shirt concept with The Islander, which is now home to a tiny donut shack called Dinky Donuts. Blue Bridge Hospitality is a homegrown success started with a little cream and sugar.
But today we want to talk about Little Frenchie, their Michelin-recognized spot and one of the best damn French bistros in San Diego. So we invited over the men who put the good in it: Blue Bridge exec chef Matt Sramek and VP of Operations Matt Gordon (a beloved chef in San Diego, he’s also the former owner of Urban Solace).
“We’re cooks—we think about food all day. We dream about food. We love the stress and rush of it,” Sramek says.
Sramek got his start in kitchens under chefs Bruno Lopez and Douglas Dodd before signing on as a chef de partie (line cook) for Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Beverly Hills. He landed in San Diego at Amaya, worked his way across the city, and eventually became executive sous chef for Blue Bridge.
The “pair of Matts,” as David calls them, come into the SDM podcast studios and talk about what’s made Little Frenchie such a hit (Michelin has given them a plate award three years running). They tell us about life on the island and explain their pandemic silver lining (with so much open space in Liberty Station, their market got a huge boost of traffic that hasn’t slowed down).
As always, thanks for listening.
Little Frenchie will cook Sunday, Sept. 10 at the Grand Tasting of Del Mar Wine + Food Festival.
His kitchen is under or near a tree. Lots of them. He’s got goggles on because of the smoke. The first time you see Drew Deckman weidling his giant tongs over live fire at Deckman’s en El Mogor, it feels like you’re in some sort of movie. His bed and car and clothes and family must also smell like smoke.
“The minute I first drove into Valle de Guadalupe, I knew I was home, I felt like I’d been there my whole life,” he says of Baja, Mexico’s wine region, which started humble and has now grown into an international destination 90-minutes south of the US-Mexico border. Years after starting his life there, he’d give up his U.S. citizenship to become a Mexican national. It is home.
Drew is one of the chefs cooking at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival. He’ll be at the Grand Tasting (Sept. 10 & 11). He’ll also be cooking with fellow Mexican star Benito Molina (who owns iconic restaurant Manzanilla with his chef wife, Solange Muris), Lodge at Torrey Pines exec chef Kelli Crosson, and Food Network friend (Guy’s Grocery Games, Iron Chef), Beau MacMillan. Actors Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston are also hosting the dinner with their mezcal brand, Dos Hombres.
Drew is one of the funniest, most articulate, humblest and give-a-damn people I’ve ever met. Let alone chefs. After you hear him talk for any amount of time, his college degree in philosophy from Rhodes College makes so much sense. He applies that multi-layered thinking to food, agriculture, ecology, hospitality, and wine.
He was only supposed to go to Europe for a summer and ended up staying for 10 years, cooking under Paul Bocuse, Jacques Maximin, and other icons. He was chef at Restaurant Vitus in Germany when it earned its first Michelin star. After becoming executive chef for the Four Seasons in Berlin, the hotel group transferred him to Cancun.
He comes into the San Diego Magazine offices. He opens his wine that he’s made—a cloudy low-intervention white he specifically made to go well with oysters (he’s a chef-partner in Baja Shellfish Farms), a deep, hearty red. He then rips into tales of a boy from the south who wanted to be a major league umpire but found his way into the kitchen and fell in love with people and the culture of Baja.
Lynn and Gary McLean both spent years in the military. A very serious, at times tense path. Based for most of their lives in the Bay Area, they’d spend their downtime exploring every corner of Napa and Sonoma, getting to know the winemakers, the people, the culture. It was their place, their solace. So when Gary retired (a lifelong Marine doesn’t sit still for long), they built Napatini, a wine bar in Carlsbad Village designed like the caves and architecture of their favorite place. Named Napatini, most of the wines they’re serving involve people they met in the valley. A touch of home. We sit down with them and talk about life and wine and lessons learned from fellow veterans that inspired Gary to go for it.
But first… What makes New York bagels so damn good? Yes, it’s the water. California’s bagels will never get close, but Troy says the best he’s found is Solomon Bagels & Donuts in North Park. He briefly shares the story of owner Jeffery Wong, who came out of retirement to create this just-about perfect NY-style bagel. You can try them for yourself at the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival, the big, new celebration of SD food culture on Sept. 9-11 at the Del Mar Polo Fields. In Hot Plates, Lucrezia Italian restaurant has opened in Westfield UTC, a massive concept from one of Mexico’s largest restaurant groups, whose family has ties in San Diego. Alberto Morreale (Seventh House, Farmers Bottega, Farmer’s Table) is bringing the Amalfi Coast to La Mesa with Limoncello. And Red Chickz, an LA-Based Nashville hot chicken spot that rocket-shipped on TikTok, lands in San Diego. As for Napatini, it’s one of those places where everyone seems to know the owners and each other. A sort of wine Cheers (a more than 100-year-old bar and ‘80s TV show for those Gen Zers out there). Rare feat for a new place. Their difference-maker is a wall of Enomatic machines, which pump inert argon gas into bottles, making them stay fresh for 30 to 60 days. That way, they can give people sips of wines that are often too expensive to offer by the glass. Lynn and Gary chose a more quiet section of Carlsbad, rather than the louder scene a few blocks over. The charming couple explains how they fell in love with the collaboration and happiness of Napa and Sonoma, and created this as an extension. “If you come in angry, sad, or anything other than happy, you're gonna leave happy,” says Gary. “We are too stubborn to fail.”
They’re off to a pretty hot start. Napatini opened in December of 2022 and already has 1,600 members in their loyalty club.
If there’s a formula for snagging a Michelin star, chef Roberto Alcocer doesn’t know what it is. And yet his Oceanside restaurant, Valle (2023 critic's choice for best Mexican), just received its first from the guide. On this episode of the Happy Half Hour podcast, Alcocer sits down with hosts Troy and David to discuss the achievement and the lengthy road he’s taken (passport required) to get to this point in his career. Here’s the Alcocer formula, though: Taking his staff to yoga so they can relax. Encouraging chefs that, while under him, mistakes made at his restaurant mean less slip ups when they have their own establishments. When customers are running late to Valle, he doesn’t throw out their reservation. He waits. It takes a while to get to Oceanside from San Diego, and he respects the fact that they’re making the trip to savor his food. Born in Mexico City, Alcocer grew up camping and cooking. He made his sandwiches with stinky cheese and prosciutto. “Since I was a young kid, I was a good eater,” Alcocer says. In the household he grew up in, attending university was mandatory. And he did attend so, just after he crossed the ocean to spend some years in France learning to cook the cuisine. “I fell in love with the finesse,” he says. When he was 27, and after he had returned to the states, Alcocer was cooking for San Diego Gas and Electric’s board members. That’s when the thought hit: I didn’t go all the way to France as a teenager to just make grilled chicken salads. Dipping into the savings and encouraged by his wife, Alcocer opened a spot that started with chairs and a rented porta-potty. The restaurant’s name? Malva, now one of Ensenada’s finest. Similar to Malva, Valle is Alcocer’s reminder to diners that Mexican fare can be just as elegant as French and Japanese. And Mexican cuisine is woven into the fabric of San Diego. “Growing up here, I went straight from the breast to the hot sauce,” Troy jokes. On season nine of Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain said he believed a re-evaluation of Mexican cooking was coming. Even with how delicious the cheaper options are, there’s another side to this cuisine—the side Alcocer specializes in—that many individuals are unaware of. Valle is an indicator that we’re no longer peering over the horizon; rather, this Oceanside restaurant has proven we’re starting to arrive at the final destination: a place where Mexican cuisine is as refined and respected as any other on the planet. Note: Californios in San Francisco is the only Mexican restaurant with two Michelin stars in the United States. When Alcocer came to Oceanside in 2021, he was hoping to claim a star. This month, he did just that. “I come from a country where hospitality is in our veins,” he says. If Alcocer sticks to his formula, that list of two-Michelin-starred Mexican restaurants just might get a little bigger. In Two People, Fifty Bucks, David recommends stopping for brunch at The Waverly for the Turkish poached eggs. Troy is all about the brown butter thyme sauce with ravioli at Civico 1845. And Roberto says the burgers served off the sizzling flat top at The Friendly are some of the city’s best. Listen to the full episode above, and stay tuned for next week’s episode of Happy Half Hour. Follow David on Instagram @davidelimartin, Troy Johnson @heytroyjohnson, and Roberto Alcocer @alcocerroberto.
You know that giant bin at Best Buy that carries all those DVDs? Think of this latest episode of the Happy Half Hour podcast like that bin. There’s a little bit of everything. So, prepare for a lesson on machaca and Vietnam trivia.
After finally being removed by Petco Park security, hosts Troy and David are back at the SDM office catching listeners up on all the food happenings around America’s Finest City.
The duo discuss the splashiest move yet from Consortium Holdings, the re-opening of the storied Lafayette Hotel on Monday, complete with bowling lanes, an even sexier pool, and Instagram-worthy restrooms. Zebra-prints, chandeliers, fringe, velvets, gaudy trinkets, reds, blues, greens—the new $31M hotel is straight out of a Moulin Rouge set.
In food news, after starting out as a farmers market vendor, Smokin’ J’s has opened another location in the Gaslamp Quarter. Similar to their Poway location, the joint is providing customers with brisket, pulled pork, chicken, St. Louis ribs and enough TVs to satisfy Troy and David.
Now that Michelin is finally paying attention to San Diego (thank you, Addison), North Park’s Mabel’s Gone Fishing received a Bib Gourmand and Troy shows his psychic abilities by predicting another star coming to town soon. (Days later, we learned of Valle being awarded its first Michelin star.)
Saigon Coffee has opened their first brick-and-mortar in North Park, and just like Smokin’ J’s, it started as a farmers market vendor. Vietnamese coffee traditionally takes a long time to make, but Saigon uses special filters to speed up the process. “It’s so damn delicious,” Troy says.
Brine Box also recently opened in Oceanside as a little stand on the pier dedicated to great British food and zero-waste. And it’s not all fried fare: shoutout to the seared albacore and Korean barbecue prawns.
Other openings include SoiPB from Khwanta Osanai and Truffle in North Park. With a name like that, David says you can even expect the fungi to come shaved on ice cream. Finally, Phil Esteban has opened another White Rice, this time in Linda Vista.
David and Troy end by discussing the closing of Sapporo’s Anchor Steam in San Francisco. It feels a little too close to home now that Sapporo acquired Stone Brewing Co.
Finally, in “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David recommends the wings at The Regal Beagle. “Their blue cheese dressing was very obviously homemade,” he says. Troy praises National City’s Mujer Divina and their excellent machaca.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode of Happy Half Hour and keep up with David and Troy by following them on Instagram. David can be followed @davidelimartin. Troy can be followed @heytroyjohnson.
Is it dark in here? Maybe a little. This week on Happy Half Hour, David and I invent the ways we’d like to undo this mortal coil (our deathways include expiring from overexposure to the almighty T-Swift and falling from a helicopter into a pool of sharks).
The whole point? To name what we’d eat if it was our last meal on earth. And then point you to the San Diego restaurants we suggest getting these last-meal greats.
I start with the meal I order every Sunday when the scaries hit, and just when pleasure is a life pursuit. Drunken noodles with duck. Those wide rice noodles, like some sort of overly indulgent, super-fettucini. And duck, my favorite protein. Some people say “gamey” as if it’s a bad thing. For me, “gamey” has always been a plus, something to put on a resume as a food. There are few places that still serve duck (most seem to have moved to mock duck only), so it’s Banh Thai for me.
David expresses his kinda surprising love for brunch cocktails (David is in a metal band, so I have a hard time seeing him in a sunny-happy meal experience, but maybe he owns some wide brim hats I don’t know about). And he raves about the Sakura Bloom at Morning Glory, a cocktail worth waiting for. Egg whites get whipped, the cocktail gets prepared, then gets put in the freezer for what feels like eternity. When it gets delivered, they pour the cocktail through the egg whites making them stand straight up four inches out of the glass, then garnished with a straw laid across it.
All told, on our last enjoyable meal on earth we’re headed to Chris’ Liquor, Royal Mandarin, OB Noodle House, Arlo, Cardellino, Wayfarer, Preger Brothers, Izola, Born & Raised, Costa Brava, Swami’s, Rudford’s, Krisp, Working Class, and City Dragon.
We also talk with event guru Jaclyn Lash, who books all the shows at Petco Park. Petco’s become one of the best live-concert venues in Southern Cal now, and she gives us a sneak peak at the 2023 lineup. Some of our favorites include Jimmy Eat World, Band of Horses, and Pixies.
Can you guess what we’re having at each? Email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com what you’d eat if it was your last eating, and where you’d get it. We’ll read a few on air.
Thanks for listening, y’all.
Petco Park is known for having some of the best food in baseball. They were even one of the first stadiums in the nation to bring in iconic and emerging local restaurants, craft beers, wine, and cocktails for a more upscale experience (we still love a good, classic hot dog).
On this episode of Happy Half Hour, co-hosts Troy and David get the inside scoop on the ballpark’s food and drink scene at Alesmith’s 394 bar inside of Petco. With a stadium that holds nearly 50,000 visitors, vice president of hospitality Josh Momberg says that the most challenging obstacle is serving fresh food.
It’s no joke feeding nearly 3M people each year, especially when not every visitor is there to actually watch the game. How do you keep your aunt entertained who only began watching the Padres once they started winning last year? A beautiful stadium, perfect weather, craft cocktails, and bacon-wrapped jalapenos that will immediately turn anyone into a sports fan.
Ask any attendee and you’ll likely start an argument over which restaurant inside the ballpark is the best. Hodad’s, a local favorite, often tops the list, but then again, you can’t forget about that juicy, tender Cardiff crack tri-tip nachos at Seaside Market. They’re wrong, though, it’s anything at Grand Ole BBQ y Asado.
“When we went into this mission of creating this local program, we wanted to get the best of everything so that if you only came to one place in San Diego, had three hours to watch a ballgame, you got to sample something that’s uniquely a slice of San Diego here,” Josh shares.
So, what’s new this year? Plenty. Some standouts include Mexican street corn made with chiles, fuego sauce, lime crema, and a Tahine pop rock; and fresh Blue Water Seafood’s fish tacos. Although technically introduced in 2022, Troy and David gush over Hot Hens with Petco’s executive chef Phil Dumlao. The fried chicken sandwich comes in a mini food truck carrier decked out in City Connect colors—because why not? In food news, David forgets where he lives as he brings up the upcoming Falafel Heights opening in North Park from owner Lialie Ibrahim. A Palestinian and first-generation American, Ibrahim spent more than a decade perfecting her falafel recipe and now hopes to bring those authentic Middle Eastern flavors to San Diego.
Barn Brewing closes in North Park, Young Cluck opens in Normal Heights, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream comes to North Park with an everything bagel scoop that David says “kind of tastes like garlic ice cream.”
In “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Josh shouts out The Belly of the Beast ramen at Underbelly Ramen, Phil tips his hat to the burger at The Friendly, Troy picks the vegetarian tasting menu dish at Ambrogio by Acquerello, and David goes for the motherclucker at Hillcrest’s Sunnyboy Biscuit Company.
Fair food is legendary—the logical extreme of American cuisine. The food court is Pinocchio’s island for people whose favorite invention is a deep fryer. We train for this. And this year we partnered with the San Diego County Fair to bring you the ultimate “Fairtastic Food Competition.” All told, three judges—myself, Chris Stone of @sdfoodies, and Nirit Wigdor of @sandiegoeats—tasted 36 dishes across six categories and named six of the best things to eat at the fair. One of my favorite humans, Rick Morton of Z90, emceed the marathon tasting.
It was a friendly competition. Light bragging rights. But here’s the real reason why we did this: people like Gigi Horowitz of Mom’s Bakeshoppe. “We all live together back there, it’s a community,” Gigi says. “Our kids grew up together, some of them got married.”
And people like Charlie Boghosian of Chicken Charlie’s. Charlie came to the US from Syria, hoped to work for the FBI. Instead, he invented what is perhaps the defining post-Ferris wheel snack. “I didn’t think I would ever be selling fried foods,” Charlie says. “And now I’m in Wikipedia for the fried Oreo.”
On this week’s podcast we interview three iconic food vendors from the San Diego County Fair about their dreams and their nomad food life. While most of us just see funnel cakes and turkey legs and gigantic, wild, forbidden treats… these are business owners and entrepreneurs big and small, who spend much of the year on the road in RVs, going from one state fair to the next.
For the whole run of the fair, most of them live onsite, creating an entire fair society that picks each other up when the going gets tough. Chicken Charlie, for instance, bought the stand off the original owner after working there for 12 consecutive summers as a kid. And now he’s the most famous fried chicken man in the land.
Hope you guys enjoy the episode. Put your calorie counter in a dark, lonely drawer, but be sure to wear some sort of FitBit and hit the fair—because all those steps easily justify a cinnamon roll with a mohawk of bacon.
This week on Happy Half Hour, our food and drink podcast that won a national award and we’ll never shut up about that fact…I try somewhat awkwardly to establish nostalgic bonds with David Kennedy, co-owner of James Coffee Co. James is the younger brother of a longtime friend (Lisa Kennedy, who owns The Corner Mercantile & Eatery in La Jolla). I vaguely remember going over to their house when we were in high school, and I’m fairly certain I falsified a memory of him learning guitar while we tried to study (David is a member of the band Angels & Airwaves with Tom DeLonge of blink-182, and played in Box Car Racer). David co-owns James Coffee Co with his wife, Carina (the way he tells it, there wouldn’t be a coffee company without her and her math brain, or at least her insistence that they manage how much money comes in, and how much goes out), and his brother, Jacob. “I got really into coffee shop culture when I was traveling,” David says of the start. “I bought an old popcorn maker and started roasting my own beans.” We have an honest conversation about their efforts to get rid of single-use coffee cups, and be as sustainable as humanly possible without losing their shirt. James was one of the first shops to get rid of single-use cups, and use only durable cups that customers could return and fill. The project didn’t really work, he admits. They’re still offering it, tinkering with it. But being more environmentally friendly while maintaining a sustainable business model isn’t an easy thing, and we talk through that frustration. In “Hot Plates,” big chef swap news this week. Jon Bautista, who was lobbed a James Beard nomination for his work at Kingfisher last year, left to join the wholly resuscitated and thriving SD classic, The Fishery. Meanwhile, the chef that was part of The FIshery’s reemergence accepted a job at Callie next to Travis Swikard (arguably one of the best restaurants and chefs in the city). That’s a hell of a team now. Downtown gets a new rooftop restaurant, Leave of Absence. The exec chef guiding its light has San Diego roots—Jason Neroni, who longtime food fans might remember as the chef at Blanca in the 00s. Neroni’s a talent, and now he’s got some operational kitchen wisdom. Good to have him back in the scene. Leave of Absence will be doing wood-fired dishes and brunch options like flatbread pizza with squash blossoms and chicken shawarma meatballs. In the holy-shit sushi world, Sushi Ichifuji just opened—a new 10-seat omakase-only restaurant in Linda Vista, helmed by chef Masato Fujita who previously worked at Michelin-starred restaurants Soichi and Tadokoro. Meanwhile, family-owned Our Green Affair is set to open its third location in Solana Beach this summer, featuring clean, healthy food created when one of the family members was diagnosed with Crohns. And in we can’t believe it took this damn long news—agua frescas have been added to the national “harding” movement, where every liquid that isn’t motor oil is getting spiked with booze. El Perquito hard agua frescas has opened Miralani Makers District. The famed NYC street cart chain Halal Guys have announced plans to open not one, not two, but five locations in San Diego. David and I discuss our excitement, and at the same time, our love for the hometown favorite Kebab Shop.
Long before “pivot” became a silver-lining buzzword, Tracy Borkum made a career out of it. For instance, the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla recently spent $105 million and tapped one of the top architects in the country to recast its iconic building into an ocean-facing art compound. And Borkum—a San Diego restaurateur who years ago got her BA in art history from UC Berkeley—became a big part of it. It was a dream, really: a merger of what she loved and studied (art) and what she made her name doing (restaurants). She and her chef-partner Tim Kolanko created an outdoor dining concept around the edge of the museum called The Kitchen.“We opened it, and now it’s been raining for three weeks,” Borkum says, with a roll of her eyes, on this week’s episode. Borkum has adapted, dealt with things, rethought, reconfigured so many times. She started with Kensington Grill in the ’90s, a charming-as-heck bistro (she still has the space; it’s now Cucina Sorella) where Troy served briefly as the world’s worst bartender (a story he tells over and over, to Borkum’s chagrin). When she took over beloved Bankers Hill eatery Laurel, it was a grand, refined, pre-theater restaurant. She gutted it, selling the furniture on the street outside the building. “We got in a bunch of trouble with the city,” says Borkum. “They came by and said, ‘What are you doing?’ We said we were having a garage sale, they said, “You can’t do that.’” This was 2009, the economy was still reeling, and she pivoted to a rustic Italian concept—Cucina Urbana—where everything was under-$20. It boomed, is still booming. Later, when she couldn’t afford to purchase furniture for a new restaurant of hers, she convinced a local furniture store to use the space as a showroom, selling the pieces to diners who said, “I really love that lamp.” Recently, she and Kolanko have been shifting into nontraditional restaurant and catering spaces. They opened a kiosk at the Rady Shell, the now-iconic $98 million outdoor music venue that looks like a giant, hollowed-out Airpod. “Olivia Rodrigo has her first show there, and it’s like 8,000 nineteen-year-olds,” says Kolanko, who made his name as the chef de cuisine of A.R. Valentien for over a decade. “So we had all this food ready to go. And none of them ate. None. We had all this food left over. We’re used to making food to order. But this is a wholly different thing. So we’ve had to relearn.” Borkum and Kolanko recently opened a modern Jewish delicatessen, Gold Finch, and are working on finalizing their next prix-fixe dining concept—in the center of MCASD, La Jolla, with two entire walls made of glass overlooking the Pacific. They join Troy and David this week to share stories from frontlines of a radically shifting restaurant culture.
During the first terrifying shutdowns of the pandemic, Pulitzer-nominated photographer Jeffrey Brown and his partner started lowering bread out the window of his third-story studio in downtown San Diego. They used a basket and rock-climbing rope (Brown is serious about rocks and ropes, and once climbed El Capitan). People—very few people, at first—would pay for the bread Brown and his partner Jenny Chen were making upstairs.They’d always enjoyed food, pored over cooking mags, and made elaborate meals together. But the pandemic activated their obsession: the perfect croissant. They only had a single small oven in the studio. It was a commercial photo studio, not a commercial bakery.“We made so many bad croissants,” Jeffrey says.“But being a structural engineer, [Jeffrey] took notes,” Jenny clarifies.“I have 726 pages of them,” Jeffrey confirms. “We’d make a batch, tweak, take notes, try different butters and flours and techniques—700 pages later, we found our croissant.”Jenny built a series of computers and systems in the bakery to maintain quality control. They took the guesswork out of making the notoriously finicky pastry, which allowed them to hire people who didn’t have (and possibly couldn’t afford) culinary school. They wrote social justice into their operating agreement, certifying that their business offered a living wage. They made Izola Bakery a haven for different cultures, races, and identities. They invited poets, speakers, musicians, and community groups into the space—formed a whole creative scene around that croissant.Yelp named Izola the “Best Bakery in the U.S.” and the resulting onslaught of customers nearly broke them. And now they’re planning a baked good cathedral in City Heights.It’s a wild, quite lovely story. They give us all the details on this week’s episode of the Happy Half Hour podcast.Our morningfood month is in full swing (check out the March brunch guide, plus an in-depth story on Izola from writer Ligaya Malones). This month is our ode to the people who make morningfood remarkable in San Diego.And… psst… get your tickets for Brunch Bash, our big, annual, always-sells-out event that pulls more than 50 restaurants, food and drink makers, and brands onto a real pretty lawn for a day party at Omni La Costa.
I may not still be on TV if it weren’t for Catherine McCord. Nowadays, she’s one of the foremost cookbook authors in the US, with recipe bibles issued under her brand name Weelicious. She helps parents manage cooking without losing their minds and angrily writing off food as a concept, or just loading a Super Soaker with Goldfish crackers and shooting them at their kids as they head to work with stains on their shirts. She’s the CEO of her own nationwide meal delivery service for families, called One Potato. I’ve never made better chicken tinga arepas with slaw and corn salsa in under 20 minutes (if you wanna try it, use the promo code TROY25 for 25% off). Her new book, Meal Prep Magic: Time-Saving Tips for Stress-Free Cooking, is due this April (pre-order it here). And my wife is obsessed with her. But a decade ago, Catherine was just a friendly face in an intimidating crowd. We filmed the pilot season of Guy’s Grocery Games in 2013, in a rented-out grocery store in Los Angeles. I was not entirely sure of myself, but at least I had nothing to lose. I’d had my own show on Food Network two years earlier, but they’d canned it after a season. Probably a good call. But that’s not important now. The important part is that they invited me to be one of the judges on this show—part supermarket shopping spree, part cooking competition, anchored by Guy Fieri. None of us were sure it would work. But Guy had talent and hair and bling and jokes, and sometimes that’s enough. As long as we, the ensemble, didn’t screw it up. We played Destiny’s Children to his Beyonce. The first season on any TV show is all nerves and what-ifs, excitement and bouts of future-casting doom. Any moment could be your last. Cancel comes for us all at some point—you just hope it’s not right out the gates. You put a bunch of big personalities in a room, and you all get to know each other and learn to perform in harmony in real time, to step up, say something that propels the action forward, step back and let others in, and so on.Guy had a show to run. He was busy. So us judges formed our own support group. And there were a few of us who bonded and bolstered each other through moments of self-doubt and first-season yips. We’d sit in each other’s trailers and fill the down moments with humanity, make each other laugh our asses off, occasionally ugly-cry. In a career on TV, you’ll meet people you’d rather not send a Christmas card to, and you’ll meet people who shock you with their goodness. Catherine was one of the latter. A tireless worker, a hustler, a mom who looks like she’s got it all together but is the first to point out her shortcomings. She’s got model looks and humble Louisville blood. When you’re on a TV show with someone for a decade with someone, you go through the highs and the lows. She watched me succeed, she watched my life fall apart a bit, she watched me recover. About a month ago, we were all in Santa Rosa for Guy’s birthday. Sammy Hagar was there, singing to this small crowd of close friends. The drummer from Rage Against the Machine was performing with the house band. Hundreds of huge personalities were all assembled in one place—dressed in costume, as is the tradition of Guy’s birthday. And there was Catherine. Always genuine, always the safe, awesome harbor in an intimidating room.
Look, there are enough excellent brunch restaurants in San Diego that waiting hours for a seat at Morning Glory—Little Italy’s rose-hued bastion of breakfast pork belly and morning booze—feels, admittedly, a little silly. Our out-of-town friends gaze forlornly at happy, well-fed-looking strangers while we assure them that the forthcoming pancakes will be worth the delay. “There’s a Champagne vending machine,” we promise.Maybe it’s the pink tile ceiling. Or the trippy mirrored bathroom. But that doesn’t explain why we’ll join similar queues for a speakeasy in La Jolla or a hi-fi music bar in North Park. The common thread, of course, is the group that owns them: Consortium Holdings, the culinary and social company behind 19 of San Diego’s buzziest restaurants and bars.It all started with an East Village burger bar, and now… well, soon you’ll be able to lay down your head at Consortium’s first crack at an overnight concept. Last year, CH purchased the Lafayette Hotel & Swim Club and set about revamping the iconic hipster haunt from top to bottom. When the joint reopens its doors this year, hotel guests (and all us locals) can line up at seven fresh food and drink establishments.We sat down with their director of education and development (and founding member), Anthony Schmidt, for a breakdown of CH’s ascent to local glory. Anthony talks about his past life as an associate professor of speech and debate at SDSU, where he’d lecture in early morning classes after moonlighting as a bartender by night.His early years behind the bar taught him that great drinks aren’t merely about precision and technique. Anthony believes that CH owes their hold on San Diego’s heart (and Instagram feed) partly to a willingness to invest in the next generation of mixologists. “The greatest bartenders in the world make other bartenders better,” he says.In food news, SDM’s 2022 Restaurant of the Year—chef Travis Swikard’s Callie—is opening up a new rooftop event space in April. Common Theory Public House is coming to Otay Ranch and will be joined by Realm of 52 Remedies and Woomiok next door. Lastly, the team behind Azuki Sushi is opening omakase-only restaurant Kinme on March 15, replacing Hachi Ramen in Banker’s Hill.Anthony and Troy both raved about birria on “Two People, Fifty Bucks.” For Anthony, Fernandez Birrieria’s rich tendon taco is where it’s at; Troy went for Birrieria Don Rafa’s sauce-drenched birria quesadilla. David headed to Gaslamp Lumpia Factory for chicken lumpia and a pork sinigang soup.See ya next week!
During the pandemic, actor Matthew Arkin got a call from his dad, Alan Arkin. The elder was spending the hardest part of the pandemic with his mom in Scandinavia. “My dad says, ‘Hey, you know you can make aquavit at home?’” Matthew explains, sipping a damn delicious aquavit tonic in the SDM conference room.Matthew’s response was, essentially, “Uh, thanks, dad.”In Scandinavia, aquavit (the word means water of life) is everything. There are over 200 songs dedicated to it. In the U.S., it’s mostly known as the stuff they drink in Scandinavia—a bracing blast of northern booze that helps wash down the pickled herring. A couple weeks went by and Matthew’s dad called again. He says the thing about the aquavit again. Whether genuinely inspired or just to get his dad to shut up about it, Matthew decided to give it a go. He made a batch—a warmer, smoother version you could sip like bourbon. He stuck it in the freezer and figured he’d forget about it forever.A year later, friends intervened. Visiting one day, Marc Marisi (a stand-in for George Clooney, a dapper fellow) tasted it. Loved it. Told Matthew he could sell it. “I don’t drink, but I want more of this,” Marc said at the time. So they called their old friend Bruce Glassman, a San Diego-based food and drinks writer (and former SDM beer columnist) to help perfect the recipe. After finding the perfect mix on the 22nd try, the new American aquavit—Batch 22—was born. The title is also an ode to the man whose random call started the idea, since Alan Arkin famously starred in the 1970s film, Catch 22. Was it really any good? To find out, the three friends—all now in their 60s—set out on a cross-country road trip. With a hundred mason jars full of their small-batch aquavit, they’d drive city to city and let the bartenders of America tell them if they were nuts or not. And every time, the bartenders were floored. They were also thankful it wasn’t yet another tequila, another small-batch bourbon. In an evolved cocktail industry constantly looking for something new—this smooth, small-batch aquavit stands out. In just under six months, Batch 22 won several awards from across the country. It is shockingly delicious, not the aquavit most Americans know. The golden-hued spirit tastes of caraway and rye and dill and citrus. As if you liquefied a quality rye bread and put it in a bottle. According to the EU, the dominant flavor of aquavit must come from caraway and must have a minimum 37.5% ABV. Batch 22's three most prominent notes are citrus, caraway, and dill. Unlike traditional aquavit, Batch 22 is smooth, sippable, and exceptionally mixable.The three friends come into the San Diego Magazine offices for one of the more hilarious (and, at times, bawdy) episodes of HHH we’ve had in a long while. We assemble around the conference room, Bruce acts as bartender. We drink, we laugh. In news, Pacific Beach is getting its own al fresco food hall brought to you by food collective Mission + Garnet for a six-concept eatery from local restaurateur, Scott Slater. Perfecte Rocher has settled in as the new director of culinary operations for Consortium Holdings’ most recent project: the Lafayette Hotel in North Park and the venerated golden-age hipster beacon of San Diego history. WashMobile, the family-owned spot for tortas (Mexican sandwiches), is setting up shop at NOVO Brazil Brewing Co. once a week—their first pop-up in San Diego. Soichi Sushi is opening next door in the former De Nada Kitchen on Adams Ave. Sonoran-inspired BBQ spot, Papalito, plans to open in South Park, adding to their map with hubs in North Park and East Village. Lastly, Amplified East Village has been aquired by long time PR head, Aubree Miller. It is being revamped as modbom. They will be switching to more cocktail focused and Drew Bent will be leasing the kitchen.If you wanna meet Glassman and Arkin and Marisi and try their creation—on April 1 they’re launching a new cocktail with Understory at the Sky Deck.
Jennifer Carruthers is one hell of a sharp brain on wine. Not surprising. She had a successful career as an engineer before deciding she was far more interested in the structure and story of a good wine. So she spent a decade studying wine as a broker and distributor—eventually making it to the Master Sommelier level (an incredibly byzantine, difficult and rare knowledge of wine). Finally, she launched her own company, JC Select Wines, which specializes in hand-picking wines for special events and clients. We asked her to come in and share a few things: The top six wines we all have to try, and the story behind them.The biggest trends and myths about wine—explain them and debunk them, please.And so she does. Hilariously. “Wine gets a bad rap from the people who sniff a glass and say ‘this was grown by a river, and there were three, possibly four, golden retrievers on the property,” she says. JC Select connects people to niche, hand-picked wines. Her mission to source wines from sustainable, top-notch makers goes way beyond “is this great wine?” She makes it a point to get to know the winemakers and chooses wines from those whose story she believes in. She shares the creators’ stories with her clients—focusing on organic, small batch, and environmentally responsible brands.“Part of the end product is how they got there,” she says. “So it’s how the grapes are grown, how they’re cultivated. You know, they don’t want to grow a whole bunch of grapes just to produce more fruit. They want that fruit to be of high quality.”Point is: wine should be more than just wine. Every bottle is a gateway to a good, compelling story of the humans behind it. Even harder stories about equality, worker rights, misuse of land and people. And Jennifer’s got stories. Speaking of sailing, JC Select Wines is hosting its annual Champagne Sail aboard the Adventuress Luxury Catamaran, which takes riders on an all-inclusive scenic three-hour sail around San Diego Bay. The outing, open from April to Oct., will be equipped with Charles Heidsieck Champagne (the Champagne served on the Titanic, “which sometimes I opt not to tell people since we’re on a boat in the open water,” she says).To hear Jennifer’s six must-have wines from her personal cellar, listen to this week’s full episode of Happy Half HourIn the news, a third Fig Tree Cafe opened late Jan. in Mission Valley—the Rise and Shine Hospitality Group who also run Breakfast Republic bring in another fine dining experience to the growing neighborhood. Sister concepts Pop Pie Co. and Stella Jean's Ice Cream opened up in Point Loma, expanding their warm, friendly atmosphere and killer desserts further across San Diego. Both establishments provide the perfect sweet treat for a sunny SD winter.For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” both of the hosts find themselves craving seafood. David visits New England-inspired Sea Tavern in the heart of North Park. A Surf N’ Turf “Double Double” built with a smashed Wagyu patty, crab croquette, onion jam, and frico-style cheddar mozzarella make this meal one for the books. Troy’s going back for the lobster and shrimp roll at urban office park restaurant Farmer & The Seahorse run by chef Sam Deckman. A great place to take the family and let the kids run wild.See y’all next week!
In the spirit of spirit month, we’re starting out with a well-deserved bang. Let’s talk about the liquor that comes in hot, and leaves us even hotter – sizzling with a well-paletted spice on the tip of our tongue and a soothing warmth in our bellies. I’m talking about tequila, baby. The tip of the iceberg in the Mexican spirits world. Some of the best are distributed right from San Diego. In fact, Happy Half Hour brings on an old friend who’s expanded his company’s rotation since his last feature in 2020. CEO Gaston Martinez of IZO Spirits saw his one stop mezcal leave people craving more from his Durango-based distillery and heart grown message captured in every bottle.Following its launch, backed by seasoned marketing executive and co-founder Linda Belzberg three years ago, Gaston knew they were destined for greatness – expansion. After curating a mezcal that was consumed on a hypnotic level, yet still competed for space with larger moguls, IZO had to change the game in order to keep up.Here are a couple of updates on IZO since they were here with us last.Soon after its initial debut, their mezcal made its way into the bulky hands of Costco Wholesale, where it reached its biggest audience and gave the team the leg room needed to create other lines of spirits. Their most recent venture: a sotol that takes 15 years to harvest from the plant.Gaston takes pride when describing the sustainable and old world traditions they use to grow and ferment their sotol, as well as all of their other batches. He brings a little piece of home into every step of the process, capping it off with an onyx stone topper mined and shaped straight from Durango, Mexico.“Durango is kind of a small town, but I want to bring it to the world,” he says.The evolving brand continues to stride up the ranks by collaborating with Cut Water, who uses IZO mezcal in its canned cocktails distributed around the world. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, you can find IZO’s latest product, Sotol, in the sweet and tangy “IZO Cupid” at George’s at the Cove right on La Jolla shores.To match Happy Half Hour’s prestigious guest, the hosts stroll downtown for an inside look into where all the magic happens. Recorded right from hypnotic lounge, David and Troy explore the Prestige-Magic Lounge & Showroom – the fifth of Mystique Venues’s fine dining locations bringing some of the best local and touring magicians in the country to the stage.Leading the kitchen is Executive Chef Johnny Hornibrook who has been with Mystique since its first opening in Folsom, California with founder Terry Commons. The three course menu illuminates Johnny's experience on the road traveling around the country and Central America. While surfing couches and hitchhiking his way back to San Diego over the course of 28 days and 88 car rides, he asked, “What can I bring to the table?” to pay them back. Literally.The Stockton local brought home flavors from his adventures serving his Latin American patrons and incorporates them into his seasonal menus. The chef’s pick at Prestige is the au jus prime rib with a trio of tangy horseradish. If dinner and an enchanting show sound good to you right now, Prestige is giving out a couple of promos voiced in this week’s episode to check out.In “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David felt like Italian comfort food on a cold and rainy San Diego day. He visited Princess Pub in Little Italy for a cottage pie doused in a creamy gravy for the soul. Troy’s pick reminisced on a SD Mag current favorite: IZOLA bakery. Just anything from there. The baked goods are. All. So Mesmerizing.
Most of you know Troy as our fearless leader and a frequent flier—or as the guy you wish you could text for recommendations on where to take your finicky mother-in-law to dinner in San Diego. (I just asked him for you; he suggests Fort Oak in Mission Hills). His college classmates, on the other hand, knew him as the guy who couldn’t cook. “I knew how to turn the knob on the microwave to the right,” he admits on this week’s podcast.The two women across from him on the mic are working to make sure more kids don’t turn out like Troy.They are Jen Nation and Angelica Gastelum—executive director and marketing manager of Olivewood Gardens, respectively. Olivewood is seven acres of gardens and an agricultural learning center surrounding a historical 1896 Victorian home—the former estate of Christy and John Walton (you might have heard of their family’s company, WalMart). It’s located in National City, an area with a disproportionately high rate of food-related health conditions, due in large part to a lack of access to healthy, affordable ingredients. The Waltons gifted the property to the International Community Foundation—so that the property could be used to “engage, grow, and promote healthy communities and dialogue through civic engagement and philanthropy in the San Diego-Baja California border region.” Basically, show how real, nutritious food could transform a life. It was a personal story for the Waltons. The Waltons’ son, Lucas, had been diagnosed with cancer at an early age. Traditional treatments failed, so a friend suggested removing processed foods from Lucas’ diet. Christy began her own farm-to-table system, growing organic fruits and veggies and transforming them into ultra-fresh meals and nutrient-packed juices. And Lucas wasn’t the only kid in the neighborhood who benefited from Christy’s foray into homegrown fare. Locals still drop by Olivewood to reminisce about sipping juice with Lucas decades before—proof that shared culinary experiences form wonderfully sticky memories.Olivewood launched their first programs in 2010, aiming to educate residents about nutrition and sustainability. Then they commenced their Cooking for Salud program, teaching men and women from the community how to create more nutritious versions of the traditional recipes that were important to their families. Graduates of that program are known as Kitchenistas—and they now number 400. Every elementary school student in National City comes to Olivewood to learn about agriculture and environmental science. Some of the produce from the property is used in schools. Kitchenistas have filtered into every part of National City, passing on the healthier-food knowledge to neighbors and legislators. We got to split a dish with the folks at Olivewood, too: a bowl of “Happy Rice” crafted with the help of fourth graders from a National City school. A blend of fluffy whole-grain brown rice, sesame oil, black vinegar, amino acids, and leftover veggie scraps, the adaptable recipe serves as a way to teach elementary-aged kiddos how to cook healthy meals while cutting food waste—and get them on board with eating their greens. Visiting Olivewood on field trips, nine-year-olds often enter the building adamant that they won’t go near a broccoli floret. They happily leave with bellies full of little trees.“In a few years, we’d love to say that National City has the healthiest kids in the country,” Jen dreamed aloud, just a few moments before we hit record.
Over the last few decades we’ve really started to ask questions about what we’re eating. Does the green label really mean organic—or was it grown on an organic “section” of a farm, gobbling up pesticides in the wind? If I’m buying this tomato in January, and it was grown in Florida sand, picked unripe, and gassed on the train on the way to California—what, exactly, am I getting out of this? Why do some eggs look like mandarins and some look like a vague notion of the color yellow?Farmers markets definitely make us feel better about what we’re putting on our tables. You get to meet the people who grew what you eat. Look ‘em in the eye. See if you get any frankenfood vibes.On this week’s episode of Happy Half Hour, Troy and David talk to one San Diegan whose life was altered pretty radically when Stefani de Palma visited his farm stand. His plot of land in Escondido—Sage Hill Ranch Gardens—was fairly small, three acres. But De Palma—then chef de cuisine of Addison—saw the promise. She worked with Spencer, used his farm as a sort of R&D plot for the restaurant.This month, Addison was named a three-star Michelin restaurant—one of only 14 in the country, the famed guide’s highest honor. And Sage Hill was name-checked on the menu.Not bad for a guy who became an accidental farmer in an effort to save his family’s land. A few years back, Spencer’s family was considering selling the property. He couldn’t bear to leave it, so he convinced them to let him try to grow some food. With a clean slate and zero farming experience, Spencer opted to try traditional farming like his neighbors—but his plot was too small and too steep for tractors and machines. So Sage Hill Ranch & Gardens became one of the only farms in San Diego County to be entirely human-powered. No synthetic fertilizers or tilling, actually serving as a carbon sink for the area.“How do we feed our people and not destroy the earth?” is the big question he deals with on a daily basis. Spencer talks with Troy and David about his surprising career shift, and how eating certain foods helped him solve his own health issues.This episode is recorded live on location at Pacific Point lobby bar, the sushi lounge at Park Hyatt Aviara overlooking the natural preserve and coastline in Carlsbad. Chef Aaron Nguyen, who was a chef at Nobu for years, serves up a few incredible dishes. And Aviara chef Chris Carriker shares the pretty hilarious story about the time he won an episode of Chopped right before the pandemic hit.In “Hot Plates,” chef Stefani says goodbye to Addison after announcing her departure last year. One of Tijuana’s top chefs, Ruffo Ibarra, will be joining the Be Saha Group to take over the culinary program at the revamped gem, Guild Hotel in downtown. A Solana Beach local opened San Diego’s second zero-waste grocery store called Local Scoop to power sustainable living and support local growers.Troy’s recommendation during “Two People, Fifty Bucks” was a low profile seared albacore poke and smoked ribs with lemongrass ponzu from the Charcoal and Soy food truck while David raved about a light, refreshing smashburger and friendly atmosphere at Harland Brewing Co.Listen to the full episode of Happy Half Hour for details on where to eat next.
This cafe is one of the better places in San Diego to eat clean, sure. It’s also parents’ love for their daughter. This damn good salad—loaded with all kinds of greens and seeds and micronutrients in various natural forms—was all for her. Every parent knows the feeling. When your kid is sick or hurt, you will do the wildest things you never thought you’d do, uproot your life, quit jobs, take four extra jobs, do whatever it takes to help them regain their health.Parakeet Cafe is what Carol Roizon could do. When she and her husband Jonathan Goldwasser found out their then-young daughter Jessica had tumors on her spine, Carol uprooted their lives and dedicated everything she was to creating the healthiest food she could possibly get her daughter to eat. And it turned into a healthy breakfast/lunch concept that started in La Jolla, then Little Italy, and now they’re about to open five more locations across Southern California. For wellness month at SDM, we invited Carol and and Jonathan into the SDM offices to tell their family’s story. The whole month, we’re focusing on people in the food and drink scene who are making food and drink that’s focused on health. Check out the January issue here; maybe even subscribe–we send the beautiful glossy mag to your house every month. Like a real magazine. It’s wild. In the news, Heritage Barbecue is opening this week in Oceanside—a massive house of slow-cookery from pitmaster Danny Castillo and his wife, who started their good-meat cue spot in San Juan Capistrano as a pop-up in 2017 and it went bonkers; they were a finalist on Food Network’s “Great Food Truck Race” and now Lia’s Lumpia has set down permanent roots in Barrio Logan; the owners of Local Tap House in Oceanside have opened a modern west-coast take on the east coast classic–the Jewish deli (pastrami everywhere!); and we get more details on Bivouac Ciderworks’ big expansion, as they plan the Bivouac Adventure Lodge next door in North Park. For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Carol points to one of the greatest sushi restaurants in San Diego, the one that started it all—Sushi Ota in P.B.; David (surprise surprise!) finds yet another soup that he can’t live without—the birria udon with brisket at El Barbecue; and Troy was reminded this week of a San Diego classic that’s perfect for rainy weather soul sads—the polenta plate at Cucina Urbana. Our next podcast, we’ll talk with one of San Diego’s young farmers who’s been supplying San Diego’s first three-star Michelin restaurant with the raw materials for that kind of greatness: Spencer Rudolph of Sage Hill Ranch Gardens.
Oh man. Dear god. Thanks, you all.This year, you downloaded episodes of our podcast 276,977 times. As a San Diego media company just trying to create things of value where you’ll learn something, think about something in a different way—that’s a huge number. I’m sure Joe Rogan sneezes that number, but for us it’s pretty great. A lot of sneezes. When we launched “Happy Half Hour” in 2016, we had zero or near-zero idea what we were doing. Flailing at mics. Loghorrea-ing our way into the digital void. All we knew was that to stay relevant in media, you have to embrace new forms of storytelling. So much tire kicking. David Martin was (and is) in a band (Weight of the Sun who you should listen to). He knew how to record stuff. Our friend, Arsalun Tafazoli (who owns CH Projects, which is restaurant Jesus now in San Diego, but at that point was more of a midsize pack of creative lunatics), agreed to be our first guest. Former editor in chief Erin Chambers-Smith and I sat and talked with him—randomly about food and drink and hospitality and ideas for two hours. We didn’t know anything about “mic proximity,” so the recording sounded like we’d be talking from very far away in another room… and then very loudly in your ear, like those close-talker people… and then like we were underwater… back yelling in your ear…. Afterward, exhausted but pumped that we had taken this leap of technological faith, David announced, “Yeah no way we can air that.” That recording exists on a hard drive somewhere, partially or fully inaudible but earnest and hopeful. So we tried again, staying close to the mic this time. We kept it under an hour. We developed a few “segment ideas.” And we invited guest after guest from the San Diego food scene. We even won a big national award for it. When we were nominated, we laughed because we were up against Harvard, Red Bull, Inc. Magazine, a few other massive media entities. And whoa, they said we won. Still not sure if that was real. They sent us an award or an email or something. Kinda blacked out.Anyway, for this final podcast of the year, we look back on the year that was. I lay out a hit list of the “10 Best Things I Ate This Year,” like the corn pinion soup at Wolf in the Woods, dirty hash browns at Born & Raised, and the ube pancakes at The Holding Company. David gives his “Top Five Soups”—including one at Wormwood, one at Shank & Bone, and a few other gems. If you’ve listened to this podcast, you know that soup is David’s love language. And he’s a former culinary instructor at the New England Culinary Institute, so he really knows his mirepoix. Finally, we go through some of the biggest news of the year (go, Convoy) and the trends that marked San Diego’s food and drink scene (birria everywhere). Then we talk to the creator of what has become one of the official drinks of San Diego Magazine’s offices—Javi’s Ranch Water, 100-percent pure agave tequila, soda water, then natural flavorings. And whaddya know, owner/creator Josh Irving turns out to be a really likable, soulful fella. He named the drink after his dog (Javi, who’s the mascot on the can). Josh was a great golfer in high school, dreamed of going pro. Lucky for us, he didn’t succeed at that. Became a caddy. Befriended a guy who ran a liquor company, offered him a job. He fell in love with tequila and the people and culture of Mexico, and created his own tequila company using real, 100% agave tequila. And then he gifted us the canned delight that is Javi’s, which is now either enhancing or decimating the production of the SDM team. Thanks again so damn much for your support, everyone. Much more to come. Enjoy the holidays.
The future of seafood might be in San Diego. Not in Point Loma or Oceanside, but in a bioengineering facility in Sorrento Valley. From a single cell, BlueNalu is growing toro—bluefin tuna belly, the prize delicacy of most high-end sushi—in a perfectly hygienic bioreactor that looks like the giant stainless steel structures in the city’s top breweries. Their goal is creating world-class seafood without the need for fish. In turn, transforming a limited and unpredictable resource (seafood) into an unlimited and predictable one. Today on HHH, we talk to CEO Lou Cooperhouse. It’s part of our month-long focus on people in San Diego doing inspiring work in the green space (our “Environment Issue” of San Diego Mag is out now). “The issue today is that wild-capture fisheries in general have been flat for decades, but bluefin tuna is such a loved, prized product that we all really enjoy,” says Cooperhouse. “It’s the wagyu of the sea. That’s what BlueNalu is all about—high-sensory, culinary quality seafood. But really making this delicious and accessible to all. Because right now it’s loved, but it’s not available to all.” It’s not a fly by night thing. BlueNalu has been funded to the tune of $84 million so far—most of that raised by Bloom8, an investment group focused on raising money for businesses that, if we’re wide brushing, are focused on saving the planet. The long list of BlueNalu investors includes chefs and celebrities (Roy Yamaguchi, DJ Axwell of Swedish House Mafia) and some of the biggest names in the global business (Sumitomo from Japan, Griffith Foods). Entire countries and governments across the world have their eye on BlueNalu’s toro. What BlueNalu does is called cell-cultured seafood. Biologists and bioengineers have learned how to grow the meat—real meat, grown from a real, non-GMO cell from a real fish, using only natural ingredients—without the fish itself. What years ago seemed like a dystopian future joke—”lab grown meat”—is looking more and more like a very real and good option. It’s the fascinating story of modern technology and science trying to solve a major global dilemma (feeding a planet while not depleting the oceans of seafood).This science has been around since 2103 (hamburger, grown in a Dutch lab by Mark Post). But until now no one’s been able to scale it—make it fast enough and affordable enough to be a viable option. BlueNalu and their investors think they’ve done it. There is plenty of work ahead of them, including approval from the FDA (cell-cultured proteins are currently not approved in the US—Singapore is the only country in the world to approve them so far). It’s a massive, growing industry, with major players backed by the biggest pockets in the world, and various celebrities (Leonardo DiCaprio is behind Mosa Meat). BlueNalu thinks they’re a couple years away from being on menu at restaurants across the world. Of course there are questions. Will it taste the same? Can they make it affordable enough to help people of all socioeconomic strata (a pound of cell-cultured seafood costs significantly more than wild-caught seafood)? What is their own environmental footprint? And how will it impact the fishing families and industry?For Two People Fifty Bucks, David takes back his “no good lasagna in San Diego” remarks after trying Alexander’s on 30th; sticking with the theme Troy says you should sit on the patio and order the baked rigatoni and baked brie with garlic at their parent restaurant, Old Venice; and Lou raves about the A5 Wagyu at Animae—unsurprising for a man whose future lies in the wagyu of the sea.See you all next week.
They don’t have a trash can in their kitchen. A fully operational, busy restaurant kitchen without a trash can. OK, that’s hyperbole. They do have a small one that is rarely ever used. The Plot in Oceanside keeps 99% of what they do out of the landfill. That is not normal. December is our “Environment Issue” of San Diego Magazine. As I wrote in my note at the beginning of the issue, it’s not about being perfect and it’s not an evangelical radical screed against any and all industry. The issue is dedicated to people in San Diego doing small and massive things to try to minimize our negative impact on the environment. That’s why for the restaurant review I headed up to the fully plant-based restaurant run by Davin and Jessica Waite. The husband-and-wife duo own not just The Plot but also Wrench & Rodent (sushi), White Noodle (ramen), and Shootz Fish & Beer. They join us on the podcast to talk through how, specifically, they’re trying to not only minimize waste in restaurants, but go beyond that and pave a path for a regenerative restaurant scene. They don’t claim to be perfect, either. But orange rinds are never thrown out, but turned into salsas and other foods. Leftover sushi rice is sent to a local refinery and turned into a flavored vinegar. A lot of the techniques they’re using are not forward thinking; they’re intentionally backwards. “Turns out the best way for the future is in the past,” says Davin. This is how restaurants used to work—way back in the beginning of their time. Food was grown in the back, cooked in the front. “There was a time when things were actually advertised as ‘disposable,’ and that was seen as a positive thing, a selling point,” says Jessica. What you need to do fairly soon is go eat their potato salad and their carrot tacos. For news, we discuss the biggie: San Diego’s Addison at Fairmont Grand Del Mar earned three-star Michelin status. There are only 14 three-star Michelin restaurants in the country. Seven in California. There are none in L.A. We talk about what effect this will have on the overall food scene. Also, in bittersweet news—during the pandemic Bankers Hill Bar + Restaurant had to shut down, but the good news is that fairly excellent local restaurant Common Stock is taking over the space and will open a new concept early next year. And the Top of the Hyatt has turned their 40th floor perch into a pretty nutso holiday extravaganza (they even got an electric train and bunk beds) you gotta see. For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Jessica (who’s been plant-based almost her entire life) says the “Super Vegan” at Pokez in Downtown is her go-to; Davin raves about upstart tiny pizza and wine joint in Oceanside called Allmine; David points to the oysters and cocktails at Botanica in North Park; and Troy drove to Bonita this weekend because a friend of his raved about the chicken in a strip mall, and I can confirm El Pollo Grill is some truly great chicken. That’s it for this week. Thanks so damn much for listening, y'all.
Mashed potatoes are the bedrock of Thanksgiving. If you do not have a creamy pile of spuds, you are exhibiting a flagrant disregard for the rules of the feast. Mashless people seem more like thanks takers. And Josh Mouzakes—the executive chef of Arlo at Town & Country, who trained for four months at French Laundry (lived in a garage nearby, eating peanut butter sandwiches for the honor), then at Joel Robuchon in Vegas, a couple years at Hotel Del, and two recent appearances on Food Network—swears smoking your butter is easy and will help your mash win the annual food-off holiday. “You just put some woodchips in a pan with a ramekin of butter, and cover the thing with foil,” he says. Woodchips, butter, a Bic lighter, and a heat source. That’s all you need to take your Thanksgiving mash to the level of Arlo or Josh’s house. We asked Josh for three of his favorite tips for home cooks at the big feast. That’s one. We also talk about his favorite dishes at Arlo, talk about the fully resuscitated vibe at one of San Diego’s classic properties (Town & Country went through a massive remodel, and their central courtyard is grass and pool and musicians and lounge chairs and cocktails and Arlo—a very casual-awesome sneaker place to spend a Friday eve). In “Hot Plates,” we talk about Joe Magnanelli (the man responsible for helping build Cucina Urbana, and coming up with that still-legendary polenta board) has taken the gig as teh exec chef of iconic local property, Kona Kai; we talk about sale of craft cocktail destination, El Dorado, to the hospitality group Pouring With Heart—a group from L.A. (I know, I know) that has a good rep of changing the hospitality industry for good (health benefits, 401k, mental health services, etc.); and discuss how the opening of a new Carruth Cellars tasting room at Carte Hotel a block away from the San Diego Mag offices near Little Italy might be the end of us. For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy is still on his hunt for the best food in Little Italy, and recommends a classic (the lobster roll with brown butter) and a new hit (Japanese sweet potatoes with chive crema) at Ironside; Josh gives us his favorite snacks from the underrated P.B. food scene (Poke Chop and what he says might be the best breakfast burrito in all the land at Taco Surf) and David says go get the Hungry Hippo pizza at Gnarly Girl in University Heights. Get the canned cranberry sauce. You can’t beat the schlooping sound. Happy Thanksgiving.
As a kid growing up in La Jolla, Annemarie Brown-Lorenz had swordfish bills sticking up out of the ground in her backyard. Her dad was a fifth generation local fisherman who believed in using every part of the fish. If you take a life from the sea, have the respect to use every part of that life. And Annemarie’s grandmother (a first-generation American from Slovenia) grew all her own food; believed if you stuck swordfish bills in the garden it would lend its nutrients to the soil. So forget the garden gnome.
That ethos—sustainable fishing, old-world farming (now they call it biodynamic)—was what The Fishery was built on. Annemarie’s parents, Judd and Mary Ann, opened the restaurant in 1996. Judd had already built a successful business delivering seafood caught by local boats to San Diego restaurants. For The Fishery, they just knocked a hole in the wall of that seafood warehouse (called Pacific Shellfish) and passed the day’s best catches into the kitchen.
The Fishery turns 25-years-old this month. During the pandemic, Judd and Mary Ann started spending most of their time at their home in Oregon, putting The Fishery’s future in Annemarie’s hands. Her husband Nicholas runs Pac Shell. Together, they’re overhauling the classic. They brought in exec chef Mike Reidy (who spent a few years under Josia Citrin at 2-star Michelin restaurant, Melisse), a GM from Juniper & Ivy, bar manager Eddie Avila (former Whisknladle), and they’re designing a new remodel right now that extends the seating and includes an oysters-and-Champagne bar.
This explains why it was so incredibly good when I visited for this month’s review in San Diego Mag. Annemarie joins us to talk about deep local roots and the future of a San Diego institution. She brings sushi rolls (dear god, order the Sunshine Roll).
In news, the new chef at classic San Diego resort Kona Kai is Joe Magnanelli, who made a name for himself as the exec of Cucina Urbana for a decade; the sale of classic craft cocktail den, El Dorado, to the kind of hospitality group you can get behind, Pouring With Heart (they own Seven Grand, and give their employees health benefits, 401ks, access to mental health services); and Carruth Cellars has endangered the productivity of the SDM staff by opening a new tasting room a block away from our offices at Carté Hotel.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy shares one of the surprise hits of his current search for the best food in Little Italy, the Ligurian flatbread at Davanti Enoteca; David on his quest to eat lunch at every single place in Little Italy goes with Harumama and the High Noon Ramen; Annemarie raves about the new North Park restaurant/gin bar Mabel’s Gone Fishing (you can listen to our interview with Mabel’s owner on this episode).
Next week, exec chef Josh Mouzakes from Arlo at Town & Country gives us his secret tips on how to crank up Thanksgiving dinner at home (hint: a simple way to smoke butter for mashed potatoes).
There is a house in La Jolla that is almost entirely food. It overlooks Black’s Beach. It is a very, very nice house. Walk its grounds, and you come across blueberries and strawberries and cabbage and habañeros and herbs and goats and bees and chickens and greenhouses. What was once a tennis court on the grounds has been filled in with more food growing. It is a house-farm, an Eden on the sea cliff, and it’s become an epicenter of San Diego’s food scene. It’s owned by Michelle Lerach and her husband, Bill. Michelle took a sabbatical during law school to live and work on a goat farm in Northern California. There, she saw how connected farmers and ranchers and makers were to restaurants, grocers, distributors, lawmakers (who endorse public spending on agriculture), media, etc. She wanted to bring that to San Diego. She wanted to bring them all to the same plot of land (or house, in this case) to start fostering good, local foodways. So she opened her home—affectionately called the Castle of Chaos—to all of them. Any given day, you’ll see local chefs and winemakers and farmers strolling around her home, inspecting things, cooking things, or just kicking up their feet. During the shutdown part of the pandemic, she turned her front driveway into a market to help farmers move product. Food from her home is featured at some of the city’s top restaurants. She started the Berry Good Night, which was an annual dinner where she’d invite thought leaders on food and environmental stewardship. It also invited some of her very high-profile and influential friends who could, upon meeting farmers and food people, either financially support their work or advocate for them in legislation. In 2015, that night evolved into Berry Good Food Foundation, which operates workshops on all sorts of responsible, good-stewardship food initiatives (seafood, soil health, food waste, food justice, etc.) and supports gardens at elementary schools on both sides of the border (they’ve donated $50K to 23 schools so far). She also gathers some of the biggest brains in the country for discussions on UCTV (which have over 14 million views). Finally, she was one of the executive producers (along with Giselle Bündchen, and others) on the film, Kiss the Ground, a documentary about regenerative farming. It was produced by Ryalnd Englehart (whose family owns Cafe Gratitude and Gracias Madre), narrated by Woody Harrelson, and included cameos from Ian Somerhalder, Tom Brady, and a couple songs from fellow San Diegan and farmer/food activist, Jason Mraz. That’s a lot, I know. Basically, she’s used her law degree and connections to move the city’s food scene forward in fairly massive ways. “At the end of the day, we just want to story connect and foster an inclusive, equitable, regenerative good system in San Diego,” she says. She’s our guest on this week’s podcast. Specifically, she’s trying to raise awareness for regenerative farming and Kiss the Ground (the organization that’s also co-founded by Englehart). An upcoming dinner on Nov. 19—with chef Flor Franco and David Castro of iconic Valle de Guadalupe restaurant, Fauna—will advocate for regenerative farming being a bigger part of the U.S. Farm Bill. We talk about regenerative farming: what it is, how it works, why it’s important. A fascinating talk.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David rediscovers his love for Puesto and raves about their secret weapon—brewer Doug Hasker (try the Clara); Michelle says nothing beats the simple side dish of carrots at Callie; and Troy is genuinely, genuinely impressed by the new food at Cutwater’s tasting room, especially the hoagie.
Mariana Cardenas went home that day, gathered her five kids, told them the news. Then she called all the government assistance programs and informed them the Cardenas family no longer needed their help.
“My oldest son is autistic,” she explains. “Two weeks earlier he’d told me he wanted to go to art school and I had to tell him we couldn’t afford it. So I got to tell him he was going.” The this that happened is one of my favorite stories of good I’ve come across in the San Diego food and drink scene. Mariana shares her story on today’s podcast.
How she’d taken a job as a janitor for the Navy in Chula Vista, and worked her way into the kitchen. How she spent 16 years in the Navy, eventually becoming executive chef of the region. When the pandemic hit, she left and took a job at beloved local burger joint, The Balboa. She’d been working there for four months when the owner called her to his office.
“I thought I was gonna get fired,” she says.
He asked her if she wanted The Balboa. “Of course I like working here,” she replied. Did she want to own it, he clarified.
“Sure,” she laughed. “But I can’t afford that, I’m on government assistance.”
He gave her The Balboa—a very successful restaurant and bar. Flat out gave it to her, because she’d shown up for him, treated the place as she would her own restaurant, was someone to believe in. Changed her life forever.
After telling her kids, Mariana called a longtime coworker and friend. They’d both toiled to the bone at the Navy, dreamed together during breaks in their shifts. Eventually they started buying Lotto tickets. Mariana pinky swore that if she ever won, she’d give him a million dollars. He pinky promised the same.
Her first order of business as the owner of The Balboa South was to make good on that promise. She gave him half the business, made him a partner.
“The Balboa is my lottery ticket, and a promise is a promise,” she says.
We all share a meal with the two chefs behind Hudson + Nash, the newly reimagined signature restaurant at Hilton San Diego Bayfront, perched on the water. Chef de cuisine Alexander Huizar just arrived two days ago from Vegas, where he was sous at Delila at the Wynn (before that he was chef de partie at French Laundry, and sous for a handful of Michael Symon restaurants).Executive sous chef Laoro Martinez is from Tijuana where he went to culinary school. Together, they’re creating a new “Baja to Bay” concept at H+N. Best dishes we try: the bigeye tuna poke tossed in Sriracha-miso; Thai wings in sweet chile sauce; and oh dear god try the whole fish taco (fish served whole on a board with three salsas (verde, rojo, and macha), pickled onions, street corn, cilantro slaw, chile toreados, corn tortillas, and pork belly).
In “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” I point people to a longtime favorite that has been sold to one of its longtime cooks and is in great hands (and also, show up for the new owner)—Supannee Thai; Mariana loves the birria at Dolche Cafe Mexifood in Chula Vista; David, who forsake beer a while back, admits a heavy love for the 30 Hop IPA at Poorhouse Brewing with the roast beef sandwich from pop-up Big Jim’s Roast Beef; chef Laoro has a thing for the lasagna at Seneca Trattoria; and chef Alex raves about the jalapeño mac n cheese at Neighborhood.
Hope you enjoy the podcast. What an incredible story. See ya next week.
About a week ago, I sat down for splashes of mezcal with Amar Harrag, who’s now successfully launched a few different drinks-and-dinner concepts on both sides of the border. His first, Tahona, created an unparalleled mezcal tasting bar to Old Town. He then opened Wormwood, the French-Baja cuisine and absinthe bar in North Park, which preserves the soul spot that was Jayne’s Gastropub. Finally, Tahona Baja in Ensenada—transforming two dry-docked, ark-looking wooden boats into mezcal tasting rooms on the grounds of a Mexican winery.
Over mezcal he explained the inspiration for next week’s unveiling—Botanica, the gin- and genever-based concept going into the small restaurant space attached to beloved North Park art and cultural center, Art Produce.
It’s an NFT restaurant.
A what? Exactly.
Before you write it off as a gimmick, listen to Harrag’s inspiration and ideas for the place on this week’s podcast. It’s fascinating, and shows a lot of thought and heart. He’s creating a modern art bar based on blockchain technology because he wanted the concept to shine a brighter light on what Art Produce does. Done right it should showcase artists, local and international, and help add to AP’s cultural hangout with good food and artful cocktails (they have a gin cart, preparing spirits tableside).
Harrag joins us at Cutwater Spirits’ Tasting Room—the incredible, ship-shaped home where SD’s canned cocktail success story first started. At the bar, the warm creative spirit here has always been Laura Price, who creates craft cocktails. She shows off five or six of her Halloween favorites (including a trio based on Hocus Pocus, one topped with a burstable bubble/crystal ball of smoke, and one in a hollowed-out pumpkin). We also try a few dishes from chef, including two you should try if happiness matters in the slightest: the grilled carrots with lemon-lavender whipped goat cheese, pepitas, orange and parsley oil, carrot tops; and his excellent barrel-aged rum salmon (salmon with a glaze of barrel-aged rum and cardamom).
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about Solana Beach’s food and drink boom with the arrival of a new tasting room from Local Roots Kombucha. In Downtown, a talented chef longtime San Diego foodies will remember—Jason Neroni (ex-Blanca)—is back to oversee the three different food concepts at the new Kimpton Alma (a new name and a new $25M overhaul for the former Hotel Palomar). And Polo Steakhouse has opened in the former West Steakhouse location, from the owners of Paon and with chef Judd Canepari.
In “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Amar raves about the Japanese yakitori (grill) at Yokohama Yakitori Koubou in Convoy; David is thrilled with the lunch deli next to our new offices called Carnivore Sandwich (rare to find lunch places open near office buildings these days since everyone works from home); and I revisited Cusp La Jolla (still one of my favorite view restaurants in all of San Diego) and a simple-delicious chicken dinner from chef Ingrid Funes.
We’re rolling now. Thanks for bearing with us.
On this new podcast, we get a lesson on natural wines from Chelsea Coleman—co-founder of the Rose Wine Bar in South Park who just opened Mabel’s Gone Fishing, a gintoneria and oyster bar that also has natural wines. Seems like just a few years ago, natural wines were what your kooky friend with the urban chickens and the Wendell Berry tattoo drank. The nat-wine ethos was always noble: wines made from grapes grown on sustainable and ideally organic methods, inoculated only with naturally occurring yeast, with nothing added (there are currently over 100 legal additives often used in commercial wine, everything from lab-grown yeasts to mega purple to oak chips and copper and anti-foaming agents) or taken away (no filtering or fining, a process that is often achieved by using animal products like egg albumen or isinglass, aka fish bladder). Ideally, grapes are grown on a permaculture dry farm (one that doesn’t use irrigation, using only rain) by operators who are passionate about fair trade and treating the earth and humans right. And for decades, their hearts were pure and their wines were terrible. Mousy, funky, chewy, fizzy liquids that often exploded before they got to the store (on account of secondary fermentation). That is not true anymore. Natural wines (aka lo-fi wines) are still funky. They taste exactly like the place where they were grown. You can even taste the time of year. Ultra terroir. A bit of a surprise in every batch. But producers have learned a thing or two about how to navigate the wild, low-intervention approach to winemaking. Lo-fi wines are also the fastest growing sector of the wine market—especially among millennials, who demand a story and an ethos with their consumption more than any other generation. All that is to say, Coleman is in the thick of it. The San Diego natifve co-founded Nat Diego (a natural wine fest). Her love of nats lines up with her ideals on food systems (she was the chair of Slow Food San Diego for three years, and she used to haul compost from local restaurants and drop them off at local farms). She’s got a pet chicken named Tang and—apropos with the Padres about to play their first home playoff game in 16 years—her father was the iconic broadcaster, Jerry Coleman. Join us as we talk about Mabel’s and she gives us a primer on natural wines. Managing editor and food enthusiast Jackie Bryant also takes a mic. In news, we talk about the launch of the Aisu ice cream brand. Launch is a hyperbolic word, since it’s only available at Chino Farms and Mille Fleurs at the moment, but it’s made by the youngest farmer in the Chino Family—Makoto, and his girlfriend, Elina—using the best produce on earth. Longtime San Diego chef and former owner of Pacifica Del Mar, Chris Idso, has joined restaurateur Linda DiNitto (264 Fresco) to open the Latin-inspired Fresco Cocina in Carlsbad. Ambrogio15 has teamed with Michelin-starred Italian restaurant, Acquerello, and will reopen their La Jolla spot as Ambrogio by Acquerello. Bivouac Ciderworks is expanding to a much larger space next door in North Park. Plus, North Park gets a plant-based Mexican joint called Tacotarian, and nonprofit food org Berry Good Food announced they’re offering up to $10,000 in funding to K-12 schools with garden projects (now accepting applications. For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” I can’t stop frothing about the pastrami burger at Balboa South in Chula Vista, and I share the remarkable story of new owner, Mariana Cardenas. Jackie points us to the BBQ “pork” vermicelli noodles at City Heights’ vegan Thai joint, Thanh Tinh Chay. David had the delicious Taco Salad from Fairplay, and Chelsea raves about Pomegranate.
The story of Skrewball deserves its own biopic, if not a 30-part Netflix series. On the surface, you see a good-time peanut butter whiskey from San Diego—one that defied all naysayers and became one of the top-selling spirits in the country. And then you talk to co-owner Steve Yeng and every twist of his life story makes your eyes bulge and your heart alternately sink and soar.
His family fled the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, living in Thai refugee camps. In the San Diego Magazine offices for this podcast, he pulls out a few photos from those days. In one, the family is standing in a foot of muddy water (the town routinely flooded). In another, children eat lunch near a fence made of sharp, deadly spears (it’s the cafeteria of the makeshift school).
“My father saw his own father shot in the camps,” says Steve, whose grandparents were both killed.
The Yeng family—mom, dad, three boys—stayed in the camps for six years. As Steve explains it, Russia’s Red Army would routinely bomb the camps, forcing everyone into below-ground shelters. In those cramped, poorly ventilated quarters, Steve contracted polio from one of the other children (the disease is not eradicated in parts of the world without access to healthcare). For the next five years, he would have to undergo multiple surgeries to correct his imbalanced bone growth. Until age seven, he managed to move around using two flip-flops on his feet, and another two on his hands.
Eventually, his family managed to make it to the U.S.—specifically, to Ocean Beach—living in a garage without running water. His dad found a job at O.B. Donuts (which the family still owns). And peanut butter became a symbol of a better life for the young Yeng brothers. From that point on, against every odd and with just the right amount of audacity, Yeng became the American dream.
This podcast is the longest we’ve ever recorded. Mostly because David and I sat there rapt, a little heartbroken and wholly inspired. Settle in, or digest it in parts. It’s worth it.
See you next week, y'all.
Restaurant openings, restaurant closings, and Manny Machado becomes a nail tech. Just kidding, but only about the restaurant closings. Gotcha again. There will be no Manny-pedis in the near future.
On this episode of Happy Half Hour, David and Troy talk to vice president of ticket sales and membership services for the Padres, Curt Waugh. Waugh joined the franchise in June 2014 after being with Spurs Sports and Entertainment where he managed ticket sales for the San Antonio Rampage ice hockey team.
Waugh filled us in on the 70 newly renovated suites where you can customize your experience with in-suite dining food and beverage packages. The suites are not only available for Padres games, but also for any concerts or events that take place.
This season broke a Petco Park and Padres record, with more than 20,000 people opting for season tickets, including our very own Troi Boi (the SDM’ers have dubbed him as such, and he’ll no longer respond to any other name).
Troy (Troi) dishes on his favorite perks, like movie nights on the field where he can take his mini-me Elia, and of course, the chance to imbibe on some good cheap beer. Membership happy hours include $5 drink specials across the ballpark so you can wet your whistle with Cutwater Spirits or a good ‘ole Budweiser.
Apart from discounted food and drink specials, members also get perks such as priority access to Opening Day and Postseason tickets, best available seat options, and 10 percent off concessions and retail in the park.
In Hot Plates, David and Troy talk Little Thief and Black Radish, both North Park newbies. The former is rewriting the natural wine narrative. David may be their biggest fan. As I write, he’s sitting here wearing their merch and waving a tiny flag around with their logo. It’s weird, but we’re here for it. At Black Radish, the simple and sexy interior paired with their dynamic menu makes for a feast of the senses.
Later, Troy talks about his love affair with Chef Phillip Esteban’s ube pandesal, available at his Liberty Station Filipino restaurant White Rice. Not only is Chef Esteban opening another location in Normal Heights, he just signed a lease to a new standalone all-day eatery in Liberty Station.
So much history in this place. It’s where brewers came up with one of the beers that put San Diego on the national map. It’s where a person signed a deal for a billion dollars and sold to a multinational corporation. And it’s where an indie brewer bought it back, and took it into the new age.
The place is the palace of beer that is Ballast Point in Miramar. The beer is Sculpin IPA.
For this podcast, we sat down with five evolutions of Sculpin in front of us—from grapefruit Sculpin to a Aloha Sculpin—with one of our favorite people in the city, Jeff Lozano. Technically the “ambassador” of Ballast Point, Jeff is the voice you hear in the Ballast Point commercials when you’re watching the Padres games. His voice is made for this, like if a cigarette and a late-night radio DJ had a lovechild. Ballast Point just made a serious investment on the food side of the house at all their locations, too, hiring culinary director Tommy Dimella.
I’ll say this. Go to Miramar. Work your way through the evolution of Sculpin like we did. Order two things from his menu: the Double-Stack Angus Smash Burger (white American cheese, BP special sauce, pepperoncini, lettuce, tomato—basically a real chef’s take on a Bic Mac), and… arguably the star… the whipped goat cheese (made creamier with labneh, then topped with olive oil and cumin-spiced honey, strawberries, and seeded lavash cracker).
It’s the Summer of Sculpin (locals know that the real San Diego summer starts in August and goes through October). It was pretty much nonstop one-liners and laughs, but Jeff also runs us through the about beer and the food scene in San Diego and gives us some hard and useful science about why certain beers taste better with certain foods.
In news, we talk about the opening of Madi, the all-day brunch joint from the Madison on Park people; the upcoming Botanica, an NFT art bar (you can buy NFTs of art on display) based around gin from the restaurant group that brought Tahona and Wormwood; Fairplay, a new concept from the Fernside crew coming to the spot vacated by beloved Toronado; and North Park’s first ever (we think, correct us if we’re wrong) rooftop bar, Dollie’s at Hoxton.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David re-fell in love with Craft & Commerce; Jeff raves about old-school San Diego classic, Bully’s East Steakhouse; and Troy was in a soup dumpling mood and pointing to the favorite he found in his citywide search for xiao long baos, Facing East.
Go to Ballast. Spend an afternoon in an icon. Also search out Jeff Lozano. Make him talk to you. He’s funny as hell. Thanks for listening, y'all.
Lake San Marcos is such a mystery to me. Like if you took the water feature from a miniature golf course and expanded that over a couple miles—that’s what it would be. A human-made oasis. Fake? You bet. Kinda magical? Also that. And that’s the kind of hokey water hocus pocus I live for. I’m the kind of guy who thinks sequins is the height of American culture.
This podcast we recorded live from the Mister A’s of Lake San Marcos—Amalfi Cucina Italiana. Chef Marcello Avitabile is a six-time World Pizza Champion (read the review here). The four owners are all Italian, all friends who met while working at another one of the top Italian food spots in the city, Buona Forchetta (Avitabile was the longtime exec chef).
It’s the second stop on our Delicious IPA Tour with Stone Brewing. (Note: These have been great events where we gather and sip and taste, available to those of you who join our Insiders program… you should sign up). One of the first “Beer vs. Wine Dinners” I ever went to was hosted by Stone. Wine has always been hailed as the perfect beverage for food. Since its inception, Stone has seemed fixated on proving that craft beer paired as well, if not better, than wine. Early on, I was skeptical if not scoffing. I went to the dinner thinking “this is a gimmick but there is quality food and beer.”
And, wow. Beer won the night. The 200-plus people there that night voted it in a landslide. And it wasn’t close on my card, either. I was shocked. Being a nerd, I dug into the science of it, and turns out beer has so many more flavor compounds than wine (due to the increased number of ingredients—hops, malt, etc.) This isn’t a slag against wine, which is a quality portion of my life. Just beverage facts.
Anyway, point is. Stone Delicious IPA is what their brewers have been tinkering with all these years. Their perfect food pairing beer. They came to us and said, “Hey, let’s do a tour to celebrate what we think is a pretty awesome achievement, and let’s use it to highlight some local restaurants and cooks and indie businesses.”
Easy sell.
So this week we pair it with Avitabile’s primavera pizza—marinated zucchini and red bell peppers and eggplant, buffalo mozzarella, EVOO, fresh basil, all baked and blistered in 60 seconds in their hell-hot pizza oven. It’s a doozy, and the strong, lightly citrusy hops stand up the char on the crust, making it a perfect pair.
We sit down and talk with the owners Giuseppe Annunziata and Emiliano Muslija about Amalfi, and why they’re importing 90 percent of their ingredients from the Italian coast they’re from. In the news, we’re pretty jazzed about Azuki Sushi’s new omakase spot; Breakfast Republic makes the move on expanding to other cities; discuss the bizarro ambition of space-portal alien tiki lounge Mothership in South Park, and Amalfi announces the opening of their second restaurant in North County.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David raves about the Aleppo chicken at Callie; Emiliano points people to Akai Hana Sushi in Rancho Bernardo; Guiseppe expresses his desire to try the raved-about Sushi Tadokoro; and I am still a little floored by the ube pancakes at The Holding Company—where they’ve got an all-ages brunch on their rooftop overlooking the O.B. pier. It’s an all-ages brunch, which is great because just because some of us chose to procreate doesn’t mean we died. The podcast is fully back. Thanks for being patient as we moved offices over the summer. Full steam. See ya next week.
–Troy
When I went to Padres games as a kid, a man stood 30 feet away from you and hurled a hot dog at your face. Maybe you got some popcorn whose best attribute was that it looked yellow and had enough salt to turn your insides into prosciutto. Oh, and you got some flat Coke. If you only drank sodas at baseball games in the 80s, you wouldn’t know the product came with bubbles.
To be honest, I kinda miss that hot dog throwing man. But I don’t miss the food.
Modern baseball food is worlds better. You got sushi and acai bowls and brisket sandwiches and designer tacos. The Padres have made a lot of great acquisitions of late, but one of my favorites was when they brought in Barrio Dogg and Grand Ole BBQ and Puesto—giving people a taste of some of the best local restaurants.
And today David and I sit with an old friend and crush some of our favorite eats from Petco Park. He’s a favorite human. Constant sayer of funny things. Mark “Mudcat” Grant has been a Padres broadcaster for 27 years. He and Don Orsillo are in the booth 162 games a year, narrating every Padres game. For fans, they’re like extended family, or constant friends who show up in your living room to talk ball and life.
Mud and I talk about his career, the 2022 team, how Tim Flannery taught him a mindblowing lesson on perspective in life (ommmmm), and all the food.
For news, we talk about the opening of Little Thief and Papalito in North Park, the new natural wine bar from the Bottlecraft team, and the new restaurant from chef Drew Bent’s new Sonoran BBQ concept; how 2021’s “Chef of the Year” Phil Esteban just signed the lease on a new restaurant in Liberty Station; and the sad closing of Supernatural Sandwiches in Miramar and what that says about the realities of running a restaurant in 2022.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David points you to the best dishes at the new Italian/sushi joint in North Park, CinKuni (the “Godzilla ramen”); Mudcat raves about Barbusa and Janet’s Montana Cafe, a favorite near his place in Alpine; and I am reminded just how amazing Wayfarer Bread & Pastry is in Bird Rock (the Kouign Amann, the tomato-herbed ricotta cream bun).
Go Padres. See ya next week.
Not sure how many San Diego restaurants have a real, bonafide Shepard Fairey art piece—sanctioned by the artist, famous for his propaganda art like the Obey (Andre the Giant) and Hope (Obama) series—but Shank & Bone in North Park is one of them. So technically the Vietnamese restaurant is a pretty notable art gallery. Their pho sure is some art. So are their fish sauce chicken wings, salty and sweet.
In our June “Best Restaurants” issue, Shank was named readers’ choice for Best Vietnamese and my pick for Best Pho. And on today’s podcast Han Tran comes on to share her story—how her parents came over as refugees from Vietnam. She grew up in City Heights, where her mom ran a bakery and cafe.
“It was known for the strongest Vietnamese coffee in town,” she says. “Just rocket fuel. In our culture, the cafe scene is mostly men. Women walk in and the needle on the record scratches. But mom ran it. She’s tough. Cafes are really popular in the Vietnamese community, but ours was different because we had good food.”
Han was raised in this food culture, saw how much her parents worked. Nonstop. The restaurant was their life, their stable place in a new world. And so the daughter went to UCSD with not less than zero interest in running a restaurant, but running very fast the other way.
And then her and her husband, Jay Choy, bought a sushi joint, Ebisu Sushi. “We had no idea how to run it,” she says. And yet they did, for 16 years. They opened Shank & Bone because they wanted to take the Vietnamese food Han grew up with, but crank it up, use better ingredients, bring the modern better-food ethos to dishes of her youth.
And, well, she took some flak. Some in the Viet community went after her because of the Fairey artwork, which shows a Viet girl holding a gun with a flower in the end of it. “Vietnamese immigrants are all obviously anti-communism—so there was a rumor going around that some communist had come to North Park and opened this restaurant,” she laughs. “And the funny thing is, the image of the woman looks almost identical to a picture of my mom from the refugee camp.”
She and her husband also took flak for the price of their pho—$17 when they opened, $20 now. The reason? They invested in better ingredients, and they crammed their broth with two, three times the amount of bones to ratchet up the flavor (thus why the pho is so good). They invested in artwork and a storefront right on University Ave. All things that cost money.
Shank’s done just fine now. People showed up, keep showing up.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about the impending sale of Stone Brewing to Sapporo U.S.A.; how the city is now starting to enforce permits for the parklets restaurants built during the pandemic, and how very few restaurants have even bothered to apply; and the arrival of Northern California’s white-hot Filipino bakery chain, Starbread. For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David goes to a classic in North Park (Lucky’s Golden Phoenix), Han professes her love for Mongolian Hot Pot; and I defend the honor of chain restaurants by naming one of my favorites for healthy meals (Tender Greens, run by San Diego chef Pete Balistreri).
Go eat some pho. Noodles on the side (so they don’t soak up too much of that broth, which is gold).
This meat looks geological. Like lovely, delicious geodes. In the refrigerated case, huge racks of Brandt Beef just lay there at Ranch45—have been laying for a while (40 days, says one tag). When meat is dry-aged like this, it begins to look prehistoric and unlocks a whole new universe of flavors. Excess moisture is drawn out of the meat over time, breaking down the protein, tenderizing it and concentrating its steakness. It works the same way as when you “reduce” a stock or a soup to crank up the flavor. In the cooler next to it, Ranch45 chef Aaron Schwartz is aging bone marrow. That’s right. Ranch45 is dry-aging bone marrow. At the performance kitchen in the middle of the butcher shop/deli/restaurant/gourmet general store in Solana Beach, Schwartz roasts one of them; serves it simply on a plate with salt, pepper, chives, microgreens; and a dash of oil. As a marrow adherent (it is meat butter), it’s the first dry-aged marrow I’ve had. And it’s that much better. “Any meat has to age at least a bit to be any good,” says Schwartz, who was born and raised in the area and lives with his family (including wife and business partner, Pamela) in nearby Carmel Valley. “That’s why in the butcher shop you’ll see it on hooks.” Next to the dry-aging marrow and meat is soap. Bone marrow soap. “We just hand-packaged them last night,” says Schwartz. “It’s about using every part of the animal. Wasting as little as possible. We’re getting back to the way things used to be in butcher shops. Where you knew your butcher and trusted them. That’s why we use Brandt Beef. I’ve known Eric Brandt and his family for 20 years and I’m still using them for a reason.” Del Mar has something special in Ranch45. As a chef at Marriott Marquis, Schwartz made a name for himself by convincing a large multinational hotel group to invest in local food. Under his watch, Marquis was one of the city’s largest purchasers of local farm goods. When the pandemic hit, he was furloughed. He spent time at home with his kids. Then Pamela convinced him to join Ranch45, which she’d managed for three years (she’s an accomplished chef and wine person herself, having spent years overseeing nearby Pamplemousse Grille and the once-mighty Arterra). Now they’re expanding, taking over the space next door and putting in a real butcher shop. The idea is to be the supplier for all of the local top restaurants, and for the locals who want to know where their meat comes from. For this podcast we sit and talk with Schwartz about the ideas of simple food sourced from a place you know. About bringing small purveyors and general stores back to a community. In “Hot Plates,” we break the news that The Joint in O.B. is working on a ramen joint on Newport Avenue down the street from their original location, as well as opening two restaurants in Hawaii; Indian standout Charminar is opening the upscale Dosa Studio next door; and Ballast Point has a new culinary director in Tommy Dimella (who also spent years at Pamplemousse). For “Two People, Fifty Bucks” Aaron points to Juanita’s taco shop in Leucadia, where he takes his family after a surf; Troy raves about Starfish Filipino Eatery in O.B. (get the sisig); and David gives a shout out to the pop-up submarine tiki bar experience, Acey Deucey Club. See ya next week.
The birria flatbread at Stone World Bistro & Gardens is one of those dishes that’s gone in minutes. On this podcast, we huddle around it. Poke at it. Demolish it with chef Israel Ortiz. It’s the kickoff of our new video series with Stone, which will highlight a few local restaurants and our favorite dishes that their cooks and chefs and food people have created. It’s a celebration of Stone’s Delicious IPA. After years of tinkering on the recipe of the ultimate beer that pairs well with food, Delicious is the result.
Izzy walks us through what makes the flatbread sing, and we talk about how birria has overtaken the fish taco as the official food of San Diego.
Our other guest?
She was working at a branding agency in San Diego. At company events, she’d bring her salsa. Everyone loved it. On a lark, she tried out to be a contestant on Masterchef—that massive cooking competition on TV with Gordon Ramsey. She told her job she’d be gone for a bit. She wasn’t allowed to tell them anything about how well she was doing on the show. As it became longer and longer that she was away, her company had to let her go.
She came home, jobless, and couldn’t tell a single soul what had happened. She’d won. She’d get the $250,000 check in six months. Until then, no money, no job, a young daughter at home, a single mom.
Half a year later, she got the check for $250,000. She’d won. She is Claudia Sandoval—friend, talented chef, Richter-scale personality, judge on Masterchef Latino, and with her own series of Food Network travelogues now, Taste of the Border—in which she visits with chefs, farm workers, and food people along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The people were so amazing, and the food was incredible,” she says of Taste of the Border. “We meet these migrant workers who are out picking chiles in the heat of New Mexico. At nine in the morning, it was 109. So we got to know these families who are living on the farms, hand-picking every Hatch chile you buy at the grocery store. That is teh grit and the soul of the show, plus we get to explore some amazing restaurants.”
On this episode, she talks about her experience filming and the things she’s learned (hint: the border-regions of Mexico are the North American epicenters of Chinese food). She explains her new line of next-day delivery meals (chile rellenos, adobada pork chop, etc.). And we just kind of loudly laugh a lot.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about the opening of Sandpiper (in the place that was formerly Galaxy Taco), and I give a few of the can’t-miss dishes from chefs Trey Foshee and Christine Rivera; talk about the new restaurants going into a remodeled historical building in Oceanside from the same people who brought you Louisiana Purchase (Grind and Prosper Hospitality); I announce I have finally given up a life-long effort to appreciate the charms of uni (everyone at the table thinks my mouth is broken); we talk about the two new restaurants being opened by the Jeune et Jolie and Campfire team (Wildlands and Lilo).
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” chef Izzy says he can’t get enough of Cocina de Barrio; Troy raves about the corn cake and double-cut pork chop at Sandpiper; and David is all about the North Park farmers’ market, Knockout Bread, and other vendors.
See ya next week.
We’ve been here for two weeks and I’d like to stay another thirty. I’ve brought my overnight bag and a note from my wife. Gonna make my case. We’re at Park Hyatt Aviara, a 200-acre resort, one of the classic San Diego properties built far above a wetland preserve in Carlsbad. The ocean is right over there. We’re sitting at a long dining table in Ponto Lago, their Baja-inspired restaurant and a star of the recent $50 million makeover of the property. You can smell the crackling red oak and the char on various excellent proteins. I see a mezcal collection.
I’m talking with chef Christopher Carriker about the magic of woodsmoke. David’s talking to him about the magic of heavy metal music. There is a hamachi and blackberry aguachile, a Sinoloan specialty, with sliced fresno chiles, green onion, and mint. There’s a charred octopus zarandeado with chorizo aioli, chicharrons and kumquats. It’s Baja ideas mixed with French sauce skills and the unbeatable San Diego seafood and produce.
Carriker is from Portland, which isn’t short on a food scene. But, for a chef, he says, it’s nothing like San Diego. “The farms we have right up the road? It’s incredible,” he says. “I had to get used to the long growing seasons when I came here. I’d think, ‘well, it’s winter guess I have to switch to root vegetables,’ and then realize summer fruits were still in season. Crazy.”
This episode we dive into why every chef and restaurant is turning their gas powered ovens in for piles of expensive wood. Chef Chris walks us through the various woods and their very specific charms (citrus burns hot, is best for searing), and why Baja cuisine is so compelling.
In “Hot Plates,” we discuss the new concepts being opened by chef Phil Esteban’s Open Gym group—White Rice Bodega in Normal Heights, and Wavy Burgers (Filipino-style burgers) in National City. One of North County’s hottest restaurant groups, Leucadia Co. (Moto Deli, Valentina, etc.) is opening two new locations of Hamburger Hut (Wagyu burgers) in Encinitas and Oceanside. The mighty Carruth Cellars’ run in Little Italy is coming to an end in the middle of June, but the good news is that just about the same day they open their massive spot in Liberty Station, a 10,000 square foot wine wonderland with a gourmet cheese shop and expanded menu. And finally, Societe Brewing is expanding into a new location in Old Town, continuing the signal that the historic part of San Diego is getting a blood transfusion.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy raves about Amalfi Cucina Italiana’s pan-fried artichokes and pizza, and marvels at the surreal man-made wonder that is Lake San Marcos. David raves about the bratwurst at Bagby Beer, and chef Chris gives a nod to a fellow wood-smoked restaurant and one of San Diego’s best, Fort Oak.
Thanks for listening, y’all. Tune in next week when we broadcast from Stone Brewing Liberty Station for the kickoff of a new video series with the city’s homegrown beer heroes.
This is a fun one. I’ve known Richard Blais for a long while, and we tend to bring the best stories out of each other.
Like golf foraging. When most of us lose our golf balls in the bushes, we venture into the brush and come out with scrapes and a handful of profanities. When chef Richard Blais sucks at golf, he goes into the brush and comes out with wild fennel and some carrots for dinner.
When he opened his first restaurant at Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad—Ember & Rye, a modern steakhouse with a wood-burning grill that’s always on fire above the 18-hole course—he took up the clubs.
“So maybe occasionally my ball would go into the bushes,” he admits. “I go in there to get it and I found all this wild fennel and carrots and radishes and garlic and nasturtiums.” Over the last year, fans who know Richard through Top Chef and Guy’s Grocery Games and his new show on Fox, Next Level Chef, may have looked at his Instagram and wondered if he was training for the PGA.
“I became a golf influencer,” he says. “I got a free hat.”
Richard is on fire. On Next Level Chef he’s teamed up with Gordon Ramsey and Nyesha Arrington in a cooking competition show that’s probably got the most elaborate set in the history of food competition shows—a three-level “restaurant.” Competitors start in the basement and move their way up with each challenge.
“We shot the first season in Vegas,” he says, “and at the time it was the tallest non-permanent structure in the city. What an odd stat.”
Richard and I have known each other for years at this point. He and I talk about his restaurants (“no matter how much media I do, I always come back to the kitchen—I love restaurant life”), rank the classic side dishes for American steakhouses and how Ember & Rye tweaks the standards (ie, the traditional creamed corn becomes corn creme brulee). I relay one of my earliest Richard memories when we were both on a TV show together and the producers made me take off my glasses because they couldn’t have “two guys with big hair wearing glasses.” I spent the entire episode unable to see what the cooks were making (“looks like Karen’s got lobster,” I’d say, and someone else would say, “yep, that’s skirt steak”).
It’s a great, free-association conversation between a couple friends, one of whom happens to be one of the most accomplished chefs in the country who calls San Diego home.
During the day, Michael Vera cooks at standout Pacific Beach restaurant, The Fishery. In his off time, he grows delicious bacteria.
The words mold or fungus may not make your mouth water, but they should. They’re the gateways to fermentation, which gives us bread, coffee, miso, chocolate, beer, kimchi, wine, cheese, soy sauce, other forms of dear-god delicious. And right now, no fungus is hotter than Japanese koji—rice grains cultured with aspergillus oryzae.
“It’s a sweet, funky marinade that tenderizes and intensifies with umami,” says Michael Vera, owner of West Coast Koji, a company he created during the pandemic by using Home Depot racks to ferment various things in the living room of his North Park apartment. “My wife was not happy with the state of our apartment for a very long time. It was a huge laboratory full of funky stuff.”
Now he sells his koji to Michelin-star restaurants like Jeune et Jolie and Rustic Canyon, plus Juniper & Ivy and Consortium Holdings. Koji is famous for its umami-cranking transformation of proteins, and you can taste WCK’s effect on the duck breast at Matsu in Oceanside. Anyone can buy dried koji at Asian grocers, but WCK’s is fresh, and rare. There are only probably 10 commercial koji producers in the U.S., which makes his delicious fuzz business a boon for local cooks. On this episode, Michael gives us the 101 on koji and the fascinating world of culinary ferment.
For “Hot Plates,” it seems everyone is moving to North County. We talk about the northward expansion of Lola55, long one of the best taco operations in the city now headed to Carlsbad. We finally are allowed to spill the news on George’s chefs Trey Foshee and Christine Rivera’s newest concept—Sandpiper, an oysters and wood-smoked meats joint that will go into the former home of Galaxy Taco. The group behind Nolita Hall and Half-Door Brewing have taken over the spot vacated by Civico by the Park—a sprawling space on the bottom floor of the Mister A’s building. And the vegan superstars behind Kindred are going to open their spinoff soon—called Mothership, owner Kory Stetina calls it “just your run of the mill crashed starship on a tropical alien planet kind of spot.”
I must stop talking about the cabbage. I won’t shut up about it. So I figured if I brought chef William Eick to talk me through it, it will resolve my lingering emotional fixation on what is one of the best dishes I’ve eaten in a very long time.
Eick opened Matsu about six months ago. It’s a minimalist ode to modern Japanese cuisine. He’s been a talent in San Diego for a long time, and this is the big idea, what he’s been working for. In a spare room in Oceanside, where the “biggest” design element seems to be a single white orchid on a bar top, he’s serving 8- and 10-course tasting menus. And the cabbage is the shocker.
“I’ve been obsessed with Japanese culture since I was five years old,” says Eick. “Everything about it. A modern Japanese restaurant with a tasting menu, there are probably only a handful in the country that I can think of.”
For this episode, Eick walks us through some of the magic tricks that make Matsu stand out. For instance, he creates various dashis (Japanese broth, a cornerstone of the cuisine) like the one in his crab dish that is made with carrots and A5 Wagyu beef trimmings. We talk about how Japanese cooks and chefs have been masters at discovering new levels of flavor (the concept of “umami” is Japanese). And William gives us a primer on koji, the incredible Japanese marinade that makes his duck breast vastly more interesting. Gives it a good funk.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about the San Clemente icon Nick’s going into the former International Smoke location at One Paseo. The owners of Madison are opening an all-day brunch spot in Normal Heights called Madi. Wolfie’s Carousel Bar (if you’re not familiar, you need to check this out) has hired a new chef, formerly of Coronado’s excellent Little Frenchie. And renown Japanese fried chicken chain, Tenkatori, is opening in San Diego.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” I rave about the chilaquiles at Cocina 35, and whether or not it’s OK to call them breakfast nachos (a term told to me by a great Mexican chef, but which some food purists get very, very angry about and defend chilaquiles’ honor). David can think of nothing but baseball (it’s his cabbage), and points people to Mexican food classic Lolita’s by Petco Park for game days (trivia: Lolita’s is family of the legendary Roberto’s). And William makes a regrettable decision to tell the world about his favorite ramen spot, which was a secret until right about now.
Go, Padres. See ya next week.
It is, finally, open.
Almost.
When Grand Ole BBQ y Asado shut down its North Park location for renovation, it was supposed to be for a couple of months. That was three years ago. In the interim, we had a pandemic. But now it’s been fully redone. It’s ready to open, soon as the last health inspections pass.
This is big news because, well, Grand Ole is great. Owner Andy Harris has kept himself busy with their other location in Flinn Springs, which is about as close to a Texas backyard barbecue joint as you can get without leaving San Diego.
It’s still got that backyard, wooden bench vibe. But most grandmas will like these benches.
“I wanted it to be for everyone to enjoy their time there—like if your grandma wanted to come she wouldn’t think it was gross,” says owner Andy Harris. “Like my aunt came to the old one and she was like uh no.”
In the spirit of everyone, Grand Ole will be the first local barbecue restaurant I can think of with a vegan menu. Andy’s also got a “sommelier type guy” for the new spot, wants to prove that beer isn’t the only thing that goes well with brisket and ribs and smoked turkey. And of course he’ll have craft beer galore on taps throughout. With a full kitchen (the original spot just had a cubby hole), they’ll be able to do more menu options and non-barbecue dishes. They’ll also have kimchi and a few Korean dipping sauces.
“I met a woman who was a dealer at a local casino,” says Harris. “Maybe I go there occasionally. Anyway, we start talking and she says she makes the best kimchi I’ve ever tasted. So she brings me some. And it is the best I’ve ever tasted. So now she’s going to make all our kimchi. Marcia Marcia Marcia kimchi.”
In Hot Plates, we get the sad news out of the way—Metl in North Park, with their boozy milkshakes, had to close (their downtown location is going strong). Stone Brewing won its lawsuit against Molson Coors, whose rebrand of Keystone was deemed to be a pretty bad trademark infringement (the Keystone cans sure looked like the name was “Stone”). The San Diego Beer News Awards rolled out their winners, with some of the bigger awards going to Hopnonymous, McIlhenney Brewing, Pure Project, North Park Beer Co, Burgeon Beer Co., Stone, Societe, and Treevana. And this weekend, one of the best food events in San Diego is finally back after three years—”Celebrate the Craft” at the Lodge at Torrey Pines, an outdoor collaboration cooking event under the sun with Kelli Crosson (AR Valentien), Javier Plascencia (Finca Altozano), Eric Bost (Jeune et Jolie), Jojo Ruiz (Serea, Lionfish), and Travis Swikard (Callie).
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy is still a little stunned by how good Matsu is, and how chef William Eick can do what he did with that cabbage dish. David has a billion tasters of mezcal at Camino Riviera in Middletown/Little Italy, and Andy is all about the sole with white wine at San Diego classic, Anthony’s Fish Grotto.
Thanks for listening, guys.
In 2004, Jon Bautista made his mom cry. She spontaneously wept when he told the family he’d enrolled in culinary school. To be fair, in the same breath he also broke the news that he’d dropped out of the undergrad program at SDSU to do so. Parents have news thresholds, and hers was breached.
“This was before Top Chef,” he says. “She just said, ‘You’re never going to make any money.’”
Now, 17 years later, Bautista is chef of one of the city’s most raved-about restaurants, Kingfisher, a partnership with the local family who owns the beloved local restaurant, Crab Hut. It’s modern Vietnamese. It’s also a bit Franco-Californian, because Bautista spent five years as chef de cuisine of George’s at the Cove under Trey Foshee. It’s a bit Filipino, he says, because he is Filipino. Cooking has never been more borderless.
The Golden Hill restaurant is booked months out, with a long waiting list (they do have a few walk-in tables). Their duck—dry-aged in house, lightly smoked, brushed with palm sugar—is the treasure for early-birds. They only sell eight of them a night, and zip they’re gone. For this podcast—the first recorded in-person at the San Diego Magazine offices since 2020—Jon brought a beef tartare with toasted quinoa, pickled ramps, crispy shallots, chiles, cured egg yolk, sesame-rice crackers, watercress, lettuces, herbs. The not-secret ingredient—Red Boat No. 5 fish sauce—makes it a killer riff on a classic. And the joy of abundant ingredients is very Vietnamese (think of the pile of greenery you’re presented with your pho).
“This is everything,” Bautista says of Kingfisher. “I was struggling during the pandemic. For the first time in my adult life I was unemployed. I was drinking too much, I gained weight, I was depressed. And then this happened.”
We talk about the long road to here.
In “Hot Plates,” we yap about The Friendly’s expansion to Pacific Beach, and what that says about America’s love affair with little places that could. Herb & Sea is throwing a party for Wildcoast, the San Diego-based group that does great work conserving marine ecosystems, with a five-course “Treasure Fish Feast” featuring lesser known local fish (eating only salmon and halibut and sea bass is not only boring but also creates a pretty unsustainable future). Over in North Park, Bivouac Ciderworks is throwing a four-course dinner to celebrate Women’s History Month that pairs Mexican-inspired dishes with special small-batch ciders (Mexican Hot Chocolate Cider, a beer-cider hybrid, etc.). Also, the owners of Tahini are opening up a Middle Eastern-inspired specialty coffee shop called Finjan, and this June the owners of Don Pietro are partnering with Gustavo Rios and Sal Busalacchi (of the Busalacchi Italian restaurant lore) for a two-story, jungle-themed concept in Old Town.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Jon shows the breadth of his food arts by nodding to both Callie and the almighty Filet-O-Fish, David raves about Cafe Madeleine, and I get wistful about my glory days as a struggling writer in Golden Hill and fondly recommend Krakatoa.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
I’m not sure how many stages of coping there are, but when Greg Hess told his wife and family they were moving to San Diego to start one of the first “nano breweries” in the country—I’d bet they ran through most, if not all of them. Probably added one or two. Harris’ brother, Mike, had the idea in 2010 to go even smaller than a microbrewery. Launched a brewery in an 800 square-foot cubby hole.
It may not have sounded like a “sure thing,” but it sure became one.
Now Mike Hess Brewing is one of the most recognizable names in local craft beer, with tasting rooms in North Park (the OG, opened in 2013), O.B., Imperial Beach, Seaport Village, and Walnut Creek (where the Hess clan is from). For today’s podcast, he joins us under the metallic tower of funfear that is the Emperor, SeaWorld’s new roller coaster—the fastest, tallest, and longest plunge coaster in California. To commemorate the unveiling at the tap, Hess Brewing created the Emperor Hazy IPA, which will be served exclusively at the park. A portion of the proceeds for the beer will go to Penguins International to fund their conservation, education, and research efforts for the species.
We also talk about the future of Hess, including the deal they signed to revive the iconic location where Alpine Beer Co. was created—a 4,000 square-foot space with a 5,000 square-foot patio. They’ll carry on the tradition of having a beer wonderland in the nearby hills of San Diego.
In “Hot Plates,” Mabel’s Gone Fishing–an oyster and gin shop from the beloved local owners of The Rose natural wine bar—is making its long-awaited debut in North Park soon. L.A.’s famed breakfast tacos joint, Homestate Tacos, is landing in the Freeman Collective in South Oceanside, joining BlackMarket Bakery, Northside Shack, Corner Pizza, and Artifex Brewing. The Freeman project should be a hangout for a long, long while. In Sherman Heights, Cafe X is opened by a mother-daughter duo in the cultural hub that is 1835 Studios—a spot for food trucks, art galleries, community doings. And a while back we did the hunt for the best birria in San Diego, and El Prieto was our personal favorite—a food truck in the parking lot of a muffler shop by the border. Well, they just opened a second spot in Mira Mesa and you should go immediately.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy pays homage to a San Diego icon of brunch and points you to the liquid obscenity that is the bloody Mary at Hash House A-Go-Go (pair it with the sage fried chicken with polenta and fried leeks). David recognizes the continuing evolution and betterment of San Diego mainstay, Crazee Burger, and Greg Hess hails the almighty Rocky’s Crown Pub.
See ya next week.
I’m suspended fourteen stories above San Diego Bay. I am being dangled over the edge of a cliff made of metal. I smell vaguely of quality craft beer. I am an offering to the gods of amusement. Questioning life choices, my emotional state in that jittery nook between joy and terror. Just hanging there, looking directly down, wondering how good latch technology is these days. Intellectually, you know how safe this is. You know the byzantine safety measures in place. But intellect is no match for that primal scream inside you that says “WHAT THE NO.”
This roller coaster’s new trick (new to me, at least) is that, instead of just plunging you down the thrill drop, it dangles you over the edge and then stops for a full 3-5 seconds. Lets you take it all in. Then it lets you go. It just drops you, at a 90-degree angle, 143 feet down, 60 miles per hour freefall. Your feet just dangle the whole wild time.
The Emperor, SeaWorld’s new roller coaster, opens tomorrow (March 12). It’s been two years in the making. It’s the tallest, fastest, longest dive roller coaster in California. And it’s where we podcast from this week. You can hear our adrenaline shakes.
To commemorate the coaster’s arrival, local craft brew success story Hess Brewing created the Emperor Hazy IPA—a juicy little number that’s available exclusively at the park. And it’s coinciding with SeaWorld’s Seven Seas Food Festival and Craft Beer Festival, which runs now through May 1. VP of Marketing Erika Diprofio—whose name either sounds like a law firm or an expensive perfume—explains the coaster, the beer, and the cause (a portion of sales of the IPA will go to Penguins International).
We also hassle the newest member of the SDM media team—our social media manager, Rachel Frank—and make her get on the mic with us to meet you guys. Rachel is a ball of energy and creative force. She created and ran her own music platform, www.listensd.com. She dressed as a panda “to meet friends” in San Diego, and it became such a big hit that she ended up dancing on stage in panda gear with Snoop Dogg, The Flaming Lips, you name it. During the pandemic, she created a short film, “I’m An Ant,” about the meaning of life in an ant costume. It’s wonderfully weird, charming, creative. And… it’s a finalist at Cannes World Film Festival—after winning Best Experimental Short at the Paris International Film Festival. She’ll be creating the new SDM on social media going forward. We actively adore her.
Point is, it feels good to be podcasting in public with real people again. Our Zoom-exclusively podcast era has come to a merciful end.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about one of San Diego’s best brewpubs, Gravity Heights—a collaboration between master brewer Skip Virgilio (he co-founded AleSmith) and chef Ryan Johnston and Whisknladle Hospitality—which is planning to open a second location in Mission Valley, and Anthony Wells of Juniper & Ivy is a semifinalist for a James Beard Award. For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David’s has a codependent relationship with soup (this time at Pho on Fifth), Erika professes her love for all things Callie, and Troy found himself in a sweet life spot while staring at warm focaccia bread with melted brie cheese, balsamic, and Granny Smith apples at Seneca, the rooftop restaurant from Consortium Holdings.
Kelli Crosson bid her time, put in the work, earned this. The California native cooked alongside Jeff Jackson for 11 years at AR Valentien as his chef de cuisine (the iconic restaurant’s second in charge). Starting at The Lodge at Torrey Pines over 20 years ago, Jackson was the one of the earliest and brightest stars of San Diego’s food scene—doing farm-to-table before it was a marketing buzzword, cooking tip-to-tail when the rest of America was “just cook the sexy cuts.” Under his watch, the family-owned Lodge became a high-culinary attraction on par with the famed golf course it sits on. Still is.
And now he’s stepping aside to let his beyond-ready apprentice take the reins. Crosson is now the executive chef of all things Lodge—A.R., The Grill, banquets, events. If you eat it, she’s had a say in its creation. Jackson is still very much “around.” The Evans family created an emeritus role for Jackson—corporate culinary advisor (soon you’ll see his guiding influence at the new restaurant at Evans’ family’s other property in Mission Bay, The Bahia).
On this episode of “Happy Half Hour,” we get to know Crosson beyond the kitchen. How she grew up on a fruit tree farm (“we’d take our entire bedroom and put it under the orange trees, just live under there”), how at age 27 with a good marketing job she decided to upend it all and grab her knives, and how the magic of AR Valentien and the Lodge gets done (hint: source the absolute best ingredients on the local part of the planet, tweak them with just enough of your accumulated art as a chef, but let them shine), and what makes that famed “Drugstore Burger” so explitively good.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about the up-and-comingness of O.B. restaurant, The Joint, which recently hired a chef whose resume includes Cowboy Star and Mister A’s. We preview the Lakehouse Food & Wine Festival—some of north county’s top chefs (including Jeff Jackson) and restaurants cooking and serving drinks on the edge of Lake San Marcos (at the Lakehouse Hotel & Resort). Dog lovers have a new hangout—a massive utopia for pets and humans called Dog Society (there’s craft beer and putt putt golf and acai bowls and dog toys and sandwiches and massive TVs and dog runs). We discuss the closure of International Smoke, the concept from star chef Michael Mina and Ayesha Curry, and in brighter news the owners of Beeside Balcony in Del Mar have opened a modern Italian concept right next door called Cevasco’s (for chef Christophe Cevasco).
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Kelly professes her love for ramen, identifying Tajima as her go-to and Menya Ultra on her hit list. David raves about Kingfisher, the new modern Vietnamese concept from star local chef Jon Bautista and the local owners of the local staple Crab Hut. And Troy continues on his personal brunch journey, raves about the house-smoked lox benedict and cinnamon roll beignets at Provisional Kitchen in the Pendry Hotel.
Thanks for listening, y’all.
As a young girl growing up on a farm in San Diego County, Lan Thai’s dad would hand her shrimp shells from that night’s dinner and tell her, “Go feed the trees.” Lan was too young to understand why, but she did. The trees grew gaudy with fruit. Years later, as she was becoming a chef and diving deeper into the nutritive and health properties of food, she learned you can’t grow healthy food without healthy soil. And shrimp shells are star soil-makers.
Born in a Thai refugee camp as Lan’s family fled the communist takeover of Vietnam, they found their way here. Started growing their own sustenance, fishing local waters for proteins. Her father hadn’t studied soil science, or farming for that matter.
“I asked my dad how he knew shrimp shells were good for soil,” she says. “He said ‘Grandma told me.’ So, in addition to science, I’m a strong believer in the wisdom of ancients.”
On top of passed-down food wisdom, she started studying the scientific studies of healthy food. Her restaurant—Enclave, a small cafe inside the workspace of hard kombucha company, JuneShine—incorporates what she learns. It’s not all twigs and probiotic superseeds. She serves fried chicken and waffles. But every dish on the menu, she explains, has some fermented element.
In this episode of HHH, Lan explains why fermentation is a key to unlocking healthy properties in food. We also talk about her newest project: she just took over a 19-acre regenerative farm in Bonsall where she’ll grow food for her restaurants (she just opened a second location in UTC Westfield)—everything from fruit trees to a medicinal herb garden—and eventually plans to make it into a destination with cabins and an education center, classes on permaculture, food preservation, composting, cooking.
In “Hot Plates,” the longtime Mission Beach staple, Saska’s, is being reborn as Mo’s—a new, Tecture-designed steakhouse with private liquor cabinets and a throwback wood-and-vinyl booth vibe. Cross Street Chicken has opened its third location in the Del Mar Highlands Town Center, with a full cocktail bar run by a former drinksman from Sycamore Den and Fernside, and local steakhouse success story Rare Society is about to become a nationally known brand. In not-so-good news, the economic fallout of the pandemic hit local brewery Modern Times, who had to close their outposts in Portland, Oakland, Santa Barbara, and L.A. But fans of Texas brisket can rejoice—after three long years of renovations and the world falling apart, our perennial winner of “Best BBQ,” Grand Ole BBQ, is reopening its original North Park location.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy has been out at brunch venues across the city filming a preview for SDM’s upcoming “Brunch Bash.’ While “working,” he discovered the cover star of this month’s issue of SDM—the fried chicken and waffles at Brian’s 24. David went to Whiskey House for all the Whiskey, and Lan went to Lola 55.
Why does brunch feel so good in all the right parts of your soul? It is redemptively irresponsible. It’s breakfast, if breakfast were better. If your weekend was a pinball game, brunch is that bonus ball. You’re not really sure what you did to deserve it, but it’s extending your play time, so—hey there, little bonus ball.
Anyway, point is, our annual sold-out Brunch Bash is back. April 22 at Carmel Mountain Ranch Estates. You should come.
Because, on a very nice stretch of grass, we’ll loiter under the expensive San Diego sun and lose the appropriate amount of composure as we sample fried chicken and waffles, house-smoked lox benedict, banana bread with espresso mascarpone, croissant French toast, Mexican donuts, polenta with pork belly, Italian meatball soup, chilaquiles, granolas, parfaits. And there will be bloody marys and bubbles and agua frescas and tequila coffees and hard kombucha and iced horchata and organic superfruit hard cider and CBD beverages. Basically, people we admire make some pretty amazing things. At these parties, we invite all of them to some great place to share them with you, and to spread the word of the good things they do.
To keep with the theme, this episode of “Happy Half Hour” we invited one of our favorite chefs, JoJo Ruiz—who has helmed many a brunch at Lionfish (Pendry Hotel), and Serea (Hotel Del). He tells us about the new restaurant concepts he and Clique Hospitality are opening—a sushi handroll joint called Temaki in Encinitas, and Joya Organic Kitchen in Torrey Pines. And then we discussed the joys of brunch. “I think I may be the only chef I know who likes cooking brunch,” says Ruiz.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about Wildwood Flower, a new bakery/general store in Pacific Beach that’s doing wild fermented sourdough breads, grinding their own flour every day. The famed Peterson’s Donuts in San Diego—with the bear claws as big as your face—has sold to someone who cares about the legacy. And our pick for Best Filipino Food in last year’s “Best Restaurants” issue—White Rice—is expanding to a second location in Normal Heights.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David raves about Swan Bar, chef Jojo becomes the second guest in two weeks to rave about the mystical tequila charms of Cantina Mayahuel, and Troy marvels at a damn good burger at The Joint, a place known for sushi.
The iconic Mister A’s is being sold (don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere, and this is a good story). Last week, we talked with Bertrand Hug—the restaurateur of restaurateurs, the don of dining and longtime steward of the rooftop restaurant—about why he chose to sell to his right-hand man. Today on the podcast, we have the man himself, Ryan Thorson.
Ryan earned this (and paid for it). The SDSU grad got his first job at Buster’s Beach House in Seaport Village, then landed a low-level managers job at Mister A’s and just dedicated his life to it. Worked 100-hour weeks at times. He rose through the ranks over 11 years, becoming Director of Operations. He and Hug developed a father-son relationship, and, when Hug decided it was time to let go and focus on his original baby—the world=class French restaurant Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe—he turned down offers for more money and entrusted Mister A’s to his young partner and friend.
Ryan tells us the whole story—including how he originally got turned down for the job because Bertrand didn’t like his facial scruff—and what he plans to do with the San Diego classic when he takes over in March. He’s not going nuts with the design, but he’s enlisted top designer Mauricio Courturier, who designed this place.
In “Hot Plates,” things get a little wild. Takashi Endo is opening another Menya Ultra Ramen in UTC, and we all give our answer about which is the superior soup: ramen or pho. We talk about Shake Shack opening in Carlsbad and I for sure am going to get driven out of Southern California in a hailstorm of fire because I admit I prefer it to our own better-burger legend (sacrilege). The Pink Lady—La Valencia Hotel–is renovating their famed Mediterranean Room and adding a new patio concept to celebrate its 95th birthday. Temaki Bar is going into Encinitas, a handroll place from Clique Hospitality (Lionfish, Serea, Joya Organic Kitchen) and sustainable seafood chef, JoJo Ruiz… And 3R Brewing—a Native American-owned craft beer from the Rincon Reservation—just opened in Ocean Beach.
For “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” Troy was reminded how much he loves the vegan food at Cafe Gratitude, especially that butternut squash dip with focaccia. Ryan wastes zero time in declaring his love for everyone’s favorite tequila-and-mole hideaway, Cantina Mayahuel. And David checked out the brand new Thai Street Food restaurant in North Park, Kin Len.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Hope you all enjoy. See ya next week.
Atiim “Tee” Smith is now one of the promising young cooks at one of the city’s better restaurants, Cucina Enoteca. He started his kitchen career a few years ago at Water Grill, also worked at Jake’s Del Mar. It’s quite a positive development because, in 2014, he was facing 64 years to life in prison.
Smith turned his own life around, a success of his own design. But he had some help from one of the more inspiring organizations in San Diego—Kitchens for Good. KFG is a nonprofit that essentially provides a free culinary school for people who need a second shot for a variety of reasons. Their apprenticeship program offers technical skills, some life coaching, career counseling, a network of support. Their “Hunger Relief” program prepares over 100,000 healthy-side meals every year to help San Diego families, seniors, and anyone facing food insecurity.
Both Tee Smith and KFG director of programs Dennis Crosby join us on this episode of “Happy Half Hour” to talk about Tee’s personal evolution and how Kitchens for Good has managed to make an impact. The segment is just in time for the opening of their new store in Pacific Beach. There, they sell top of the line kitchenware that’s already been cooked with but lightly used, so it’s affordable for cooks on a budget.
In “Hot Plates,” we talk about the pop-up LEGO bar coming to San Diego for a few days only (you can book your tickets here). The space in North Park where the beloved Tiger! Tiger! Recently closed is getting a new location for Sushi 2. Verbena Kitchen in North Park is putting on a special dinner as a fundraiser for neighbors who had a devastating fire. The team behind Kettner Exchange and Camino Riviera and Grass Skirt—which includes damn good chef Brian Redzikowski and top bar man Eric Johnson—is bringing a new 19th century pirate bar (OK, it’s just old-school nautical but in our book that means pirates) with a gin focus. After a wildly successful run and acquisition by AB-InBev, Saint Archer has been discontinued and removed from retail shelves.
In “Two People, 50 Bucks,” Troy raves about the shawarma egg rolls at South Park food truck, Shawarma Guys. David ate his way through the menu at Wormwood and can’t stop talking about it, Dennis gives the worst performance in the history of “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” and Tee tells us what his favorite dishes to order at Cucina Enoteca.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Absinthe sure got pigeonholed. We are all aware that within 15 minutes of drinking it, you speak in tongues, dictating the next great American novel onto the bar napkin. Another 30 minutes, and you descend into madness. Such a mythologized spirit, the drink of long-dead poets and thinkers and ascenders and descenders. And now it has its own restaurant in San Diego, sort of.
Wormwood just went into the space recently vacated by the beloved Jayne’s Gastropub. It’s the project of Amar Harrag, who brought a jolt of modern blood to Old Town with Tahona and its accompanied secretish bar, Oculto 477. Beverage director Ben Marquart (Ironside, Saiko Sushi) has been tasked with creating the city’s first absinthe bar, proving that the black licorice-flavored, green golbin-colored spirit is far more diverse and nuanced than once believed.
In the kitchen is chef Danny Romero, a native of Calexico who moved to San Diego 15 years ago, fell in love with the fire and grit and hustle of the restaurant kitchen. He worked at two-star Michelin restaurant Addison in Del Mar, and along with other members of the staff, was part of the popular underground dinner series, Tortoise. Both men come on this week’s episode to talk absinthe and explain the concept.
In news, the luminously haired kitchen maestro Richard Blais has another national TV show coming out in the next couple of weeks—called Next-Level Chef on Fox, he’ll be alongside Nyesha Arrington (Top Chef) and Gordon Ramsey, and one of the first contestants will be a San Diego influencer, AE Southamavvong. In La Jolla, the Puesto group has named the chef for their upcoming Italian concept in La Jolla, Marisi. Chad Huff (ex-Providence) will be in the kitchen along with spirits director Bea du Bois who was at three-star Michelin The Restaurant at Meadowood. Phenomenal food nonprofit Kitchens for Good (essentially, a free culinary school for people who need a little help), has just opened up their own store and you should absolutely shop here for the holidays. And finally, we spotlight a new brand, Betera, a sparkling NA beverage brand launched in San Diego by a couple of former chefs who worked for Jean-Georges.
For two people, $50, Troy says we absolutely must go support Priscilla Curiel and her new Tuetano Tacqueria location in Old Town. David went to Awash Ethiopian Restaurant for the Special Tibs and meat and veggie and meat sampler plates. Ben is yet another person to rave about El Barbecue, and Chef Danny recommends the Vodka Pasta at Cardellino and the scallops at Chef Jun.
Ted Lasso is the hero we need and America’s de facto life coach, but he needs to fix himself when it comes to tea. It is finally taking off in U.S. culture, at least partially because consumers are looking for healthier drinks and are increasingly sober-curious. Sure it took a while. Ever since they threw the king’s stash into the Boston Harbor, coffee seized power and has served a few thousand consecutive terms in the part of our hearts where we keep the love for hot beverages.
But now specialty tea—sourced from very specific, often family-owned tea gardens across the world—is ascending our love charts in U.S. culture. It seems like it took matcha—a tea the color of Instagram—to open our hearts to coffee’s low-key cousin, but we’re here for it.
San Diego’s Paru Tea Bar—the good-tea concept by married couple, Amy Truong and Lani Gobaleza—is proof. On this podcast, Truong explains their humble beginnings in 2017 (she would collect rideshare scooters and charge them to earn extra money while they launched their business in a series of pop-up tea events). They opened their first brick and mortar in Point Loma in 2019, and now they just unveiled their second —a 1,200 square-foot tea sanctuary and art gallery on Girard Street in La Jolla (their first art exhibits feature a La Jolla High alum who used dried Paru tea leaves to paint her work.
At the shop they’ll be house-milling matcha, the only shop in California to do so. So people caught up in the grasp of the matcha movement can taste it freshly pulverized, not bagged and shipped.
In “Hot Plates,” Troy and David talk through a spate of new openings in San Diego, including: the city’s first absinthe bar and bistro, Wormwood; the new high-design distillery, Swan Bar; a new concept in Torrey Pines from the group behind Lionfish and Serea; and one of our favorite Italian chefs, Accursio Lota of Cori Pasificio.
In “Two People, Fifty Bucks,” David raves about the carnivore catnip down at El Barbecue from chef Ami Cisneros (formerly chef at Grand Ole BBQ); Amy points to her favorite spring roll joint in Hillcrest, Goi Con; and Troy is rekindling his love affair with sushi at two of his favorite sushi joints within walking distance of each other in Bankers Hill (Hane and Azuki).
Wait, what? Longtime writer and person on TV Troy Johnson and his wife Claire have become the new majority owners of San Diego Magazine. When did this happen? How did this happen? Are writers allowed to own things? In this special edition of “Happy Half Hour,” David demands some answers. He interviews Troy and Claire and asks them all the major questions, about their hopes and dreams and whether or not David will be getting a substantial raise. Questions like: WHY? Will Troy still write and host podcasts and be on Food Network? What changes are coming to San Diego Magazine? The short version: Troy and Claire believe in SDM and local media and local people. This is them, investing everything they are into where they live. For the long version, take a listen. A new SDM is currently being blueprinted and dreamt up and mapped out in our offices and on our Zooms. It’s all very exciting.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week’s special guest is Mike Minor, the new executive chef at The Marine Room in La Jolla. The Marine Room has been one of the city’s most iconic restaurants since its opening in 1941, and Mike will be filling the shoes of Bernard Guillas, who put his French twist on the restaurant’s seafood fare for the past 27 years.
Mike talks about his plan to make the mainstay restaurant even more sustainable when it comes to sourcing local catch, like swordfish and tuna. While he promises to honor the restaurant’s tradition, he also wants to evolve the menu around classic dishes and add his own flair. One example is the new Perfect Egg dish, which is an egg stuffed with corn veloute, sous-vide egg yolk, foamed egg whites, and caviar. Before his new gig, Mike was the executive chef at the acclaimed Border Grill in his hometown, Las Vegas. He also ran a “Mexicue” food truck that fused authentic Mexican cuisine with Texas barbecue which was voted Top 200 Food Trucks in the country. Aside from his chef life, Mike is a proud punk rocker with an intriguing background. He recalls his first job as a pool boy which may or may not have been tied to the mob, as well as other stories from Sin City that will be featured in his upcoming autobiography, Growing Up In Vegas.
In Hot Plates, Brad Wise is opening the Solana Beach location of his steakhouse, Rare Society, this weekend. Pacific Catch, a sustainable fish house chain from the Bay Area, just opened up at Westfield UTC. The San Diego City Council recently approved making parklets permanent for restaurants.
In Two People, $50, Mike chose Rocky’s Crown Pub in Pacific Beach and Mike’s Taco Club in Ocean Beach. Troy’s pick is Vaga in Encinitas for the warm rolls, bagna cauda clams, and signature burger—you can read his review on Vaga in our November issue. David recommended the Victory At Sea Beer Dinner from Ballast Point in Miramar, which comes with four courses that include creamy lobster risotto, pancetta-wrapped scallops, and filet mignon.
Thank you for listening! The Happy Half Hour team will be taking a short break, and the show will return in December. As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week, we’re chatting with Rachel Shemirani, senior vice president at Barons Market. Barons is a gourmet grocery store that was founded by a local family in Point Loma and has nine locations in San Diego and Riverside. Rachel's father, Joe, started the business in the early ’90s because he couldn’t find an organic grocery store that sold food he enjoyed. Rachel and her sister, Dana, started working in the stores as cashiers when they were in high school, and now they both hold leadership positions in the company. Rachel oversees advertising and marketing, and is also the gatekeeper for new products—she leads weekly food panels to hand-select new products, which involves 40 people sampling anywhere from 80 to 120 different products, and whittling down the best. Rachel says that everything sold on Barons’ shelves has made the taste testers’ cut.
We chat with Rachel about how they compete with large grocery chains and what sets them apart, how they’ve been weathering the pandemic, and how they’re dealing with current supply-chain issues. We also get insight on what it’s like to work with your family every day, how organic foods have improved drastically over the years, and some of the cool new foods you can find in their stories.
In Hot Plates, CloudKitchens—which launched a ghost kitchen in Barrio Logan last spring—is opening a second location over by San Diego State University. Mamá por Dios, an upscale Mexican restaurant that started in Beverly Hills, is opening in the Gaslamp. And Convoy Street got a new restaurant, Eastern Dynasty, specializing in Cantonese barbecue.
In Two People, $50, Rachel’s pick is Harry’s Taco Club in Pacific Beach; she says to get any of the burritos and margaritas. Troy’s pick is the burger at Harbor Town Pub in Point Loma. David went to Sandfish Sushi & Whiskey in Palm Springs, and recommends the scallops with walnuts and yuzu. Marie's pick this week is El Cacho in Chula Vista for mariscos.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We're excited to have chef William Bradley of Addison back on the show. In case you missed it, Addison was recently elevated from one Michelin star to two a few weeks ago, for the 2021 Michelin Guide California. We had William on the show in January, and he’s back to talk about what this latest award means for the restaurant and for San Diego’s dining scene.
William shares how he and his staff moved away from serving traditional French cuisine to “California gastronomy” instead—dishes that include elements from the multitude of cultures found in the state, along with regional ingredients. A new bite on their tasting menu, the chicken liver churro, is an example of this. William says he believes that not cooking from someone else’s playbook and simply striving to be different is why they were awarded a second star. He says getting the first star was “like climbing Mount Everest,” but he and his staff didn’t want to become comfortable after receiving that recognition, so they continued to innovate. William shares how he found out the news, what’s changed since, and what’s in store for Addison’s future. We also talked about the pressure (and responsibility) that comes with this kind of award, and discussed the fact that four restaurants in San Diego now have Michelin stars.
Want a reservation at Addison? You can search for a booking on Resy or OpenTable.
In Hot Plates, Avonte Hartsfield, owner of Rollin Roots, is rebuilding his vegan food truck after a fire thanks to an outpouring of community support. In South Park, the former site of Hamilton’s Tavern will be turned into a new pub, Bock, by the owners of Bottlecraft. Matsu, a Japanese restaurant by chef William Eick, has found a permanent home in Oceanside and is now open.
In Two People, $50, William has a new recommendation for us: the omakase sushi at Ken Sushi Workshop in Carmel Valley. Troy’s pick this week is the sweet-tea-brined chicken at Flying Pig Pub in Oceanside. David got the fried chicken at Streetcar Merchants in North Park, and Marie picks the chow mein and crispy pork from the food court inside 99 Ranch Market on Balboa Avenue.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week we’re excited to welcome Saman Javid, who is now leading the kitchen at La Jolla’s iconic George’s at the Cove. Saman is from the Bay Area, and he started his culinary career working at Fork in Marin County and B Restaurant in Oakland. He then moved to New York City, where he was sous chef at the acclaimed Gramercy Tavern for several years. He joined George's about four months ago as executive chef. Saman says he was always surrounded by delicious food, as he grew up in a Persian family (and his family also owned a restaurant). We chatted about his vision for the landmark restaurant (George’s has been in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years), the difference between the produce in New York and California, and what excites him about San Diego’s dining scene. And since we’ve had Michelin on our minds lately, he shares what it’s like to work at a restaurant that has a Michelin star.
In Hot Plates, Pamir Kabob House, an Afghan restaurant that closed its doors earlier this year, is reopening in La Jolla. The Golden Door, an exclusive spa and wellness retreat near San Marcos, recently opened a country store and farm stand selling locally grown produce, pantry items, and housewares—and 100 percent of the proceeds go to charity.
For Two People, $50, Saman has two recommendations: Pho Duyen Mai in Kearny Mesa and The Fishery in Pacific Beach. Troy’s pick is the crispy rice paper-wrapped pork ribs from Juniper & Ivy, and David recommends the beef empanadas and wings at Rouleur Brewing in North Park. My pick this week is the tacos at La Tiendita Mexican Market in Clairemont (available on weekends).
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week our special guest is David Contreras Curiel of Karina’s Mexican Seafood, a San Diego institution that is celebrating its 40th anniversary this week. David and his siblings are leading the family business that his parents started back in Spring Valley in 1981, and he shares with us the story of Karina’s humble beginnings. David’s father, Don Arnulfo Contreras, and mother, Maria Ines Curiel, founded the restaurant (which is named after their eldest daughter) to create a better life for their six children. Don was a good cook, so he built the business by preparing the seafood dishes that he’d grown up enjoying in his home state of Sinaloa, such as ceviche. For a short while, the entire family lived above the restaurant, and David started working there when he was six years old. Today, there are several Karina’s locations around the county, and the family also operates Savoie Italian Eatery, Taka Sushi, and Saffron Thai. David has 25 nieces and nephews, and he says they’ve all been involved in the restaurants or are currently working at them. We learned how they source their fresh seafood, the future goals for the company, and David’s expert tips on what to order when you visit.
Hot Plates this week is a lot of talk about the Michelin guide (and it’s big news!). Michelin announced it awarded four stars to San Diego restaurants: Addison was promoted from one to two stars, and Jeune et Jolie, Soichi Sushi, and Sushi Tadokoro each received one star. Earlier this month, five local restaurants received Michelin’s Bib Gourmand designation: Callie, Cesarina, Ciccia Osteria, Dija Mara, and Morning Glory. What do you think about the results of the awards? Let us know! In the last news item, Andrew Bachelier, formerly of Jeune et Jolie, confirmed that he and pro skater Tony Hawk are opening a new chicken restaurant in Encinitas called Chick N’ Hawk.
In Two People, $50, David Contreras Curiel recommends the quinoa bowl with chicken at Little Lion Cafe in Ocean Beach, and any of the entrées at Harbor Breakfast in Little Italy. My pick is the papa rellena at Too Sabrozo Delicatessen, a new Colombian food stand at local farmers’ markets. David Martin says to get the royal pho at Pho Ca Dao, and Troy’s pick this week is the crispy chicken buns and coconut shrimp at Sbicca Del Mar.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week our special guest was requested by listeners, and we’re excited to have him on the show: Kory Stetina, owner of Kindred in South Park. Kindred is a vegan restaurant and bar with a heavy metal vibe that opened in 2015, and it's regularly been named both a critic’s and readers’ pick for Best Vegan Restaurant in our annual Best Restaurants issue.
Kory says he’s been vegan since his early 20s, and he was first exposed to vegetarianism through his love of punk rock. He initially started Kindred as a pop-up when he couldn't find any local food-and-drink events that catered to his diet, so he started with vegan dinners paired with beer. He anticipated a small crowd, but a couple hundred people came out instead—seeing that demand eventually led to him opening the full restaurant. Since then, Kindred has redefined ideas of what vegan cuisine is and could be, and its “Permanent Vacation” tropical-themed cocktail nights have been a hit—Kory estimates that most of his clients (80 percent) are not vegan, but enjoy the food and atmosphere regardless. We chat with Kory about music, the decor (and the famous bathrooms) at Kindred, and his upcoming project, Mothership, a tropical-themed space bar that’s opening in South Park.
In Hot Plates, Oceanside is getting a new hotel (The Brick), and it will have a restaurant and bar from the team behind Louisiana Purchase and Miss B’s Coconut Club. San Diego breweries took home 18 medals at the Great American Beer Festival, and new breweries Puesto Cervecería and Tap Room Beer Co. won silver medals (congratulations!). In South Park, the owners of The Rose Wine Bar opened a new bakery, Secret Sister, next door, and they’re also working on Mabel’s Gone Fishing, a gin and pintxos (small appetizers in Basque country) bar in North Park.
For Two People, $50, Kory recommends the vegan chicken shawarma, fattoush, and falafel at Shawarma Guys. David’s pick is the spicy szechuan noodles with stir-fried veggies from Tribute Pizza, and Troy’s pick this week is the carne asada burrito and quesadilla from Roberto’s. Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We’re back after a short Labor Day break, and we’re with Justin Gaspar, the head baker at Hommage Bakehouse in Pacific Beach. Hommage, which launched last fall, is based inside La Clochette du Coin, a French bakery and café. Justin, who is from the Bay Area and worked at the acclaimed Manresa Bread (that's the bakery that spun off from Manresa restaurant, which has three Michelin stars), says the pastries he bakes at Hommage honor both his Filipino heritage as well as his classic French training. Justin walks us through the menu, from the croissants to the kouign-amanns and breads, and gives us a preview of soon-to-debut pastries like an ube custard bun. You have to try the kouign-amann with blueberry compote! Justin also shares with us the big news that he will be competing on Baker's Dozen, a new Hulu show that streams on October 7.
In Hot Plates, Cocina de Barrio, a Oaxacan restaurant in Hillcrest that made our Best Restaurants list for Best Birria, is opening a second location in Point Loma. Kingfisher, a modern Vietnamese restaurant and bar that’s been in the works, is opening soon in Golden Hill. Mike Minor, who worked at Border Grill in Las Vegas, was promoted from chef de cuisine to executive chef at The Marine Room. Finally, Michelin is publishing its guide to California this month, and yesterday they released a preview of restaurants in San Diego as “new gems and returning culinary stars.”
For Two People, $50, Justin recommends the Bees Mode pizza at Tribute Pizza. Troy’s pick this week is the ahi crudo at Catania, and David says to order the jungle curry mussels at Hoxton Manor.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from you. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We’re sorry that the audio quality this week isn’t fully up to par; David was still in the desert during recording.
In case you missed it, our 2021 edition of Best Restaurants just went online, and the print edition is available in stores. On the cover this year is Rare Society, a neighborhood steakhouse from Brad Wise, chef and owner of Trust Restaurant Group. Brad is originally from New Jersey, and he made a name for himself in San Diego’s food scene with Trust and Fort Oak, which both specialize in open-flame cooking. He’s since expanded with The Wise Ox Butcher and Cardellino. We’re here to learn more about his new projects (Rare Society and Wise Ox are both expanding to North County!), and how he’s overcome current challenges, like understaffing. On this episode we show Brad the cover of the September issue, and he walks us through the dishes we featured. Also joining us is Lauren Winget, one of our former podcast hosts! She is now working at Trust Restaurant Group. Listen in on the behind-the-scenes talk.
In Hot Plates, the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park is reopening tomorrow after a three-year renovation, and with it will come new eateries: The Craft Café in September, and Artifact later this fall. Carlsbad Aquafarm, an oyster farm in North County, recently opened the property to the public for tours and oyster tastings. Andrew Bachelier, the former chef of Jeune et Jolie, posted on Instagram that he has a new restaurant, but the post left us with more questions than answers—listen to find out what Brad has to say.
In Two People, $50, Brad recommends Callie, and says to get the hummus, pita, and pasta. Troy’s pick this week is the pulled pork from Cali Comfort BBQ in Spring Valley. Lauren and I both went to Wolf and Woman’s new monthly Malaysian-Tamil pop-up dinner, and highly recommend it.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! We are sorry, the audio quality this week isn’t fully up to par. You can blame David for being in Las Vegas for a heavy metal concert. This week our special guest is Ian Tenzer, the executive research and development chef at Puesto Mexican Artisan Kitchen & Bar. Ian joined the company last fall, which started in La Jolla and now serves its popular tacos and micheladas at nine locations in Southern California. Ian moved here from New York, where he worked with acclaimed chef Daniel Humm for several years and as sous chef at Eleven Madison Park, which has three Michelin stars and was named the World’s Best Restaurant in 2017. In his current role, Ian creates new menu items for all of Puesto’s locations, which he calls a “dream position,” and he's working on making their operations completely environmentally sustainable. We chat with Ian about what it really means to be a “zero-waste” restaurant and how he’s doing it, what it was like to cook at Eleven Madison Park, and the new fall/winter menu we can expect at Puesto. He also shares details about their newest restaurant, Marisi, which will open in La Jolla early next year. And if you want to experience more of Ian's cooking, he’ll be at a new local chef dinner series at the Estancia La Jolla Hotel on September 14.
In Hot Plates, Tahini is expanding its shawarma restaurant in Kearny Mesa, and is also opening a new Middle Eastern coffee and dessert shop. Chula Vista Brewery is opening its second location soon in Eastlake; the new tasting room will also feature Texas barbecue from Oak and Anchor BBQ. In case you missed it, a local chef based in San Marcos is competing on Christina Tosi’s new Netflix show, Bake Squad. We also have a call for pitches for an upcoming issue of San Diego Magazine—tune in to find out how you can contribute if you have a story to share with us!
In Two People, $50, Ian’s recommendation is the Spam musubi from Leilani’s Cafe in Pacific Beach (which I was thrilled to hear!). Troy says to try the lamb meatball with ras el hanout (a North African spice mix) and naan at Arlo in Mission Valley. Marie's pick this week is the shrimp tempura udon at Musashiya in Kearny Mesa.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We’re recording this episode from a premier club suite at Petco Park, thanks to this week’s sponsor, the San Diego Padres. Our special guest this week is Jaclyn Lash, the Padres’ vice president of special events. She joined the team in 2011 and oversees all events for the Padres and Petco Park, including concerts, game-day festivals, private and special events, and gatherings for the team. Before joining the Padres, she was at Jimmy Kimmel Live!, coordinating guest appearances and booking musical artists. We had to ask what it’s like to meet and work with celebrities regularly, and she shares some fun stories (one including Kanye West!).
Jaclyn is here to tell us how they transform the ballpark into venues for everything from the Monster Energy Supercross to The Links at Petco Park, a nine-hole golf course; and about upcoming concerts such as the Hella Mega Tour on Aug. 29 with Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Weezer. You can see a schedule of more upcoming concerts here.
In Hot Plates, the owner of RakiRaki Ramen opened a new restaurant, Matsuoka Pure Sushi, specializing in temari sushi and kaiseki bento. Karina’s, a local institution for Mexican seafood, returned to downtown with the opening of a new cantina. Chef Kaci Goff of Wolf and Woman (and a podcast alum!) launched a new monthly dinner series, Lucky Cricket, with Taylor Berk, sommelier at Puffer Malarkey Collective. The dinner features several courses of Malaysian-Tamil cuisine and wines produced by female winemakers.
In Two People, $50, Jaclyn is excited about Wolfie’s Carousel Bar in Little Italy, which Troy just got a First Look at. Troy recommends the El Xolito hot dog at Barrio Dogg (located in Barrio Logan and Petco Park), and I got the El Borracho fries from Grand Ole BBQ inside the park. David and Troy got seafood without me and went to South Beach Bar & Grille in Ocean Beach for fried oyster tacos. Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We’re returning from a short break and taped this episode from a premier club suite at Petco Park, thanks to this week’s sponsor, the San Diego Padres. We’re here with Eddie Quinn, vice president of partnership services for the Padres and the park’s resident beer expert, as they face off against the Miami Marlins. Eddie started his career with the Padres as a bat boy before he headed off to college, then he returned to San Diego and rejoined them as a sales representative. He’s been with the team ever since (more than 15 years!) and worked his way up to his current title. He tells us about the craft beer program at the park and how many different breweries they partner with, and names his top three favorite brews that are available on site—listen in to get his recommendations!
In Hot Plates, we have some big news to catch up on. Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurant, named after the chef’s popular TV show, is opening its fourth (and largest) location at Harrah’s Resort in Valley Center next spring. La Puerta, a cantina that’s been in the Gaslamp for over a decade, opened its second location in Mission Hills. After being on hold for a few years, LA icon Roscoe’s House of Chicken N Waffles announced it is opening soon in Barrio Logan. Chef Bernard Guillas, who has been at The Marine Room for almost 30 years, recently retired.
For Two People, $50, Eddie is a fan of the Beagle Burger at The Regal Beagle in Mission Hills. Troy’s pick is the omakase with dry-aged bluefin tuna at Wrench and Rodent Seabasstropub in Oceanside. David recommends the chile verde at Cantina Mayahuel in North Park. My pick is the branzino and cheese cart at Seneca, Consortium Holdings’ new restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week we’re with Emmanuel Favela and Tony Haro, founders of Hellote in Chula Vista. Hellote is a new outdoor eatery that specializes in elote, Mexican street corn, served in both traditional and nontraditional ways. Emmanuel and Tony opened Hellote last fall, and they both have backgrounds in architecture (but zero restaurant experience), yet Hellote has been a success. We chat about how they conceived of the idea and created such a fun and inviting space on Main Street. We also learned that Emmanuel once worked as a designer at Funko (which explains the adorable Hellote logo!) and that they went to Texas to get special corn roasters that can cook the ears at a scorching 800 degrees. They walked us through the menu: Aside from a standard elote (Valentina sauce, lime, Cotíja, mayonnaise, and Tajín), there are dessert tamales, arrachera baked potatoes, inventive snack boxes of roasted corn topped with black ash mayo and chicharrones, and entire ears of corn covered in Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Aside from visiting them in Chula Vista (you’ll want to Instagram the shipping container park), you can also see them at our Best of San Diego Party next month at Liberty Station.
In Hot Plates, Biga is back and will be serving their pizza and sandwiches at the new Rady Shell at Jacobs Park along with other local food vendors and chefs (including Richard Blais). A taquería that everyone on the show agreed is a favorite, Tuétano Taquería, announced they’re opening a second location this summer in the upcoming Old Town Urban Market.
For Two People, $50, Troy’s pick isn’t within the budget, but he recommends the steak at Cowboy Star downtown. David says to try the boozy ice cream and Cajun eggs Benedict at Metl Bar in North Park. Emmanuel’s go-to Thai restaurant is 55 Thai Kitchen in Golden Hill, and Tony’s pick is the beans and rice from Las Cuatro Milpas in Barrio Logan.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Happy Pride Week! Our special guest is Roanna Canete, owner of The Gluten Free Baking Company in North Park. Roanna founded the company in 2015 when her son was diagnosed with a gluten allergy and she started baking for him—that led to formally studying cooking and baking, and starting the business. The storefront opened on 30th Street in the spring of 2020 and offers donuts, brownies, bagels, and pastries that are all gluten free; they can also make wedding cakes and gingerbread houses. In honor of Pride Week, Roanna created a menu of cupcakes and a special Pride rainbow cake, and she’s donating 20 percent of the sales to The National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization focused on empowering the Black LGBTQ+ community. We talk with Roanna about the importance of allyship, and how business owners can get involved in social justice issues and help make a difference, even in small ways.
In Hot Plates, the founding chef of Dija Mara is opening a new Southeast Asian restaurant in North Park. Buona Forchetta opened another pizzeria, its eighth restaurant in the county, in San Marcos. Attention Top Chef fans! Animae and Unplated are hosting a charity dinner on August 1 featuring four chefs from the most recent season, filmed in Portland, Oregon, and the proceeds are going to the nonprofit World Central Kitchen.
For Two People, $50, Roanna’s pick is the tangerine chicken at Plumeria Vegetarian Restaurant, and she’s also a fan of Meráki Café in University Heights. Troy recommends the Morroccan spiced lamb at the newly opened Verbena Kitchen in North Park. David tried the bone-in ribeye at Rare Society, and Marie visited White Elephant (a new Thai restaurant in Hillcrest) for the crispy duck salad.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back! This week we chat with Tara Monsod, who recently took over as executive chef at Animae, the high-design Asian fusion restaurant owned by Brian Malarkey and Chris Puffer. Tara has also worked at Herringbone, Burlap, and at the acclaimed Mozza Pizzeria, and this is her first executive chef position. She recently changed Animae’s menu, and several of the new dishes reflect her Filipino American heritage and the flavors she grew up eating. David and I checked out the new menu (and didn’t invite Troy), and we recommend the scallop crudo with calamansi (a citrus fruit from the Philippines) and the beef short rib kare kare, made with a savory sauce of peanut oil and bagoong (shrimp paste). We chat about Tara’s passion for cooking and have a bigger discussion about whether Filipino food is finally getting the recognition it deserves, especially in a city that has one of the largest Filipino American communities in the U.S. She also shares the biggest lessons she learned from the late chef Anthony Sinsay, who mentored several chefs in San Diego and helped put our Filipino food scene on the map.
In Hot Plates, Ponto Lago opened in Carlsbad last week with a Baja-inspired menu of ceviche, a daily roast of different proteins, and even dishes prepared tableside. Chef Phillip Esteban, our 2020 Critic’s Pick for Best Chef, opened the brick-and-mortar location for White Rice in Liberty Station last week. It serves silog, Filipino rice bowls topped with an egg.
For Two People, $50, Tara recommends the hand-pulled biang biang noodles from Shanxi Magic Kitchen (which we featured on the cover of our June issue!). David visited the North Park Farmers’ Market for Gourmet Tamales and hot sauces from Down to Ferment. Troy enjoyed his first brunch at Breakfast Republic, and Marie liked the carne asada torta from Roxy’s Tacos.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
David, Marie and Troy are still at our sponsor, Home Brew Mart. Rumor has it David brought a cot and this is where he lives now. Understandable. The Linda Vista store is where the city’s first bootstrap scientists got all the ingredients, materials, recipes, rumors, and know-how to start the craft beer revolution in San Diego. It’s also home to Ballast Point—makers of one Sculpin IPA, one of the most famous craft beers in existence—who’s celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Colby Chandler—the second-longest serving employee who helped create Sculpin way back when—will share a few pints and some stories of craft beer’s days in the manger.
This week we talk to the creators and host of a new documentary film, Beer City: San Diego. Host Aubree Miller (who’s also the creative director of Amplified Ale Works) and producer Dave Wadsworth spent three years documenting San Diego’s craft beer world, talking to the brewers, owners, and personalities who helped build the culture. The film also features and serves as tribute to longtime craft beer supporter and eminently great human being, Nate Soroko, who passed away recently. Some of the proceeds of the film’s premiere party (Aug. 5 at The Casbah) will go to Nate’s family.
In Hot Plates, we cover Pop Pie Co. and Stella Jean’s Ice Cream, which is opening a new spot in one of San Diego’s original neighborhoods. We discuss the boom of the Mexican stew, birria, now that everyone’s going nuts for Mike’s Red Tacos, a new birria food truck in Morena. Plus, one San Diego bar made it into Esquire’s annual “Best Bars in America.”
For Two People, $50, Troy is still knee-deep in donuts and shares his story about sitting down with the owner of the iconic VG Donut (get the apple fritter) in Cardiff. David suggests hitting up Garibaldi, the speakeasy-ish spot inside the InterContinental Hotel downtown. Aubree reluctantly points people to her favorite natural wine bar in South Park, The Rose.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We’re recording in person at Home Brew Mart by Ballast Point in Linda Vista, our sponsor for this week’s episode. Ballast Point is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and Home Brew Mart is where the company began. We’re with Colby Chandler, Ballast Point’s former vice president and speciality brewer. He’s the creator of the award-winning Sculpin IPA and the company’s second-longest-serving employee!
This week’s special guest is Will Dryden, manager of operations for Baja Jerky. This new beef jerky company is headquartered in San Diego, with recipes created by Michelin-starred chef Brandon Rogers (Benu in San Francisco). Will fell in love with the cuisine in Cabo when he lived there, so the line has six Baja-inspired flavors of jerky like street taco, serrano lime, and even churro. He talks about how Baja Jerky stands out compared to national brands, the challenges in getting national distribution, some details of the high-quality beef they’re sourcing, and where you can buy some.
In Hot Plates, Pizza Port is opening a new location in Imperial Beach. Silverlake Ramen announced that it’s expanding from LA to San Diego. An alcoholic herbal tea is being brewed at Kové Hard Yerba Mate’s tasting room in Barrio Logan. For Two People, $50, Will’s pick is the Brandt Burger at Ranch 45 in Solana Beach; David and I got fried chicken sandwiches at Corner Chicken in East Village, and Troy recommends the seasonal huckleberry donut at Sidecar Doughnuts in Del Mar.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week’s special guest is Barry Robbins, founder of Milton’s Delicatessen Restaurant in Del Mar. The New York–style deli is famous for its Reuben, matzo ball soup, homemade desserts, and breads; and it’s celebrating its 27th anniversary this year. You’ve most likely seen Milton’s multigrain bread and line of crackers in retailers like Costco: This national brand of baked goods was also launched by the deli.
The company has a storied history, and we enjoyed learning about its origins and growth. Barry’s a Windy City native, and when he first moved here in the ’70s, he and his brother couldn’t find any deep dish pizza, so they started Chicago Brothers Pizza. They experimented with making frozen pizzas in the restaurant, and eventually distributed them nationally. Their pizza was one of the first frozen items sold at Costco (then called Price Club), and as many as 20 bakeries around the country were producing them—legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was even the company spokesperson!
Barry sold Chicago Brothers Pizza and opened Milton’s in Del Mar in 1995, which he still operates today. When the restaurant was under construction, he teamed up with chef Claire Allison (who would go on to open Claire’s on Cedros in Solana Beach) to develop an in-house bread for the sandwiches. That became the famous multigrain bread that’s sold in stores, and they expanded with a line of crackers (the bread and crackers were acquired by another company a few years ago).
Reflecting on 2020, Barry said it’s been difficult, but the deli has pulled through thanks to community support. And although he’s managed companies of over 500 employees, the past year has been “back to basics” because he’s the sole owner of the business—that includes washing dishes and doing whatever is needed to keep the doors open. The fridge in the front of the deli contains new products they’re testing out—right now they have a turkey pot pie and a banana pudding. Troy’s pro tip is to check this fridge out when you visit, because—like Milton’s pita chips and gluten-free crackers—they could be the next big thing!
In Hot Plates, Juniper and Ivy has hired a new chef from New York’s Eleven Madison Park. El Camino in Little Italy is being turned into a new concept, and Rollin Roots and Doggos Gus (both former podcast guests) received grants from the California Restaurant Association.
In Two People, $50, Barry said he enjoys the cashew chicken from Double Happiness in Del Mar. Troy’s pick this week is O’Brien’s Pub on Convoy, one of the first craft beer bars in San Diego, and their Birthday Bacon. David had brunch at Morning Glory in Little Italy and recommends the Japanese soufflé pancakes and lobster omelet with caviar (fancy!). Marie's pick this week is from her recent visit to Santa Barbara: the patatas bravas and paella at Loquita.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week we have two special guests, Jamie and Marie Brawn, owners of Homestead Solana Beach. The business—which served locally-sourced gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan food—was inspired by the duo’s own home cooking for their sons who both have food allergies. But like many, the pandemic forced them to switch gears; and the idea was born to turn Homestead from an eatery to a neighborhood market.
Jamie and Marie were running both their catering company and Homestead before the pandemic hit. When they shut down the catering company, Homestead was forced to float on its own and adapt to a changing landscape. While food and drinks are still offered, the neighborhood market they launched has become the heart of the business, stocking the shelves with locally sourced and unique goods. For Jamie and Marie, “locally sourced” doesn’t just mean from the San Diego area, but any small business that has their own story. This philosophy has opened the doors to bringing in items like imported gluten-free pasta from Italy and fresh seafood sourced just outside of Jamie’s hometown in Maine and shipped overnight, never frozen. Part of Homestead’s goal is to bring dining experiences you would typically only find in Little Italy or North Park to Solana Beach. To fill their niche in the community, all the items on the shelves at Homestead are a little different than what you would find in the surrounding stores. In addition to those small-batch food products, they also serve food and drinks on the patio, and are preparing to launch a raw seafood bar. Jamie and Marie are looking for more people to help bring the craft food scene to Solana Beach. With a few more restaurants, Jamie and Marie believe Solana Beach will be well on its way to providing an experience like in Little Italy, where you can find somewhere great to eat just by walking around the neighborhood
In Hot Plates, Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens welcomes Chef Rich Sweeney to lead the Liberty Station location and Chef Israel Ortiz to take charge of the flagship in Escondido. Verbena Kitchen, a new restaurant by Chef Ronnie Shwandt featuring a seasonal menu, is opening in North Park at the end of June. Vegan, Chicago-style hot dog pop up Chicago Not Dogs is opening a brick and mortar in the former location of The Modern Vegan this summer. Pacific Hotel opened their second restaurant called High Low and serves up fun dishes like squash blossom breakfast enchiladas and buttermilk and Indio corn pancakes. Best Restaurant voting has just started and will continue until June 15th, make sure to check out the results in September!
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Jamie and Marie’s favorite takeout spot during the pandemic has been Himilayan Kitchen in Encinitas for their chicken tikka masala and a triple order of naan. Troy’s quest for the best donuts in San Diego brought him to Dark Horse Coffee Roasters which serves an Earl Grey vegan donut from Skinny Donuts with frosting that tastes exactly like Fruit Loops. The pozole soup at Brother’s Mexican Restaurant is David’s pick for the week. Noah's pick is to check out Shawarma Station in OB for their rib-eye beef fries.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week's special guest is Beth Demmon, a freelance writer and journalist who specializes in craft beer. Beth started writing about craft beer in 2015 and has been an advocate for diversity in the industry: She founded the Diverse Beer Writers Initiative and is a member of the North American Guild of Beer Writers. Recently, she published an article on Vine Pair about allegations of rampant sexism and harassment that have been occuring in the beer industry, and the story got national attention.
The allegations were brought to light by Brienne Allan, a brewer in Massachusetts. Allan posted a question on her Instagram, asking other women who work in craft beer about sexist comments they’d gotten while on the job. The responses were harrowing—and quickly encompassed not just words, but sexual harrassment and assault as well. In her post, Allan says she was asked about her credentials while she was on site helping build Notch Brewing’s new location. Beth says comments like these are microaggressions, which are “death by a thousand cuts” that exact a toll on the recipient. She says that microaggressions against women in the craft beer industry are not only too common, but the lack of accountability and consequences for perpetrators has led to the normalization of this behavior. Beth says that the sheer volume of responses from women experiencing sexism in the craft beer industry wasn’t surprising, but the number of women willing to attach a name to their response has never been seen before.
With all these allegations surfacing, the industry has been forced to take action. Some breweries are implementing third-party reporting systems. For smaller breweries that don’t have human resources departments, Beth says that even working to develop a code of conduct is better than nothing—it’s a way for a company to put their values first. She also discussed the challenges of reporting on this topic. In a report like this, one might expect the number of false allegations to be anywhere from 2 to 10 percent—but more likely from 2 to 3 percent. Beth says that even if 3 percent of the reports turn out to be false, that still leaves thousands of others that cannot be ignored, and it’s clear that something needs to change, especially in San Diego, a city that historically avoids confrontation when it comes to issues like this.
In Hot Plates, Sky Deck food hall is opening on the second level of Del Mar Highlands Town Center on June 11 with 13 different restaurants and food concepts, each with their own seating area. Jay Birds, a hot chicken restaurant from Long Beach, is opening in Carlsbad. Ben and Esther’s Vegetarian Jewish Deli is expanding from Portland to the Rolando/College area. Also, voting for San Diego Magazine’s Best Restaurants 2021 has begun! Cast your vote for your favorites, then see the final list of the critic’s and readers’ picks in the September issue.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Beth’s pick is Angkorian Pikestaff in East Village for their Asian fusion and Cambodian dishes. For hot, made-to-order donuts, Troy recommends Broad Street Dough Co. in Encinitas, specifically the blueberry glazed donuts. Marie’s pick is the pasta that gets prepared in a 60-pound wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano at Bencotto Italian Kitchen in Little Italy. Noah's pick is Point Loma Fish Shop for their Thursday night oyster special and fish and chips. Kairoa Brewing is David’s pick, for their salmon sashimi topped with crunchy quinoa.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
This week’s special guest is Dannika Underhill, a bartender at Kindred in South Park. Dannika has been in the restaurant industry for over 15 years. She's a graduate of Seattle Culinary Academy, and she's worked in both the front and back of house, behind the bar, and as a restaurant operations manager. Two weeks ago, we had Dario Gallo, owner of Civico 1845, on the show, and he talked about how tipping should be done away with entirely in the restaurant industry; now Dannika is here to give us her take on the tipping debate.
As someone who’s worked as a host, server, line cook, and sous chef, Dannika has seen the differences in pay firsthand. She says that while kitchen workers don’t make enough, their extra compensation shouldn’t come from receiving a percentage of the servers’ tip money (called the “tip out” in the industry). A solution she proposed, which wouldn’t involve doing away with tipping entirely, is having a tip pool. This would involve taking all the tips from the night and putting them together, then everyone will get a percentage based on their position and experience. A tip pool would not only help level out the pay inequality between the front and back of the house, but also create an environment where every customer, whether they order the lobster dinner or just a vodka soda, gets the same quality treatment.
Sexual harassment has always been a problem in the industry, and a 2018 study by Harvard Business Review showed how pervasive it is: 90 percent of women and 70 percent of men who work in restaurants have experienced it, and some argue that tipping perpetuates this. Dannika agrees that while working for tips can be a contributing factor to sexual harassment, it’s not the only cause, since sexual harassment happens in numerous workplace environments. She says the main reason it continues to run rampant in the restaurant industry is because the behavior isn’t shut down by management. Dannika says in her experience at Kindred, she’s able to confront customers who act inappropriately since the staff and managers support her. Instead of doing away with a system that provides a liveable income to front-of-house employees, Dannika suggests implementing a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment in restaurants so the perpetrators understand that behavior is unacceptable and unwelcome.
In Hot Plates, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond is proposing a new program to encourage people to dine out and help restaurants: Customers who dine out on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays would receive a discount of 50 percent off their bill (up to $10 discounted per person), and restaurants would submit receipts to the county for reimbursement. Havana Grill is expanding to Westfield Mission Valley to serve up Cuban food with both an in-house bakery and a full bar. A new brunch spot, Breakfast & Bubbles, is opening today in University Heights.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Dannika’s perfect night in covers three places within the budget: salt-and-pepper wings from Golden Chopsticks in National City, the Firing Squad cocktail from Fernside in South Park, and a breakfast burrito from Los Reyes the next morning. Troy’s pick for the week is the guava cream cheese donut from Devil’s Dozen in Little Italy. David recommends Shakespeare Pub in Mission Hills for their Black Velvet drink and vegetarian shepherd's pie. Marie’s search for a seafood tower brought her to Water Grill in the Gaslamp. My new go-to spot for chicken katsu is L & L Hawaiian Barbecue in Point Loma.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week's special guest is Gustavo Tonella of Doggos Gus in Imperial Beach. Gustavo started his catering company in 2010, serving up Sonoran-style bacon-wrapped hot dogs in brioche buns. Then in 2019, he opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant right across from the IB pier, and introduced micheladas and White Claws topped with chamoy to his menu.
Gustavo grew up eating street hot dogs in Mexicali, where they’re wrapped in bacon and topped with chipotle, vegetables, and meats like carnitas—what he says is a far cry from the hot dog offerings in the US. Realizing the missed opportunity, Gustavo started his catering business serving this specialty. He saw a lot of success in the wedding industry, as hot dogs are a popular late-night snack after all the pomp and circumstance is over. Two of his favorite menu items are the Sonoran, topped with queso, Soyrizo, and Ruffles chips, and the Surf and Turf, loaded with shrimp, bell peppers, and chipotle sauce.
Like many businesses, the pandemic brought major challenges for Doggos Gus. Even though it’s now operating out of a storefront in Imperial Beach, a chunk of their income still came from catering, and 92 weddings and events cancelled practically overnight, resulting in a loss of nearly $100,000. In order to keep his staff employed, Gustavo started the Help the Helpers campaign, where customers could buy a catered meal for a front-line worker and he would match it with a second—and personally deliver the meals to the hospitals with the help of his employees.
Gustavo credits this and a few other things with his being able to keep his team together even while restaurants are struggling to find help: He aims to create a fun, family-like atmosphere where his staff enjoys coming to work and gets to have fun experimenting with new ideas. Splitting tips evenly between front- and back-of-house staff was another incentive to keep his cooks motivated. Doggos Gus has been seeing some increase in business as weddings are starting to book catering again, and Gustavo experienced a little bit of normalcy as he recently catered for an outdoor concert and saw people enjoying themselves outside without masks on.
In Hot Plates, An’s Dry Cleaning, whom we voted best gelato in San Diego, is opening a second location in Del Mar Plaza in June. Two new food-and-drink spots are coming to Seaport Village: Zytoun Gourmet Mediterranean, from the owners of Aladdin in Clairemont; and a distillery and seafood restaurant by Old Harbor Distilling. Scoop San Diego is hosting a drive-thru ice cream festival this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. with 23 samples of ice cream and gelato available. The event is a fundraiser for Feeding San Diego, and tickets are $45 for a carload of up to four people.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Gustavo’s pick is Madison in North Park, where he always orders the pork chop. Noah’s pick for the week is Bánh Mì Hôi An in Point Loma for their Hôi An special, a fresh, inexpensive sandwich. Troy chose the recently redesigned Neighborhood for their new atmosphere and crispy potato served “animal style.” David tried out the brunch at Civico by the Park, where he got the French toast and tableside gelato.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! Today’s special guest is Dario Gallo, owner of Civico 1845 in Little Italy and Civico by the Park in Bankers Hill. Dario was born and raised in Cosenza, Italy, and after graduating with an economics and business administration degree, he moved to the US with his brother, Pietro. They opened their first restaurant, Civico 1845, in 2015, and in 2020 they opened Civico by the Park. The restaurants specialize in Calabrian dishes, pinsa Romana (ancient Roman-style pizza) made from scratch, and are noteworthy for offering vegan and gluten-free options on the menu. Dario is here to talk about how even though restaurants are reopening, many are struggling to find employees—an issue that’s happening nationwide. Troy interviewed Dario about San Diego’s employee shortage last month, but there’s so much more to unpack on this topic.
Dario says he is experiencing a phenomenon where for an entire year people needed jobs, but once everything opened and Civico was short-staffed, no one was applying to work. After talking to other restaurant owners who said they’re having the same problem, he realized many were offering three to four extra dollars an hour for starting wages—which is much higher than before the pandemic. Three of Dario’s employees even quit, without notice, because another restaurant had recruited them with higher wages that they couldn’t turn down. He says it got to the point where they were so understaffed they worried they’d have to close their doors.
The seemingly easy solution is to raise pay for their workers, but Dario explains that it just isn’t that easy: The restaurant industry is not a very profitable one—for every dollar that comes in, a successful restaurant is lucky to see a nickel in profits. The solution he proposes is abolishing tipping altogether. He argues that this is the only way restaurants would be able to pay their workers more, and distribute wages evenly among the front- and back-of-house staff. If the average customer tips 15–20 percent, Dario says that increasing the menu prices by that much shouldn’t devastate their wallet—and that it could solve the issue of entitled guests treating employees poorly (which he has seen far too often).
In Hot Plates, a futuristic grocery store called Valet Market, which will operate without any cashiers or kiosks, is opening in East Village at the end of the month. Chef Steve Brown will be transforming Isabel’s in Pacific Beach into a butcher shop and burger bar, while chef Isabel Cruz is remodeling her cafe, Coffee Cup, in La Jolla. Randy’s Donuts, an iconic donut shop from LA, announced it plans to open 10 locations in San Diego as part of its global expansion.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, my pick for the week is Trucha Restaurante-Bar in Tijuana for their unique and rich clam-chowder-covered fries. Upon returning to San Diego, David visited all his favorite spots, including The Friendly for a slice of pizza, Sushi Uno for a sushi roll, Fall Brewing Company for drinks, and Roberto’s Taco Shop for a taco. Dario recommends La Fachada in Logan Heights for an authentic Mexican food experience (get the lengua and carnitas). Troy’s $57 pick is Vaga, Claudette Zepeda’s new restaurant in Encinitas—check out his First Look and read about his experience.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Today we have a very special guest, chef Eric Greenspan. Eric has over 20 years of experience in the culinary world, having worked with chefs such as Alain Ducasse and Rocco DiSpirito, and apprenticing at the three-Michelin-star El Bulli in Spain. He was executive chef at several successful restaurants in LA, including Patina, The Foundry, and Maré, and is a noted cookbook author and regular judge on Guy’s Grocery Games.
Eric is on the show today to talk about ghost kitchens and virtual kitchens, as he’s an expert in this emerging field. In 2017, he started his own delivery-only virtual kitchen operation, Alt/Grub/Faction. He also leads the culinary team for Virtual Dining Concepts, which partners with celebrity food brands like Mariah’s Cookies, Tyga Bites, and MrBeast Burger. We sought Eric’s insight about this new ecosystem of delivery-only dining in light of CloudKitchens opening its first ghost kitchen in San Diego, the Barrio Food Hub.
Eric entered this new area of the culinary world when he realized that with all of the restaurants he was running, he was spending most of his time in the car driving from one to another. His solution was to gather all his concepts together and make them available for delivery in a ghost kitchen (which rents space for prepping and cooking only) that he operated out of CloudKitchens’ LA location. He says this environment is appealing for young chefs, since renting a space in a ghost kitchen costs much less than opening a traditional restaurant, and all the money saved on rent can be used on advertising and marketing. Although his operation was successful, he could deliver food only within a four-mile radius of the ghost kitchen. That’s why Eric teamed up with Robert Earl, founder of Planet Hollywood (who was renting space right next to him)—they realized that their brands did not have a future in ghost kitchens, and they developed their own virtual kitchen company: Virtual Dining Concepts.
In Hot Plates, Claudette Zepeda's new restaurant, Vaga, just opened, and Troy got the First Look. Chef William Eick is serving Japanese-style fried chicken out of his new restaurant, Naegi, in Oceanside. Matteo Cattaneo, founder of Buona Forchetta, also has a new fried chicken concept in South Park, Chicchirichì at Matteo. After being closed for two years, Storehouse Spirits finally reopened last week in East Village with their own line of gin, vodka, bourbon, and rum, as well as a restaurant on site.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Eric’s perfect night in involves MrBeast Burgers and Mariah’s Cookies, while watching Guy’s Grocery Games. Troy can’t wait to check out Weapon Ramen in Liberty Station, Phillip Esteban’s new eatery. David says once he gets back to San Diego, he’s looking forward to enjoying an Arrogant Bastard and a veggie cheeseburger at Stone Brewing at the airport. Noah's pick is Barrio Star for their carnitas chile relleno, and Marie is looking for recommendations for places to get oysters—let us know your favorite spots!
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! Today’s special guest is Sabrina Medora, food writer and founder of Un-Plated, a national multimedia platform that celebrates the little-known stories and unsung heroes of the restaurant industry. Her work has appeared in Wine Enthusiast,The Kitchn, and Food & Wine, andshe has produced events with the James Beard Foundation. Sabrina was born in Canada, has lived in Mumbai, Singapore, and New Jersey, and recently moved to San Diego from Washington, DC. She’s the organizer behind Chefs Unite, a dinner series starting May 11 featuring 17 of San Diego's top chefs. The monthlong event is an industry effort to fight racism and raise money for Embrace Race, an organization that provides parents, teachers, and caregivers resources and guidance on how to educate children about matters of race and bias.
Sabrina shared about her journey becoming a food writer. Although she’s always enjoyed writing and earned a master’s studying it, she pursued a career in a field that’s considered “stable” but found herself unhappy. She says her true passion is the ecosystem surrounding food and the restaurant industry, how food is tied to a culture’s history and identity, and the way sharing a meal fosters togetherness. One day she researched what she needed to do to become a food writer, and made the leap and left her job. This led to pitching editors, interviewing restaurant workers, staging at restaurants, and eventually founding Un-Plated.
Even though Sabrina is new to town, she mobilized over a dozen local chefs and restaurants to come together for the Chefs Unite event, whose lineup includes Claudette Zepeda (Vaga), Brian Redzikowski (Kettner Exchange), Phillip Esteban (White Rice), JoJo Ruiz (Serẽa), and Tara Luansing Monsod (Animae), as well as Danny Lee and Eric Brannon (Chiko). Her goal for the event, aside from raising money for Embrace Race, is to start conversations over food. The event runs May 11 through June 1 at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Liberty Station. Tickets are $89 per person (with an additional $25 for beer and wine pairing), and each dinner in the series features courses prepared by four different chefs.
In Hot Plates, Kindred, a popular vegan restaurant and lounge, is expanding and opening a new bar in South Park that will be a “tropical space adventure.” New things are coming to Old Town: a brand new food hall, Old Town Urban Market, is opening in the neighborhood this summer. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, an award-winning ice cream shop from Ohio that’s known for its limited edition flavors and celebrity collaborations, announced plans to open in North Park and Carlsbad.
In Two People, $50, Sabrina gave us a few picks: Cafe Coyote in Old Town for the margaritas and atmosphere, Puesto’s tacos, and the burritos at Don Bravo in Bird Rock. Although Troy’s pick this week is well over the $50 budget, he said the crab cakes and the ocean view at The Marine Room in La Jolla (which just reopened) is a must, and then he recommended heading to Gelato 101 in Encinitas for the affogato. David said to check out Fall Brewing Company in North Park for a pop-up event they’re hosting today that benefits the YMCA’s Connections Creative program, which supports young artists in marginalized communities. Marie has two picks this week: the bibimbap at Friend’s House Korean, and the hand-torn biang biang noodles from Shanxi Magic Kitchen (both on Convoy Street).
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Today’s special guest is chef Travis Swikard, whom we last had on the show in March 2020. Travis is a San Diego native who spent ten years working with acclaimed French chef Daniel Boulud in New York City, and moved back to San Diego to open Callie, his first solo restaurant. The pandemic delayed his original plan to open Callie last summer. We checked in with Travis to see how the long-awaited restaurant is coming along, and there’s great news: They’re planning a June 4 opening date, and are taking reservations on Tock starting May 5.
Even though Callie’s debut was pushed back, Travis believes that everything happens for a reason, and the postponement gave him the opportunity to help the community: He worked with local charities and food banks, helped local chefs around the county, and held private events with ten-course tasting menus to keep his team employed. He got the chance to build strong relationships with people everywhere, including his hometown of Santee, all the way to Del Mar and Oceanside.
Travis says Callie’s theme is a jovial atmosphere that reflects his experience growing up as a San Diego kid with a surfboard and a skateboard. He describes the restaurant as a “pantry of memoirs from around the world,” with decor inspired by his travels. Diners can expect Mediterranean food with clean and simple elements that keep it approachable. Some dishes to look forward to are a crunchy Moroccan carrot salad, pita breads all made in house, dips, crudo-style dishes with wild local fish, pastas, and a paella with big umami flavors. He hopes that Callie will join the ranks of other restaurants in the area, like Neighborhood and Lola 55, that are bringing the community together to get the East Village back on its feet. Also, Travis notes that the restaurant will offer diners free parking (that’s a rarity downtown!).
Speaking of Neighborhood, it just reopened after getting a complete renovation and a new speakeasy, Youngblood. Troy got the First Look, where you can see the new interior. The Balboa, a popular burger bar, just reopened in their original location in Bankers Hill after having to close last summer. The owners of Dobson’s, a downtown institution, plan to open a new restaurant on Fourth and Market called Pan Y Vino. Last, some fun news: San Diego was recently ranked the fifth best foodie city in the country by Rent.com! Check out the list to see which city made No. 1 (and which placed last).
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Marie’s pick was Au Revoir, a French bistro in Hillcrest (that has a small parking lot!) for their steak frites plate that comes with lavender fries. Troy’s recent find while researching an upcoming story is Friend’s House Korean for their bibimbap. Noah's pick is Communal Coffee in South Park for their almond lemon latte and avocado toast. Travis’s Friday tradition since the start of the pandemic is getting pizza from Tribute Pizza in North Park. David’s pick is The Casbah, which just reopened and has partnered with ¡Salud! Tacos in Barrio Logan—they’re serving tacos Thursdays through Saturdays.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! We have a special treat for our listeners this week: Joining us on the show is Wil Myers! The San Diego Padres are the most exciting team to watch in Major League Baseball right now, and they just made history last week with their first no-hitter. Wil has been a familiar face in the Petco Park outfield since he joined the team in 2013. On April 10, 2017, he hit for the cycle against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field—it was only the second cycle in Padres history—and on August 18, 2020, he hit a grand slam in a 6–4 win against the Texas Rangers, which extended the Padres grand slam streak to two games. Two days later, the Padres would make history as the first Major League team to hit a grand slam in four consecutive games.
Wil joined us while on the road in Texas to talk about the new partnership between the Padres and Cutwater Spirits. Cutwater just launched new limited-edition cocktails whose can designs are inspired by the Padres' uniforms: There’s a vodka mule with ginger, a splash of bitters, and lime; and a new paloma with Cutwater’s tequila and grapefruit soda. Wil teamed up with the distillery to promote the new line (he says the vodka mule is his favorite) and participated in the company’s Cut Out for Baseball campaign.
Wil shares with us how this season feels compared to 2015, the excitement of signing Fernando Tatís Jr., and the new high expectations for the team. He says this World Series chatter is new for him, so the pressure is on—but that’s a positive thing! Wil also talks about pregame food rituals, why he doesn’t wear batting gloves, and what city is his favorite to eat in. And yes, we asked the burning question about why he agreed to switch jersey numbers with pitcher Blake Snell. Tune in to hear what he says!
During this episode, we learned that the Padres have dedicated chefs at the clubhouse in Petco Park, and they can order food through an app. Although professional athletes have regimented diets and work with nutritionists, Wil says the chefs at Petco make amazing Philly cheesesteaks and quesadillas—which is what he orders when he’s able to indulge. His love for Chick-Fil-A is well known, and he says another one of his favorites is Lolita’s Mexican Food: He orders the California burrito and doesn’t add anything else to it because it’s perfect as is.
In Hot Plates, Junya Watanabe, the founder of RakiRaki Ramen, opened a new restaurant specializing in karaage, Japanese-style fried chicken. Metl Bar, which is known for their boozy ice cream, opened a second restaurant in North Park that’s serving brunch. The Kebab Shop is opening their tenth San Diego location tomorrow in La Jolla Village Square.
In Two People for $50, Wil’s pick is In-N-Out (celebrities, they’re just like us!). Troy’s pick this week is the carne asada tacos at Taquería Revolución, which has locations in Bonita and Otay Ranch. David recommends Rudford’s Restaurant, the historic diner that’s been in North Park since the 1940s (and he says the housemade salsa is really good!).
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Today’s special guest is Keith Rolle, founder and winemaker of Gianni Buonomo Vintners in Ocean Beach. A little over a week ago, Gianni Buonomo won several awards at the 2021 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Keith moved to OB in 1997 and was running another business before switching gears at age 47. He went back to school to study viticulture and enology, starting his journey into the world of winemaking and grape growing.
Winning these awards in San Francisco is no small feat: It’s the largest competition of North American wines, and takes place right next to huge wine destinations like Napa and Sonoma. The approximately 7,000 entrants are subject to double-blind judging, meaning neither the judges nor the servers know who made the wine. Out of all these contestants, Gianni Buonomo, who source their grapes from Washington state, took home two double gold and one single gold medal. Keith says people often come to the tasting room with low expectations, so he enters his wine in competitions like these to build credibility for the brand and show everyone that high-quality wine can be produced in Ocean Beach.
Coming soon from Gianni Buonomo is The OB Blend. In 2017, Keith decided that for his next field blend, instead of fermenting the grapes separately and mixing them afterward, he would ferment them all together—in this case, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, malbec, Blaufränkisch syrah, and sangiovese aged in an oak barrel. He wanted to do something special with this unique wine, so he donated half the barrel to the Point Loma Music Boosters for their fundraiser that supports music programs at local schools. The wine still needs a label, so he put together a competition for people to submit their own art for the chance to win $100 and have it become the official label.
In Hot Plates, the spring edition of Restaurant Week is coming up, April 11–18, offering prix-fixe lunch and dinner menus with lunch starting at $10 for two courses and dinner at $20 for three. Cesarina Italian Restaurant in Point Loma is opening a pizzeria, Angelo, on Voltaire Street by the end of the year. The California Restaurant Federation is offering a grant of $3,500 to single-unit restaurants in San Diego that includes one year of support services; the deadline to apply is April 18. Breakfast and Bubbles, a new brunch spot, is coming to Hillcrest to offer brunch by day and Champagne and oysters at night.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Marie recommends Corner Chicken in East Village for their take on Nashville hot chicken sandwiches. Nowadays, Troy’s preferred way to enjoy Azuki Sushi, his favorite sushi in San Diego, is to order takeout and dine in nearby Balboa Park. My pick is El Compadre Taco Shop & More in La Mesa for their Cali Surf ’n’ Turf Burrito, loaded with carne asada, shrimp, fries, and chipotle sauce. Keith stumbled across a new taco spot on Midway Drive called El Sobroso, a hole in the wall serving up TJ-style adobada tacos. David’s pick is a mom-and-pop Italian restaurant, Marino’s, in Pacific Beach for their unique minestrone soup, which has cabbage as the main ingredient and a thinner broth.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Today’s special guest is Kaci Goff, chef and owner of contemporary Malaysian pop-up restaurant Wolf and Woman. While serving Malaysian Tamil cuisine like penang laksa noodles and garam masala lamb shank, Kaci is also planning on launching a commissary kitchen in Vista at the end of April. This weekend, she’s selling dessert boxes that can be preordered, and on April 21, Wolf and Woman is hosting a dinner with Hidden Craft that will benefit the San Diego Rescue Mission.
Kaci started her career in LA after attending culinary school in San Bernardino. She says she didn’t end up learning as much in school as she did working, and as she gained experience, she saw the reality of the pay gap in the food industry. That’s why she started Wolf and Woman: To create a setting where she wouldn’t be paid less than a man for doing the same work. After a few years in Seattle, she decided to move the business to San Diego for its more laid-back atmosphere and to be closer to her family in Idyllwild.
Wolf and Woman originally offered New American food, but Kaci felt that something was missing, so she changed the menu to Malaysian Tamil cuisine to reflect her heritage on her mother’s side. Now she’s spent the last few years exploring her heritage and educating people at the same time. With her mother as her taste tester, her goal has been to so faithfully capture the country’s flavors that if someone from Malaysia were taste her food, they would be reminded of home.
One of Kaci’s favorite dishes is rasam, a South Indian tamarind soup that was a big part of her childhood. It’ll be on the menu at the Rescue Mission dinner benefit, along with mushroom satay; chicken wings brined and marinated in sambal oelek and oyster sauce; a strawberry rhubarb cremeux; and roti chenai, a Malaysian-Indian flatbread, topped with seasonal veggies and chutney.
In Hot Plates, a new “virtual food hall” called Socal Eats OnTheGo is opening in Pacific Beach late this spring. Restaurants operating out of it include Azulé Taqueria, Street Noods, and Hollywood Crab Shack, and it’ll offer its own delivery service free if you live close by, or delivery via third-party app if you don’t. Panda Country, a Szechuan restaurant that’s been in Clairemont for 40 years, closed last week. After the owner posted the sad news on the restaurant’s Facebook page, it’s been flooded with comments from families who have dined there since the ’80s. The Flying Pig in Oceanside is moving a mile north from their Tremont Street location to Mission Avenue and plans on reopening June 1.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Kaci has been looking forward to trying OB Noodle House’s noodles and famous spicy garlic chicken wings. Marie’s pick was Tim Ky Noodle in Mira Mesa for their wonton noodle soup that’s filled with dumplings and char siu pork; make sure to add some spicy chili sauce. O'Brien's Pub on Convoy Street is Troy’s pick, where you can find bacon beer and “Birthday Bacon”—a slab of bacon braised for over three hours in beer, then cubed, sautéed, deep fried, and served with truffle guacamole and pickled onions on top. Since today is the Padres Opening Day, David’s recommendation for fans is every food item at Petco Park, especially Friar Franks, ice cream sandwiches from Baked Bear, ribs from Phil’s BBQ, and a Swami's IPA. My pick is Fit Tacos, a food truck parked right outside Societe Brewing Company, where tacos are available on jicama “tortillas,” offering a crisp, juicy substitute to the corn tortilla that pairs beautifully with their chipotle shrimp tacos.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
This week’s special guest is Emily Green, owner of Sisters Pizza in Hillcrest. Since 2019, Sisters Pizza has been serving up New York– and New Jersey–style pizza whole and by the slice, along with other Italian dishes from family recipes. Emily opened the business in loving memory of her older sister, Kate, and she regularly gives back to the community by raising money for a different charity every month.
Emily grew up in New Jersey and loves East Coast pizza, and she says that when she moved to San Diego she couldn’t find a pizza place that hit the spot quite like they do at home. Although her dream had always been to own her own pizza restaurant, at first she pursued a career in teaching. She was a high school teacher at San Pasqual Academy when her sister died unexpectedly in 2016, and though she loves teaching, Emily realized that life is short and she needed to pursue her dream now.
She had been eyeing the restaurant’s future home for a while—a former hair salon in a 1930s building on Fourth Avenue—and when she saw it was up for lease she jumped at the opportunity. Between city regulations and the location’s never having served as a restaurant before, it took two years for it to open. Family photos decorate the interior, and references to Kate’s favorite TV shows appear throughout, including on the menu (such as the Uncle Jesse Pizza). Despite the pandemic, Sisters Pizza has been a hit in the community so far.
Fundraising and giving back are important to Emily, and her nonprofit, Kindness for Kate, donates to the ACLU, ActBlue, and programs that support foster kids transitioning into adulthood. Donations to the organization go to whoever needs the most help that month, and she takes suggestions from anyone who comes asking for help for a worthy cause. Emily hopes to open more pizza-centric venues in the future, and promises that each one will follow in the footsteps of the original by finding ways to help the community.
In Hot Plates, today is the last day for the La Jolla Village Merchants Association’s new event, Take-Out Taste of the Village. For $85, two people can enjoy a four-course meal from area restaurants like Cove House, La Dolce Vita, and Isola Pizza Bar. Tickets can be purchased online. Baba’s Hot Chicken, offering a Middle Eastern take on the Nashville classic, opened in Hillcrest last week. Those feeling carb deprived can add a scoop of mac and cheese to any sandwich—and even replace the buns with two grilled cheese sandwiches. Troy’s First Look series is back online after a year’s hiatus: The first entry features a peek inside Richard Blais’s new restaurant Ember and Rye, along with pictures of the interior by local photographer James Tran.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Emily’s takeout adventure begins at Goi Cuon for their Vietnamese spring rolls and continues at Common Stock for their spicy margaritas. Troy's final destination in his search for the best po’boy in San Diego was Cane Patch in Liberty Public Market for their fried, juicy alligator po’ boy. Marie’s pick was Azuki Sushi in Bankers Hill, where a nigiri plate is around $25 for one person and curbside pickup is still available. In anticipation of baseball’s opening day, David’s pub food pick was Barn Brewing on El Cajon Boulevard, where you can enjoy beer and blackened catfish tacos while watching the game on an outdoor patio.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week’s special guest is Megan Stone, media coordinator at Societe Brewing Company in Clairemont, who was recently named the first-ever Woman of the Year by the Craft Beer Marketing Awards. Megan, whose pronouns are both she/her and they/them, is a member of the San Diego Brewers Guild Inclusion Committee and social media influencer with over 34,000 followers who seeks to promote diversity, equality, and inclusion within the craft beer industry.
Megan discovered their love for craft beer in Baltimore, where a friend introduced them to all the varieties the world of beer has to offer. They expanded their knowledge of beers at Birroteca restaurant, and were inspired to pursue brewing as a career after being hired as a server at Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. Once Megan made it to San Diego, they tried to get a brewing job at Societe, but since there weren’t any positions available in that department, they were offered a job in marketing. While this wasn’t the job they were hoping for, Megan realized this was a blessing in disguise. Listen to find out why!
Megan says their social media platform has allowed them to bring to light issues they’re passionate about—as well as shine some disinfecting sunlight on their negative experiences in the craft beer industry, such as the disparaging messages they receive. They share these comments publicly to give people who aren’t women or LGBTQ+ some perspective on how they’re treated differently. But there have been positive messages, too, from people saying that Megan’s example has made them feel more comfortable entering the industry. Still, Megan feels that big changes need to be made within craft beer culture before more people will feel safe in it.
In Hot Plates, San Diego County has moved from the Purple Tier into the Red Tier because we’ve fallen below the new-case-rate threshold of 6.8 per 100,000 people. Restaurants are allowed indoor dining again at 25 percent capacity, while breweries, wineries, and distilleries can serve alcohol without guests having to first buy food. Unfortunately, bars that do not serve food must still remain closed. Chula Vista’s annual Taste of Third is on for March 18–20, where for $25 per day you can sample food and drinks from 20 different restaurants, like Brew Bar, Don Pedro Taco Shop, and El Cruce +241. Menus change daily and tickets are available for advance purchase online. CoCo Ichibanya, a Japanese curry chain with 1,400 locations around the world, has started serving up their savory curry with pork or chicken katsu on Convoy Street.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Megan recommended two places. When indoor dining opens they’re looking forward to enjoying the vegetarian ramen at Hachi Ramen, but in the meantime they’ve been getting the papas and chile relleno tacos with margaritas at La Vecindad in Hillcrest. Marie recommended the kimchi quesadilla with bulgogi at Bopjo, a Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant at Liberty Public Market. Troy’s pick was the shrimp po’boy at Shotcaller in Lincoln Park. Rice or Death food truck was David’s recommendation, where a wildly diverse menu of rice bowls is offered—his go-to vegetarian option is the “Don’t Forget Your Roots” bowl, filled with smoked tofu and kimchi. My pick was one of my all-time favorite burrito spots: Ortiz’s Taco Shop in Point Loma for the California burrito with their tender carne asada and guacamole, and a mandarin Jarritos soda to drink.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This episode was sponsored by Ballast Point, and two special guests from the brewing company joined us this week: Aaron Justus, director of R&D and specialty brewing, and Jeff Lozano, specialty brewer and manager. This year, the company is celebrating its 25th anniversary as a pioneer in the craft beer industry, and Aaron and Jeff debuted and tasted Ballast Point’s two newest beers, Wee Gus and Big Gus.
Aaron was a meteorologist for 13 years before he ended up at Ballast Point. He said he realized being a weather anchor wouldn’t be his forever job, so at age 35 he packed up everything and moved to California to join the craft beer scene. Jeff, a Calexico and Mexicali native, also took a more roundabout way in his journey to brewing. After graduating from nursing school, Jeff decided he wanted to get a taste of what the brewing industry had to offer before locking in his career as a nurse. Jeff started working nights as a janitor at Ballast Point, and after rising through the ranks for a few years, he earned the brewer’s title.
In Hot Plates, The Monsaraz Hotel is opening on Rosecrans Street in Point Loma, and will feature a new restaurant, Westerly Public House, which will have an Australian-influenced menu along with Aussie wines. Chef Brad Wise will open a second location of Rare Society, his high-end University Heights steak house, in Solana Beach’s Cedros Design District. A local Girl Scout inspired Feeding San Diego’s new donation program, Gift a Meal, where guests at participating restaurants can add $15 to their order to send a meal from that restaurant to someone in need. Participants include George’s at the Cove in La Jolla, Terra American Bistro in La Mesa, and Little Lion in Ocean Beach. Be Well + Live Well with Lisa is a new cooking show that was recently filmed at a private location in Rancho Santa Fe. It airs March 17 on Taste on TV, a Roku channel devoted to featuring people of color. Host Lisa Holmes, founder of LA-based The Honey and Company, will share her journey in living a healthy lifestyle while preparing a three-course meal.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Aaron’s choice was Wet Stone Wine Bar in Bankers Hill for a few glasses of wine and light dishes in their happy hour special. Jeff’s go-to place for takeout is Bahn Thai in University Heights, where he recommends the fish and yellow curry, as well as the drunken noodles paired with some top-shelf craft beers. Troy’s quest to find the best po’ boy in San Diego took him to Pete’s Seafood and Sandwich in North Park for their shrimp po’ boy topped with a remoulade blended with chili relish. Pop Pie Co.’s classic veggie pot pie, known for its crust and unique mix of veggies, is David’s pick this week.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week’s special guest is Avonte Hartsfield, owner of Rollin’ Roots food truck in Kearny Mesa. Rollin’ Roots has been serving comfort foods, like loaded fries and sandwiches with deep-fried “shrimp” and Buffalo “chicken” that are entirely vegan, since it opened last fall. Avonte is passionate about breaking the stigma that vegan food has to be expensive, and he started a pay-what-you-can option at the food truck and provides meals for those in need.
Avonte has been working in the restaurant industry since he was 14, starting as a dishwasher and working his way up to management. He grew up in Riverside, and has been living in San Diego for about seven years after residing in Rosarito and Tijuana.
He started serving vegan food at local farmers’ markets after deciding he wanted to eat less meat but couldn’t find anything vegan that he liked. He originally planned to open a restaurant, and the shutdown in March 2020 forced him to transition his business model to a food truck. Avonte doesn’t use any soy-based meat substitutes—he says they contain a lot of allergens, and that eating processed meat alternatives every day is just as bad as eating meat every day.
His menu is also fighting the preconception that “vegan” just means “salad.” Avonte says he’s encouraging people to eat a wider variety of plant-based foods, both for their health and the health of the planet. Part of his goal is to create familiar foods, like deep-fried mac and cheese and po’boys, that have the same taste and texture as their non-vegan counterparts.
Giving back to the community has always been a part of Avonte’s business model, dating back to when he worked at farmers’ markets donating food. After seeing and personally experiencing the financial struggles the pandemic caused, he decided to offer a free or heavily discounted meal as a permanent option at the food truck. He plans to switch to a sliding scale payment system, so that every person who comes up will pay based on their ability, to save face instead of having to ask for the free meal. Avonte readily admits that vegan food is more expensive to make, but he’s still hoping to make it accessible for everyone. You can find Rollin’ Roots parked every day at 8040 Armour Street in Kearny Mesa.
In Hot Plates, Furn Saj, a popular Lebanese bakery and restaurant from LA, is bringing shawarma and saj, a grilled flatbread, to Hillcrest this summer. Resortwear line Tommy Bahama opened its Marlin Bar restaurant-retail concept, which has patio dining, in Fashion Valley mall. Breakers Coffee and Wine is getting ready to open at the Del Mar Highlands Town Center on the mall’s Sky Deck. The owner, Kyle Rosa, grows the coffee at his farm in San Marcos.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Marie’s pick is the tropical sangria and five-spice pork belly appetizer at Wet Stone Wine Bar in Bankers Hill. David’s pick is La Justina in Tijuana, where they give you popcorn seasoned with the scrapings off the grill while you're waiting for your order. At Gihon Ethiopian Kitchen, Troy recommends the tibs, meat stew, and garlic tofu, along with their distinct berbere sauce made with spices prepared and shipped by the owner’s family in Ethiopia. Avonte chose Veg’n Out in Grossmont Center for their vegan burgers, pork belly hot dogs, and kombucha.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week, Tommy “The Fishmonger” Gomes, a local expert on all things seafood and spokesperson for San Diego's fishing industry, made his third appearance on the podcast. Since his last visit, Tommy’s become the star of his own national TV show, The Fishmonger, an eight-episode docuseries premiering March 1 at 4 p.m. on the Outdoor Channel.
Tommy is from a Portuguese fishing family that has been in San Diego for generations—they settled in Point Loma in the 1890s. He’s using the show to spread awareness about the industry’s rich history and why it’s important to support local fishermen. Tommy talked about how when fishing was unregulated years ago, San Diego’s waters were overfished. Things have changed, and he says the US is now the most regulated and responsible country when it comes to fishing. For decades, fishermen have adapted to these new rules and now encourage people to buy American seafood. The issue with a lot of imported seafood is that while it may be cheaper, it’s also potentially mislabeled, chemically treated, or not sustainably harvested.
He says fishermen in the US “just want a level playing field,” and he hopes that what The Fishmonger accomplishes is showing people the importance of knowing where your seafood is sourced. He encourages San Diegans to check out Tuna Harbor Dockside Market on Saturdays, where you can find all kinds of fresh seafood and chat with the people who caught it. Purchasing and using a whole fish is one way Tommy says you can support local fishermen and reduce food waste. Listen to hear his passionate explanation of why using the whole fish is so important.
Tommy gave us a preview of what to expect from his show. Each episode has an appearance by a local chef who shows how to easily break down a fish and cook it. Tommy admitted to getting emotional on camera when visiting the San Diego Tunaman’s Memorial and seeing names of his friends and family who have died or been lost at sea.
In Hot Plates, it appears that Biga, a favorite Italian food spot close to the San Diego Magazine office, has closed. CH Projects is buying the historic Lafayette Hotel in North Park and has plans to transform it into a community space over the next couple of years. A new ghost kitchen, Barrio Food Hub, has recently opened in Barrio Logan and is already hosting two dozen food businesses. CloudKitchens, a company started by the former CEO of Uber, is behind this new facility.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, a listener recommended Enoteca Adriano in Pacific Beach, where the Wednesday night lasagna special is more than enough for two people and adding two glasses of wine still fits the $50 budget. Tommy’s pick was Volare, an Italian restaurant that’s been around since the late ’70s. To research his upcoming feature in the April issue of San Diego Magazine, Troy visited Mid-East Market in City Heights, which started as just a Middle Eastern grocery store but has since evolved into one of the international food hubs of San Diego. If you stop by, Troy says to buy the locally raised, grass-fed lamb, garlic confit, and some zuuk, a Mediterranean salsa. Island Life Foods, a prior first-place winner of the I Love Poke Festival, was Marie’s choice for poke and uni, served up at the OB Farmers Market and Tuna Dockside Market. David’s pick is Working Class, a modern sports bar/diner, where back in 2019 he went to watch baseball and enjoyed classics like Salisbury steak and Bavarian pretzels.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
This week we chatted with chef Richard Blais, whom you may recognize as both a contestant and a judge on Top Chef, and as a judge on Guy’s Grocery Games and MasterChef. Richard came by to talk about his newest restaurant, Ember & Rye, a steak house opening soon at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad.
Richard got his start working at The French Laundry, Chez Panisse, and El Bulli, then opened several of his own restaurants in Atlanta. After moving to San Diego, he opened Juniper and Ivy in 2014 and followed that with The Crack Shack in Little Italy. At the time of our recording, Richard was staying at the Aviara, working out the last few details for Ember & Rye to open.
Over the past year, Richard says he’s taken advantage of the new circumstances to give his fans a more authentic virtual experience. One project he developed was to move his “stand-up cooking” performances, which he used to spend the bulk of his time traveling to do live, into the intimate setting of his backyard. (Unfortunately, the backyard show is currently on hiatus after Richard received a cease and desist order. Listen to find out what happened!)
Ember & Rye is set to open on March 18, as long as the public health orders don’t change. Richard describes this new restaurant as a “steak house of sorts,” which will serve the kind of food that he would want to eat every day. He says a restaurant’s true identity isn’t formed until 90 days after opening, so he’s looking forward to seeing what growth will happen after the launch. He’d been considering opening a steak house for a while, and spending more time at home, burning wood and grilling food in his backyard, helped him fine-tune the concept: Namely, backyard-style grilling with lots of different grills (Santa Maria style), techniques, and tools to cook dry-aged meat and fresh seafood.
But why put in all the work to open another restaurant, especially now? For Richard, part of it is a matter of remembering what got him where he is today. He just loves restaurants, great food, and making people happy. He talked about his plan to incorporate golf-inspired art and decor from the ’60s and ’70s at Ember & Rye, as well as classic dishes from that era, like prime rib. He’ll be bringing back old cooking techniques and tools, like a flambadou used to heat up and drip melted fat over the meat, alongside his more well-known trademarks, like liquid nitrogen.
In Hot Plates, San Diego’s favorite fishmonger has his own TV show! Tommy Gomes, who was at Catalina Offshore for 15 years, is starring in a new docuseries called The Fishmonger on the Outdoor Channel premiering March 1. Vista will get a new beer hall next month called Co-Lab, which will feature booths from different breweries, food vendors, and outdoor seating. California state senator Bill Dodd introduced SB 389, which would legalize takeout cocktails permanently if it passes.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Richard recommended Alborz, a Persian restaurant in Del Mar. He enjoys the skewered meats, koobideh (kebab made from ground beef), and saffron rice, and his favorite dish is the fesenjon (pomegranate and walnut stew). Troy’s pick was Awash Ethiopian Restaurant in North Park for tibs, a spicy beef tenderloin stew, and the vegetarian sides that come with injera flatbread. Marie’s pick was the Lebanese restaurant Amardeen in UTC for their beef and lamb shawarma, lentil soup, and homemade baklava. David recommended the pizza at The Friendly, which has two locations in North Park.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! In celebration of the lunar new year on February 12 and the Year of the Ox, we chatted with Tony Guan, executive chef at Fortunate Son, the newest restaurant from CH Projects in Normal Heights. Fortunate Son replaced Soda & Swine last fall, and serves Tony’s spin on classic American Chinese dishes like General’s Tso’s chicken and sweet and sour pork.
Tony was born and raised in Chula Vista and went to culinary school here. He worked the line at the Dana Hotel in Mission Bay and at The LAB: Dining Sessions, and then left San Diego for more training. He moved to San Francisco and worked as sous chef at the acclaimed Restaurant Gary Danko. Tony described the experience of being fresh out of culinary school and working at a high-end, professional, kitchen as a lot of pressure. It was the prospect of helping open Abnormal Wine Company (now called The Cork and Craft) with chef Phillip Esteban that brought Tony back to San Diego. He then became executive chef at Underbelly, and now at Fortunate Son.
Tony says a lot has changed in San Diego’s culinary scene since he first started, and that the city is now becoming a draw for the field—he attributes the non-competitive atmosphere. Chefs can come to San Diego and establish themselves fairly easily compared to other culinary destinations, like San Francisco, where Tony said had he stayed he may still be a line cook or sous chef. While working at Cork and Craft in Rancho Bernardo, Tony got the unique experience of taking higher end food and bringing it to people at a more affordable cost.
Having opened a restaurant both before and during the pandemic, Tony was able to share the differences. While the remodeling of Fortunate Son went smoothly, opening up was naturally a more difficult experience. Tony said that takeout becoming the new way of plating food and the typical demographic expanding were a few challenges. What kept him going as a chef was being able to get up every day and work with his staff who all share the same passion for cooking food.
In Hot Plates, a new shopping center called Tremont Collective is opening this summer in downtown Oceanside, bringing with it new locations for Bottlecraft and Communal Coffee.
A food truck specializing in Lao and Khmer street food, The Sticky Rice Spot, has found a home at 16th and G streets in East Village and will be serving dishes like lemongrass chicken stir-fry daily from noon to 7 p.m. Also in East Village, it’s been confirmed that a new speakeasy will be built inside Neighborhood, but there’s still no word on the name or the concept. Troy discovered during his visit at Bowlegged BBQ in Oak Park that the owners are looking to open a second location in San Diego.
In Two People for $50, Tony’s pick was Yakyudori on Convoy Street for the ramen and Japanese curry. Troy’s pick was Bowlegged BBQ for the pork ribs, mac and cheese, sweet collard greens, and dirty rice that can be enjoyed in the lively backyard. David’s go-to place for burritos and beer before a Padres Game is Lolita’s Mexican Food, where he recommends trying the 2 in 1 and Tsunami burritos.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This week we chat with Ernie Becerra, founder of San Diego Taco Company and ¡Salud! Tacos in Barrio Logan. Ernie is a fifth-generation San Diegan, and he worked as a banker before pursuing his passion and eventually opening a restaurant. ¡Salud! is one of 13 essential taco shops listed in this month’s cover story in San Diego Magazine, called “A Love Letter to Tacos!”
Ernie’s family is deeply rooted in San Diego. He says they are “old-school Chicano,” having first settled in Barrio Logan in 1900 (that predates the Mexican Revolution). He began his career following in his father’s footsteps working in banking, but quickly realized that was not what he wanted to do and decided to take a chance. Armed with a recipe book and the knowledge from his grandmas and local taco shop owners, Ernie bought a taco cart. He started catering small events, but as he continued to work, his business grew. The fish and birria tacos were the foundational items of Ernie’s cart, and are still on the ¡Salud! menu to this day.
Ernie talks about the opportunities he jumped on to successfully expand his business. He needed to stand out from other taquerias in the city, so he worked on branding: he discovered the business name San Diego Taco Company wasn’t already claimed, and filed for it right away. While looking for a permanent venue to showcase tacos for people to try before booking his catering company, he learned the old Porkyland space on Logan Avenue—a building he had spent a lot of time in while growing up—was available, so he swooped in and acquired it. After spending time cleaning and fixing up the building, Ernie finally opened ¡Salud! in 2015.
The restaurant has been a huge success, and the colorful space is also known for showcasing graffiti art, murals, and other works by local artists. ¡Salud! has been featured in the Washington Post, New York Times, and on The Zimmern List. Ernie says he knew something was changing in the neighborhood with ¡Salud! as the anchor. While gentrification is an ongoing concern in Barrio Logan, Ernie felt it was important to not confuse success with gentrification, since many of the businesses that have revitalized the area are actually owned by locals. His hope is that Barrio Logan will grow to a point where the neighborhood can become more organized, and the city’s “Little Mexico.” Ernie also teased an upcoming expansion to the restaurant. Listen to find out!
In Hot Plates, Restaurant Week has been rescheduled from its usual date in January to April 11-18. Pure Project is opening a new brewery next month in Vista, taking over the location vacated by Iron Fist Brewery. Two restaurant owners are in need of help: The owner of Sushi Yaro in Kearny Mesa is recovering from a stroke, and is unable to work and needs assistance with medical expenses. A Go Fund Me page has been created where donations are accepted. The owner of Suzy Q’s Diner in Escondido says she’s used up nearly all of her savings, and is asking for help with back rent and bills, and has created a Go Fund Me page. If you’re able to assist with even a small donation, it can help these restaurants continue to bring life into their neighborhoods.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Ernie’s pick was Napoleon's Pizza House in National City for their torpedo sandwiches and pizza. Troy’s pick was Flavors of East Africa in University Heights for their ndengu, a Kenyan-style stew of lentils in curry sauce, and the jungle fries covered in braised meats and sauce. Marie’s pick was the beef chow mein noodles with black pepper sauce and grilled pork buns from Tasty Noodle House. In celebration of our recent Road Trips issue, David’s recommendation is outside of San Diego this week: His favorite spot to eat at after hitting the slopes in Big Bear is Himilayan Restaurant, where he says everything is phenomenal, especially the lamb naan with the lamb baked into the bread.
See you next week!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week, we chat with Starr Edwards, founder of Bitchin’ Sauce, a popular almond dip that is vegan-friendly. You may have it seen at local farmers’ markets (and mistaken it for hummus) or at the grocery store. The company started in Carlsbad and is still headquartered there, but has increased distribution to nearly 7,000 stores nationwide, including Costco, Target, and Whole Foods. In episode 210, William Bradley, executive chef at Michelin-starred restaurant Addison, said that Bitchin’s chipotle flavor is one of his favorite things to eat. Starr explained that the almond dip started with three flavors and is now available in 13; she highly recommends trying it as a sauce on fish tacos.
Starr moved to San Diego from Oregon with her family when she was 15, and her parents were hippies—there were always ingredients like Bragg’s liquid aminos and almonds in the kitchen, at a time when they weren’t mainstream. She graduated high school early; at 16 she started working at a mortgage company and took night classes at a local college—that same year she came up with the recipe for Bitchin’ Sauce.
Years later, when Starr met her husband, musician L. A. Edwards, got married, and had their first child, Skip, she went into business as a personal chef and promoted it with a stand at a local farmers’ market. She used Bitchin’ Sauce to attract visitors to the stand—and the sauce became so popular she decided to rethink her business plan. She says with just $200 and a blender, she started making more of it to sell at the farmers’ markets, and the company grew to the point where she needed to secure a commercial kitchen. A buyer for Costco discovered the brand, which opened the door for national distribution.
Starr says ramping up production for Bitchin’ Sauce to this level meant she had to figure out a new world of regulations for packaging, labeling, and UPCs, and she credits local stores Cardiff Seaside Market and Cream of the Crop for helping her. We also learned who inspired the logo, how she grew the company to nearly 80 employees, and most importantly, how she came up with the name—listen to find out! To this day, the company hasn’t received any outside funding, and during the pandemic, they launched a music label and a charity. They even have the Bitchin’ Beach Club at Carlsbad Lagoon. The company doesn’t ship their sauce directly, but it’s available through Amazon Fresh.
In Hot Plates, we talked about Governor Newsom lifting the regional stay-home order and returning all counties in California to the colored tier system, allowing for outdoor dining at restaurants. Puesto, which temporarily had to close all of their restaurants last week and furlough a majority of their staff, announced their plans to reopen soon. More details are in about celebrity chef Richard Blais’s new restaurant, Ember & Rye, that will open at the Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad. We end on some good news: A new Italian restaurant, Allegro, will open in Little Italy, where Indigo Grill had been for more than 20 years before closing last year.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Starr’s pick is Sushi Ota in Mission Bay, which was also the Readers’ Choice in our 2020 Best Restaurants feature. Troy’s pick is the Vaquero hot dog from Barrio Dogg in Barrio Logan, and David likes the cold vegetable sandwich from Clem’s Bottle House in Kensington. My pick is the chicken-fried steak biscuit at Sonnyboy Biscuit Co. in University Heights.
Thank you for listening and starting the new year with us! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
We’re excited to have Maya Madsen, the founder of Maya's Cookies, on the show this week. Maya’s Cookies is a line of soft-baked cookies that are completely vegan but also popular with non-vegans. Maya founded the company in 2015 when she couldn't find any vegan cookies that she liked, so she started baking her own. Today, her company is the No. 1 Black-owned gourmet vegan cookie company in the country. The cookies are available online and ship nationally, and she opened her first retail store location last fall in Grantville.
Maya says she has a sweet tooth and that cookies have been one of her favorite indulgences, but for years she couldn’t find any vegan cookies that did the trick. In 2015 she started making her own, and soon she was baking by the dozen for her friends and clients. Non-vegans also praised the cookies, and the hobby turned into a business as she started selling them at the Little Italy and Pacific Beach farmers’ markets. Since both markets attract a large number of tourists, out-of-town visitors often asked if they could buy her cookies online, so she set up an online shop. In 2020, Maya saw her business shrink at the beginning of the pandemic—then in the summer, the nationwide movement to support Black-owned businesses gave her a boost and national exposure, and she was caught off-guard by the outpouring of support. She says they would get maybe 20 online orders a day at first—then after June 2, 2020, that number shot up to 600, and kept increasing to as high as 3,000 orders a day. At one point, Maya had 10,000 orders waiting in the queue, and she didn’t have enough boxes to package and ship them, nor a big enough space to make all the cookies, which are scooped by hand. But she was determined to do it, and she did, calling on support from staff, family, and friends. Listen in to find out more about how Maya successfully fulfilled all those orders, how she expanded the business, and what drives her as a business owner.
In Hot Plates, we’re relieved to report that we didn’t have any closures to discuss this week! The owner of China Max, a local institution that was destroyed by a fire last spring, said plans are in the works to rebuild. Juniper and Ivy launched new meal kits for two to four people where you can virtually cook alongside executive chef Anthony Wells. The Hello Kitty Cafe truck is back: It kicked off its West Coast tour in Carlsbad earlier this month, and its next stop is Otay Ranch Town Center on February 6.
In Two People for Takeout, Maya’s picks are the vegan ramen and sushi at The Yasai (Convoy and Little Italy), and the vegetarian Thai food at Plumeria in University Heights. David seconded Plumeria and recommends the tom kah (coconut milk soup). Troy’s pick this week is Indian food from Sundara in Ocean Beach, and my pick is the barbecue chicken and chicken kelaguen (a Guamanian chilled chicken dish) from Chamorro Grill in Grantville.
Thank you for listening and starting the new year with us! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Happy New Year! We took a break from taping during the holidays, and now we’re back and looking forward to 2021. We kicked off our first episode of the year with chef William Bradley of Addison, San Diego’s first restaurant to receive a Michelin star, which it was awarded in 2019. William is a San Diego native, and he's been leading the kitchen at Addison since 2006. He’s been nominated four times for a James Beard Award, won Robb Report’s Culinary Masters, and has served on the council for Bocuse d’Or USA since 2013. Addison is also just one of 87 restaurants in the world to have the Relais & Châteaux designation. To adapt to the current stay-home order, Addison is now offering a takeout program so you can enjoy their fine dining at home.
In this episode, we learned that William is from Chula Vista, and that he was a competitive soccer player—as a teen, he even played on a men’s league in Tijuana. He says a lot of people don’t know that before he pursued a career in the culinary arts, his first love was soccer (and he is still an avid fan of the sport). Growing up in Chula Vista, his palate was heavily influenced by the cooking of his Latinx friends and neighbors. When he moved to New York, he didn’t think he would come back to San Diego, but he eventually did to lead the kitchen at Loews Coronado Bay Resort.
Addison is unfortunately closed for in-person dining again, so the team decided they needed to pivot to offer takeout (for the first time in the restaurant’s history) to keep their workers and the ecosystem of local businesses that supply the restaurant employed. How can fine dining, which is experiential, translate to takeout? William said they didn’t want to go the route of offering an extensive tasting menu to go, so instead their new program, Addison at Home, is more approachable. The four-course meals, which are available four nights a week, are “what you’d make at home, but we’ll make it for you.” There is also an option to add on wine that is selected by their sommelier, as well as breakfast for the following morning.
Last, we talked a lot about the future of fine dining, and William shares what he’s looking forward to in 2021. Listen to find out!
In Hot Plates, we discussed the news that Karl Strauss is leaving La Jolla after 25 years because they decided not to renew the lease (two locations remain open for takeout). The owners of Farmers’ Table just opened Smokey and the Brisket, a new barbecue restaurant near Lake Murray; and coming soon to Golden Hill is Kingfisher, a modern Vietnamese restaurant from the owners of Crab Hut. They’re doing monthly pop-up dinners to showcase the new menu, starting January 15 at Crab Hut’s Mira Mesa location. Sam the Cooking Guy is opening a new burger concept soon in Little Italy Food Hall that will be a permanent home for the “Samburgers” that he launched at a ghost kitchen in Seaport Village.
In Two People for Takeout, William had two picks for his favorites: Bitchin’ Sauce, a locally made almond-based dip available at Costco and farmers’ markets (he recommends the chipotle flavor), and the Double-Double at In-N-Out Burger. Troy’s pick this week is the OBecian pizza with white sauce at Sisters Pizza in Bankers Hill, and David recommends the family-style crab boil from Louisiana Purchase in North Park. My pick is the birria ramen from The Birria Truck, which has two locations in Chula Vista and City Heights.
Thank you for listening and starting the new year with us! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. See you next week!
Happy Holidays to all our listeners, and welcome to the last episode of 2020! We are wrapping up this unprecedented year with our most memorable guests, our favorite foods, and some predictions and hopes for the new year. Note: This was recorded on December 12.08.20.
Troy, Marie, and David all reminisce about the first podcast we recorded after the pandemic and how it felt to be back on the air after three months. They looked back at some of their favorite episodes: Marie enjoyed our first ever cross-border episode with Fernando Perez Castro from La Lomita Winery, when we learned about Mexico’s wine industry and imports. Both Marie and Troy enjoyed the episode featuring Esthela Davila, cofounder of Mujeres Brew Club, talking about gender exclusivity in the craft beer industry. Troy’s other top picks included the episode featuring Frontline Foods and their efforts to support restaurants, like El Borrego, and front-line workers alike during the pandemic, and the episode with chef Phillip Esteban, this year’s Critic’s Pick for Best Chef, who recounted his experience as a Filipino American in San Diego and how he is sharing his culture in the food industry. The first episode this summer was one of David’s favorites, when we chatted with Brad Keiller from Nomad Donuts about the Black Lives Matter movement and his experiences and perspective as a Black business owner. Another one of David’s standouts was the in-person podcast recording at Hotel del Coronado, when we finally got to see one another (from a distance, of course) and enjoy some cocktails and appetizers on their brand-new Sun Deck.
There may not have been a lot of good news in 2020, but there was definitely some good food! Marie’s pick is Angkorian Pikestaff, a Southeast Asian lunch pop-up that’s run out of an East Village commissary kitchen by chef Socheath Sun. Its menu is a single dish that’s different each day. If you’ve kept up with Troy’s search for the best birria, one of his favorite spots is ED Fernandez Restaurant & Catering. Some other standouts he recommends are the bone marrow tacos from Tuétano Taqueria, empanadas from Empanada Kitchen, ramen from his top pick, Hiro Nori, and good quality meats from The Wise Ox Butcher and Eatery. David’s go-to meal for 2020 was the Signature phở S&B from Shank and Bone, as well as their take on the bánh mì. He also recommends the pizza and soft-serve ice cream from Tribute Pizza.
We also discuss the future of the restaurant and food industry, our predictions for what that may look like, especially considering the rollout of the vaccine. While we are concerned about what’s going to happen this winter, we’re optimistic that by summertime, the dining scene will pull through and things will be looking up. As for the magazine, Marie shares some things to look forward to reading, including a story devoted to tacos, which you can keep an eye out for in February.
We thought we’d end 2020 with news of what we can look forward to. A sushi restaurant that Buzzfeed made famous is going to open a location in San Diego. Sushi Stop, an LA-based restaurant known for its affordable prices, was featured on Buzzfeed’s Worth It series and judged against an omakase place that charges $100 per person. They’re opening a location in Kearny Mesa early next year, called Sushi Hachi, with the same concept. Brad Wise, the owner of Trust, Fort Oak, and Rare Society, is offering steak dinners for restaurant workers who were laid off. So far, he’s raised $5,000 for the program, but still needs donations to keep it going. If you are able to donate, you can do so here. The final news of 2020: A Ferris wheel might be coming to Balboa Park. The temporary attraction still needs approval from the city, but the Balboa Park committee approved the plans for it to go up in the Plaza de Panama next spring. The community is divided over this—and a petition was recently created to stop the project. Do you love or hate it? Tell us what you think!
Our special guest this week is Arturo Kassel, CEO of Whisknladle Hospitality, which brought us restaurants like Prep Kitchen, Catania, and Whisknladle in La Jolla. He also owns Gravity Heights Brewery, which opened last summer in Sorrento Valley, and the Park Commons food hall. Arturo and his business partner, chef Ryan Johnston, opened Whisknladle in La Jolla in 2008. After 12 years in the neighborhood, they had to close the restaurant this spring because of the pandemic. We featured Whisknladle’s closure in the October/November issue of San Diego Magazine, where we also ran the restaurant’s recipe for their mussels appetizer, provided by Ryan.
Arturo has been on the show before, and we invited him back to talk about the latest Stay Home Order. This time around, restaurants can only serve takeout or delivery, and breweries and wineries were ordered to close their tasting rooms. Currently, Catania is open for takeout daily, but Gravity Heights and Park Commons has been temporarily closed. Arturo shares that he fully supports the shutdown of indoor dining, and he understands the need to move to outdoor dining only, but has several frustrations about the current closures. He says that the hospitality industry represents around 9 percent of the outbreaks that have occurred in San Diego County, which would mean that 91 percent are attributable to other sectors. He feels that the restaurant industry is being scapegoated.
The PPP loans that came during the first shutdown are what kept their restaurants alive—but another shutdown without PPP funds, or any kind of aid, makes the future very uncertain. Arturo says he’s not as panicked this time around. At the first shutdown, he thought he was seeing 14 years of his life’s work come to a crashing halt, and he was devastated. This time around, they were better prepared, compared to March when they had to throw away thousands of dollars worth of food. He remains cautiously optimistic that there will be some form of relief eventually, but admits that hope is not a great strategy. Despite everything, he remains incredibly proud of and grateful for his team, who managed a seemingly impossible situation.
Arturo sees a silver lining in the way the pandemic has forced everyone to take stock of what’s really important in our lives, and believes that on the other side of this, we’re really going to appreciate those simple things—the places we go, the things we do, and the people we see. In Two People for Takeout, Troy recommends supporting any local caterer, like his favorite, Miho Catering Company. Marie got caldo de pollo at Lourdes to satisfy her chicken soup craving. David recommends checking out Sushi Uno, one of many food trucks that, without local breweries, have lost their biggest avenue of distribution. Arturo didn’t pick one specific place—instead, he encourages people to order takeout from the experiential, full-service dining restaurants in their neighborhood.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Be sure to tune in next week for our final episode of 2020.
Welcome back to another Happy Half Hour episode! Today's special guest is Accursio Lota, chef and owner of Cori Pastificio in North Park. Before opening Cori Pastificio, he was the head chef at Liberty Station’s Solare Ristorante for seven years. During his time there, he was presented with the prestigious Tre Gamberi by Gambero Rosso, an Italian award similar to the Michelin star system. Just one year prior, he won the Barilla World Pasta Championships. He’s originally from Menfi, Sicily, and now resides in North Park.
Accursio talks to us about his journey opening Cori Pastificio and shares that when you work in the restaurant industry, the final dream is to have your own place. He was set on a North Park location within one mile of his house, which is what business owners in his small town in Sicily do, and says opening a restaurant anywhere else would’ve been unnatural. The opportunity presented itself, and Cori took over where Cardamom Café was.
Cori Pastificio opened in mid-December 2019, and barely three months later, the pandemic hit. The first week was the hardest for him, and he was afraid they would have to close down permanently—being open for only three months meant they didn’t have regular customers to rely on. But Accursio says that from day one, there was huge engagement from the community trying to help them and other businesses survive. He’s made several adjustments since the spring, such as downsizing the menu and occasionally changing it, and selling housemade dry pasta as more people are cooking at home. In the next few months, he hopes to sell Cori’s pasta at small groceries and markets.
To wrap up our time with Accursio, we wanted to end on a good note, so we shared the exciting news: In our annual Best Restaurants issue, Cori Pastificio won the critic’s pick for Best of the Best Casual and the readers’ pick for both Best New Restaurant and Best Chef! You can find them and the rest of the winners in the December issue, and to check out their menu, visit their website and Instagram.
We taped this episode well before Thanksgiving, so this Hot Plates segment won’t be news by the time you hear it, but we still wanted to catch you up on the latest headlines. Small Bar in University Heights closed. Amarin Thai, which has been in Hillcrest for over 20 years, announced that it permanently closed. The owners have a sister restaurant, Siam Nara in Mira Mesa, that is open with outdoor dining and takeout, which you can support. A fire at Hamiltons Tavern in South Park caused an estimated $1 million in damage to the business. On to the good news: Maya's Cookies just opened its first retail store in Grantville. Priscilla Curiel, who owns Tuétano Taqueria, one of our favorite taco shops, is opening a new café, Mujer Divina, in National City.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Marie’s pick is khinkali (Georgian beef soup dumplings) from Pomegranate, a Russian-Georgian restaurant in North Park. Featured earlier in Hot Plates, Troy goes with Siam Nara in Mira Mesa, where he recommends their drunken noodles with duck and mango sticky rice. For a good glass of wine and some tapas, Accursio picks De Nada Kitchen and Market in University Heights, and David recommends the mole y huevos at WestBrew in Del Mar, as well as their IPAs and seltzers.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. And if there’s another patio you think we should record on, let us know.
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! Today’s special guest is Steven Torres, founder and CEO of Pop Pie Co. and Stella Jean’s ice cream. Steven and his husband, Gan Suebsarakham, own the two shops in University Heights, which feature modern takes on American dessert staples: pie and ice cream. Leaning on his background in business and accounting, Steven handles the day-to-day operations and oversees all Pop Pie Co. and Stella Jean’s locations, including expansion, menu development, and management.
Steven walks us through the inspiration behind Pop Pie Co., their first business venture out of the two. When brainstorming what to focus their business on, the duo recognized that pot pie was a staple dish in a lot of cultures around the world but not in the US. Their strong desire to bring the classic dish to the states and present it in a different way led them to dream up Pop Pie Co.
Before pie and ice cream were even a thought in his mind, Steven was trying to navigate his solo move from his small hometown to San Diego. His first job was as a doorman and server at Bourbon Street Bar & Grill, and he also worked the door at The Brass Rail, one of San Diego’s most popular gay bars. Although Steven says that it was intimidating at first, he had great experiences learning about the community and culture. In fact, it was his love for University Heights that ultimately led them to choose it as the location to start their business. The community there embraced them from day one, and the emotional goodwill they’ve experienced has been carrying them through the pandemic.
Right now, Pop Pie Co. and Stella Jean’s have switched fully to counter service. Steven says they saw a trend toward instant gratification, that people value time as a determining factor of where to eat. With pies and ice cream, their businesses are geared up for that grab-and-go setup. The opportunity to start Stella Jean’s came when they were approached to take over the lease next door to Pop Pie. They brainstormed what to do with the space—possibly expanding seating for Pop Pie—but Gan’s pastry background and interest in ice cream turned the light bulb on. Steven says it was all an organic process and that if you have an idea, it’s all about how you make it yours.
For Thanksgiving, they just announced their annual turkey pot pie. They’ve also begun a presale for their whole pies, which are going out pretty fast. They have five options: vegan apple crumble, salted caramel apple crumble, salted honey chess pie, honey bourbon pecan pie, and pumpkin pie.
In Hot Plates, we have good news all around this week! There’s a new distillery and barbecue restaurant in Barrio Logan: ReBru and Hott Mess. Teriyaki & Bao opened in Carlsbad Village right next door to Blue Ocean Sushi Bar, which is owned by the same company. They have lots of Instagrammable food—namely, bao that look like cartoon animals. In breakfast and brunch news, Fig Tree Cafe is opening in East Village on Sixth Avenue and G Street, taking over the spot where Double Standard was.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Troy makes his final ramen pick: the stone soup with brisket from The Whet Noodle. Marie celebrates California spiny lobster season with the lobster plate at Mitch’s Seafood, and Steven picks Soi 30th in North Park, recommending their papaya salad. Also in North Park, David goes with the pretzel grilled cheese at Pretzels and Pints.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. And if there’s another patio you think we should record on, let us know!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! We honor Veterans Day this week with our special guest, Timothy Parker, co-founder of Chula Vista Brewery! Timothy is from Chicago, and he moved to San Diego to pursue a career in the Navy, where he met his wife, Dali, and was introduced to Chula Vista. He opened up Chula Vista Brewery on Third Avenue as a way to bring quality craft beers to South Bay. He retired from the Navy at the end of 2019 following two decades of service, and he is now a full-time presence at the brewery. Chula Vista Brewery is one of the only Black-owned and veteran-owned breweries in San Diego, and its Browner than Ivan American-style brown ale won a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival last year.
Timothy’s love for beer was sparked during his military career, as he traveled and was able to taste beer all over the world. When he returned home and looked for those international beers, he wasn’t able to find them. For him, it was a snowball effect: He started brewing at home, and as his imagination grew, it turned into a brewery.
Although their profit margins have suffered because of the pandemic, Timothy shares how they were able to branch out using their new canning machine. Before the pandemic, they were selling so much off the tap that they didn’t have a need to can their beer, but now they had the opportunity to pivot. Now, their beers are available in Bevmo, Grocery Outlet, and Sprouts. Timothy himself is the distributor and sales person, and he shares about how work-intensive it is.
Many breweries face the challenge of selling food onsite to keep their tasting rooms open. Timothy says that they had to get creative, so they collaborated with a kitchen down the street, and they use a barcode system separate from the brewery. It sends orders directly to the restaurant so the cash doesn’t mix in with the brewery’s cash, a problem Timothy said you could easily run into with food trucks.
Timothy says the local veteran community has shown support for his brewery, and they recently collaborated with War Planes, a veteran-owned company that makes bodysurfing gear, to release their War Planes Hazy Pale Ale. As a Black business owner, he says the Black Lives Matter movement brought an uptick in support, especially from within the Black community itself and out-of-town visitors. He also shares how the support has been growing, and how it’s actually helping get their community more into craft beer.
As for their collaborations, Timothy shares about Brewing the American Dream, which allowed them to collaborate with Samuel Adams when they were first starting out and get their name out there.
In Hot Plates, Winston’s in Ocean Beach, a long-time institution for live music, is temporarily closed. Royale, a burger restaurant in Point Loma owned by couple Jordan and Mariah Brownwood, who also own a farm in Valley Center, announced they're closing permanently. Now for some good news, Mujeres Brew House had their soft opening in Barrio Logan. It's a women-led craft brewery, and we had one of the founders, Esthela Davila, on the show earlier this summer.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, everyone stayed in Chula Vista for their picks. Tim swears by Teriyaki Grill and recommends grabbing a poke bowl from this hole-in-the-wall spot. Marie selected the tortas ahogadas (a “drowned” sandwich) from the food truck El Gallito. Troy picked the quesadilla ahogada from Birrieria Don Rafa, while David did Two People for $50 drinking style with craft beer at Bar Sin Nombre.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. And if there’s another patio you think we should record on, let us know!
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! Just like last week’s episode, we are out here once again at our sponsor the Hotel del Coronado’s new Sun Deck enjoying the sun, beach views, and this time, refreshing cocktails courtesy of our special guest Amanda McNeil, the hotel’s director of beverages.
Amanda has been at Hotel Del since 2018, overseeing 10 of their outlets. She is a Level 1 Sommelier, and this summer she helped launch five new bars and restaurants at the resort simultaneously, including the new Sun Deck. Previously, she was the general manager of 1500 Ocean. Before we started this week’s episode, Amanda spoiled us with the best part of her job—the drinks. We sipped one of the Sun Deck’s signature cocktails, “Workin’ On My Tanlines,” as she talked about the research and development that went into building a unique drink menu at each outlet. For the open-air, beachfront Sun Deck, she went for light, refreshing drinks; while the 1940s-themed Babcock & Story Bar is stocked with classic bourbon and whiskey selections.
Amanda’s first project, Beach + Taco Shack, launched during the renewed popularity of the tiki aesthetic, which explains its vacation feel and selection of classic beachy drinks. Eno Market & Pizzeria, on the other hand, is focused on supporting local companies, so they offer a lot of local beers, though their wine list features Mediterranean options. Amanda also says they have the best pizza you might ever taste!
Amanda loves her job, but she admits you get bored of drinking after a while. Her coming to The Del was a “simple twist of fate,” since she just happened to apply after working at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa. She also shares her two favorite drinks at The Del: the Japanese Highball at Babcock & Story Bar, and the Double Sesh at Beach + Taco Shack.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the news that Michelin included five San Diego restaurants in its list of new “inspector discoveries.” San Diego Beer Week kicks off November 6 with lots of virtual events, tastings, and deals at local breweries. Chef Claudette Zepeda has some exciting news: Her next restaurant, Vaga Restaurant and Bar, will open at the new Alila Marea Beach Resort in Encinitas early next year.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Amanda started us off with two options, Dija Mara in Oceanside and Death by Tequila in Encinitas for some tacos and tequila. Troy picked the vegan burgers at EVE in Encinitas, and for her first time dining out (outdoors) in eight months, Marie went to Barbusa in Little Italy. David went to Dirty Birds in La Jolla for their salt and vinegar wings as he watched the World Series.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. And if there’s another patio you think we should record on, let us know!
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! This is our first live recording of the podcast since this spring. We taped this episode, at our sponsor, the Hotel Del Coronado’s brand new Sun Deck, a bar and restaurant that overlooks Coronado Beach. It was the first time in seven months we’ve been outside and together for a podcast (socially distanced, of course!), and the fresh air and ocean view made for a welcome return. Today’s special guest is Stefan Peroutka, the executive chef right here at Hotel del Coronado. Stefan is from Austria, and he was classically trained at the Salzburg Hospitality and Culinary School. He earned his chops as executive sous chef of the Michelin-starred Aureole restaurant at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, where he was invited to join the prestigious Les Amis d’Escoffier Society of Las Vegas. After serving as executive banquet chef of The Venetian and The Palazzo Resort, he landed at Hotel Del, where he now oversees the resort’s wide range of culinary offerings. Stefan walked us through some dishes that are on the Sun Deck’s menu (which Troy and David made sure to sample right away). This included the California mezze plate, which features whipped goat cheese and edamame lemon hummus, and charred octopus served with fennel and olive oil puree, David’s pick as the best. Stefan says the menu features light California fare with lots of vegetables and seafood.
Stefan spent a lot of his career in Portugal. He shares that the culinary scene around Europe is completely different from Vegas, something he had to navigate when he moved and started working as a sous chef at Stratosphere Casino and Resort.
Stefan talks about the pressure of being a chef, and how different cooking as a chef is versus cooking at home or even at culinary school. He says it’s a stressful profession, and while you can be an amazing cook, running a restaurant or an even bigger operation like in a hotel is not something that can be learned in school. While he said working in Las Vegas was an awesome run, California was always on his radar as he looked for his next step.
In Hot Plates, the beloved Rubio’s, which was founded in San Diego, just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They closed restaurants in Colorado and Florida, though none yet here in California. They are operating as normal, so you can still get the famous fish tacos. Martinis Above Fourth in Hillcrest announced they filed for Chapter 7. The restaurant and bar was known for its live shows and extensive martini menu, but the owners’ post on Facebook sadly said that it wouldn’t make sense to reopen. We tried to end this segment on a high note: El Cruce+241, a restaurant in Chula Vista devoted to Baja cuisine and ingredients, is finally open on Third Avenue. It specializes in seafood, wine, and beer from Baja with dishes like grilled octopus, oysters, fish tacos, and craft beer from breweries such as Tijuana’s Insurgente.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Stefan recommends the seafood at TJ Oyster Bar. Marie went with ice cream from Salt and Straw: They have a special Halloween edition that mixes matcha ice cream with chocolate-covered crickets. Troy continues his ramen quest at Hironori Ramen in Hillcrest, giving rave reviews of the shoyu ramen and creamy tonkotsu ramen. David ventured out of North Park all the way to Miramar to Ballast Point Tasting Room, putting aside his dislike of pumpkin spice for the Pumpkin Down Scotch Ale.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com. And if there’s another patio you think we should record on, let us know!
This episode is sponsored by Hotel del Coronado.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! Our special guest today is Sandy Vuong from Dumpling Inn and Shanghai Saloon. Dumpling Inn was one of the first restaurants in San Diego to offer xiao long bao, Chinese soup dumplings. Sandy’s family also owns Minh Ky, a beloved Chinese restaurant in City Heights. Sandy moved to Orange County to study at UC Irvine, and after graduating she moved back to San Diego to become co-owner of Dumpling Inn. The restaurant moved right next door from its original spot on Convoy Street to a bigger space. They’ve been there ever since, and just opened back up for dine-in.
Sandy chats with us about what it’s been like to reopen the restaurant for indoor dining at a limited capacity. As a restaurateur, dealing with angry customers is always a difficult but necessary part of the job, and she shares that unfortunately it’s not any better under the new pandemic restrictions. However, she and her staff have been making a real effort to enforce the mask-wearing and social distancing rules. Sandy says they’ve been able to set up outdoor seating in their parking lot in the meantime, and that some newly added street parking in the neighborhood has helped bring more customers to the area.
Looking to the future, Sandy hopes that customers can appreciate the whole dining experience when all the rules and restrictions go away. One of their mottos is “from our family to yours,” and they really believe that when customers are dining in with them. She tells us about the current struggles of dealing with third-party delivery apps, to-go orders, and contact tracing, and hopes that people can understand and appreciate the level of service they can get when they are able to dine in again.
For Hot Plates, Burger Lounge launched a plant-based test kitchen and expanded the menu at their Hillcrest and Del Mar locations to include vegan dishes. There are now plant-based options for their popular burgers, vegan cheeses and sauces, and cashew-based dairy-free milkshakes. We also have some beer news! Dozens of local brewers won awards at the San Diego International Beer Competition, the largest of its kind in the region. This year, the awards ceremony was done via Zoom; Rouleur Brewing Company in Carlsbad won Best in Show for their Domestique Blonde Ale, and Eppig Brewing won for their special lager. For some lighthearted national news, a recent map came out that shows which Halloween candy is the most popular in every state. California’s favorite is the Crunch bar, our neighbors in Oregon and Arizona picked Reese's Pieces and Mr. Goodbar, respectively, and Vermont went with Tootsie Pop. And Florida picked Airheads…no comment.
For Two People for $50 / Two People for Takeout, Sandy’s seafood cravings typically take her to Submarine Crab or Bluewater Grill. Marie’s pick was also seafood: Kikos Seafood Lunch Truck in Mission Valley, especially on Tuesdays for their three fish tacos for $5 deal. Troy recommends Station Tavern over in South Park if you’re looking for good burgers and good beer. David took us on a little tour of North County, first with The Confessional by The Lost Abbey for some ales and a coupon for a slice of pizza at East Coast Pizza right next door, then down to Cardiff Seaside Market for their famous tri-tip, or “Cardiff Crack,” to take home and cook. I joined this week with some all-you-can-eat Korean barbeque from Manna BBQ.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! Today's guest is Hanna Tesfamichael, chef and owner of Hanna's Gourmet in Normal Heights. Born in Eritrea, Hanna came to San Diego to study food and nutrition at San Diego State University. She worked for a while at Jenny Craig, and then in 2008 she opened her own catering kitchen before opening Hanna’s as a full-service restaurant in 2011. Hanna chatted with us about her unexpected journey from nutrition coach to caterer to restaurant owner. Throughout college, she worked at a catering company and fell in love with it. She was always drawn to the kitchen, and that led her to become a personal chef. But when she started Hanna’s Gourmet, she had no intention to turn it into a restaurant, much less a beloved neighborhood bistro. We then dove into how she began her catering company, which included a three-year journey finding a place to rent. It was no easy endeavor—she and her husband had to build from the ground up. Between 2008 and 2011, Hanna’s functioned as a caterer, but as customers kept asking her to do takeout, she converted the storage area next door into the dining room we know today. Unfortunately, the future of catering looks grim, and we discussed what that might look like for businesses everywhere. Hanna’s Gourmet is one of the many that’ve had to adapt, and they are now offering a weekly menu of small-batch, made-to-order dinners. While some of the favorites stay the same—like the tortellini with pear, Parmesan cream sauce, prosciutto, and their best-seller, the Moroccan chicken—everything else on their global menu changes. Hanna told us that she loves to get her customers involved, having them send in recipes and seeing what they like. You can order through her website, which has all the information. In Hot Plates, North Park is getting some Thai street food. The owner of Mngo Cafe on Convoy is opening Kin Len on 30th Street in the old Berkeley Pizza spot. There's a brand-new Mexican restaurant in Ocean Beach: La Doña OB Cantina opened last Saturday, taking over the spot on Bacon Street where Nati's was for 60 years. The list of new restaurants continues with Seaport Village, which is getting a Malibu Farm restaurant. The restaurant is known as a spot for celebrity sightings, and has expanded to eight locations around the world. It's going to replace Harbor House, which has been on the waterfront for 40 years. But don’t get too excited just yet—you will have to wait a little longer as the restaurant won't open until 2022. In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Troy kept his ramen hunt going strong with Menya Ultra Ramen, one of the most esteemed ramen places in both San Diego and Tokyo. Marie followed up Troy’s journey with her recommendation for quality noodles at Ramen Ryoma in Hillcrest. Hanna couldn’t decide between two, so she chose both: the Azerbaijani-inspired fare from Cafe 21 and the classic Italian appetizers and pastries at Ciccia Osteria in Barrio Logan. David took us on a little trip to the Little Italy Food Hall, where he tried a flatbread from Graze by Sam and Bobboi Natural Gelato’s charcoal-infused vanilla ice cream. Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Four years and 200 episodes later, and we’re here sharing our landmark episode with a very special guest, Brian Malarkey. Over the past ten years, Brian has built a successful restaurant empire throughout the country, starting in San Diego. He was the founding chef and partner of Searsucker and Herringbone restaurants, which sold majority stake to Hakkasan Group in 2014.
Since then, he's opened Herb & Wood, Herb & Eatery, Herb & Sea, Animae, NIMA Cafe, and Herb & Ranch. Brian was a finalist on season 3 of Top Chef, and was on Top Chef All-Stars this past season. He's also been on Guy's Grocery Games, the Today Show, and Good Morning America.
In the restaurant industry, you can either go small or you can go big, and Brian took the latter to a new level with his multimillion dollar restaurants. Despite creating over 15 restaurant concepts, Brian cherishes his roots and shares that his favorite project had to be his first with Searsucker. Taking that plunge was huge for him, especially at a time when people weren’t opening restaurants. The next big step was with Herb & Wood, proving his success wasn’t just a one-time thing. While he and his business partner Chris Puffer are in no hurry to expand right now, he says they have new concepts boiling up.
We covered a lot of ground during our interview about what’s happening at Brian’s company and in the industry. Brian has been able to rehire about 60 percent of his employees since March, but they have closed Herb & Eatery. With the need for outdoor dining, they were able to double the seating occupancy at Herb & Sea and Animae—where sales are actually up day-to-day from last year. He also started online cooking classes and donated the funds, and he’s now doing virtual classes for corporations. Brian shared his concerns about PPP loans running out for many local restaurants and how this will impact the community, and discussed steps that small restaurant owners can take to try to get through this: from seeking out partnerships with other restaurants to negotiating with landlords.
In Hot Plates, Death by Tequila is opening a third location in Liberty Station. They recently signed to take over El Jardin Cantina, and are hoping to open by January 2021. Chef Andrew Bachelier, formerly at Jeune et Jolie, is now offering high-end meals for takeout twice a week, with only 20 tickets available per evening. His website has all the information. Rapper Wiz Khalifa started a new food delivery service, and expanded it to San Diego. HotBox by Wiz is a roundup of his personal favorite snacks, which he helped create, and yes, of course it has an unapologetic stoner theme.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Brian enjoys taking his family to Blue Water Seafood in OB to get fish tacos for a picnic on the beach. Troy is still on his search for the best ramen in San Diego, and says Yakitori Yakyudori is still one of the best. David recommended the Chinese American dishes at the recently opened Fortunate Son, and Marie picked the spicy miso ramen at Santouka.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week’s episode is our first international one, and our special guest is Fernando Perez Castro, the founder of La Lomita Winery and Finca la Carrodilla in Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California’s wine country. Fernando founded the winery in 2009, and it’s the first certified organic winery in the region. La Lomita’s Pagano grenache is on the wine list at the acclaimed The French Laundry. Fernando chatted with us virtually from his home in Ensenada.
Every October, the region gears up for the Valle Food and Fest, which was started by chefs Javier Plascencia and Nancy Silverton, and food writer Carolina Carreño. Even though it launched only four years ago, the event has attracted celebrities and other big names in the food and wine industry. It was slated to commence this weekend, but canceled and postponed to 2021 because of the pandemic.
Valle de Guadalupe is an emerging wine region. In recent years it’s received a lot of media coverage—Anthony Bourdain called it “Little Tuscany” when he visited—and it’s become increasingly popular with San Diegans and Angelenos. But there have barely been any tourists for months. Crossing the border for nonessential travel is still limited until the end of this month. How is our southern neighbor holding up? Unsurprisingly, Fernando says the valle has been hurting. He closed La Lomita’s tasting rooms, as well as Lunario—the winery’s new restaurant that had just opened last fall—for nearly four months. They managed to keep their employees on payroll, and have since been able to reopen at a limited capacity, but businesses are struggling. Fernando says they miss the regulars from Southern California who appreciate the valle and its vintners. During this episode, we also learned a lot about the ins and outs of exporting wine from the valle to California, that small businesses in Mexico don’t have access to any kind of government assistance, and what qualifies as an organic winery.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the revamped Taste of Little Italy event, which starts October 4, and how it’s been tailored for takeout. Sam the Cooking Guy is launching a ghost kitchen, Eats by Sam, in Seaport Village with sandwiches and burgers available for delivery. Cali Dumpling, an LA-based company that delivers frozen handmade Chinese dumplings like wontons and xiao long bao, expanded to San Diego. Last, we want to help spread the word about a fundraiser for San Diego chef Anthony Sinsay: Anthony was diagnosed with cancer and is in need of funds for his medical treatment, because he was laid off from his executive chef position and no longer has health insurance. Please donate if you can.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Fernando gave us some great recommendations on where to eat around Baja: Via Torél in Valle de Guadalupe, carne asada at El Paisa in Ensenada, and the fish tacos at Tacos Corona in Ensenada, which was recently highlighted in Netflix’s Taco Chronicles. David’s pick this week is the mussels at Original 40 Brewing in North Park. Troy is on a quest to find the best ramen in San Diego, and he liked the ramen with roasted black garlic sauce at Nishiki in Hillcrest. I also had a ramen pick this week—the tantan ramen at Menya Ultra Ramen in Clairemont.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week’s special guest is Anchi Mei, senior program manager of the International Rescue Committee in San Diego. The IRC is a nonprofit devoted to helping refugees and asylees set down roots and build a new life. Anchi runs its MAKE Projects (Merging Agriculture, Kitchens, and Employment), which include a small working farm, a café, and a culinary program right in the heart of North Park, by St. Luke's Church. Through the farm and the café, high school students and adults alike can earn an income while learning job-readiness skills. Their catering company, Project CHOP, was created as a transitional employment program to provide their interns and employees—many of them students attending schools in City Heights, and women—the opportunity to “learn by doing.”
Anchi shares that the pandemic forced them to adapt their programs. She and her team turned a vacant lot into Pop on 30th, an outdoor dining spot where they now collaborate with North Park restaurants who can also use the space. They also changed the crops they grow on their small farm—they previously grew specialized vegetables for area restaurants, but have switched to more common produce like zucchini and tomatoes to start a CSA box that the general public can subscribe to, which will help support their programs. While their mission across the board is to help refugee and immigrant communities gain the skills and knowledge to build stability and success in their lives, Anchi believes the benefit goes both ways, because they get to deliver fresh food to the community. Check out their website to make reservations for the café and subscribe to their weekly CSA box.
In Hot Plates, we’ll start with the bad news first: Tiger!Tiger!, a North Park favorite, isn’t going to reopen. Bankers Hill Restaurant and Bar is temporarily closing after September 26, but take heart—it’s not permanent. We end the segment with good news: A new French bakery opened in Pacific Beach. La Clochette du Coin, a café and bakery in La Jolla known for their tartines, opened a second location on Cass Street. The Wise Ox just had their opening in North Park in the space formerly known as The Heart & Trotter. It was purchased by chef Brad Wise, and is a deli and butcher shop rolled into one serving sandwiches along with housemade hot dogs, burgers, and beef fat fries. A new food truck is coming to North Park this weekend. Chef Lauren Lawless, who just won Supermarket Stakeout and will be on Hell's Kitchen early next year, is launching a tapas food truck, Flawless Cuisine, on Adams Avenue.
For this week’s Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Anchi chose the croissants from Wayfarer Bread, and Troy picked his favorite Italian restaurant, Bencotto in Little Italy. They also wanted to give shoutouts to their favorite restaurants in City Heights: The Neighborhood Cafe and Minh Ky Restaurant. David also went with pasta, choosing Cucina Sorella in Kensington, and Marie’s pick to satisfy her mariscos cravings was Oscars Mexican Seafood.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We didn’t release an episode last week, as we took Labor Day weekend off, but we’re back and excited about this week’s guest: Eric Bost, who was recently named the new executive chef at Jeune et Jolie. Eric and his family just relocated from LA and he’s still getting settled in North County, but he took the time to chat with us about his new venture.
Eric has an impressive résumé: He worked under Alain Ducasse at Plaza Athénée in Paris, and at Guy Savoy in Singapore and Las Vegas. He relocated to Los Angeles and helmed the kitchen at République before he opened Auburn in West Hollywood. In the short time that Auburn was open, it was named one of the Best New Restaurants in America, and nominated for a James Beard Award for design.
In April, Eric unfortunately had to close Auburn. Fine-dining establishments, especially those with tasting menus, have had their own unique challenges during the pandemic and many cannot survive on just takeout. Eric shares with us that it took him two years to get the restaurant open, and that January and February of this year were their most profitable months. We learn how he made the connection with Jeune et Jolie owner Johnny Resnick, and why he chose the Carlsbad restaurant over other culinary opportunities that were available to him. Eric isn’t a stranger to North County—he lived in Cardiff 15 years ago, and while he was in LA he’d often travel with his family to visit on the weekends. He shares what he thinks is different about San Diego’s dining scene and that he’s excited about how it’s growing, and also what’s in store for Jeune et Jolie’s menu. If you haven’t seen the restaurant’s patio setup yet, it’s a stunner.
In Hot Plates, Restaurant Week just launched and it’s been revamped to run for a whole month. Michael Mina launched a fried chicken pop-up, Tokyo Hot Chicken, that’s available only for delivery in North County. So Saap, which specializes in Thai and Lao street food, opened earlier this week on the corner of 47th and Market streets. The company that owns Kettner Exchange is opening The Waverly in Cardiff next month, with chef Brian Redzikowski developing the menu.
In Two People for Takeout / Two People for $50, Eric hasn’t had a chance to find his favorite places in San Diego yet, but says he’s looking forward to dining in the Convoy area, and that Chiko and Menya Ultra Ramen are some of the places that have been recommended to him. Troy’s pick is Isabel’s Cantina in Pacific Beach (get the carnitas or the Nirvana Breakfast), and David says to get any of the Large Anti-Wimpy Pizzas and Swami’s IPA at Pizza Port. My pick is the famous tri-tip, aka “Cardiff Crack,” at Seaside Market.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! While San Diego may be the craft beer capital of the US, we also have a less-talked-about but flourishing wine scene. We’re learning all about it from Denise Clarke, owner of Altipiano Vineyard in Escondido. Altipiano is also the only Black- and female-owned winery in San Diego, and we ran a profile on Denise in the current issue. Denise shares her journey in becoming a boutique winemaker. She worked in human resources for many years, and her family owned an old avocado grove in Escondido. In 2007 a fire destroyed the grove, and in its place Denise decided to pursue her passion for wine and take the leap of starting her own vineyard. She explains how the microclimate in the hills of Escondido is similar to Tuscany, and is the perfect place to grow the Italian varietals she specializes in.
The process of becoming a winemaker without classical training was a difficult one, and we learned it can take three years of production for a wine to become commercially viable. Denise says she found mentors along the way, including the group of 15–20 female winemakers in the county who lean on one another for support. There have been challenges, especially with the lack of inclusivity in the wine industry—Denise says people assume her husband is the winemaker at Altipiano, and at times she hasn’t been taken seriously. Over the years, her wines have won awards, and she’s known for producing bold reds like sangiovese and barbera. She also shares that she comes from a family of farmers, and she discovered that one of her relatives was also a winemaker. Tune in to find out more!
In Hot Plates, we had a lot to discuss. First, the big news that restaurants in San Diego are allowed to have indoor dining at 25 percent capacity. New eateries recently opened at Westfield UTC: Rice Goban, Wushiland Boba, and Happy Lemon, which has Taiwanese cheese tea. The owners of Puesto bought the former Whisknlade space in La Jolla and are turning it into an Italian restaurant, and Stone Brewing Co. has named Maria Stipp their new CEO.
In Two People for Takeout/Two People for $50, Denise said she likes the tournedos Oscar and outdoor dining setup at Carvers Steaks and Chops in Rancho Bernardo. Troy’s pick (which he jokes is more like Two People, $300) is the wagyu beef and caviar bump at Born & Raised. David talked about re-creating the experience of going to a ballgame at Petco Park by getting takeout from Hodad’s. My pick is the fish and shrimp tacos at La Reyna del Sur Mariscos truck in University Heights.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We have two special guests for this week’s episode: Brett Roggenkamp, lead organizer for the San Diego Chapter of Frontline Foods; and Rodnia Attiq, owner of El Borrego, a popular barbacoa restaurant in City Heights. El Borrego is one of roughly 40 local restaurants that Frontline Foods has teamed up with to provide meals to health care professionals and other essential workers who are treating COVID-19 patients.
Frontline Foods was started in the Bay Area by an ICU nurse, and since March it has expanded across the nation. Its mission is simple: They collect donations, use the funds to place a bulk order with a local restaurant, and then have those meals delivered to local hospitals. Brett says San Diego was one of the first cities the organization expanded to outside of San Francisco, and since the pandemic began it has directed $150,000 in donations back into our local economy and provided over 12,000 meals.
Brett says their goal is to partner with restaurants that are independently owned and order from them on an ongoing basis. He tells us how they find which restaurants to partner with, and notes that they deliver meals not only to large hospitals and ERs, but also senior centers and the Psychiatric Hospital of San Diego County. They’re currently working on delivering 1,000 meals to employees at San Ysidro Health’s 23 sites.
Rodnia shares that sales at El Borrego were down by 70 percent, and then as much as 90 percent, earlier this spring. The patio at her restaurant is still under construction, so she relies on takeout and to-go catering orders. She says partnering with Frontline Foods helped save her business, and she was able to retain her entire staff thanks to its community fundraising.
In Hot Plates, we talked about how Biga (a longtime favorite of the San Diego Magazine staff for its sandwiches) reopened for takeout, and that Artisan Noodle Tatsuski—a ramen shop that was much hyped before it opened last fall—closed its doors. Chicken Charlie’s opened another pop-up location in Mission Beach right by Belmont Park, so you can still get a deep-fried taste of the postponed San Diego County Fair throughout the summer. All of Homestead Solana Beach’s outdoor furniture was stolen last weekend, and it had to close for a few days because of the theft. But the story has a happy ending: Supporters donated to their Gofundme account to purchase new furniture, and the Del Mar Fairgrounds lent them some patio furniture after seeing the story on NBC San Diego.
We’ve got a lot of great recommendations in Two People for Takeout! Rodnia chose the curries at Bahn Thai, and Brett’s pick is Lucky Bolt, a home-delivery meal service that partners with local farms. Troy’s pick is the pizza (and parklet setup) at Caffè Calabria, and David says to try the vegan Thai food at Grains. My pick is the Chongqing spicy chicken and Sichuan dishes at Kangxi Is Coming. A listener wrote in to recommend the pastas at Cesarina.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We had so many questions about the state of San Diego’s restaurants that we went into overtime with today’s guest, Jeff Rossman. Jeff is the owner of Terra American Bistro in La Mesa, a longtime advocate for local farmers, and president of the San Diego Chapter of the California Restaurant Association, one of the largest advocacy and lobbying groups for the industry in the state. Where things stand, many small businesses are projected to run out of money from Paycheck Protection Program loans, the minimum wage in California is scheduled to increase in January, and the HEALS Act is still being debated in Congress. Jeff helps us unpack how this all affects restaurants, and shares what he feels politicians don’t understand about what restaurants need.
While many restaurants were able to make the shift to outdoor dining, this may not be sustainable in the long run—despite San Diego’s weather being mild compared to other parts of the country. Jeff says restaurant owners are worried that people won’t want to dine outdoors once temperatures drop, and points out that many restaurants were not able to create an outdoor dining space and are still relying solely on takeout. He also talks about why “ghost kitchens” may not be the right solution for everyone, and other concerns the industry has once fall comes. Listen in to find out more.
In Hot Plates, we tried to cover as much positive news as we could this week. There’s a new Chinese American restaurant in Normal Heights led by local chef Tony Guan, more Nashville chicken is coming to town (specifically La Mesa), Jeune et Jolie hired a new acclaimed chef from Los Angeles, and The Friendly in North Park reopened its patio and unveiled a fun new cocktail.
In Two People for Takeout, Jeff’s pick is Tak Grill Fresh Mediterranean Food in San Carlos, and he recommends the shawarma. Troy likes The Flying Pig Pub in Oceanside, and David chose the döner bowl and chili at Amplified Ale Works in Pacific Beach.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! Today we’re sipping beer virtually with Esthela Davila and learning about the educational nonprofit she cofounded, Mujeres Brew Club. Mujeres means “women” in Spanish, and Esthela created the monthly club along with Carmen Favela of Border X Brewing to provide a safe space for women, especially Latinas, to network, learn about craft beer, and break barriers in the industry.
Mujeres Brew Club is inclusive and open to anyone who wants to learn about beer, and Esthela launched it in Barrio Logan—where she grew up—a neighborhood that is around 80 percent Latinx. Since its founding last summer, the club has acquired its own brewery space; they took over the former Alta Brewing in Bread & Salt, and Esthela shares their upcoming opening plans.
Esthela also talks about how intimidating it is to go to a bar and not know what to order, how many people of Latinx descent are not exposed to craft beer, and why the industry needs to be more welcoming. Craft beer has a well-known diversity problem, and a report released last year by the Brewers Association showed nearly 90 percent of craft brewery owners are white, and barely eight percent of brewers are women. And yes, we talk about beer, and Esthela shares her current favorites--tune in to find out what they are.
In Hot Plates, we have a lot of good news to share this week. Arlo, a restaurant led by a chef who cooked at Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas, opened its doors in Mission Valley (yes, Mission Valley!) yesterday. ¡Salud! in Barrio Logan reopened for service, and so did Mister A’s—their patio is open for dining starting next Tuesday, and they’re also offering takeout. Pandemic Pizza, a business started by two prominent local chefs who were furloughed, has found a home inside RoVino The Foodery. Chef Angelo Sosa, formerly of Death by Tequila in Encinitas (our readers’ choice winner for Best Restaurant in 2019) will be on a new cooking show on HBO Max featuring singer Selena Gomez, Selena + Chef. The first episode airs tonight.
For Two People for Takeout, Esthela recommends Deft Brewing and Cucina Caprese, both in Bay Park. Troy’s pick is Chuy’s Taco Shop, and David selected Fall Brewing. My pick this week is Red Sea Ethiopian, which the Union-Tribune recently wrote a great article about.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you're too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week’s guest is Kris Buchanan, owner of Goodonya Organics and Goodonya Organic Eatery in Encinitas. Kris has been in the restaurant business for a long time, having founded the organic deli back in 2001 and expanded it to five locations before opening the full-service restaurant in 2015. She tells us how she got into the business, and we learned that she is an Olympian! She was on the USA National Field Hockey Team and went to the 1996 Olympics, and she’s in the field hockey Hall of Fame.
We brought Kris on the show to hear what it’s been like for restaurant owners, managers, and workers having to enforce mask wearing among customers. Not only do staff have to deal with the customer who becomes irate when denied entry for not wearing a mask, they also have to mitigate concerns from people who get upset when they see another customer not wearing one. Kris shares the difficulty that her hosts and servers have experienced, and says they’re neither equipped nor trained to handle these types of confrontations—young women, especially, are scared for their own physical safety when they’re caught being the referee between two customers. The abuse that restaurant workers have experienced over this issue has been making headlines nationally, and even McDonald’s announced that they’re providing de-escalation training for their employees.
Kris also gave us some information about the Restaurants Act, and we talk about a report from the Independent Restaurant Coalition predicting that 85 percent of small restaurants won’t make it without any aid.
In Hot Plates, we discussed the news that Jayne’s Gastropub in Normal Heights won’t be reopening. Brian Malarkey’s Animae has rebooted and gone alfresco with a revamped menu. The Huntress, a high-end steakhouse in the same building as Lumi by Akira Back, recently opened in the Gaslamp with a menu of family meals available for curbside pickup. Chula Vista started a new program closing off a portion of Third Avenue every Sunday, and we recommended visiting Chula Vista Brewery, one of the few Black-owned craft breweries in San Diego. Last, Cutwater Spirits is providing lunch for laid-off restaurant and bar workers this Saturday: bring an old pay stub or business card to their tasting room in Miramar.
We always end the show on a lighter note with the Two People for Takeout segment. Kris said her favorite is Birdseye Kitchen, a women-owned business in Leucadia, and she recommends the massaman curry. Troy is excited about the panang curry at Soi Thai Street Food, which just opened a new location in Ocean Beach. David recommends the Taylor ham roll and rosemary-and-salt bagels at Nomad Donuts, and my pick is the stingray tacos and micheladas to go at TJ Oyster Bar in Bonita.
Thank you for listening! As always, we want to hear from our listeners. Do you have a question for Troy? Need a recommendation for takeout? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Or do you need help finding out whether a restaurant will be reopening? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! Today we’re admiring the striking food photography of Brittany Wright, and getting a behind-the-scenes look at the art of food styling. Brittany is from San Diego and resides in Golden Hill; her work has been featured everywhere from the pages of Food & Wine to packaging for Fresh Cosmetics, and she published a book of her photography, Feast Your Eyes.
How does one become a pro food photographer? Brittany says working at a job where she was unhappy and felt stuck is what led to her current career. She followed her passions and combined them, learning how to cook while photographing her subjects—produce and other ingredients. Now she’s known for her pieces that show off different foods in a color gradient. We learn that Brittany does most of her work in daylight, and that she doesn’t waste any of the food that she shoots. Listen in to learn more.
In Hot Plates, we cover the week’s biggest headlines. After five years in the making, the family that owns Brigantine just opened Portside Pier—a huge complex with four eateries and lots of patio space—on Harbor Drive. Local icon Dolores Robledo, who founded Roberto’s Taco Shop with her husband in 1964, passed away recently, leaving behind a legacy of 60 locations throughout California and Nevada. Waypoint Public will be leaving North Park soon, since the owner had to put the restaurant up for sale. Bonchon, a global Korean fried chicken chain, opened a second location in National City.
For Two People for Takeout, Troy recommends Hanna’s Gourmet, and Brittany enjoys the vegan cuisine at Kindred. David says the Pho-rench dip at Shank & Bone is a must-try, and my pick is the mar y tierra fries at The Taco Stand.
Thank you so much for listening and for staying with us. We want to hear from you. Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? A topic that should be explored? Need a recommendation for takeout? Do you have a question for Troy? Let us know. You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! San Diego has long been a craft beer destination, but the city is also home to a burgeoning small-batch distillery scene. How has the pandemic affected these companies, since tasting rooms have to remain closed? We invited Michael Skubic, founder of Old Harbor Distilling Co., to talk about this.
Michael got his start as a homebrewer when he was just 21, and after college he helped co-found Mike Hess Brewing. He later ventured on his own and founded Old Harbor in 2014, and he makes gin, rum, and coffee liqueur out of its East Village headquarters. In the beginning of the pandemic when sanitizer was in short supply, Michael teamed up with other companies in the San Diego Distillers Guild to produce and donate 10,000 gallons of it. Michael talks about the process of making sanitizer (he also studied biochemistry at Point Loma Nazarene University), how his business is doing, and some new products he’s launching. He also shares what makes his San Miguel Southwestern Gin stand apart from other botanical gins on the market—it involves a cool history lesson, so listen to find out!
In Hot Plates, we talked about the new Tito’s Deli in Barrio Logan, which specializes in Puerto Rican tripleta sandwiches. Chef Andrew Bachelier announced that he’s leaving Jeune et Jolie, which Esquire named one of the best new restaurants in the country last year. We ended the segment with some good news: Addison, San Diego’s only Michelin-starred restaurant, is reopening in a new outdoor setting on August 1. Chef William Bradley announced this on his Instagram.
For Two People for Takeout, Michael recommended Tribute Pizza. Troy said to get the birria to go at Fernandez Restaurant in Nestor. David is a big fan of the Roman-style pizza at the newly opened Gelati & Peccati, and my pick is the shoyu (soy sauce) ramen at HiroNori Craft Ramen.
Thank you so much for listening and for staying with us. We want to hear from you. Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? A topic that should be explored? Need a recommendation for takeout? Do you have a question for Troy? Let us know. You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! When we taped this episode, the state of California had just announced the re-suspension of indoor dining at restaurants. Over the past few weeks, local restaurants have had to weather reopening, closing, and converting their dining spaces outdoors. We checked in with Tommy Nguyen, who owns Cross Street Chicken and Beer, the Korean fried chicken emporium with locations on Convoy Street and at Windmill Food Hall in Carlsbad.
Tommy shared with us how he’s adapted his restaurants to this new environment, and that other small restaurants in the Convoy area—many of which reside in strip malls—have followed suit, turning the neighborhood into what looks like a night market. We then dived into how he started the business, and what inspired him to focus on Korean fried chicken, which isn’t as prominent in San Diego. He and his wife, Grace Chi, spent a couple of years traveling throughout Asia, and Tommy says he fell in love with Korean fried chicken during an extended stay in Seoul. Grace’s family also owns several restaurants on Convoy, including Grandma Tofu and Korean BBQ, DduriBa, and Bing Haus ice cream.
In Hot Plates, we shared the news that Hanna’s Gourmet is back and offering family meals to go. Gelati & Peccati opened last week in North Park, with a walk-up window serving Roman-style pizza and gelato. Con Pane, a bakery that had been in Point Loma for 20 years and abruptly closed earlier this year after an audit by federal immigration authorities, was purchased by Cohn Restaurant Group and will reopen in Liberty Station.
For Two People for Takeout, Tommy’s picks are Hinotez (which specializes in yakitori) and the pho at Phó Fifth Avenue in Hillcrest. Troy’s favorite this week is another Convoy institution, Wa Dining Okan. David recommended the ice cream at Stella Jean’s, and my pick is the Hawaiian-style ahi poke at Hawaiian Fresh Seafood.
Thank you so much for listening and for staying with us. We want to hear from you. Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? A topic that should be explored? Need a recommendation for takeout? Do you have a question for Troy? Let us know. You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! At the time of this taping, indoor dining at restaurants in San Diego has been shut down for at least the next three weeks, and bars remain closed. We’ve been wondering what this means for the industry, and also how this will affect the live music scene and the venues that host them. So we brought in Tim Mays, who owns The Casbah on Kettner Boulevard—a landmark that’s been in town for over 30 years—along with Starlite restaurant, Krakatoa Cafe and Vinyl Junkies Record Shack. Tim is a serial entrepreneur: He’s also a partner in Soda Bar, and owned both Turf Supper Club in Golden Hill and Riviera Supper Club in La Mesa. He got his start in the industry by passing out flyers for concerts and booking shows in the ’80s before he opened The Casbah.
Tim shares his insights on what it takes to adapt a restaurant to social distancing rules, when live music might start up again (nothing is projected until next spring), and what the industry could look like in the near future. We talk about how local musicians and creatives are affected by this, and how some are changing in response; Tim also shared his top favorite bands that have performed at The Casbah. (Listen to find out!)
In Hot Plates, we talked about how Il Dandy changed its high-end Italian concept to a more casual one, Civico by The Park, that is serving pinsa—Troy explains what pinsa is and how it’s different from pizza. New things are happening at Liberty Public Market: the owners of Mastiff Sausage are opening a hot chicken and burger concept; Phillip Esteban (whom we just had on the show) is opening a brick-and-mortar spot for his Filipino rice bowls; and The Presley is opening at the end of this month, taking over the former Fireside by The Patio space.
For Two People for Takeout, Tim’s picks are Buona Forchetta and Pizzeria Luigi. Troy’s pick is the döner fries at The Kebab Shop, and I picked the larb at The Original Sab-E-Lee. David’s pick is the fish and chips burrito at Beerfish, and he explains a fun to-go promotion the restaurant started that involves Smirnoff Ice.
Thank you so much for listening and for staying with us. We want to hear from you. Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? A topic that should be explored? Need a recommendation for takeout? Do you have a question for Troy? Let us know. You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! This week, we checked in with Chef Phillip Esteban, a National City native who has worked at David Chang’s Momofuku Ssäm Bar in New York City and most recently as the research and development chef for Consortium Holdings. We’d initially planned to have Phillip on the show back in March to talk about his upcoming culinary projects in National City, which we featured in the April issue’s Neighborhood Guide. With the show up and running again, we talked to him about the status of his upcoming Filipino restaurant, Well Fed, and his culinary bookstore, Wordsmith, which is going in the new Market on 8th development in downtown National City. He shares what we can expect when the store opens this fall and how the restaurant is taking shape for a 2021 opening. He is also going to be on an episode of the Food Network’s Chopped on Tuesday, July 7—we’ll have to tune in!
We had a great conversation with Phillip about the revitalization efforts in National City, his experiences as a Filipino American in San Diego, and how Filipino cuisine is still underrepresented locally and throughout the US. He shares how he put his efforts into his catering business, Craft Meals, and expanded it to provide Filipino silog (rice bowls) for at-home delivery once the March lockdown went into effect. The rice bowls have been a hit (if you like pork, you have to try the lechon), and Phillip also teamed up with World Central Kitchen to help donate meals to health care workers. Since March, he and his team have donated 40,000 meals. You can view the menu and order through Rice Bowls for All.
We brought the Hot Plates segment back, where we discuss the latest local restaurant news. First, we talk about bars having to close again. Then we take a look at restaurants that have opened or expanded during the pandemic: Puesto is opening its new brewery and restaurant in Mission Valley; Michelin-starred chef Akira Back opened Lumi, a large rooftop restaurant in the Gaslamp; and La Puerta, a popular Mexican restaurant downtown, is working on its second location in Mission Hills. We also talk about Encinitas closing a section of its main street downtown to allow for more outdoor dining.
We end our show with our revised Takeout for Two segment. David recommends the boozy popsicles and the cioppino at Small Bar, Troy loves the empanadas at Empanada Kitchen, and my pick is the brisket at Coop’s West Texas BBQ. Phillip had three picks, all of which are small businesses that just opened and are offering delivery: Coffee from Provecho; Tijuana-style burritos from Longplay Studio; and Mexican seafood from Mariscos Tone Camarón.
Thank you so much for listening and for staying with us. We want to hear from you. Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? A topic that should be explored? Need a recommendation for takeout? Do you have a question for Troy? Let us know. You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you’re shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Happy Half Hour has returned! After a nearly three-month hiatus, we’re excited to have the show back up and running.
A note on today’s episode: Happy Half Hour is a podcast about San Diego’s restaurant industry. We know that listeners download it to hear Troy’s recommendations, and to find out what local chefs and restaurant owners are working on. For many people, the show is a form of escapism and entertainment. But today’s episode is different. We felt it would be irresponsible to not discuss current events, and the social issues around race and the need for inclusivity in this country. So we’re having this important discussion.
We invited Brad Keiller, the co-owner and founder of Nomad Donuts, to be our guest on this episode to share his experiences and perspective on what is happening in the US. Brad’s family is from South Africa, and his parents left the country in 1969 during apartheid and moved to Canada, where they raised him. Brad has been in the US for 20 years now.
Brad opened Nomad Donuts in North Park in 2014. Aside from being known in the neighborhood for creating high-quality donuts and Montreal-style bagels, he’s also known for his advocacy and work in the community. Last fall, he publicly defended a homeless man, whose name is Ray, when a customer complained on Yelp about Ray hanging out by the donut shop. Brad's compassionate response went viral. Brad also recently wrote an article for Inc. Magazine about the nationwide protests and the killing of George Floyd. We end the show with a new spin on an old segment: Two People, Fifty Bucks is now about our favorite places to get takeout for two people. Troy’s pick is Cori Pastificio, and mine is Tribute Pizza. Brad likes the takeout at URBN Coal Fired Pizza and Bar.
Thank you so much for listening and for staying with us. We want to hear from you. Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Need a recommendation for takeout? Do you have a question for Troy? Let us know. You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you're too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
We’re here at Ballast Point Brewing in Little Italy, and today, we have Colby Chandler, Ballast Point’s vice president and specialty brewer. Colby is the second-longest employee of Ballast Point—he’s been with the company for 23 years. He was involved in the creation of their award-winning flagship beer, Sculpin, where he took two gold-medal-winning IPAs and melded the recipes into one. His version of their two beers is the Sculpin you know today.
Today’s special guest is Chef Travis Swikard. Travis is opening one of the city's most anticipated restaurants, Callie, in the East Village, which we talk about in the Neighborhood Guide in the March issue. Callie is filling the space on Tenth Avenue where Bottega Americano was. Travis grew up in Santee, and he recently moved back to San Diego after working in New York City with acclaimed French chef Daniel Boulud for over a decade. Travis wanted to get back to local, fresh ingredients and a place to raise his two kids. Callie is his first solo restaurant.
For Two People, $50, Travis chose Don Bravo, a small taco shop in La Jolla. David chose Tabu Shabu in North Park, and Erin liked happy hour at The Prado. Troy’s pick this week are the frittelle cacio e pepe (savory Italian donuts) from Cori Pastificio Trattoria in North Park, which he reviewed for our upcoming April issue.
In Hot Plates, we talk about Prep Kitchen closing its doors in Little Italy, and Rock Bottom ending its run after being in UTC for over 20 years. The popular Food Network show "Restaurant Impossible" is taping at Kaiserhof, the German Restaurant in Ocean Beach. Normal Heights is getting a “hipster 7-Eleven” that’s going to open soon, complete with craft beer, a fro-yo bar, taco shop, and of course, kombucha on tap. We’re only one of the three cities in the country to get the company’s new “Evolution” stores.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
We’re here at Provisional Kitchen, one of the restaurants in the Pendry Hotel in downtown San Diego. Today, we have David Duran, the director of food and beverage at the Pendry, talking to us about their new superfood brunch cocktails. David got into the hospitality business at age 17 in Las Vegas and moved to San Diego in early 2017, where he took the job at the Pendry.
Today’s guest is Jon Mangini, owner and founder of Basic Pizza and URBN Coal-Fired Pizza. Jon is a Connecticut native who is best known for bringing New Haven style thin-crust pizza to San Diego. He opened Basic Pizza in East Village in 2006, just a couple of years after Petco Park opened—and way before the neighborhood became a dining destination. It’s famous for the pizza topped with mashed potatoes and bacon. In 2008, Jon moved on to his next pizza project, URBN Coal Fired Pizza, which he launched in Vista. He has since expanded the company, and today URBN has five locations around the county, including a new location at One Paseo.
For Two People, $50, Jon chose Fish 101 in Leucadia and Cardiff. David chose Tahona Bar along with their speakeasy, Oculto 477, where you have to disclose a sin before entering. Troy’s pick was another stop on his hunt for San Diego’s best birria, Cocina de Barrio in Hillcrest. Now that Troy’s birria journey is over, what should he try next?
In Hot Plates, Jsix, the restaurant at the Hotel Solamar, is going to close and will be replaced by Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville chain. This will be the second Margaritaville Hotel in San Diego; the first is coming to Paradise Point in Mission Bay. Other news from East Village: Melvin Brewing closed its brewpub on 14th and Market. The Grand Ole BBQ y Asado in North Park is still closed for renovation, and they’re hoping to reopen in May. Soi 30th North Park Thai Eatery is opening a new location in Ocean Beach, replacing the Subway on Cable Street. If you listened to our end-of-year episode in December 2019, you’ll remember that we had strong opinions about The New York Times’ prediction that mushrooms would be the next kale. Well, CNN backs this up claim, and declared “mushrooms are the new grocery aisle celebrities” of 2020.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Today we’re here at our sponsor, Provisional Kitchen, Café & Mercantile, one of the restaurants in the Pendry Hotel in downtown San Diego, and today, we have Chef Brandon Sloan with us. Brandon is the Chef de Cuisine of Provisional, where he serves up a sunny side up ostrich egg—an egg so large that it equals 16 chicken eggs and feeds four people.
Today’s guest is Gaston Martinez, the founder and CEO of IZO Mezcal, a line of agave spirits produced in Durango, Mexico. With the special Mexico travel issue of San Diego Magazine being on newsstands for only one more week, Gaston is the perfect guest to tell us everything he knows about one of Mexico’s most popular spirits. Gaston’s mezcal line is headquartered here in San Diego, and he founded the brand in 2018. The mezcal joven won a gold medal at the San Diego International Wine and Spirits challenge last year, and you can find it at restaurants like Cantina Mayahuel, Javier's Cantina, and at Costco.
For Two People, $50, Gaston chose Javier’s up by UTC and The Taco Stand for their stellar salsas. David chose Venissimo Cheese and Erin chose Tahini, where she enjoyed their fried halloumi cheese sticks. Troy chose another stop on his hunt for San Diego’s best birria, Carnitas las Michoacanas.
In Hot Plates, Addison, the only Michelin-starred restaurant in San Diego, unveiled its new look after closing briefly for a remodel. They also announced that Victoria O'Bryan was promoted to wine director. Bay City Brewing is opening their East Village location on March 2. Two events are happening on Leap Day: Stone Brewing is having its first all-IPA festival at its World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido, and Marina Kitchen at the Marriott Marquis is hosting a special five-course dinner with wine pairings from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa. Troy just announced the winner of the Best Birria in San Diego! To see the full list, visit The Feed.
Today’s hot topic revealed that the largest archive of Mexican cookbooks in North America was released online. The University of Texas-San Antonio library digitized its collection of historic Mexican cookbooks, and anyone can view them on their website. The oldest cookbook in the library dates back to 1789, and about 50 others are handwritten manuscripts. You can also see the oldest cookbook published in Mexico, which dates back to 1831.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Today’s guest is Alex Pierson, the founder of Amplified Ale Works. Alex got his start in the restaurant business when he opened a Middle Eastern restaurant in 2009, California Kebab. While running the restaurant he started brewing his own beer at home, which led him to start a brewery in Pacific Beach in 2012 and adopt the name, Amplified Ale Works. In 2016, he moved production to Miramar and opened a tasting room there where they expanded annual production from 300 barrels to 2,000 barrels. In 2018, he opened a third location in East Village. Along with beer, Alex focuses on working with musical artists and has created over 12 collaborations with local and touring bands, including Motörhead. Today, Alex is turning his attention to Lemon Grove where he wants to open his third beer garden. He started a Wefunder page to raise money for the new project and has already collected over half of their $300,000 goal.
For Two People, $50, Alex chose Lola 55 for their affordable tacos and the mezcal menu at Tahona Bar in Old Town. David chose SKA Bar because he says their wasabi mashed potatoes are out of this world. And Troy chose the goat birria at Birrieria Y Menuderia Guadalajara. In Hot Plates, Cardellino is a new Italian-American restaurant from the team that runs Fort Oak. It is now open in Mission Hills and Troy got the First Look. Chris Carriker, who recently won an episode of “Chopped,” just opened his second ramen restaurant in Pacific Beach called Wokou Ramen and Yakitori. A new vegan Mexican restaurant, Oleri Cultura, just opened up in Grossmont Center. It was started by the founder of Chicano Soul Food, who we had on the podcast in December. Jose Luiz Hinostroza, who worked at Noma in Copenhagen and now is the chef at ARCA in Tulum, Mexico, is coming to San Diego to cook at a dinner series at the Hotel Del with Chef JoJo Ruiz.
Valentine's Day is this Friday, and about 70 percent of Americans plan to dine out. Industry people have long called Valentine’s Day “amateur night,” and Gordon Ramsay even said that “it’s the worst day of the year to go out.” So where does the HHH team side on this issue? Tune in to find out and to get some Valentine’s Day tips if you still haven’t come up with plans.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Today’s guest is Bill Vivian, the owner of Regents Pizzeria in La Jolla, a pizzeria that specializes in both Chicago and New York-style pizzas. They’re also famous for their chicken wings, which range in spice levels from mild to explosively hot. We highlighted the “Scorpion Wings” from Regents in The Adventurous Eaters' Checklist feature in San Diego Magazine’s Food Lover’s Guide. If you want to order the Scorpion Wings, you have to sign an actual waiver—they’re so hot they pack 2 million Scoville units (for reference, a habanero has anywhere from 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville units). Regents Pizzeria was opened in 2005 by Stephen Carson, and when he passed away in 2011, Bill took over the operation. And since the opening of the restaurant, Regents has never owned a freezer and never will, according to Bill. Regents’ current location in La Jolla has been open since late 2014.
For Two People, $50, Bill chose Tribute Pizza, whose owner, Matt Lyons, helped Bill perfect a gluten-free pizza crust. David chose Cori Pastificio Trattoria, chef Accursio Lota’s new restaurant in North Park. Troy chose Mister A’s for their fabulous views (and shared some tips on what to get for happy hour there). Erin chose Ciccia Osteria, the Italian restaurant in Barrio Logan owned by Mario Cassineri and his wife, Francesca. In Hot Plates, Rusticucina is a new Sicilian restaurant that just opened on Park Boulevard, and the co-founders are all from Sicily. Toronado, a long-standing craft beer bar in North Park, is going to close soon. Another big closure happening this week is Indigo Grill, which has been in Little Italy for more than 20 years. The pop-up dinner at Liberty Station where you get to dine inside a terrarium starts tomorrow, Feb. 6, and the chef for the event is Claudette Zepeda Wilkins. Keep an eye on The Feed next week, because Troy will be announcing the winner of the city's Best Birria!
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Karl Strauss' 31st anniversary barrel aged scotch ale, a traditional Scotch ale aged for 12 months in American whiskey barrels.
This week’s Hot Topic comes from an opinion piece that Troy just posted on our website: “Superfood is a Supersham,” where he says “Superfood is a meaningless marketing word” that is commonly used to describe certain fruits, vegetables and ingredients—and there is little to no good science to back up the health claims. Also, some of the research that does was paid for by the producers of these foods.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Today’s guest is Lan Thai, chef at Enclave, the restaurant inside JuneShine Ranch's kombucha brewery. Enclave's menu is based around the concept of food-as-medicine and its partnership with Juneshine is a “match made in organic heaven,” according to Lan. We highlighted the roasted beet salad from Enclave in the January issue of San Diego Magazine, which is devoted to tips on healthy eating. Lan’s parents were refugees from Vietnam, and she was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. She came to the U.S. when she was six months old and her family settled in San Diego. She studied graphic communication at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and worked at Adobe Systems for nearly seven years. Yet, she left the tech world to pursue her passion for cooking, working as a caterer and now as chef for Enclave.
For Two People, $50, Lan chose Tasty Noodle House on Convoy Street for their Shanghai noodles and grilled pork buns. David was recently in Big Bear, and he chose Himalayan Restaurant in Big Bear Lake Village. Troy’s pick this week is Super Cocina in North Park for their goat birria. In Hot Plates, Rincon Reservation Road Brewery, Southern California’s first certified Native American-owned brewery, opened at Harrah’s Resort SoCal on January 30. Oi Asian Fusion, a popular Filipino restaurant from LA, opened up a second location in Carmel Mountain Ranch Town Center. Rob Ruiz’s sustainable sushi concept at Liberty Public Market has been cancelled. The Lost Abbey will be opening a tasting room in a historic building in East Village—they’re taking over the Mexican Presbyterian Church on J and 13th streets, which dates back to 1906.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! Joining us in the studio today is Lara Worm, co-founder of Bivouac Ciderworks in North Park. We’ve mentioned Bivouac before on the show, and you’re probably familiar with the brand, but we share the big news that they just recently released their ciders in cans—including the popular San Diego Jam. You can buy the cider at BevMo, Jensen’s and Barron’s, and soon they’ll be available in Orange County.
We learned that Lara has had an interesting career path before founding Bivouac: She was a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. In 2015 she moved back to San Diego and still worked as an attorney, but she was pitched the idea to start the brewery by her current business partner, Matt. Lara is now with Bivouac full-time, and the company just celebrated its second anniversary.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the new brunch spin off of Breakfast Republic, Gaslamp Breakfast Company, opening on Sixth Avenue and J Street. Del Mar is getting a big food hall, called The Sky Deck at Del Mar Highlands, later this spring. A food truck in South Park, Shawarma Guys, were named the No. 1 place to eat in the country by Yelp. And Troy is still on the hunt for the best birria restaurant in San Diego!
The Hot Topic is zero-proof distilled spirits, which ties in perfectly with “Dry January.” Several companies have come out lately with distilled "spirits" that they say taste just like vodka, gin, or even rum and whiskey, but have no alcohol. We're aware of two big brands that you might see in bars around town: Seedlip, a clear herbal tonic from the UK, and Lyre's, a line of alcohol-free spirits from Australia. Sycamore Den in Normal Heights carries Lyre’s, and we wrote about this trend in the current issue of San Diego Magazine.
For Two People, $50, Troy picked Carnitas Las Michoacánas. Lauren liked Vina Carta Wine Shop and Bar, with sandwiches from Mona Lisa Italian Foods, and Lara selected Olympic Café.
We want to hear from our listeners! Do you have a question for Troy about what it's like to be a restaurant critic? Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you're too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
This week’s very special guest is Brendan Watters, the new CEO of Ballast Point and co-founder of Kings and Convicts Brewing Co. Kings and Convicts is the small brewery from the Chicago area that just purchased Ballast Point last month from Constellation Brands. Ballast Point shook the craft beer world when they sold to Constellation Brands for $1 billion over four years ago.
We got to know Brendan during this interview and learn more about his background—he started Kings and Convicts in 2015 after having a longtime career in the hotel industry. He was CEO of a hotel firm that he sold to Red Lion for $8 million, and he has an MBA from the London Business School. Brendan jokes that he is the “convict” in “Kings and Convicts” because of his Australian roots, and says his business partner, Christopher Bradley, is the “king” because of his British heritage. Brendand has been visiting San Diego regularly for the past 20 years, and says he is working on fully relocating to San Diego. During the rest of the interview, Brendan gives us the details as to how he acquired the famous San Diego craft beer brand.
For Two People, $50, Brendan chose Pizza Port. David chose Thai Joint on Adams because their warm larb salad is superb. Troy chose TJ Birrieria—one of the stops on his journey to find the best birria in San Diego.
In Hot Plates, Chef Angelo Sosa gave Troy, and us, the exclusive news that he's leaving Death by Tequila to pursue a new project in San Diego. Sam the Cooking Guy is opening a two-story restaurant in Seaport Village called Graze by Sam the Cooking Guy. San Telmo Argentine Cafe (which made our Best Restaurants list in 2018) closed its location on Seventh and Broadway, but their catering business will remain open. This week’s Hot Topic is about how an Australian news site is saying that charcuterie boards are over, and declared that French fry boards will be the entertaining trend of 2020. Charcuterie boards have been all over Instagram and in food magazines this past holiday season, including in the November Food Lovers’ Guide of San Diego Magazine. So, what does our Australian guest have to say about this?
We want to hear from our listeners! Do you have a question for Troy about what it's like to be a restaurant critic? Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you're too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back and Happy New Year! After the holiday break, we kick off 2020 by catching up with Matteo Cattaneo, who is from Bergamo, Italy, and the founder of Buona Forchetta, the popular pizzeria. We last had Matteo on the show back in the spring of 2017, but so much has happened since then. Buona Forchetta now has three locations throughout the county, and in late 2018, Matteo opened an Enoteca next door to Buona Forchetta’s flagship South Park location. This year, he plans to open Gelati & Peccati, a Roman-style pizza stand in North Park; Carbón, a barbecue restaurant in South Park; and a fourth Buona Forchetta in Coronado. He’s also getting ready to open a nonprofit restaurant, called Matteo, in South Park.
In Hot Plates, we catch up with news on restaurant openings and closings, and unfortunately start of the new year with some significant restaurant closures: Chef DJ Tangalin closed GayaGaya, his modern Filipino restaurant in Miramar; the La Jolla location of Donovan’s Steak & Chophouse shuttered; and McCormick and Schmick's closed without warning on New Year’s Day after being in the Omni Hotel in the Gaslamp for 15 years. We end with one of the first restaurant openings of 2020—The Village in North Park replaced Anthem Vegan, and is serving vegan sushi and Mexican food. These cuisines are definitely a trend, which we explore in the January issue of San Diego Magazine.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review is Back! This week, David likes the Springboard Pale Ale from Ocean Beach Brewery—it’s big collaborative beer made along with Belching Beaver, Pizza Port Brewing and Amplified Ale Works, and will be available at the Springboard West Music Festival in Ocean Beach this weekend.
This week's Hot Topic is related to the plant-based trend: the company that makes the Impossible Burger announced earlier this week they're going to launch a pork alternative. It's going to come in ground and sausage versions, and you can expect to find it at Burger King soon on their croissant breakfast sandwich.
We caught up with what everyone has been eating. Troy’s pick this week for Two People, $50, was Fernandez Restaurant, a birria restaurant in Nestor. Troy is currently on the hunt for who makes the best birria in San Diego—and we want to hear your suggestions on where Troy should go next! Lauren checked out Rare Society, the new steakhouse in Hillcrest from the group behind Trust, and Matteo’s pick was Wayfarer Bread—he loves their bread and pastries, especially the croissants.
We want to hear from our listeners! Do you have a question for Troy about what it's like to be a restaurant critic? Need a restaurant recommendation? Is there a guest you want us to book on the show? Let us know! You can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a voicemail, or if you're too shy, you can email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com.
Welcome back and happy holidays! We are wrapping up 2019 with two year-end episodes to discuss the best food, the coolest trends, the biggest headlines, and the saddest goodbyes that we featured on the show this year.
In part two, the team discusses some of the food predictions that national studies and media said would be big in 2019, including: cannabis and CBD infused everything, hard seltzers like White Claw, Taiwanese cheese tea, plant-based eating, and mushrooms. We look at the past year to see if any of these trends made their way over to San Diego. Plant-based meals definitely had a huge impact at San Diego Magazine, as we dedicated our entire upcoming January 2020 issue to healthy eating and finding new vegetarian and vegan restaurants around the city. We also wanted to provide the update that we did find a place in San Diego that serves cheese tea, Happy Lemon in Kearny Mesa and Eastlake.
The team also talks about what trends they saw appear in San Diego’s dining scene in 2019, as well as what they are predicting for 2020. Some things to look out for are craft sake, more comfortable chairs and carpeted restaurants, and the decline of the hazy IPA.
Also in this episode, we take a look at our most downloaded episodes. What episode do you think it was? The team plus David casts their votes for their favorite guests of the year including Steven Yeng of OB Noodle House, the “Urchin King,” Peter Halmay, Brandon Zanavich from The Friendly, and more.
Lastly, everyone provides their own Holiday Survival Guide to getting the most out of the festive season in San Diego, with tips like hitting up Miracle on 30th Street, a Christmas pop-up bar hosted by Polite Provisions, or checking out the cheesy holiday lighting competition between Fall Brewing Co. and Beerfish.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast, or ask Troy a question.
We are wrapping up 2019 with two year-end episodes to discuss the best food, coolest trends, biggest headlines, and saddest goodbyes in San Diego’s restaurant scene. This special episode is Part 1.
Some big headlines this year included Addison becoming the first and only restaurant in San Diego to receive a Michelin Star. We also discussed the news that the owner of The Patio Group was charged by the federal government in an alleged $300 million fraud scheme, and Matt Gordon closed Urban Solace, which Troy called a “city icon.” El Jardin also had a big year with the hiring of chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins, gaining national acclaim, and then closing for a rebranding without Zepeda-Wilkins. Also, Cutwater Spirits was bought by Anheuser-Busch, and Constellation Brands sold off Ballast Point to a small brewery in Illinois.
We also revealed the overall most-read story of 2019 on the San Diego Magazine website. Hint: It has something to do with food. Troy's most-read stories this year were “First Look of Il Dandy,” "The Best Soup Dumplings in San Diego," "The Problem with Bright Red Tuna," and "Restaurants Are Dying; Here's the Solution."
Also in this episode, the team plus David reveal their personal best restaurants, best dishes, best breweries and saddest closures of 2019. Some places on their lists include: Original 40 Brewing Company, Fort Oak, De Cabeza, Animae, and Blue Point.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! What was the best thing you ate at a restaurant in San Diego this year? Or do you have a question for Troy? Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can also give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
We’re kicking off December with a small announcement: After a good run, we’re retiring the column VIT (Very Important Taco) as we head into 2020 and are redesigning San Diego Magazine. We’re adding new departments and columns throughout the magazine, including the food section, as we’re about to unveil a brand new look. Don’t worry, we still plan on writing about tacos, but we’re making room to feature other dishes in the Mexican food canon along with more cuisines from around the world.
This week’s podcast features our last, but not least, VIT: the pork birria and funghi ranchero tacos at Dos Tierras. In the studio with us today is Dos Tierras’ founder, Sergio Garcia Manriquez, and he talks about how his mobile catering business brings a taste of Mexico that isn’t commonly found in San Diego—cooking techniques from Michoacan, Mexico’s countryside—to various pop-up events and locations throughout the county. Sergio shares his journey with us, from growing up cooking with his grandmother to working in corporate America, and then shifting his career to focus on the culinary arts and eventually starting his own business. This month, Sergio is opening a vegan Mexican eatery, OleriCultura, in the food court at Grossmont Center.
In Hot Plates, we talked about Blue Ocean Sushi and Harumama bringing Japanese food and adorable buns shaped like animals to La Jolla, Bottle Rocket Rocket Bar and Grill opening in the former Monkey Paw space in East Village, and that Jarrod Moiles, former executive chef of the Patio Group, has landed at Decoy Dockside in San Marcos. We also asked why J & Tony’s Discount Cured Meats and Negroni Warehouse took a popular sandwich (made with prosciutto and French butter) off their menu after being open for just a few months—because we all loved it!
David’s pick for the 60 Second Beer Review this week is White Labs Brewing Company’s Brut Saison.
We wrap up with Two People, $50: Sergio had two picks, TJ Oyster Bar and the gumbo at Bud & Rob’s New Orleans Bistro. Troy liked the xiao long bao at Dumpling Inn and maintains they’re the best soup dumplings in San Diego. David gave us his pick for the week, the bone marrow appetizer at Starlite, which comes with the option of a whiskey luge—the bone marrow shot isn’t written on the menu, so be sure to ask for it. What's your pick for Two People, $50? Is there a local chef or restaurant owner that you want us to interview on the show? Or do you want to ask Troy a question about what it’s like to be a restaurant critic? Feel free to reach out to us! You can call us at 619-744-0535 or email us at happyhalfhour@sdmag.com if you’re too shy to leave a voicemail.
Today is our special Thanksgiving episode, and joining us in the studio is Colleen Foster, Environmental Officer for the City of Oceanside, to talk about the new Green Oceanside Kitchen and its mission to end food waste and serve the community.
Green Oceanside is a commercial kitchen and storage facility that is part of the city’s new food rescue program, where they teamed up with local nonprofit O’Side Kitchen Collaborative to collect unwanted food from farmers, backyards and restaurants, and make meals to feed those in need. Colleen says that 40 percent of the food grown in the U.S. is wasted, and that one in five children in San Diego is food insecure, meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Colleen says they also host culinary demonstrations and workforce training classes at the kitchen, and they can also cater events.
In Hot Plates, we discussed the news that chef Marco Maestoso is closing his namesake restaurant at the Hub in Hillcrest, and that its last day of dinner service will be Saturday, November 30. Troy named it the best Italian restaurant in San Diego in our annual Best Restaurants list this year, and Maestoso also received a mention in the Michelin Guide. Double Standard closed after a five-year run in the East Village, and Jeune et Jolie was recently named one of the best restaurants in the country by Esquire magazine—but listen in to find out why we’re not thrilled about how the writer described San Diego. We end Hot Plates with a local feel-good story that has been making national news: A customer gave Nomad Donuts in North Park a one-star review on Yelp because there is a homeless man who hangs out near the storefront. The owner of Nomad Donuts came to the man’s defense and posted a response to the customer, and it’s definitely worth a read.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review is back! This week, he tells us why we should drink the Home of Indie IPA by Home Brewing Company.
For Two People, $50, Troy’s pick this week was Con Pane Rustic Breads and Café, and he also tells us what it was like to dine at the three-Michelin-starred The French Laundry, where he recently went during his honeymoon. Lauren liked Rare Society, the new steakhouse in Hillcrest, and Erin’s pick was the Farmer & The Seahorse. Colleen represented Oceanside and selected the sushi at Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub. We end today’s show with the staff sharing their favorite hacks for cooking Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, the editors at San Diego Magazine need your help! We want to hear from people who are experiencing their first Thanksgiving this year. What do you think of the American tradition? We want to hear your impressions and observations about the holiday, or if you hosted someone for their first Thanksgiving. Email erinm@sdmag.com if you have a story to share!
We have a phone number and email for this podcast now! We're going to end each podcast with a question for our listeners, and you can call us at 619-744-0535 or happyhalfhour@sdmag.com, and leave us a message. What's your pick for Two People, $50? Or do you want to ask Troy a question? Feel free to reach out to us!
This week’s special guest is Fernando Gaxiola, founder of Baja Wine and Food. Fernando was born and raised in Mexico and has a degree in engineering, as well as an MBA from Arizona State University. He spent years traveling and consulting around the world, but in 2011, settled in the San Diego-Tijuana area. In 2013, he launched Baja Wine and Food, a tour company which takes people to the boutique wineries and restaurants in the Valle de Guadalupe, Baja's wine country. He also helps these vintners distribute their wines internationally and promotes their events. We featured Baja Wine and Food in this month's Food Lover's Guide as an Immersive Food Experience.
For Two People, $50, Fernando chose Lola 55, which is located in his same office building, so he says it’s both convenient and delicious. Lauren chose Tribute Pizza, but for the brunch, not for the pizza—she says they have the best bagels and breakfast calzones. Troy chose the Staff’s Favorite pizza at Blue Ribbon in Encinitas.
In Hot Plates, we discussed the opening of a 6,000-square-foot conveyor belt sushi restaurant near Convoy called Mikami. San Diego just got a Venezuelan restaurant: Mi Pana Latin American Cuisine just opened in National City after the Venezuelan owner said he didn't see the cuisine being represented here. Feeding San Diego, a local nonprofit, says they are using a new app called MealConnect, created by Feed America. The app allows hotels, restaurants, events planners, farmers’ markets vendors, and convenience stores to donate their extra food and have someone come pick it up, like an Uber for food donations.
This week’s Hot Topic was brought to us by one of our listeners, Tom. Tom just moved to South Park from the Bay Area a year ago, and he wrote to us with some questions about what’s going on with some of the restaurants in the neighborhood: he says several are still under construction or have delayed openings. Lauren has intel on the status of each restaurant Tom asked about, and Troy gave us insight on why there might be a backlog in the permitting process.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour podcast! Our sponsor this week is the SoNo Fest and Chili Cook-Off, and with us today is long-time chili competitor and beer donor, Lee Chase from Automatic Brewing, Tiger! Tiger!, Blind Lady Ale House and Panama 66. SoNo Fest is now one of the largest festivals in the North and South Park neighborhoods and is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year on December 1.
This week’s special guest is Tommy Gomes, also known as Tommy the Fishmonger. Tommy joined us on the podcast in 2017, but is back to talk about his new consulting and advocacy work under his new brand, Tommy the Fishmonger. Tommy has a long history in San Diego working for Catalina Offshore Products, helping them open the Seafood Education and Nutrition Center. Tommy also founded Collaboration Kitchen, a nonprofit dinner series focused on seafood education, and you can also find him on YouTube cooking up some great seafood recipes. Tommy’s work helped Catalina Offshore receive a grant in 2019 to help expand the demand for underutilized species. We featured Tommy in our latest issue's Food Lovers’ Guide, where he gave us tips on how to buy the best seafood.
For Two People, $50, Tommy chose Volare on Midway because he says their pasta with red sauce is the most authentic in San Diego. He also chose Fiddlers Green because you can get a steak with a baked potato and a salad for just $12. Lauren chose Brian Malarkey and Chris Puffer’s new restaurant, Herb and Sea. Troy liked the garlic chicken wrap at Mama’s Bakery and Lebanese Deli.
In Hot Plates, it was all about restaurant openings: the new Puffer Malarkey Collective, Herb and Sea, the new Hillcrest steakhouse, Rare Society, and a new Southern restaurant in Hillcrest, Sunnyboy Biscuit Company. We also talked about Daniela Martinez, the pastry chef at Il Dandy—she just won the Sweets Showdown on the Food Network show Chopped. Daniela competed against the chefs from Milk Bar in New York and Broken Spanish in LA, and won $50,000!
This week’s Hot Topic is about what to do when you’re a huge foodie, but you have a kid who is a picky eater. Troy wrote a heartfelt essay for the November issue and shared that while he’s a restaurant critic and an adventurous eater for a living, his daughter has a long list of things that she will not eat.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
This week’s special guest is Rick Chapman, the co-founder of Coronado Brewing Company, which has been open for over 23 years. Rick and his brother, Ron, opened the brewpub in the heart of their hometown of Coronado in 1996. Since then, their beers have won some major awards, including the 2014 World Beer Cup Champion for Best Mid-Sized Brewery, and they won four medals at the 2019 Great American Beer Festival competition. They expanded in 2012 with a state-of-the-art production facility and tasting room in Bay Park, and in 2014, they opened up the Imperial Beach Restaurant. They have also expanded their brewhouse to meet the distribution demands of 16 states and 15 countries.
For Two People, $50, Rick gave us a few choices: Kaiserhof Restaurant and Biergarten in OB, and his Coronado favorites, Village Pizza, Lil’ Piggy’s Bar-B-Q, and the Brigantine. Lauren chose George’s Level 2 because of their creative custom cocktails, like the pumpkin spice margarita. Erin chose Waypoint Public because of its family-friendly atmosphere and its beer cheese dipping sauce. Troy chose a favorite of many local chefs, The Joint in OB, but you will likely spend over $50 for this delicious, fresh food.
In Hot Plates, we talked about how Accursio Lota, formerly of Solare, announced a while back he was going solo and took over the Cardamom Café and Bakery space in North Park to open a new Sicialian restaurant named Cori Pastifico. Park Commons, the new food hall in Sorrento Valley from Whisknladle, will be opening on November 11, and it will have five fast-casual restaurants and a full bar.
This week’s Hot Topic is about labels on beer bottles going paperless! A recent article in Food & Wine talks about how Anheuser-Busch is experimenting with something called “direct object printing,” where they will apply the ink and varnish “label” directly on the glass, instead of using paper and an adhesive. Beck's Brewery is currently using this technology in the U.K.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Welcome back! We’re here at the Hotel Del Coronado with Sara Harper, the director of marketing for the Hotel Del and Beach Village at the Del. Sara oversees all the branding for the iconic resort.
This week’s special guest is here right in time for Halloween. Joining us is Amar Harrag, the co-owner of Tahona restaurant and mezcal bar in Old Town, which has a new speakeasy that just opened called Oculto 477. Tahona, opened earlier this year, is the city’s first mezcal tasting room. Both drinking dens are next door to the old El Campo Santo Cemetery.
We learned that Amar is a native of Antibes in the south of France, and a graduate of the University of San Diego. In addition to Tahona, he co-owns Matisse Bistro in San Diego and Irvine, and runs the real estate brokerage Allied Green Realty. He is also the founder of the San Diego chapter of Corazon de Vida and sits on the board of directors for Create Purpose—both are nonprofits that help orphaned and abandoned children in Mexico.
For Two People, $50, Amar chose Tacos El Gordo for quick and delicious carne asada and lengua tacos. Troy picked El Pescador because of their tasty local fish. Lauren chose Tiger!Tiger!, which recently had a Japanese craft beer pop-up (she enjoyed a matcha lager). Erin ventured out to East County with her family and had smoked turkey on a roll at Grand Ole BBQ.
In Hot Plates, we talked about how after more than 50 years in business, Su Casa in La Jolla closed. There is a new Oaxacan restaurant coming to Hillcrest named Cocina de Barrio, replacing the old Swami's Cafe on Fifth Avenue. SKA Bar and Restaurant is a new two-story rooftop bar in Normal Heights on Adams Avenue—it’s now the largest restaurant and bar in the neighborhood.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Collabapalooza—it's a mix of Queen of Tarts from Karl Strauss and Tabula Rasa porter from Second Chance Beer Company, blended in wine barrels with Michigan tart cherries.
This week’s Hot Topic is from a recent story from the San Francisco Chronicle, which says that the gig economy (and companies like Uber and Lyft) are making it harder for restaurant owners in the Bay Area to find new kitchen staff.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast
Welcome to a very special episode of the Happy Half Hour! This week, we are sailing through San Diego Bay on the High Spirits, a vintage ship belonging to Hornblower Cruises and Events. We’re chatting with the marketing manager, director of food and beverage, national sales manager, executive chef, and the captain who make the Hornblower cruises sail so smoothly.
Hornblower offers several different dining cruises which include brunch, cocktails, dinner and holiday cruises, whale watching tours (resuming on December 14), and private events like weddings, and corporate and school events. There are seven different Hornblower ships in San Diego, with the biggest one hosting up to 1,200 people.
Sophie Shrader, marketing manager and fan of the Happy Half Hour podcast, tells us Hornblower Cruises and Events is hosting a Thanksgiving brunch and dinner, as well as a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day brunch and dinner complete with carolers and Santa. If she’s not eating a delicious holiday dinner on the Hornblower, Sophie says she likes to indulge in the cheese wheel pasta at Monello in Little Italy.
Next up is Chris Schlerf, director of food and beverage—and previously Troy’s boss when Troy worked for Hornblower back in the day. Chris has been with the company for 32 years, and focuses on gathering local and seasonal ingredients in addition to providing free-flowing Champagne during their brunch cruises with bottomless mimosas. His famous grandmother’s bread pudding, which is still on the menu today, started in 1987 when Chris was working in the Bay Area and made the pudding out of day-old Danish pastries.
While waiting for our entrees to arrive, we talk to Mandy Brown, national sales manager, who takes care of business not only here in San Diego, but in the many other ports the company has on both the East and West Coast (they have more than 100 vessels). Mandy says when she’s not eating on the boat, she goes to Pete’s Seafood and Sandwich to get the mozzarella sticks filled with either mozzarella or pepper jack cheese. While digging into our main courses, we chat with Dave Mango, executive chef for Hornblower. He had his start in Boston and loves to be creative with his cooking, even in the small, cramped cooking quarters. For example, he recreated the 10-course, final meal served on the Titanic for a special themed cruise. In addition to cooking on the Hornblower, Dave is the executive chef at Union Kitchen & Tap downtown, which serves what he calls the best chilaquiles north of TJ. Captain Jose Gurganus is the last guest of the night, and he just celebrated his 25th anniversary with Hornblower Cruise and Events! The captain says when he’s not saving struggling jet skiers or partaking in dinner on the boat, he likes to go to Leroy's on Coronado with his wife and order the deviled eggs.
Visit hornblower.com to schedule your next dining, whale watching, or special event cruise aboard one of the many Hornblower ships.
This week’s special guest is Matt Sieve, the owner of Madison on Park. Matt opened the restaurant and bar in University Heights four years ago, and their newest drink, called the “Queen of Crowns,” is going to be featured as the cocktail of the month in the November issue of San Diego Magazine. Recently, Madison generated buzz for being at the forefront of making CBD cocktails in San Diego. Matt is a third-generation restaurant owner—he is one of five brothers, and his family owns five restaurants in Minnesota, one of which is 100 years old.
For Two People, $50, Matt gave us an entire day of food for $50 starting with breakfast at Little Lion Cafe in Ocean Beach. For lunch, he recommends going up the coast to Mission Beach for the No. 9 sandwich at Gabbiano Pizza. He then goes to The Rose in South Park for some appetizers, then drops into the Turf Supper Club for a dirty martini. Matt finishes off the day with a Cali burrito from Adalbertos.
In Hot Plates, we talked about Patxi's Pizza, a chain from the Bay Area focused on Chicago deep dish pizza, opening today in Hillcrest. Valle de Guadalupe has a new restaurant called Lunario at La Lomita Winery, with 28-year-old chef Sheyla Alvarado creating a masterful menu. The rooftop bar downtown, The Nolen, quietly went through a Paul Basile redesign. Convergence Harvest is a new food festival happening on November 2 at Temecula Olive Oil Company. The event brings together top local talent intermixed with farmers, fishermen, and producers (plus local, natural winemakers and breweries) and benefits The Ecology Center.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Sea Señor, a Mexican-style lager from South Norte Beer Co.
This week’s Hot Topic is about how millennials are fleeing cities and heading to the burbs. The Wall Street Journal reported that recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau says 27,000 millennials between the ages of 25 and 39 left big cities like New York, San Francisco, and Houston last year for the suburbs. Locally, we're seeing cooler restaurants like these pop up in the suburbs: The Florence, One Paseo, and Windmill Food Hall in Carlsbad.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
This week we have a very special episode, and it’s a must-listen. Our guest is Steven Yeng, the co-founder of OB Noodle House, The Holding Company and Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, which launched nationally and will be available in all 50 states by the end of this month. Steven is a Cambodian-born immigrant and polio survivor, and he grew up in Ocean Beach, where he met his now-wife, Brittany. He’s known in the community for his philanthropy, and last year he won the Humanitarian of the Year award from the Ocean Beach Town Council.
Steven shared his origin story with us, and it’s harrowing: His family had to flee Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge, and they spent four years in a refugee camp in Thailand before they made it to the U.S., settling in Ocean Beach. We learn how Steven’s parents starting working at and eventually bought OB Donuts, and the backstory to Steven and his brother opening OB Noodle House.
Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey is Steven’s latest venture, which he co-founded with Brittany, who has a master’s degree in chemistry. Steven tells us that peanut butter has a special place in his heart, because it’s one of the first foods he was introduced to when he arrived in the U.S.
David’s 60-second beer review this week is Pedaleur, a limited edition session IPA collaboration brew from Rouleur Brewing Company. It supports Padres Pedal the Cause, a leading nonprofit that raises money for cancer research organizations throughout San Diego.
For Two People, $50, Steven chose a gathering of street food vendors stationed at the Wat Sovannkiri Buddhist temple in City Heights. He said it’s a great place to pick up some yakitori and papaya salad, and your money goes to helping those in need. Lauren’s pick this week was Anime, where she tasted several of their appetizers. And Troy’s pick this week was the mango habanero and chipotle hot wings at Buffalo Wing Star in Linda Vista.
In Hot Plates, we talked about two recent restaurant closings: The Land & Water Co. in Carlsbad and Oscar's Mexican Seafood in the East Village. We also talked about “Wasted,” an event where 35 local and national chefs and bartenders are challenged to prepare dishes and cocktails using food that might otherwise be thrown away. There was also a lot of chicken news this week: Dave's Hot Chicken is expanding from Los Angeles and opening in San Diego, and Pluck just opened in Carlsbad. This is perfect timing because Troy is currently on the hunt for the best chicken wings in San Diego.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
This week’s special guest is Brandon Zanavich, owner of The Friendly in North Park. The Friendly is known for its New York-style pizza and “dirty flat top cheeseburgers.” Customers aren’t allowed to modify anything on the burgers, so what you order is what you get: butter-braised onions, American cheese, and garlic aioli all piled on top of a grilled burger patty.
Brandon recently teamed up with Hanis Cavin of the Porchetta Shack to open a second location, The Friendly Tavern, in the Shack’s former walk-up space on University Avenue. The stand has only been open for a few weeks, and so far, business has been good, Brandon says. For Two People, $50, Brandon chose Dumpling Inn on Convoy Street. Lauren’s pick this week was Zinqué, a new French restaurant where Troy had the First Look when it opened in September. And Troy’s pick this week was Born and Raised, where he thoroughly enjoyed the bone marrow escargot.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the owner of Pokirrito closing both the Little Italy and Convoy locations, and converting them into Japanese vegan restaurants. A crew of retired woodworkers opened up a new coffee shop in the industrial part of Morena, Claro Coffee. There will be a special winemakers dinner at Rancho Valencia, “The Soul of Baja,” featuring wineries and chefs from the Valle de Guadalupe, like David Castro Hussong of Fauna and Viviana Martinez of Mixtura, who will be cooking a family-style dinner. There will be wines available from five different vineyards, and you can meet the winemakers, too. This week’s Hot Topic is celebrity-owned liquor brands. It’s not a new concept, but several new celebrity-backed liquors have been launched recently. A recent story in Business Insider said that ever since George Clooney sold Casamigos Tequila for $1 billion, more celebrities seem to be jumping on this train—even Ryan Reynolds bought a gin company, Aviation Gin, in 2018.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
This week’s special guest is Justin Vaiciunas, the executive chef at the new Guild Hotel on Broadway, and its in-house restaurant Luca. Justin is from Detroit, where he was the chef at the city’s prestigious Detroit Athletic Club. He loves to travel and experience new cultures, foods, and cooking techniques. His taste for adventure recently brought him to Food Network to compete on the show, “Cutthroat Kitchen,” where he had to make breakfast tacos on a pullout couch.
Justin gave us two picks for Two People, $50: Stone Brewing in Liberty Station and Nolita Hall. Erin shared that she celebrated her 11-year anniversary with her husband at one of their favorite restaurants, Jaynes Gastropub, where she can always count on a perfect martini and classic menu. Lauren’s pick this week was Bivouac where she was able to try some great, dry ciders (even a festive Pumpkin Spice flavored cider). Troy’s pick was Galaxy Taco, where he chose their grilled yellowtail taco as the Very Important Taco in April.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the latest update on the Patio restaurants: The Patio on Goldfinch, Fireside by the Patio, The Patio Express, and Bao Beach and Swell Coffee have closed. Blade 1936 is now open in Oceanside and Troy got the First Look at this new Italian restaurant named after the newspaper that occupied the space in the ’30s. WhipHand in the East Village closed. Lastly, there will be a food festival at the San Diego Asian Film Festival called “Chew the Scene.” This week’s Hot Topic is DoorDash’s recent security breach, where nearly 5 million customers and drivers may have had their personal data exposed, according to the Washington Post. Jason shared on the podcast that Luca does partner with all of the delivery apps, and is hoping to gain more business through them.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Welcome back! This episode is brought to you by our sponsors, Angela Landsberg, executive director of North Park Main Street, and Sara Crichlow from Redwing Bar & Grill on 30th Street. Redwing has karaoke seven days a week and a full patio bar in the back, so get ready to drink, eat and then belt out your favorite song.
This week’s special guest is Eric Adler, co-founder of Puesto. Eric grew up in a Mexican American household in La Jolla, and home-cooked meals were a big part of his childhood, which he says cemented his love for food. Eric moved to Boston for college, then he went to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. to earn his master’s in sports business, and went on to work with pro sports teams like the Washington Wizards. In 2010, he moved back to San Diego, and met chef Luisteen Gonzalez at a party. Chef Luisteen was making creative tacos wrapped in layers of crispy cheese, and Eric wanted in. A year later, Eric teamed up with his two brothers and two cousins to open Puesto in La Jolla.
Puesto now has six locations in San Diego, Orange County, and the Bay Area, and they’re about to open their seventh restaurant in the old Gordon Biersch space in Mission Valley—where they’ll start brewing their own beer onsite. Another exciting feature is that someone from a (still unnamed) three-star Michelin restaurant will be heading up the new cocktail menu.
Eric gave us his pick for Two People, $50, and he chose El Pescador Fish Market in La Jolla because of their salmon and crab sandwiches on sourdough. Erin shared that Jim Fitzpatrick, CEO and publisher of San Diego Magazine, sent in his pick for Two People, $50, to the podcast’s email address: Jim chose dinner at La Jolla Shores Hotel because the view and good food can’t be beat. Lauren’s pick this week was J & Tony’s Discount Cured Meats and Negroni Warehouse, a bar that just opened this summer in the East Village which is serving up canned seafood and drinks that James Bond would hate, stirred not shaken over hand-cut ice. Troy’s pick this week was the lamb barbacoa tacos on the patio at Luce Bar.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the closing of Seasucker in Del Mar, set for October 30. Troy got a First Look at Brian Malarkey’s new $5.5 million-dollar restaurant, Animae, that opened on the bottom floor of the Pacific Gate complex by Bosa. There’s a rooftop bar on the 16th floor of the new Carte Hotel in Little Italy just opened, called Above Ash Social. The owners of The Rose wine bar in South Park are opening up a new bar on 30th Street devoted to oysters and gin, Mabel’s Gone Fishing. Stories written by our own Troy Johnson are now part of college curriculums—one of his articles, “Farm to Fable,” was published in a MacMillan textbook!
This week’s Hot Topic is the release of some new programs that Yelp just launched on its app, like a newsfeed feature called “Yelp Connect,” according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Restaurants can pay $200 a month to be a part of the service, where they can share real-time updates with users about menu changes, happy hour deals, and special dining events. Diners can now “follow” their favorite restaurants on the app. Eric says he will definitely try these new features out, especially with the opening of his new Puesto location coming up.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast, or ask Troy a question!
Welcome back! This episode is brought to you by our sponsors, Angela Landsberg, executive director of North Park Main Street, and Lara Worm, co-founder of Bivouac Ciderworks, a craft cider company with a taproom in the heart of North Park. Bivouac is currently distributed in bars and restaurants around San Diego County and will be releasing cans next month.
This week’s special guest is Steve Billings, the owner of U-31 in North Park and the newly opened Original 40 Brewing Company on University Avenue, which Troy got the First Look at before it opened. Steve is a fifth-generation San Diegan, and he and his wife first got into the business when they bought Buster Daly’s bar in back in 2006, and converted it into U-31 the following year. North Park was a very different neighborhood back then compared to what it is now. Steve shared in the podcast that after just two weeks of opening his first bar, there was a drive-by shooting right outside the front doors.
When Steve talked about opening up Original 40, he said his wife had two conditions: they had to serve wine and it had to be comfortable. Steve bought some comfortable chairs online and learned how he could sell wine out of a brewery.
Steve gave us two picks for Two People, $50: Tribute Pizza and One Door North. Erin shared that she, after two years, was finally able to try Himitsu, a small sushi bar in La Jolla. Lauren’s pick this week was Goi Cuon, a new Vietnamese restaurant in Hillcrest dedicated to making spring rolls. Troy’s pick was Chiko, a Chinese/Korean restaurant that’s been on his radar for a while now—he said the orange-ish chicken dish there is a must.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the fraud investigation of Gina Champion-Cain, who owned the Patio restaurants and Saska's in Mission Beach. The Union- Tribune released a story talking about whether or not her restaurants will be shut down as this investigation moves forward. The Windmill Food Hall just opened in Carlsbad, and this is the area’s first food hall establishment. It has 14 vendors in the 12,000-square-foot space including Cross Street Chicken and Beer, Notorious Burgers, and The Poke Stand. A new Italian restaurant, Siamo Napoli, just opened in North Park on 30th Street taking over the space where Il Postino was. And lastly, Restaurant Week is coming up with some great deals at over 180 restaurants all over San Diego!
This week’s Hot Topic is an innovative Happy Hour happening in Finland, which we read about in the New York Times: A grocery store happy hour! S-market, a grocery chain that has 900 stores throughout the country, has a “happy hour” every day at 9 p.m., where they slash the prices of food that is about to expire by 60 percent. The store started this to combat food waste, and local shoppers the New York Times interviewed said they’re getting hooked on the sales and are becoming "regulars" at the store. In the podcast, Steve says that in his restaurant, he would much rather not have enough of something than throw it away.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast, or ask Troy a question!
Welcome back! We’re taping this week’s episode at Kashi, which we learned is still headquartered in Solana Beach and is celebrating its 35th anniversary. We talked about the company’s rebranding and some new products that they’ve launched recently.
This week’s special guest is Gina Marsaglia, who founded Pizza Port with her brother, Vince, in Solana Beach back in 1987. Pizza Port is a stalwart of the Solana Beach Community, and they still have the original location on Highway 101 in addition to four other locations throughout the county. A sixth Pizza Port location is also coming soon, as they’re looking to expand to Imperial Beach.
Gina shares details of Pizza Port’s origin story: She bought the restaurant when she was in her early 20s, and moved from San Luis Obispo to take over the then-sleepy pizza stand when the opportunity came up to purchase it. The early days were rough—she and her brother had to sleep in the restaurant for three months after purchasing it because they couldn’t afford an apartment. Vince started experimenting with brewing beer in the back of the restaurant, and his hobby became a cornerstone of the business when friends urged them to start selling the beer in the restaurant. They put craft beer on the menu in 1992, and the rest is history.
Gina tells us what their best-selling beer is (and shares her personal favorite), and said her pick for Two People, $50 is Sushi Kuchi in Carlsbad. Lauren’s pick was Little Frenchie in Coronado, and Troy liked Il Dandy, which he is reviewing for our upcoming October issue.
In Hot Plates, we learned that Aqui Es Texcoco, the famous lamb barbacoa spot in Chula Vista, relocated to a larger location. The owners also opened a new restaurant, De Cabeza. Up in North County, the Apple Festival at Palomar Mountain State Park is cancelled for this year—a release said the festival became too popular and the park couldn’t handle the number of people that have been showing up (but they plan to bring the festival back in 2020).
This week's Hot Topic is about the effect of increasing the minimum wage for restaurant workers. A recent article from The Gothamist says New York's restaurant industry witnessed "a strong economic expansion" as wages grew between 2013 and 2018, and that the city’s restaurants are doing much better compared to 12 other cities that have not undergone a minimum wage hike. Troy shared his take on this study since he’s extensively covered this issue, and Gina gives us the business owner perspective.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast, or ask Troy a question!
Welcome to a very special episode of the Happy Half Hour! This week, we’re chatting with chef Richard Blais, this year’s culinary ambassador for KAABOO Del Mar, three days of music, comedy shows, and live cooking performances from top chefs at the Del Mar Racetrack.
KAABOO kicks off this Friday, September 13, and lasts through Sunday, September 15. At the “Palate Stage,” you can see Richard and chefs such as Michael Mina, Travis Swikard, and Nyesha Arrington do a live cooking performance. Richard will be at the Palate Stage on Sunday, September 15, and our very own food critic Troy Johnson will be there every day emceeing the chefs’ performances.
Richard chatted with us about everything we can expect to find at KAABOO this year—which we say is a “grown up concert” because there’s plenty of creature comforts onsite like nice bathrooms, seating areas, and air-conditioned spaces to cool off. Richard also tells us why he hates the term “cooking demonstration,” how he preps for live shows and TV tapings, and how our restaurant culture has changed over the years, requiring chefs to be performers today.
Richard and Troy both revealed what it’s really like to cook in front of a live audience—and talk the entire time (it’s not easy!)—and shared some of their biggest mistakes and disasters.
Along with live cooking performances, there’s a lot of food, wine, beer, and cocktails to enjoy at KAABOO this year. One highlight that we talk about is the number of food trucks that will be there, and that there are trucks coming from LA and all over Southern California, in addition to local vendors like Wicked Maine Lobster, The Baked Bear, and Union Food Truck.
Finally, in addition to three days of music with headliners like Snoop Dogg, Wu-Tang Clan, Dave Matthews Band, and Mumford & Sons, get ready to dance at KAABOO! This year, KAABOO is attempting to break the world record for the biggest silent disco and the largest simultaneous running man.
Visit kaaboodelmar.com to see the complete lineup, or download the app to stay up to date with latest info.
We’re taping this week’s episode at our sponsor, Kashi, which we learned is still headquartered in Solana Beach and is celebrating its 35th anniversary.
This week’s special guest is visiting us all the way from Baja! David Castro Hussong is the chef at Fauna, the restaurant inside Bruma, a resort in the Valle de Guadalupe. If his last name sounds familiar, it’s because his family owns the famous Hussong’s Cantina in Ensenada, where the margarita is said to have been invented. David spent several years working in the kitchen in some of the world’s best restaurants, including Eleven Madison Park and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, before he moved back to Mexico two years ago. He shared with us what he learned from acclaimed chefs like Dan Barber, and all that’s happening in the Valle, which has been called the “Tuscany of Mexico.” David’s wife, Maribel—who is the pastry chef at Fauna—will be representing the restaurant at the upcoming Valle Food & Wine Festival on October 5.
David’s pick for Two People, $50 is Carreta de Mariscos el Gordito, a seafood stand that’s been in Ensenada since the ’60s. The staff’s picks this week were Herb & Wood, Trust, and Terra American Bistro.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the news that the owners of Trust and Fort Oak are taking over the old Brooklyn Girl in Mission Hills and opening Cardellino, and that they closed Hundred Proof to change the concept into a steakhouse. A new Italian food hall, RoVino The Foodery, opened in the East Village. Old Town is getting its own speakeasy with the opening of Oculto 477 inside of Tahona.
This week’s Hot Topic is the good news that a small food truck in Tijuana, Mariscos Ruben, just made Food & Wine’s list of the World's Best Restaurants.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast, or ask Troy a question!
Welcome back! This week's special guest is Rachel King, an acclaimed pastry chef who has worked at restaurants such as Nine-Ten and Mister A's. When she was the pastry chef at Searsucker in 2013, she was nominated for Best New Pastry Chef: West Region by Food & Wine magazine. After working at San Diego’s top restaurants, Rachel branched off on her own into the world of edibles, and founded Kaneh Co. As the culinary director, she creates all the recipes for the brand’s gourmet cookies, jellies, and brownies that are infused with California-grown cannabis extract. Rachel talks about how she made this pivot in her career, and how there’s still judgment against people who work in the cannabis industry (despite it being legalized in California). She also sheds some light on the process behind making edibles at the consumer level: it’s highly regulated, and requires exacting precision. Rachel’s pick for Two People, $50, is the Thai food at The Original Sab-E-Lee. Troy recommended the homestyle Mexican cuisine at Super Cocina, and Lauren liked the new menu at Soda & Swine.
In Hot Plates, we learned that Callie is going to open in the East Village and will be run by a star chef with local ties. Communal Coffee is expanding to a new location in South Park. The new “Invigatorium” café from Modern Times and CH Projects opened in the East Village. Barrio Dogg, a popular gourmet hot dog shop on Logan Avenue, expanded with a new tap room that serves beers from both sides of the border.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Chrispy Boi Helles Lager by The Original 40 Brewing Company.
This week's Hot Topic is about a recent study that was done on food delivery apps and services like Uber Eats, GrubHub and Doordash. If you're the paranoid type, you may want to stop reading now: A survey done by US Foods says that nearly 30 percent of delivery drivers admitted to taking food from an order, and 54 percent admitted that they're "often tempted by the smell of the food." And this part of the survey is not surprising: 85 percent of customers surveyed said they want restaurants to use tamper-evident labels to address this issue.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast, or ask Troy a question!
This week’s special guest is Cris Liang, co-owner of Common Theory Public House and its accompanying speakeasy, Realm of the 52 Remedies, which was Troy's pick for Best Design in our recent Best Restaurants issue and featured in the August Neighborhood Guide on Kearny Mesa.
If you haven't been yet, Common Theory is an elevated gastropub on Convoy Street that has a menu created by chef Jonathan Bautista, who was formerly the head chef at George's by the Cove. Cris opened it in 2014 with his childhood friend, Joon Lee, and said the pub represents their Chinese, Mexican and Korean heritage. Cris was born in Rosarito, Mexico, and he spoke about the large Chinese community in Baja California, and shared that he spent his childhood and teen years eating and shopping in the Convoy District. Even though he earned a degree in structural engineering from UC San Diego, he chose to follow his passion by going into the restaurant and nightlife business. Cris is part of a wave of local entrepreneurs that are bringing new life to Convoy, and he also talked about the district’s long-term goals to make the area more walkable and vibrant.
Cris’s pick for Two People, $50, was Crab Hut, and Lauren liked Il Dandy. Troy was just in the Valle de Guadalupe and confessed his pick is more like “Two People, $200,” but he wanted to give a shout out to Deckman’s en el Mogor.
In Hot Plates, we talked about Corner Chicken, which is going into the former Café Chole space; LA’s Zinque is opening a location in Little Italy; Jeune et Jolie launched a prix-fixe menu, on Monday nights only, that includes three courses for $35; and that Paradise Point is being renovated into a Margaritaville—the resort is still open, and the complete change won’t commence until next year.
This week’s Hot Topic is the new law in California that lets customers bring their own containers and cups to restaurants for takeout orders. Gavin Newsom signed the bill in July, but it's not clear whether restaurants and customers will embrace this. It's completely voluntary: a restaurant does not have to accept a customer’s containers if they don't want to, and there's also very specific rules about how to keep things sanitary in the kitchen.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
We’re taping this week’s episode from our sponsor's location, Bayside Kitchen + Bar at the Hilton Garden Inn in Little Italy, which offers SoCal-inspired comfort foods, craft cocktails, and a vibrant mid-century setting.
This week, we have a very special guest, celebrity chef Michael Mina. Michael was recently in town to open the first San Diego location of International Smoke, his barbecue concept with cookbook author and TV host Ayesha Curry, which Troy got the First Look at.
Michael grew up in Eastern Washington state, and after high school he moved to Seattle to attend college and started working at the restaurant located inside the Space Needle. This kicked off his love of food, and he switched gears and moved to New York City to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. Michael went to own to open his namesake restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas, which each have a Michelin star. Today, through his company the Mina Group, he owns over 40 restaurants around the world.
We chatted with Michael about the International Smoke concept and how it was inspired by cooking traditions found around the world, and the art of smoking meats and live-fire cooking. We also learned that Carl Schroeder, the executive chef at Market in Del Mar, used to work for Michael back in the day, and talked about how much the industry has changed over the years. Michael’s San Diego pick for Two People, $50, was Chiko, and the staff liked Claire’s on Cedros and Puesto.
In Hot Plates, we learned about Green Oceanside Kitchen, the city of Oceanside’s new food recovery and preservation facility; La Doña, the new Mexican restaurant in Ocean Beach that’s going to replace the former Nati’s; and The Holding Company, a three-story drinking and live music venue in Ocean Beach from the owners of OB Noodle House. We also talked about Artisan Noodle Tatsuki, a new ramen shop downtown helmed by an alum of LA’s famed Tsujita (which has a one-hour wait). We want to note that there has been a delay in the restaurant’s opening date: It’s now estimated to be August 31.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is our special beer collaboration with Fall Brewing, the Best of San Diego Watermelon Sour. This week’s Hot Topic is whether the golden age for restaurants is over. Troy has written about this, and the Washington Post recently noted that fast-casual places have taken over and the future looks bleak for traditional sit-down establishments.
The Best of San Diego Party is this Friday! Taste samples from more than 80 restaurants at the most delicious evening of the year. It’s on August 16 at Liberty Station, and it’s your last chance to get tickets! Insiders get a special discount on tickets and front of the line entry.
With El Jardín shutting its doors, we wanted to sit down with Chef Claudette one more time for an update on her story. She shared her plans for the future as she says her goodbyes to the critically-acclaimed Mexican eatery, and she feels confident about “doing her” in her next chapter in the culinary world.
Thanks for listening.
We’re taping this week’s episode at Bayside Kitchen + Bar at the Hilton Garden Inn in Little Italy, which offers SoCal inspired comfort foods, craft cocktails, and a vibrant mid-century setting.
This week’s incredibly talented special guest is Chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins. She was in the running for a James Beard Award earlier this year, and was nominated as a semi-finalist for Best Chef in the West. You may notice there are two parts to this week’s episode. When we first recorded with Claudette, she was still acting as executive chef at El Jardín, which has since closed. The first part of the episode is untouched from when we spoke in late July, but we sat down with her again for an update just this week, as she will not be returning as executive chef when it re-opens. She chose Punjabi Tandoor in Mira Mesa for her Two People, $50, and the hosts opted for Starlite, Carruth Cellars, and Masala Street.
Next up is Hot Plates, where the Busalacchi family is celebrating the 35th anniversary of their very first restaurant—Casanova's Pizza! To honor the milestone, the Busalacchi’s two Little Italy restaurants, Barbusa and Nonna + Cafe Zucchero, are offering a throwback menu throughout August. In other Italian news, Buona Forchetta is opening a small pizza restaurant on University Avenue in North Park this month. It's called Gelati & Peccati, and it will serve Roman style pizza. Don’t forget that next weekend is the Latin Food Fest at the Embarcadero Marina Park North. And lastly, there's a new executive chef, Timothy Ralphs, at THE MED at La Valencia.
Our Hot Topic this week is about the recently published list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, and more specifically, the highest-rated U.S. restaurant on the list: Cosme in New York City. It came in at number 23 this year, but that's not what's most notable about it. The chef of the restaurant, Daniela Soto-Innes, was named Best Female Chef at 28 years old, the youngest to earn the controversial title. Skeptics see a problem considering there's no Best Male Chef title, insinuating that women chefs are not comparable to men.
The Best of San Diego Party is next Friday! Taste samples from more than 80 restaurants at the most delicious evening of the year. It’s on August 16 at Liberty Station. This event sells out every year, so don't wait to get your tickets. Insiders get a special discount on tickets and front of the line entry.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
We’re back with Happy Half Hour! Once again, we’re taping from Eppig Brewing’s Waterfront Biergarten in Point Loma and seriously, guys, if you haven’t checked it out yet, the views (and brews) are worth the trip.
This week is a special one, for we have the one and only Peter Halmay, also known as the “Urchin King” of San Diego, as our guest. Peter is a local fisherman who has been diving for uni for over 30 years, and he is the president of the San Diego Fishermen's Working Group, a coalition of local fishermen that he started. Peter updated us on the $3 billion dollar waterfront redevelopment at the Port of San Diego and shared his ideas on how he believes the commercial fishing industry can thrive in the future. We loved his choice for Two People, $50—Five Guys at Liberty Station. The staff’s picks this week included Cowboy Star (although the $50 limit was a little questionable), The Red Door, and Tiger! Tiger!
That brings us to Hot Plates, where we welcomed Original 40 Brewing Company to North Park. Check it out—Troy got the first look at the aesthetically-pleasing brewpub. If you haven’t heard, the landmark restaurant Old Trieste shut its doors after more than 50 years of serving fancy Italian fare in Bay Park. The Tomicich family was ready to retire. But, when one door closes, another one opens—Babycakes has returned to Hillcrest with a pop-up shop. Last but not least, for those in East County, there's a new farmers’ market in town! You can now get fresh produce every Wednesday at Grossmont Center from 2 to 6 p.m.
For our Hot Topic, we're talking about a protein that according to the Washington Post, is going to go mainstream year: collagen. Collagen-infused drinks and powders claim to add a youthful, smoother look to skin, but evidence of whether the products actually work is limited.
The Best of San Diego Party is coming up quick! Taste samples from more than 80 restaurants at the most delicious evening of the year. It’s on August 16 at Liberty Station. This event sells out every year, so don't wait to get your tickets. Insiders get a special discount on tickets and front of the line entry.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
We have another special episode for you, which we taped at Eppig Brewing’s Waterfront Biergarten in Point Loma (if you haven’t been here yet, you have to check it out!)
We’re celebrating the huge collaboration we did with three local craft breweries to make three special-edition beers to coincide with our Best Of San Diego issue. From Eppig Brewing, there’s the Best of San Diego hoppy pilsner; Fall Brewing Company crafted a Best of San Diego kettle sour, and Coronado Brewing Co. created a Best of San Diego IPA. You can sample our collaborative beers at each brewery, and at our Best of San Diego party on August 16.
This week's special guests are Clayton LeBlanc, co-founder and one of the head brewers at Eppig Brewing, and Erin Meanley Glenny, Editor-in-Chief of San Diego Magazine. They gave us a behind-the-scenes look into how the special beer collaboration came to life, how long it took and how timing was everything (since freshness is crucial for beer).
Clayton’s pick for Two People, $50 was Tobeys 19th Hole Restaurant in Balboa Park. Erin recommends the happy hour at Nine-Ten in La Jolla (they have $5 wines!), Troy liked Eve in Encinitas, and Lauren went to The Rose wine bar in South Park.
In Hot Plates, My Yard Live just opened in San Marcos—it’s a huge public and entertainment space for people of all ages: it has a playground for kids, a brewery, bar and restaurant, and games like bocce ball and shuffleboard. Fort Oak started a new chef’s counter experience with just 14 seats that has a six-course tasting menu for $100 (wine pairings cost an additional $40). The cross-country touring Uncorked Wine Fest is coming to Del Mar this Saturday, July 27. Enjoy over 150 wines from across the globe, watch the races, then stay for a concert by the country band Midland. Carruth Cellars—a tasting room in Little Italy with an adorable patio—is now serving pizza.
This week’s Hot Topic is about CVT Soft Serve, a popular ice cream truck in Los Angeles, which has been making headlines because the owner is absolutely fed up with influencers asking him for free ice cream, so he’s charging them double the price for even asking.
The Best of San Diego Party is just around the corner! Taste samples from more than 80 restaurants at the most delicious evening of the year. It’s on August 16 at Liberty Station. This event sells out every year, so don't wait to get your tickets. Insiders get a special discount on tickets and front of the line entry.
As always, we want to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Welcome back! We hit the jackpot this week on Happy Half Hour as we tape from our sponsor, Sycuan Casino Resort, specifically in the restaurant Bull & Bourbon. Marcel, the sous chef of the steakhouse, hopped on to tell us about the 75 internationally-sourced rare bourbons that complement the steaks and seafood.
This week was all about barbecue, and our special guest, Andy Harris, knows just about everything there is to know. He’s the owner of Grand Ole BBQ & Asado in North Park, and he recently opened a second location in Flinn Springs, which is near our recording location by El Cajon. Andy's BBQ joint is this year's Critic's Pick for Best of the Best Casual Restaurant in our annual Best Restaurants list, and was recently featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Food Network. Andy shared how he switched from working in the music industry to becoming a BBQ expert, and he gave a shout out to Himalayan Cuisine in La Mesa for his Two People, $50. As for our hosts, the veggie burger at Station Tavern and Chiko in Encinitas were this week’s standouts.
Things were looking real sweet in Hot Plates this week as we welcomed a new Donut Bar location in Chula Vista. Pacific Beach got a new Argentinian Cafe on Garnet Avenue: Yerba Mate Bar & Empanadas, and Breakfast Republic continues its city-wide domination of the breakfast/brunch scene with the opening of its 9th location, this latest one in Mission Valley. Last but not least, family-owned restaurant Bahn Thai is expanding to Hillcrest.
We’re talking about Del Taco as far as Hot Topics go. The fast-food company started selling tacos with Beyond Meat in April, and they just revealed they've already sold two million fake-meat tacos. It's the best-selling new product in the company's history.
Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear from you! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend! We have another great episode of the Happy Half Hour for you. This week, we’re recording from our sponsor, Sycuan Casino, which recently underwent a huge renovation, and are taping at their new restaurant, Bull & Bourbon Steakhouse. We talked with Marcel, Bull & Bourbon’s sous chef, about the restaurant’s in-house dry-aging program and a special tomahawk steak that is aged for 120 days.
Our special guest this week is Arturo Kassel. He's the CEO of Whisknladle Hospitality, which brought us restaurants like PrepKitchen, Catania and of course, Whisknladle in La Jolla. In 2017, Arturo sold the company's Prepkitchen locations so he could focus on his next big project, Gravity Heights, a brewery in Sorrento Valley that just opened in January of this year. Gravity Heights was just named the all-around winner of Best New Brewery in our annual Best Restaurants list—this means that both Troy and our readers agreed that Gravity Heights deserved the title. Arturo is also working on another project in Sorrento Valley, a 10,000-square-foot food hall called Park Commons. His pick for Two People, $50, was The Fishery. Troy liked Cross Street Chicken and Beer, and Lauren’s pick was Morning Glory (which Troy reviews in our upcoming August issue!)
In Hot Plates, we talked about Troy getting the First Look at Ciccia Osteria, Mario Cassineri’s new Italian restaurant in Barrio Logan, Puesto taking over Gordon Biersch’s location in Mission Valley and starting their own brewery, and Home & Away, a two-story cocktail and beer bar, opening in Encinitas.
This week’s Hot Topic: soon, you’ll be able to order food from McDonald’s, and even a burger from Juniper & Ivy, and have it delivered by drone. San Diego is one of ten cities in the country where the tech giant partnered with McDonald’s to test out drone delivery.
We got an email from a listener who needed a recommendation for good Mexican pastries and desserts—listen to find out what Troy and Arturo had to say.
We’ve got another exciting Happy Half Hour episode for you! This week, we’re recording from our sponsor, 10 Barrel Brewing. We got to speak with brewer Ben Shirley who recommended the creamy and crisp Frosty Mug or the most popular IPA, Cali Love.
Our special guest this week is Jojo Ruiz, the head chef at the new Serea seafood restaurant at the Hotel Del Coronado. Serea is the iconic resort's new oceanfront eatery that replaced 1500 Ocean, and Chef Jojo, who opened Lionfish and also worked at Ironside, has created a "sea-to-table" menu of sustainable seafood sourced from local fishermen. Jojo explained how San Diego is at the forefront of the sea-to-table movement, and he thinks that the mackerel fish and the Soupfin shark are underrated in the culinary world. His pick for Two People, $50 is Cantina Mayahuel, and the staff suggested Phuong Trang and Shank & Bone for pho, Il Dandy, and brunch at Fort Oak.
In Hot Plates, the owner of the popular Breakfast Republic chain opened a new brunch spot in North Park, North Park Breakfast Company, to help alleviate the crowds at Breakfast Republic. The Guild Hotel downtown just opened with a new restaurant, Luca, with Chef Justin Vaiciunas from Food Network’s “Cutthroat Kitchen” leading the kitchen. Lastly, there’s a new happy hour in town! Wayfarer Bread in Bird Rock just launched a summertime happy hour on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., and will include a changing menu with various crudités, dips, and a local brewery or winery.
This week's Hot Topic is about a polarizing beverage: LaCroix sparkling water. CNN said the brand's popularity with Millennials is fizzing out, and sales of the lightly flavored, fizzy beverage are "in freefall." As Americans drink more seltzer than ever before (sales of the beverage have doubled in the past five years), there's lots of competition now, especially for the boozy kind. Nevertheless, Jojo still prefers a LaCroix over a beer after a long day at work.
It’s not too late to join us for our live taping of Happy Half Hour at Eppig Brewing’s Waterfront Biergarten next week, July 8, at 3 p.m. We will be sampling the first of three collaboration beers we are doing with Eppig, Fall, and Coronado brewing in celebration of our Best of San Diego issue. There is no charge to come down, but there will be discounts for everyone in our Insider’s Program. We hope to see you there!
We’re taping from our sponsor, 10 Barrel Brewing this week, where they’re celebrating their two-year anniversary with a hazy V-IPA, brewed by the pub’s most loyal customers, as well as an early 2000s-themed party at the end of the month.
We’re honored to have Wally Sadat, marketing director and part owner of The Kebab Shop, as our special guest this episode. The local chain won this year's critic's pick in Best Restaurants for Best Middle Eastern Food, and you've probably had their doner kebabs and fries. But something you might not know about the company is that it’s still family-owned, or that they once auditioned for a reality show on Bravo. They're opening their 15th location next month—the first one outside of California—in Austin, Texas. Sadat explained how The Kebab Shop went from concept to reality, and how the famous cilantro sauce found its way to the menu. His pick for Two People, $50 is Barbusa Modern Sicilian, and the staff liked Northgate Gonzalez Market’s menudo, Village Vino in Kensington, and Bay Park Fish Company.
This week in Hot Plates, we have new celebrity chefs in town. Michael Mina and NBA-star wife Ayesha Curry are opening their upscale BBQ chain, International Smoke, next month in One Paseo. Little Frenchie, a Parisian-style bistro with a “drink by numbers” wine-pairing system, recently opened in Coronado with Chef Matt Sramek (Thomas Keller's Bouchon) leading the kitchen. The owners of U-31 are opening The Original 40 Brewing Company in North Park, and our very own Troy Johnson got a look at the new spot. The brewmaster is from Mikkeller, and the chef, Luke Johnson, has worked at Melisse in L.A. and Sky Room at La Valencia. Last but not least, Sisters Pizza just opened in Bankers Hill, where first-time restaurant owner Emily Green serves New York and New Jersey-style pizza by the slice, as well as whole pies.
In regards to Hot Topics, Star Wars fans, listen up: Disneyland just opened the Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge theme park. The 14-acre park also includes Oga's Cantina, where fans can get a Star Wars-themed cocktail. It's the first and only bar in Disneyland that serves alcohol.
Please come and join us and see the Happy Half Hour live at Eppig Brewing’s Waterfront Biergarten on July 8 at 3 p.m. We will be sampling the first of three collaboration beers we are doing with Eppig, Fall, and Coronado brewing in celebration of our Best of San Diego issue. There is no charge to come down, but there will be discounts for everyone in our Insider’s Program. We hope to see you there!
We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
It’s a very Happy Half Hour indeed this week as we tape from rooftop pool deck at the Westgate Hotel, and chat with local jazz hero Gilbert Castellanos about its weekly summer concerts, the Sunset Poolside Jazz Series.
CEO Jeff Fenster is our special guest this week. He founded Everbowl, a San Diego-based acai bowl and juice chain, and this year's Reader's Pick for Healthy Eats in our annual Best Restaurants list. Fenster started Everbowl in 2016, which has now expanded to 22 locations across Southern California—with two just added in Hillcrest and Little Italy. The superfood bowl company lets customers build their own bowl with pitaya (dragonfruit), graviola, acerola, acai, and a plethora of natural toppings. Fenster shared with us how (and why) he made the career shift from getting a law degree to owning a payroll company and founding the growing restaurant chain. His pick for Two People, $50 is Naked Café in Solana Beach, and the staff liked Starlite and Fauna in the Valle de Guadalupe. Julie P. from Scripps Ranch wrote in to say to check out Ariana Kabob House in Mira Mesa.
In Hot Plates, chef Daniel Barron takes the role of executive chef at The Oceanaire Seafood Room downtown (where Brian Malarkey once worked). The owners of the former Moto Deli in Encinitas have opened a new Mexican-Italian restaurant concept in the same location, Valentina, with Alex Carballo running the kitchen. A big name in the culinary world made his way to San Diego: Nathan Myhrvold from Modernist Cuisine Lab in Seattle was just here to open his fourth art gallery in La Jolla. You may have seen the late Anthony Bourdain interview Nathan for an episode of “Parts Unknown” or read one of his Modernist Cuisine cookbooks. Nathan is famous for his avant-garde food photography, which he accomplishes by using catapults, high-speed cameras and robots that he builds himself.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Amplified Aleworks’ Hopp Puddin’. As far as Hot Topics go, we learned from a recent article in NPR that one-fifth of all the food waste in American homes is attributed to confusion over food labels and the “sell by” and “use by” dates, and discussed what the FDA wants to do to change this.
Please come and join us and see the Happy Half Hour live at Eppig Brewing’s Waterfront Biergarten on July 8 at 3 p.m. We will be sampling the first of three collaboration beers we are doing with Eppig, Fall, and Coronado brewing in celebration of our Best of San Diego issue. There is no charge to come down, but there will be discounts for everyone in our Insider’s Program. We hope to see you there!
We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message. Or if you’re too shy to call, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Today we have a special episode of the Happy Half Hour for you, which was recorded at our annual Best Restaurants celebration last week at the pre-party event at Room & Board.
We chatted with five different chefs who were at the event, and talked about everything from what it’s like to be a Best Restaurants winner to the dishes they prepared that evening.
Hear from Brad Wise, executive chef of Fort Oak (critic’s pick for Best New Restaurant); William Bradley, executive chef of Addison, the only San Diego restaurant to receive a Michelin star (critic’s pick for Best French Restaurant); Ludivine Ryon Mas, co-owner of Le Parfait Paris (critic’s pick for Best Dessert); Christine Rivera, chef de cuisine of Galaxy Taco (critic’s pick for Best Fish Taco); and Steven Torres, co-owner of Pop Pie (runner up for reader’s pick for Best Indulgent Eats) and Stella Jean’s (critic’s pick for Best Ice Cream).
This week, we’re at the pool deck of the Westgate Hotel, which is famous for its elegant Sunday brunch and high tea, and chatting with local jazz hero Gilbert Castellanos about its Sunset Poolside Jazz Series.
Our special guest this week is Chef Quinnton “Q” Austin, who recently moved to San Diego from the Big Easy and leads the kitchen at Louisiana Purchase. Chef Q was chef de cuisine at the legendary Antoine’s, and he shared with us what it was like to work at a place with so much history. He also revealed how insanely busy that restaurant is (they serve 700 people at lunch time on average), his impression of San Diego’s dining scene and how it differs from the chef culture in the French Quarter, and what goes into the alligator andouille cheesecake he created for the North Park restaurant.
In Hot Plates, the big news was the Michelin Guide’s reveal of its Bib Gourmand picks for San Diego, which included eight restaurants, and we have a lot of opinions about the list. H Mart revealed a cool Korean food hall at its new location on Balboa Avenue, Bibigo Kitchen recently opened a Korean BBQ spot in Fashion Valley, and Bankers Hill gets its first brewery and tasting room with Pure Project.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Pariah Brewing’s Intermittent Availability IPA.
In Hot Topics, we talked about the new Taco Bell-themed pop-up hotel in Palm Springs and wondered who this would appeal to, and the staff’s picks for Two People, $50 are The Smoking Goat, Din Tai Fung, and Miguel’s Cocina in Point Loma. A listener called in and said their pick is Tribute Pizza.
Please come and join us and see the Happy Half Hour live at Eppig Brewing’s Waterfront Biergarten on July 8 at 3 p.m. We will be sampling the first of three collaboration beers we are doing with Eppig, Fall, and Coronado brewing in celebration of our Best of San Diego issue. There is no charge to come down, but there will be discounts for everyone in our Insider’s Program. We hope to see you there!
We’re taping from the Hilton San Diego Del Mar, which is just steps away from the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
This week’s special guest is David Favela, founder of Border X Brewing in Barrio Logan, the first Latino-owned brewery in San Diego. David is a first-generation immigrant from Mexico, and he grew up in Escondido. He did his undergrad at Chico State and studied international business at UCSD, and worked at Hewlett Packard for over 20 years. He launched Border X Brewing five years ago, and just expanded the brewery to a second location in Los Angeles.
David tells us how Border X Brewing began and why he decided to focus on Mexican flavors and brewing traditions, which resulted in the creation of their most popular beers—saison brewed with jamaica (hibiscus tea) and the Horchata Golden Stout. He also talks about how Barrio Logan has changed over the years—the neighborhood is bustling with more breweries, art galleries and new shops, which we featured in this month’s Neighborhood Guide—but that the change is community-led. David’s pick for Two People, $50 is Mariscos El Golosito, a B.Y.O.B. Sinaloan seafood restaurant in Barrio Logan, and the staff’s picks this week were Louisiana Purchase and Thai One On in Carlsbad.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the revamp and remodel of Currant American Brasserie, the new menu at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido and Liberty Station, and the news that Mendocino Farms and Blue Bottle Coffee are opening locations at the new Tower 180 office building on First and Broadway.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review is Groundswell Brewing Company’s Tropical Hefeweizen.
The Hot Topic this week is the Aperol spritz—is it a good or bad drink? Check out the article in the New York Times that started the debate, and hear what Troy and Lauren have to say. It’s time again for San Diego Magazine’s annual Best Restaurants party! Next week, on June 12, San Diego’s top chefs and winners of this year’s critic’s and readers’ picks will serve their signature dishes to an intimate crowd at Pirch at UTC. This year, we’re hosting a pre-party at Room & Board, which includes a live taping of the Happy Half Hour! There’s still time to get tickets! We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message, like a caller did about Troy mispronouncing “shave ice” during our episode about the I Love Poke Festival. Or, you can email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
This week’s special guest is Angelo Sosa, chef and owner of Death By Tequila, a Baja-Asian restaurant in Encinitas. Angelo has worked at Jean Georges and for Alain Ducasse, and in New York he ran the Michelin- recommended Añejo in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. You may also know Angelo from Top Chef Season 7, in which he was runner-up, and from Season 8 of Top Chef All-Stars. Angelo just moved to San Diego from New York a little over a year ago, but his restaurant has already been garnering a lot of press.
Angelo thought he was joining us only to talk about an upcoming charity dinner he is cooking at, the seventh annual Baja Bash in Coronado on June 22 which benefits the nonprofit WildCoast. He had no idea on the day of this taping that Death By Tequila won this year’s readers’ choice award for “Best New Restaurant” or that his restaurant was featured on the cover, so we had a big reveal! Check out our Instagram to see how the surprise news was unveiled.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the new cocktail menu at George’s Level2, Denmark-based Joe & the Juice opening at One Paseo (and what makes this beverage chain different), and the new Italian marketplace, RoVino The Foodery, that’s set to open in East Village.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review is back! This week, he’s sipping on Eppig Brewing’s Count Maltula Cereal Imperial Milk Stout. We also had a caller ask the podcast team for recommendations on good gluten-free beers, listen in to find out the top picks.
This week’s Hot Topic is news from elsewhere: Faviken, the restaurant in Sweden that has two Michelin stars and was featured on "Chef's Table," is going to close in December. Chef Magnus Nilsson told the Los Angeles Times that he's creatively tapped out and just done with the restaurant. Is it a smart decision for a restaurant owner or chef to quit when they realize their heart isn't in it anymore, even if the restaurant is wildly successful? Hear Angelo and the staff weigh in.
It’s time again for San Diego Magazine’s annual Best Restaurants party! On June 12, San Diego’s top chefs and winners of this year’s critic’s and readers’ picks will serve their signature dishes to an intimate crowd at Pirch at UTC. This year, we’re hosting a pre-party at Room & Board, which includes a live taping of the Happy Half Hour! Get your tickets now—they will sell out! We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message or email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world, or let us know who you’d like to hear featured as a guest on the podcast.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We’re taping this episode from Suite 33 at Petco Park, and this week’s guest is Eddie Quinn, director of partnership services for Petco Park (we call him “the beer guy” at the park). Eddie manages the relationships with the Padres’ corporate partners, and more specifically, all of their beer partners (including Ballast Point, AleSmith, and Budweiser). Eddie talks about collaborating with Ballast Point on the Swingin' Friars Ale and reveals what’s the No. 1 best-selling beer at the park (take a guess). He also shares his history with the team—he’s been with the Padres since 2003, and he actually started as a bat boy!
You and Yours Distilling Co.(which is female owned!) debuted a new food menu crafted by chef Brian Redzikowski from Kettner Exchange. The Patio Group has a new executive chef, Jarrod Moiles, who came from Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa. San Diego is one of 18 cities in the country where you can order beer delivery from 7-11 (but so far we don’t see any craft beer on the list). Cohn Group opened Del's Hideout in Del Cerro, which has its own spin on service: order at the counter, and there’s a call button at the table that will summon a server when you need something. Is this a good or bad thing for restaurant service? Listen to what Troy and Erin have to say.
This week’s hot topic is a question that came from a San Diego Magazine staffer: what’s the proper way to tip at fast-casual restaurants? Specifically, if you go to a place with counter service and pay using an app like Square, the app asks you upfront if you want to leave a tip—before you’ve received your food or any level of service. Do you leave a 20 percent tip, ten percent, or nothing? Listen to the staff sound off on this topic.
Welcome back to the Happy Half Hour! We are taping this episode at Petco Park, and our very special guest this week is Mark “Mud” Grant, who has been the color commenter for the Padres for 24 years. He talks about his favorite places to eat in Petco Park, and what his diet was like when he played professional baseball in the late ’80s compared to how MLB players eat today. Mud says he will eat anything, but confesses there are two things he can’t stand (eggplant is one of them!). His pick for Two People, $50, was The Brigantine, and the staff liked Puesto, HiroNori Craft Ramen, and Coronado Brewing’s Bay Park location.
In Hot Plates, we talked about Il Dandy, a new Italian restaurant in the base of the Mister A’s building in Bankers Hill, which opened with much fanfare (and Troy got the First Look). A new modern Vietnamese restaurant, Kingfisher, is taking over the former Kafe Sobaka space in Golden Hill. The owners of Farmer’s Bottega in Mission Hills are opening Two Bleu Ducks in North Park, which will serve breakfast in the morning and then beer, wine and light snacks in the evening. Finally, there’s lots of new vendors opening in Liberty Public Market, like BOPJO Seoul in a Bowl…or Tortilla! (a Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant) and Rob Ruiz’s new sustainable sushi spot, Hold Fast.
The Hot Topic this week is fake meat: Is it taking over real meat? Beyond Meat was recently valued at $1.5 billion at its IPO, and The Impossible Burger is testing its meatless patties at Burger King—hear what Troy and the gang have to say.
We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message or email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, or tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world.
We’re on location at Petco Park and taped this episode at the recent Padres vs. Mariners game.
This week’s special guest is Katie Jackson, vice president of marketing for the San Diego Padres. Katie has been with the Padres for 5 years and oversees all the brand partnerships at the ballpark. She talks about the Party in the Park series—a huge themed happy hour event during every Friday home game—and the drink specials you can get for $5. Her pick for Two People, $50, is The Crack Shack, and the staff liked Realm of the 52 Remedies and Bankers Hill Bar and Restaurant.
In Hot Plates, we talked about the owners of Board & Brew and chef Alex Carballo opening Casero Taqueria in The Square in Bressi Ranch near Carlsbad. The Hotel Del is getting a new oceanfront restaurant in June, Serea, which is replacing 1500 Ocean and will be run by local chef JoJo Ruiz (the executive chef at Lionfish) and focus on sustainable seafood, letting guests pick their fresh catch of the day. Akira Back, a Michelin-starred chef with restaurants in Las Vegas, Seoul, Toronto and Singapore, is opening his first restaurant in San Diego, Lumi by Akira Back, in the Gaslamp. It will be a rooftop space on the corner of Fifth Avenue and J Street, and you can expect elevated sushi and sashimi.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Tail & Tooth, a collaboration from Coronado Brewing and Belching Beaver—David enjoyed this hazy IPA, even though he confesses he’s normally not a fan of Belching Beaver’s beers (listen to find out why!)
This week’s Hot Topic is about Instagram: Is the photography aesthetic made popular by the app and its influencers—like poses in front of pink walls, artfully arranged avocado toast—over? A recent article in The Atlantic says yes, but Troy has an interesting counterpoint.
We have a very special edition of the Happy Half Hour! We taped this week’s episode at Petco Park during the recent Padres game versus the Seattle Mariners, and our special guest is Carlos Vargas, the executive chef for the San Diego Padres. Carlos talks about how the food served at Petco Park has gotten so much better over the years with the inclusion of local restaurants, what it’s like cooking for VIPs in the stadium’s suites, and he reveals how many pounds of hot dogs and tri-tip they go through in a season (it’s a lot!). Carlos’ pick for Two People, $50 is Porchetta Shack, and the SDM staff liked Cesarina, Death by Tequila and Royale.
This week in Hot Plates, we talked about Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles filing a permit to finally open its first San Diego restaurant in Barrio Logan, Shake Shack’s new Little Italy restaurant, and chef Giuseppe Ciuffa (who was one of the opening chefs at the former Bottega Americano and runs the kitchen at Caroline’s in Scripps) opening Candor in La Jolla. Troy also shares the story about how he met his now fiancé (you gotta hear it!)
David’s 60 Second Beer Review this week is Karl Strauss’ regreen Brut IPA, a collaboration with Taylor Guitars.
This week’s Hot Topic is a soda bill one media outlet called the “Big Gulp Ban” that didn’t make it into the California Legislature, which sought to ban restaurants and grocery stores from selling sodas larger than 16 ounces.
We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message or email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, or tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world.
Our sponsors for this episode is the San Diego Padres—get tickets at padres.com
This week’s guest is Priscilla Curiel, chef and owner of Tuetano Taqueria in San Ysidro. Priscilla’s taqueria has only been open for a little more than six months and was already written about in Food & Wine, and her birria tacos topped with roasted bone marrow is the Very Important Taco in the May issue of San Diego Magazine. Priscilla talked about growing up in a family of restaurateurs (her family owns Talavera Azul in Chula Vista and La Espadaña in Tijuana), what it’s like to strike out on her own, and how San Ysidro Boulevard seems to be in the middle of a revitalization. Priscilla’s pick for Two People, $50 is Ironside Fish & Oyster Bar, and the staff liked the Catamaran, Peace Pies, and Trust.
In Hot Plates, we learned that another San Diego chef is going solo: DJ Tangalin left Bivouac Ciderworks and is opening Maya Eatery in Hillcrest, a restaurant focusing on modern Filipino cuisine, and we discussed why Filipino food has not become mainstream in San Diego yet despite the city having the second-highest Filipino American population in the country. In other news, a two-story restaurant devoted to wine and food from Baja will open in Chula Vista, and Troy talked about the next-level Game of Thrones-themed cocktails being shaken up at the Grant Grill.
David’s 60 Second Beer Review pick is Alesmith’s Luped In IPA.
This week’s Hot Topic: are millennials tired of drinking? Recent articles show that millennials have cut back on their drinking and that the market for non-alcoholic drinks and mocktails will grow over 30 percent over the next few years.
We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message or email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, or tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world.
Our sponsors for this episode are Donovan’s in the Gaslamp and the San Diego Padres—get tickets at padres.com
Our guest this week is Nino Camilo, founder of the I Love Poke Festival. The festival is an annual celebration of Hawaii’s beloved raw seafood dish, and this year is its tenth anniversary with 15 chefs competing to see who makes the best poke in San Diego. Nino talks about what’s changed since he started the festival in 2009 and how he tries his best to represent Hawaii’s culture in a thoughtful way, especially since poke has become trendy in recent years and a proliferation of “fake poke” shops have since opened across the country. Nino gave us two picks for Two People, $50: Panca Peruvian Cuisine & Rotisserie and Fish 101.
In Hot Plates, we talked about Consortium Holding’s long-awaited brunch restaurant in Little Italy, Morning Glory, which is set to open April 21 in the Piazza della Famiglia, and debated whether San Diego is good brunch town (Troy says no). We also learned Cucina Enoteca is expanding with a new location in Scripps Ranch, and chef Steve Brown, who runs the fine-dining pop-up Cosecha SD, recently moved back to San Diego with plans to open a tasting-room only restaurant.
Our new segment in the podcast is David’s 60-Second Beer Review. He kicked the series off with Fall Brewing Company’s Mix Tape Hazy IPA.
The Hot Topic was Heinz’s latest invention in time for Easter: A Cadbury Crème Egg-flavored mayonnaise. What do you think about this condiment mash-up? David said he was intrigued (but we weren’t able to find it in time for the podcast taping to make him try it).
We want to hear from our listeners! Call us at 619-744-0535 and leave a message or email HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50, or tell us about any news happening in San Diego’s culinary world.
Welcome back to Happy Half Hour! In the guest seat this week is Jason O’Bryan, bar manager at The Lion’s Share. Jason also recently joined Service Animals, a new beverage consulting company and developed the drink menu for The Florence in Poway. Jason talked about how The Lion’s Share has remained successful despite its hard-to-find location and upcoming changes on the menu, as well as what it was like opening a bar in suburbia. He also talked about Tortoise, an underground fine-dining pop-up restaurant he founded with his wife (who was a sommelier at Addison) that has only 16 seats available for its monthly event. Jason’s pick for Two People, $50 was Cantina Mayahuel, while the staff’s picks this week were The Taco Stand, Wayfarer Bread and The Smoking Goat.
This week in Hot Plates, we talked about the impending closure of Paesano in North Park—an Italian restaurant that’s been in the neighborhood for 50 years—and what’s going in its place. Kensington is getting a new South American restaurant, Pachamama, which promises to have a menu that’s 100 percent organic. Consortium Holdings is working on opening another restaurant downtown while it renovates Neighborhood, J & Tony's Discount Cured Meats and Negroni Warehouse. Cucina Urbana has a new executive chef, Tim Kolanko, who was the founding chef at A.R. Valentien at The Lodge at Torrey Pines.
The Hot Topic again is restaurant surcharges, which were recently back in the news: Paradise Point Resort in Mission Bay agreed to pay almost $35,000 to the City of San Diego in fines over its surcharges to customers.
We have a phone number for this podcast now! We're going to end each podcast with a question for our listeners, and you can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave us a message. You can also email us at HappyHalfHour@sdmag.com. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50. It’s your last chance to join us at the Best of North County party, happening this Sunday! You don’t want to miss this party at the Park Hyatt Aviara where you get unlimited bites and sips from all the new and noteworthy spots in North County.
You may have noticed that the sign at Carnitas’ Snack Shack on University Avenue now says The Porchetta Shack. We asked our guest this week, chef and owner Hanis Cavin (who has been called San Diego’s “King of Pork”), why he changed the concept for his popular North Park restaurant after eight successful years. Hanis also shared that he’s no longer affiliated with the Carnitas’ location at the Embarcadero, and his pick for Two People, $50 is Fernside in South Park.
This week in Hot Plates, we learned that chef Matt Gordon (who recently closed Urban Solace and Solace & The Moonlight Lounge) is now the vice president of operations for Blue Bridge Hospitality—the company behind Liberty Public Market and Stake Chophouse. Neighborhood, the craft beer and burger joint that’s been in East Village for 12 years, isn’t closed: the shutdown is just temporary for a remodel. The Florence is now open in Sabre Springs (Troy got the First Look at the space and the menu), and the tenth annual Eat.Drink.Read fundraiser for the San Diego Council on Literacy is coming up at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.
The Hot Topic this week is the James Beard Awards and the fact that San Diego chefs and restaurants were excluded, again, from making the cut as finalists. Troy took a closer look at how many San Diego chefs have been nominated for a James Beard Award in recent years compared to chefs in LA and San Francisco (and finds a huge disparity), and shares what it would take to get San Diego included in the “Oscars of Food.”
We have a phone number for this podcast now! We're going to end each podcast with a question for our listeners, and you can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave us a message. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50.
Did you get your tickets yet to Best of North County? You don’t want to miss this party at the Park Hyatt Aviara on April 14, where you get unlimited bites and sips from all the new and noteworthy spots in North County.
Our sponsors for this episode are the North Park Main Street Association and the San Diego Padres. Enter to win two tickets in a VIP suite for a live recording of the Happy Half Hour on May 6th! sdmag.com/padrespodcast - get tickets at padres.com
In this week’s Hot Plates, we talked about the huge remodel ($260 million!) at Sycuan Casino, which is having its grand opening today. Troy got the First Look at the renovation and Bull & Bourbon, the resort’s new signature steakhouse. Also new in town is Louisiana Purchase, a New Orleans-themed restaurant in North Park, and Hess Brewing had the soft opening for its new tasting room in Imperial Beach. We can’t believe it's already been three years since Trust opened in Hillcrest—in honor of the restaurant’s anniversary, Pastry Chef Jeremy Harville is bringing back a selection of the most popular desserts for a limited time. Lastly, we learned that Carnitas' Snack Shack is now known as the Porchetta Shack. Founders Hanis Cavin and Sara Stroud have rebranded their popular pork-centric eatery in North Park, and are no longer affiliated with the location that's on the waterfront.
In the guest seat this week is Ted Smith, the new executive chef at Born & Raised, the fancy steakhouse in Little Italy from Consortium Holdings. Ted was formerly the executive chef of Craft & Commerce, and he was also the Chef de Cuisine at Bankers Hill Bar + Restaurant. He also spent time in the kitchen at The Four Seasons Resort in Vail, Colorado. Ted shared with us how he’s going to refresh the menu at Born & Raised (we got the scoop on what dish could be taken off the menu) and the table numbers for the best seats in the house. His pick for Two People, $50, was Izakaya Masa in Mission Hills, and SDM staff liked Cesarina, Nolita Hall and Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens Liberty Station.
The Hot Topic is a new bill introduced in the California Assembly that could create stricter rules for third-party food delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash. AB 1360 would require drivers to get a food handler's permit, and a section of the bill would define the drivers as "contract labor" — which means that restaurants could be liable for drivers.
We have a phone number for this podcast now! We're going to end each podcast with a question for our listeners, and you can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave us a message. You can give us your recommendations for Two People, $50.
This week we met with up Candice Eley, director of communications for the San Diego Tourism Authority, and learned about her passion for promoting San Diego's arts and culture, diversity, dining scene and proximity to Mexico, and how she gets travel stories about our city to appear in national media, like this recent story in Travel and Leisure. We talked about how San Diego is still perceived as a sleepy town, and got her take on the Hot Topic: San Diego being included in Michelin’s new guide to restaurants in California. What could this mean for the city, and will restaurants like Addison finally get the recognition they deserve? Candice’s pick for Two People, $50 is Tanuki in Kensington, a Japanese restaurant and sake bar owned by a former chef at Nobu.
In Hot Plates, we shared the news that Urban Solace served its last meal after a 12-year run in North Park and that owner Matt Gordon also closed the Solace & Moonlight Lounge in Encinitas. Peking Café Chop Suey, which had been in North Park for 90 years, also recently closed its doors because the descendants of the restaurant’s founder want to retire. We learned some good news about the impending (and temporary) closure of the Red Fox Room: It’s going to stay open until the end of June before it moves to its new location on El Cajon Boulevard. Chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins and her popular restaurant, El Jardin, was reviewed recently in The New York Times. We also covered two new openings, Himmelberg’s in the East Village and Dark Horse Coffee’s newest location in South Park.
We have a phone number for this podcast now! We're going to end each podcast with a question for our listeners, and you can call us at 619-744-0535 and leave us a message. This week's question: what are your favorite memories of Urban Solace? You can also give us your recommendations for Two People, $50.
This week, we chatted with Mary Kay Waters, owner of Waters Fine Foods & Catering, which has been in business in San Diego for almost 30 years. Waters describes herself as a food perfectionist with very high standards who refuses to accept anything less than the best. She also has a café that sells “fine foods to go” on Morena Boulevard that you can visit (Troy likes the Coconut Magic Bar). Waters also just released a cookbook, which you can pick up at the café or on their website. Her pick for two people, $50 was DaoFu.
In Hot Plates, we’ve got some North County news! My Yard Live is opening in San Marcos in the old Hometown Buffet space, and will have a restaurant, brewery and a patio with a dedicated kids’ play space all under one roof. The place will be huge — over 17,000 square feet — and is opening in June. Stone Brewing Co. is back in the pantry aisle at Whole Foods — they teamed up with Homegrown Meats to create two new beef jerkies that are marinated in Tangerine Express IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale. One Paseo has officially opened! The mixed-use development project in Carmel Valley has been steadily building buzz over the past year, and curated a mix of local and national eateries: we can expect Michael Mina’s International Smoke, The Butchery, Ways & Means Oyster House, and the first San Diego location for Blue Bottle Coffee to open here. Juniper & Ivy is having its five-year anniversary this month and is celebrating by bringing back some classic dishes from the original menu, like the squid ink linguine and clams, beef cheek dumplings and grape toast.
In news elsewhere, we talked about La Plaza Cocina, a museum devoted to Mexican food and culture that is set to open in downtown L.A. this spring. The Mexican food mecca will not only have exhibitions and lectures, but interactive programs and events.
Are mail-order meal kits doomed? This is a Hot Topic in the food world right now, and headlines in a variety of news outlets recently asked this question. Companies like Blue Apron were all the rage when the concept first launched in 2012, but it seems the novelty has worn off.
If you haven’t signed up yet for San Diego Magazine’s Insiders program, do it now for the chance to dine with food critic Troy Johnson and Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins, chef of El Jardin. Aside from exclusive events like this, our Insiders also get the benefits of a monthly hosted happy hour, free tickets to shows, and ongoing discounts at restaurants and bars around town.
Small Bar’s second life, a contest seeking SD’s best taco recipe, plus lots of food news
We got the scoop on what’s happening with Small Bar in University Heights by chatting with owner Karen Barnett. Karen gave us an update about the renovation and the bar’s new life, and how her new partnership with chef Brad Wise (Trust, Fort Oak) is taking shape with the refreshed menu. She also shared with us how she got into the industry (she gave up a career in construction management to open the bar) and what it’s really like to own a popular neighborhood watering hole. Her pick for two people, $50 were the tacos at Lola 55.
In Hot Plates, we learned that Grand Old BBQ Y Asado on 32nd Street in North Park is undergoing a remodel — it looks closed down, but it’s not. When it reopens later this fall, the popular barbecue spot will have more covered seating and a new bar. Holy Matcha’s new Instagrammable East Village café is now open. Bankers Hill Bar & Restaurant is hosting a special beer pairing dinner with Abnormal Beer Co. on March 13. We also got word of some great dining deals: GBOD Hospitality Group, which owns Monkey King, Meza Greek Fusion, El Chingon and Havana 1920, debuted a four-course pre-fixe meal for $49 per couple — and the price includes wine! Born & Raised, the swanky steakhouse and cocktail bar in Little Italy, just launched a happy hour menu with a $7 Wagyu Old Fashioned, waffles and caviar, and “Le Slim Jim” beefsticks.
In food news elsewhere, we talked about what’s happening at Feva Restaurant in the town of Castelfranco Veneto in Northern Italy, where chef Nicola Dinato came up with a dish called “Aria Fritta,” or fried air. Listen to find out what’s actually in the dish.
Calling all home chefs and aspiring bloggers: Do you think you have the best taco recipe in San Diego? Puesto and San Diego Magazine have partnered up to find the city’s best taco — and are giving one lucky winner $1,000 for their recipe!
We finally hosted a parking expert on the show! Colin Parent, who runs mobility think tank Circulate San Diego while also serving as an elected member of the La Mesa City Council, gave us insights on parking in San Diego, how it affects restauranteurs as well as regular people dining out, as well as the overall effects on neighborhoods, the housing crisis and more. He also offers thoughts on the rise of La Mesa as a “hot ‘hood” and shares a unique experience he had with San Diego Mag’s food coverage years ago. His pick for two people, $50 was a Scottish pub on La Mesa Blvd called Four Penny House. In hot plates, we covered the upcoming Bartender Shakedown, new pasta spot Cesarina, an update on Small Bar’s refresh, and Blue Water Seafood’s second location in OB.
We also discussed a new trend of young chefs igniting a passion for hunting as it relates directly to their cooking.
This week, we rundown the news that Cutwater Spirits sold to Anheiser Busch, Carruth Cellars is having a big party where you can taste wines before they have aged, Bobboi Gelato is opening two new shops just blocks from one another in Little Italy and the Cohn Restaurant Group is experimenting with call buttons as a way to make service more efficient at its new restaurant.
We also go in depth on the concept of natural wine with sommelier and bartender Anne Estrada, who is currently pouring at The Rose in South Park, and discuss whether Instagram Influencers are ruining neighborhood restaurants.
This week's episode is brought to you by Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego and their Dream House Raffle. Visit www.sdraffle.com to buy tickets and learn more about the hundreds of prizes! Early Bird deadline is February 22, 2019!
On this week’s show we meet a new restauranteur with an interesting background that includes a stint at Google.
In Hot Plates, we learn about Fish 101’s plans to expand from Leucadia to a second location with an ocean view in Cardiff. Pro skateboarder Tony Hawk is opening a craft coffee spot with son Riley, serving beans roasted by James Coffee Co. alongside a vinyl record shop. In other food news, Phil’s BBQ is expanding again and Adams Ave is getting another sushi restaurant. Soichi Kadoya opens in March. For more SD Food News, visit Troy’s blog.
In the guest seat is Alia Jaziri of Medina, a new restaurant in North Park opening March. The menu is rooted in traditional North African dishes Alia grew up cooking with her father, plus classic ingredients from Baja California. Medina began as a food truck concept in San Francisco (thanks to a little help from a Google accelerator) and later evolved and expanded to farmers markets and pop-ups in San Diego. This is the first brick-and-mortar location.
This week's episode is brought to you by Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego and their Dream House Raffle. Visit www.sdraffle.com to buy tickets and learn more about the hundreds of prizes! Early Bird deadline is February 22, 2019!
Today we’re talking brewing, tasting rooms, and whether there is another softening in the market for local craft beer.
In Hot Plates, we’re discussing the new locations for Extraordinary Desserts and Holy Matcha, as well as the opening of Kairoa Brewing Company in University Heights. Seven Seas Roasting Company has also soft-opened in South Park and Grand Ole BBQ is officially serving up smoked meats in the Central Texas-style out inFlinn Springs.
In the guest seat is Dan Caricco, a San Diego native and one of the founders of Thorn Brewing, who talked about growing up in Mission Hills and leaving behind the doldrums of an office job to turn a passion project into a profitable business. We learned how the racoon-riding-a-bike logo came about as well as his thoughts on the regulations facing the beer industry and whether the recent string of closings is good for the industry. Thorn Brewing’s newest tasting room is open soon in Mission Hills near the new Fort Oak restaurant.
Our hot topic is all about the Little Italy Food Hall being voted one of the 10 Best in the nation.
Today we’re talking Metallica, John Resnick, and Jeune et Jolie. In Hot Plates, we’re discussing the new Farmer’s Table in Little Italy, RMD Group’s new project Lumi with Michelin-starred chef Akira Back, Powerhaus Pizza’s debut in Pacific Beach. A collaboration beer between Metallica and Stone Brewing Co., and more.
In the guest seat is Resnick, here to chat about his East Coast roots and moving to San Diego to work at The Hard Rock Hotel then The Pearl before transitioning to the restaurant world. Resnick logged years at Craft & Commerce and Ironside Fish & Oyster for CH Projects, but in 2016 he broke out on his own, opening Campfire in Carlsbad. He shares why he picked North County and all the issues that came with building a restaurant in a former auto garage. At his latest concept Jeune et Jolie, he’s highlighting modern French cuisine, a raw bar, and elevated bistro style by Campfire designers Bells + Whistles.
Our hot topic is all about the reinstated ban on foie gras, and how restauranteurs like Resnick feel about it. In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Kindred, ChiKo, Dija Mara, and Din Tai Fung.
Today’s episode starts with news about one of the city’s buzziest restaurant openings: Fort Oak. Troy had the First Look and tells us about its seafood-centric menu, the high design, and how a parking garage caused major problems.
Elsewhere in Hot Plates, we discuss Sister Ray’s, a new chili dog and burger concept from the teams behind The Balboa Bar & Grill and Luigi’s Pizzeria; an Italian concept moving into Bankers Hill this May with Michelin-star resumes; and a New York Times piece on the omakase-only Kearny Mesa restaurant Hidden Fish.
Today’s guest is Moe Girton, a pioneer of Hillcrest’s restaurant scene and a partner at Mo’s Universe, which includes Gossip Grill, Urban’s Mo’s, Hillcrest Brewing Company, and Baja Betty’s. She talks about starting her career as a “door girl” at The Flame, moving up from bartender to management, opening Gossip Grill 10 years ago, and her new venture at InsideOut. We’re talking about how gay rights negatively impacted Hillcrest’s LGBTQ scene, why she calls Gossip Grill a “women’s bar” rather than a “lesbian bar,” and more.
Our hot topic is about just how vegan San Diego really is according to a recent survey. And in Two People/$50, we’re recommending Muzita, Facing East (and Troy’s quest for the best xiao long bao in San Diego), Pomegranate, and El Carrito.
On today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour we’re talking To the Point, tuna fishing, Tribute Pizza, and more.
In Hot Plates, we discuss the opening of Natural Style Chicken, a Hillcrest barbecue spot that’s taken over the old Tokyo Ramen space; Cesarina, which previously operated as a farmers’ market vendor and will open in the former To The Point space in Point Loma; and Flap Your Jacks, a DIY pancake eatery coming to the heart of North Park this June.
Today’s guest is Rob Ruiz, the chef-owner of Carlsbad’s Land & Water Co. and the upcoming Hold Fast in Liberty Station due at the end of this month. He’s telling us about getting integrated into the sustainable seafood scene in Hawaii, the problem with importing seafood, and how he was tested by the James Beard Foundation. Plus he explains his goal to be more “aggressively perfect” with his cooking.
Our hot topic is about Javier Plascencia opening his next restaurant in Miami (don’t worry, he’s still planning something for San Diego). And in Two People/$50, we’re recommending Choice Juicery, Cafe Gratitude, Soda & Swine, Neighborhood, and Tribute Pizza.
A new year means new changes to the restaurant scene, and Pisco Rotisserie & Cevicheria in Carlsbad is switching gears to become Toast Gastrobrunch by the end of the month, just one year after opening the Peruvian concept in North County. The update, still led by local restauranteur Sami Ladecki will be a breakfast-and-lunch eatery serving gourmet toasts, sourdough bread bowls, and more. In more Hot Plates news, Parakeet Café opens a second location, an iconic San Diego gay bar closes, and former Bracero coworkers Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins and Javier Plascencia team up for a one-night-only dinner at El Jardín. Plus, we finally know what’s going into the old Cafe Chloe space—and it’s not French food.
In the guest seat is Lauren Garces and Wesley Quach from the Convoy District Partnership, who are telling us about the annual San Diego Night Market, the new generation taking over the iconic foodie neighborhood, whether they want to be “the next Little Italy,” and their favorite restaurants in the area. Plus, they tell us about a live mural reveal you can check out this month.
Welcome to the first Happy Half Hour of 2019! In today’s show, we’re talking about a luxury theater slash restaurant in the Gaslamp and a new “American brasserie” now open in the East Village. Plus, lots of donut news, including Sidecar Doughnuts debuting in Del Mar and a new venture from Nomad Donuts’ Kristianna Zabala.
Back in the guest seat in Matt Gordon, the owner and chef of Urban Solace and Solace & the Moonlight Lounge. Gordon is telling us why he decided to overhaul his 11-year-old North Park eatery (goodbye, duckaroni; hello refreshed patio!), why he’s feeling liberated because of it, and the unique reason he decided to bring breakfast service to the space.
Our hot topic is about one of San Diego’s oldest family-run restaurants shuttering in North Park.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending ChiKo in Encinitas, Hillcrest’s Amarin Thai, and San Telmo downtown.
Looking to make new friends, see new places, and try new things in 2019? San Diego Magazine’s Insiders club curates exclusive discounts at editor-selected restaurants, bars, spas, and more for $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour. (Speaking of happy hour, Insiders get access to a monthly happy hour at buzzy San Diego bars to meet and mingle with fellow club members, our podcast hosts, and editors of the magazine.) Plus, we’ll be hosting an exclusive dinner with food critic Troy Johnson in the coming months. Sign up here to get all the info!
Malls are cool again, marijuana is being infused into food, plant-based menus are everywhere, and California’s minimum wage laws are wreaking havoc in the restaurant world—we’re covering all of it and more in our last episode of 2018.
We open the show with the top five news items of the year, including the craft beer downturn and Westfield UTC’s restaurant takeover before counting down the top five guests of the year, and the trends that shaped our year.
Plus we pay tribute to the saddest closings of 2018 (Café Chloe, Kafe Sobaka, and more), and end the show with our personal picks for the top restaurant and bar openings of the year.
We’re off next week, but if you want more food news to devour during the holidays, check out Archana’s recap of the Future of Women panel, Troy’s take on why holiday meals matter, and the first look at Jeune et Jolie, the new Carlsbad restaurant from the team behind Campfire. See you in the new year!
With all the restaurant development that’s happened in Little Italy and North Park, it was only a matter of time before the trend trickled northward. In today’s edition of Hot Plates, we have three new restaurants above the 56, including D.C. export ChiKo in Encinitas, Eve (coming to Oceanside next year), and Exhale—a modern Mexican restaurant—also opening in O’side. Closer to the city, The Nood Bar will open early next year in North Park and Moto Deli’s Alex Carballo has purchased a dive bar with a special history.
Our guest is Jim Floros, President and CEO of the Jacobs & Cushman Food Bank of San Diego. He’s helped expand the Food Bank’s programs, increase the number of people they serve monthly from 320,000 to 370,000 San Diegans, and shift the nonprofit’s focus from just “food banking” to “nutrition banking.” In fact, they have a full-time nutritionist on staff and a policy against stocking sodas, sheet cakes, muffins, candy, or energy drinks. Floros also explains why they teach people how to grocery shop, why expiration dates are bogus, and how you can easily help hungry locals during your next grocery store trip.
On today’s show, we’re talking about chef Accursio Lota’s exit from Solare and the new restaurant he’ll open downtown, El Jardín landing on best restaurants lists in both Esquire and Food & Wine, and Buona Forchetta’s move into the barbecue world. Plus, Council Brewing announces its close, SuperNatural Sandwiches opens a new location, and Fort Oak by the Trust Restaurant Group is due next month.
Our guest is chef Danilo Tangalin, who interned at big-name restaurants like Le Bernardin and Eric Ripert’s 10 Arts Bistro before coming to San Diego, where he’s led the kitchens at Tidal and Jrdn. Now he’s infusing his Filipino roots into the menu at Bivouac, the cider-centric restaurant and bar in North Park (check out Troy’s review from our November issue). He tells us the top three dishes to order off his menu, why his version of fish and chips is so different, and his favorite authentic Filipino eateries in town. Plus, what does “Bivouac” actually mean? DJ explains.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Lotus Thai, The Rabbit Hole, Lola 55, and Raglan Public House.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-selected restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour. (Speaking of happy hour, our next Insiders Happy Hour—where you get free drinks and bites—is taking place next week right in our office. Sign up here for the details.)
This week we’re back at Fernside, the new South Park cocktail bar and eatery from Christian Siglin (Bracero, The Grass Skirt, Cutwater Spirits), Shane Gerde (UnderBelly, Cutwater Spirits), and Adam Cook (Bluefoot Bar & Lounge) and also one of the participating restaurants in this year’s SoNo Fest & Chili Cook-Off.
In Hot Plates, we’re talking about more ramen coming to Hillcrest, Fashion Valley’s North Italia restaurant led by former Waypoint Public Executive Chef Rich Sweeney, a new mezcal bar that’s landed in Old Town, and awhiskey slash steakhouse spot coming to Gaslamp next year.
Our guest is Alicia Bell, the District Executive Chef of Palomar Health and winner of the People’s Choice Award at our Top Doctors party. The San Diego native and classically trained chef tells us about going from “cooking for rich people” to cooking in hospitals, how her mother’s cancer diagnosis changed her career path, and why she wants people to eat at a hospital for lunch. Plus, she gives us the scoop on the award-winning tacos—and shares the recipe below!
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Cucina Urbana, Carnitas’ Snack Shack, Tacos el Gordo, and The Cork and Craft.
This episode is sponsored by the SoNo Fest. The free street festival returns to the South Park-North Park area on Sunday, December 2 with 40 of the best restaurants from both neighborhoods competing in the ultimate #chilismackdown. There will also be a craft beer garden, food trucks, live music, and a kid’s fest. The best part? All proceeds go to the McKinley School Foundation.
This week we’re coming at you from Fernside, the new South Park cocktail bar and eatery from Christian Siglin (Bracero, The Grass Skirt, Cutwater Spirits), Shane Gerde (UnderBelly, Cutwater Spirits), and Adam Cook (Bluefoot Bar & Lounge) and also one of the participating restaurants in this year’s SoNo Fest & Chili Cook-Off.
In Hot Plates, we’re talking about big changes coming to Urban Solace in January, the new Asian-inspired speakeasy with a major designer behind the concept, Pure Project’s next tasting room location, and our comprehensive Thanksgiving guide, packed with traditional turkey feasts, eclectic buffets, catering options, and plenty of cocktails.
Our guest is chef Amy DiBiase of the new InterContinental Hotel’s Vistal restaurant. She talks to us about how she works with a scientist to ensure seafood sustainability, the best dishes to try at Vistal, and why the poke trend may be peaked.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending El Jardín, Seasons 52, the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market, Mirin Cafe, and Hernandez Hideaway. And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-selected restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month.
We’re off next week, so have a happy, safe, and delicious Thanksgiving holiday—cheers!
Lobster rolls with yuzu aioli, pollo a la abrasa on buttery brioche, spicy drunken noodles—we’re feasting at The Willows Hotel & Spa at Viejas Casino & Resort, today’s sponsor alongside chefs Antonio Votta and Larry Banares.
We kick off with Hot Plates. Popular Kensington Tex-Mex spot Ponce’s has opened a new location in Del Sur and Modern Times’ new plant-based eatery has debuted in Encinitas. Plus: Helix Brewing Co. has a new sours-only bar in La Mesa, Umami Japanese comes to San Marcos, and La Catrina takes over the old Tostadas space with a chef who previously worked with Javier Plascencia. Our guest is San Diego native Mike Maass, the cofounder of Burning Beard Brewing, an El Cajon brewery that opened in 2016. He explains the metaphor behind the brand name, starting with home brewing in a bathtub, and why canning beer is the “old new thing.”
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Bivouac Ciderworks, Shank & Bone, The Cork & Craft, and Fifty-Two East.
We’re also discussing Scout, a new craft beer and wine distributor that’s revolutionizing marketing for beverages.
On today’s show we’re coming at you from our sponsor, The Willows Hotel & Spa at Viejas Casino & Resort, along with vice president of food and beverage David Duran.
In Hot Plates, we’re talking about two upcoming events, including the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival and the first annual San Diego Food Tank Summit with bold-faced names of the industry (like the president of the San Diego County Farm Bureau and the co-owner of Café Gratitude) discussing how we can responsibly grow our region’s food movement. Plus, Ike’s sandwiches opens in the Midway district, Buona Forchetta opens its first North County location, and Farmer’s Table expands to Bay Park. Also, we talk about a fundraiser to help the cancer-stricken daughter of local beer icon Mike Hess.
Our guest is Nica Knite, the owner and operator of Pine House Café & Tavern and the woman behind the revamp of the historic Pine Valley House & Silver Queen Saloon, a 95-year-old boutique resort, restaurant, and bar in Pine Valley, built by the architect Richard Requa (who built most of the California Exposition in Balboa Park). She explains why she’s restoring the scene in her mountain town and everything on her from-scratch menu.
We’re also talking about the recent ban on polystyrene foam, a.k.a. Styrofoam, in the city.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Din Tai Fung, Grains, Maestoso, and The Mission in North Park.
What’s better than one Buona Forchetta concept in South Park? Two! On today’s show we’re talking about the debut of the Neapolitan pizza pro’s new wine bar, a Cohn Restaurant Group (Coasterra, Island Prime) concept coming to Mission Valley, and the closing of a Vista brewery.
In the guest seat, meet Lee Chase, co-owner of Blind Lady Ale House, Tiger! Tiger!, and Balboa Park’s Panama 66, as well as the force behind Automatic Brewing. The San Diego native tells us about his start in home brewing at age 17, what drew him to Stone Brewing Co. as one of its earliest employees, and we revisit our favorite subject, what is going on with the food scene in Balboa Park.
Today’s first hot topic focuses on craft beer, specifically how the local industry now pulls in three times the revenue of the Padres. Then we’re asking the question: Will we ever stop eating animal meat? Factory farming counts for one-sixth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions—but Americans don’t seem to care. We talk about going meatless (for at least one meal per week) and longtime vegan Chase chimes in, too. In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Plant Power, Jaynes Gastropub, and El Jardín.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-selected restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, Troy, Erin, and Archana are discussing Mutual Friend Ice Cream, the hip new ice cream shop from the team behind Dark Horse Coffee Roasters,Surf Rider Pizza Co. coming to La Mesa, and a new hand roll concept coming to Liberty Station from Land & Water Co.’s chef Rob Ruiz. Plus, we have two Thanksgiving-centric events for you: Brian Malarkey’s demo and family-style dinner on November 7 at Farmer & the Seahorse and a November 14 ChefsGiving at Provisional Kitchen, Café & Mercantile at the Pendry hotel featuring JoJo Ruiz (Lionfish), Anthony Wells (Juniper & Ivy), and more, with Troy hosting the event and $25 of each ticket benefitting the San Diego Food Bank.
Today’s guest is Erick Castro, partner and bartender at Polite Provisions and Raised By Wolves, not to mention podcaster and documentary filmmaker with his platform Bartender At Large. He’s talking about opening Polite when Normal Heights wasn’t so cool, the one problem with that rotating platform at Raised By Wolves, and yes, he answered why they opened in a mall.
Our hot topic is about a food writer turned restaurateur who wants to apologize for all the critiques she’s thrown at restaurant owners. She’s sorry; she now realizes just how hard the industry really is.
In Two People/$50 we’re recommending K Sandwiches, Simsim, and Fernside.
On today’s show Troy, Erin, and Archana are talking about The Brigantine’s new concept Ketch Grill & Taps, South Park’s Fernside courtesy of some of San Diego’s top talents, and the US Grant’s soon-to-debut Prohibition era-themed bar inside the downtown hotel.
Our guest is David Cohn of Cohn Restaurant Group, the man behind San Diego staples like Island Prime, Coasterra, Corvette Diner, Bo-Beau, The Prado, Tacos Libertad, and more. He talks about what it was like to launch in Hillcrest in less vibrant times, how he met CRG executive chef-partner Deborah Scott, and what’s changed about those plastic straws at Corvette.
On today’s show, we’re talking about two buzzy new imports: the new dumpling restaurant that’s landed at Westfield UTC by way of Tawian, as well as Cava, the fast-casual Mediterranean concept that started in Washington, D.C. and recently opened an Encinitas outpost.
Less exciting news is the closing of Russian-Georgian restaurant Kafe Sobaka and Cat Eye Club, the downtown cocktail lounge that has shuttered to make room for a Blind Burro expansion.
In the guest seat is Bernard Guillas, the France-born chef who has served as Executive Chef of the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club since 1994, directing its three restaurants and all catering operations. He tells us how he and the restaurant keep things fresh, the number of marriage proposals he sees inside the restaurant daily, and the scoop on that sea lion who wound up inside The Marine Room.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending DaoFu, Vistal, Nine-Ten Restaurant and Bar, and Taegukgi Korean BBQ.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-picked restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, Erin, Troy, and Archana are chatting restaurant news, like a new Mexican eatery at Fashion Valley started by the team behind True Food Kitchen and Flower Child. Plus, the mezcal tasting room Tahona is coming to Old Town next month and Common Stock is now open in Hillcrest.
Our guest is Ben Simon, the CEO and co-founder of Imperfect Produce, the produce subscription service that sources “ugly” fruits and vegetables from farms and delivers them to your door. They just launched in San Diego, and Simon tells us how his company is helping cut down food waste, why San Diego was the right city to launch in, and how his food journey started at his college campus dining hall. In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Wrench & Rodent, Cross Street Chicken and Beer, and Cucina Basilico.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-picked restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
On today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, we’re talking about Hundred Proof, the gastropub in Hillcrest that just hired former George’s at the Cove bar director Stephen Kurpinsky to revamp their cocktail offerings. Plus, an Indian restaurant is opening next month in South Park and Aero Club will live on thanks to its new owners, The Waterfront’s Chad Cline and Jason Nichols.
Today’s guest is Frank Vizcarra, the owner of the new East Village taqueria, Lola55. His resume spans professional soccer, working at Pizza Hut and McDonald’s, and investing in Tender Greens. He opened Lola, a tribute to his 81-year-old mother, earlier this month with many of the recipes he grew up eating. Frank talks about why McDonald’s is the most misunderstood company in the world, his nationwide taco research tour, and expansion plans for Lola55.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Civico1845, El Carrito, and Carruth Wine Cellars Garden.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-picked restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
A local vodka co. wins big, and Bertrand Hug of Mister A’s and Mille Fleurs drops by by San Diego Magazine
For today’s episode, Erin, Troy, and David are kicking things off with some beer—a saison San Diego Magazine created in collaboration with The Bell Marker. Our producer and in-office beer expert David shares the details on how we picked the style, the fruit he himself peeled, and where you can drink find it around town.
In Hot Plates, we’re discussing the Daniel Boulud protégé who’s going to launch his own restaurant in San Diego next year, a new Carlsbad bistro, and Farm to Fork Week’s return.
Our guest is Luke Girling of Cyclops Farms, the Certified Organic Farm in Oceanside’s Fire Mountain where Girling grows anywhere from 30 to 45 different varieties of fruits and vegetables on his 2.5-acre plot. He gives us the origin story of Cyclops, how a health scare led to partnerships with Oceanside’s top chefs, and why he throws a dinner party on his farm (almost) every month.
Today’s hot topic is about a new residential and commercial development that may come to Oceanside and what it means for locals like Girling.
We end with Two People/$50, including Officine Buona Forchetta, The Balboa, Local Tap House, and Wrench & Rodent.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-picked restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
On today’s show, Erin, Troy and Archana are chatting about the opening of Simsim in Kearny Mesa, the new brewpub coming to Chula Vista next year, and a food hall going into a mixed-use space in Poway.
Our guest is Bill Keith, co-founder and CEO of Perfect Bar. Dubbed “The Original Refrigerated Protein Bar,” the bar was the brainchild of Bill and his 12 siblings, their way of sharinf their dad's whole food protein bar recipe with the world. Bill talks about how he dropped out of college after his dad got sick, how they initially sold the bars in Ziploc bags, and what it took to get the company off the ground (i.e. sleeping in his car and showering at 24 Hour Fitness).
Today’s hot topic is about Constellation Brands laying off the majority of their craft beer sales team. (That was the company that bought Ballast Point for $1 billion, remember?)
We end with Two People/$50, including Himitsu, Tocaya Organica, and Bare Back Grill.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-picked restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, Erin, Troy and Archana are discussing Lola 55’s opening in the East Village, a new Mexican restaurant in Coronado, authentic Filipino in Miramar, and Lane Field Park Markets, the new weekly market on downtown’s North Harbor Drive featuring food, drink, and art.
In the guest seat we have Angie Weber, co-owner of Cowboy Star Restaurant and Butcher Shop. She talks to us about how she and her husband never intended to open a steakhouse, the lengths they go to get good quality meat (it involves animal science expert Temple Grandin), and their latest venture—beef jerky. Plus, she gives us the scoop on changes coming to the restaurant.
Today’s hot topic is about what it takes (or how little it takes) to call an item “organic.”
We end with Two People/$50, including Mitch’s Seafood, Venissimo Cheese, Hanna’s Gourmet, Harvest by The Patio, Cucina Sorella, Beshock Ramen, Lotus Thai, and Pamela’s Kitchen Table.
And did you hear? San Diego Magazine has launched its Insiders club, offering exclusive discounts at editor-picked restaurants, bars, spas, and more for just $10 per month. That’s right—it’ll cost you less than happy hour.
On today’s show Erin, Troy and Archana are talking about Ramen Ryoma’s entry into San Diego, Taproom’s new North Park location, and the San Diego restaurant that will be cooking at the prestigious James Beard House in New York.
Our guest is Stone Brewing Co. co-founder and chairman Greg Koch, fresh off a trip to Shanghai to open the latest Stone outpost and on the heels the beer brand’s 22nd anniversary (which includes a beer festival this Saturday!). He gets candid with us about the challenges of opening locations abroad, the lawsuit he filed against MillerCoors, why he took a four-month sabbatical, and what he thinks of our craft beer industry today. We also taste-test the nut butters from his new condiment line, Nutista, which he created alongside fellow locals Tristen Cross and John Huber. (Troy called it one of the best things he ate this month.)
Today’s hot topic is about beer of course. We asked Greg what he thinks about the new report that reveals American are drinking less beer. Turns out, the trend is strongest among millennials.
We end with Two People/$50, including Yakudori, Pizza Port, Turf Supper Club, and—for not quite $50—Addison.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour Erin, Troy and Archana are talking Hot Plates, from the new Death by Tequila in Encinitas and its claim to have “the best margarita in town” to chef Paul McCabe’s new project downtown.
Our guest is Gina Freize, co-owner of Venissimo, the beloved local cheese shop that launched 14 years ago in Mission Hills and has since opened locations in North Park, Liberty Public Market, and Del Mar’s Flower Hill Promenade. She tells us about how she fell for the stinky stuff, why American cheeses are so darn expensive, and why it’s easier to run a brewery than a cheese shop. Plus, she gives us the scoop on how you can order wedding cheese-cakes, and we talk about the UC San Diego professor who studies cheese for a living.
Today’s hot topic is about, what else, cheese. Gina analyzes Bon Appetit’s list of the 25 most important cheeses in America and dishes on her personal favorites.
We end with Two People/$50, including Alforon, Pho Fifth Avenue, and Carin de Ria.
On today’s show, Erin, Troy and Archana are talking Hot Plates, including Pop Pie Co.’s new ice cream shop landing next month in University Heights, a new ramen spot in Kearny Mesa, a long-awaited holiday event coming to Polite Provisions, and more.
In the guest seat is Sam “The Cooking Guy” Zien, the former biotech-er turned cooking show host, cookbook author, Emmy winner, and founder of Not Not Tacos at the new Little Italy Food Hall. He talks about why a “Jewish white kid from Canada” can make the classic Mexcian dish, answers reader questions, and tells us about that time he and Troy were on a bomb-threatened plane.
Today’s hot topic is about Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market being sold to its own longtime employees. Discuss!
We end with Two People/$50, including Queenstown Public House, Civico 1845, Born & Raised, and Masala Street La Jolla.
In today’s episode, Erin, Troy and Archana are talking Hot Plates, including the Cohn Restaurant Group’s two-acre project in La Mesa (miniature golf in involved), the openings of Nomad Donuts and Young Hickory downtown, and a steakhouse chain that’s finally opened in the Gaslamp after years of construction delays.
Joining us is Claudette-Zepeda Wilkins, whose resume includes: pastry chef at El Bizcocho, chef de cuisine at Bracero, contestant on both Top Chef and Top Chef Mexico, and now, partner and executive chef at El Jardín. She walks us through the nearly two years she spent brainstorming, conceptualizing, and overseeing the co-creation of her new Liberty Station restaurant, what is was like to learn authentic recipes from Mexico’s culinary ambassadors, how she edits her menu, and why she’s now a self-proclaimed “seed nerd.” Plus, she answers your burning questions. What was it like to work with Javier Plascencia? She gives us the scoop.
Today’s hot topics are about a 21-year-old waitress at a Georgia pizzeria who body-slammed a customer who groped her and a story out of Paris about vegans vandalizing butcher shops.
We end with Two People/$50, including Punjabi Tandoor, Parc Bistro-Brassiere, and Jaynes Gastropub.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, we’re talking about Simsim headed to Kearny Mesa, a new wine country-inspired restaurant in the Gaslamp, classic burgers coming to Barrio Logan, and new menu items at The Crack Shack and Mendocino Farms.
We’re joined by Javier Plascencia, the prolific chef known for toggling both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border with his legion of Baja eateries (Misión19, Finca Altozano, etc.) and two former San Diego spots (Romesco and Bracero, R.I.P.). But good news! He’s spilling details about the upcoming restaurant he’s going to open in San Diego—and sharing details about guest chef-ing at the Hotel del’s California Clambake series on July 28.
Our guest is Laura Johnson, co-founder of You & Yours Distilling Co., a gin and vodka distillery that opened last March in the East Village. She talks about how a vacation to Cuba got her interested in the spirits, why she cares about ingredient transparency, and how regulations are different for distillers versus winemakers and brewers. Plus, canned cocktails! They’re coming.
We end with Two People/$50, including Prep Kitchen, Punch Bowl Social, Trust, and Yakyudori.
On today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour—first things first—we’re announcing the winner of our 100th episode Fantasy Restaurant Draft.
Plus, we’re dishing on Hot Plates news—Little Italy Food Hall, Casa Rústica in Carmel Valley, and a new project in Oceanside, helmed by ex-Bice chef/owner Mario Cassineri.
Joining us is Master French Chef Patrick Ponsaty of Hotel del Coronado’s 1500 Ocean. He talks to us about using local farmers, the ingredients he grows at the hotel garden, and menu items like an egg caviar we get to try during the show.
In the guest seat is Chad Cline, owner of the iconic local dive bar the Waterfront, as well as six other spots in town, including Harbor Town and Club Marina. His Little Italy bar has been in the Cline family since his great-grandfather bought the space, and Chad tells us what it was like to grow up sleeping literally under the bar and how those memorable photos on the wall came to be.
Our hot topic delves into Troy’s realm: the world of reviewing restaurants. He explains why he doesn’t review new establishments and reveals the fake name he uses for reservations.
We end with Two People/$50, including Bali Hai, Nolita Hall, Olympic Cafe, and Flying Pig Pub & Kitchen.
After last week’s intense fantasy restaurant draft, we’re back and aboard Hornblower Cruises for this week’s episode. Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking restaurant openings, like Tocaya Organica in the Gaslamp, The Patio 101’s new Encinitas location, and Ramen Menma in Oceanside.
Our guest is Peter Halmay, a 77-year-old fisherman with nearly 50 years of diving experience and the man responsible for bringing sea urchins to culinary fame. He walks us through a day in his life, shares which local restaurants are using his catch, and tells us about what it’s like to now work alongside his son.
And don’t forget to vote in our 100th episode fantasy restaurant draft! You have until June 10, and we’ll be announcing the winner on the next episode.
Happy 100th episode! We’re toasting to our milestone episode aboard Hornblower Cruises’s Sights & Sips Cocktail Cruise, but before we get to our draft (more on that below), we open with restaurant news. The team behind Campfire is opening a modern French bistro in Carlsbad, You & Yours Distilling Co. is expanding their East Village space and has announced a new product, and our food critic Troy Johnson gives us the scoop on El Jardín, chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins’s new Mexican restaurant in Liberty Station.
In lieu of a special guest, we’re playing a fun, foodie take on fantasy sports. We asked ourselves, if we could eat at only seven restaurants for the rest of the year, which would we choose? Each of us—Erin, Troy, Archana, and David—prepared a list of our favorite restaurants—everything from fine dining and tacos to breakfast spots and oceanview eateries. And things got competitive.
Now that we’ve made our picks, we want you to crown a winner. Check out the picks below—intentionally listed without the drafters’ name!—and tell us which restaurant roster deserves gold.
A huge thank you to our listeners and supporters, as well as those of you who joined us aboard the Hornblower—we couldn’t have made it to 100 without you. Looking forward to 100 more!
You can vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2SXLVBF
Team 1 1.1 Buona Forchetta 2.4 Little Lion 3.1 The Crack Shack 4.4 Lucha Libre 5.1 Cucina Urbana 6.4 Campfire 7.1 Mama’s Bakery
Team 2 1.2 Cantina Mayahuel 2.3 Panama 66 3.2 Jaynes Gastropub 4.3 Hane Sushi 5.2 Old Venice 6.3 Cowboy Star 7.2 Caroline’s Seaside Café
Team 3 1.3 Grand Ole BBQ y Asado 2.2 Isabel’s Cantina 3.3 Trust 4.2 Café Chloe (selected before news of their closing was announced) 5.3 Amplified Ale Works 6.2 Addison 7.3 Beerfish
Team 4 1.4 George’s at the Cove 2.1 Las Cuatro Milpas 3.4 Sab-e-Lee 4.1 Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub 5.4 Born & Raised 6.1 Urban Solace 7.4 Rocky’s Crown Pub
In today’s episode Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are taping from The Westgate Hotel, where we’re talking restaurant openings, including Cali Banh Mi in Pacific Beach, Dolce at the Highlands’ revamp, and Amplified Ale Works upcoming East Village outpost.
Joining us is the Westgate’s executive chef Fabrice Hardel. He’s dishing on his spin on classic French cuisine and the menu he’s created for the hotel’s Jazz Series.
Our guest is David Graham, the City of San Diego’s Deputy COO, who’s telling us what it takes to bring businesses to fruition (he was behind the Quartyard), the state’s dated regulations, and more. He also once competed in the World Food Championships and served as sous chef to his mom at cooking competitions.
Today’s hot topic is about the science behind restaurant menus. A San Diego-based pizza mini-chain is mentioned in the story. Can you guess which one?
Today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour is sponsored by The Westgate Hotel and their Sunset Poolside Jazz Series, hosted on the rooftop every Thursday through September 13.
On today’s show, Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are taping from The Westgate Hotel, where we’re talking restaurant openings, including the new El Carrito in Barrio Logan and El Tianguis in North Park, plus who’ll be a part of Carlsbad’s Windmill Food Hall.
We’re joined by Gilbert Castellanos, the acclaimed jazz musician who’s shared a stage with everyone from Liza Minelli to Dizzy Gillespie and plays every Friday at The Westgate’s Plaza Bar. He talks about curating the music for this year’s Sunset Poolside Jazz Series and the upcoming performances you can’t miss.
Our guest is Yuseff Cherney, founder and Master Distiller of Cutwater Spirits and the former head brewer and COO of Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits. The UC San Diego grad talks to us about starting at Home Brew Mart, things he’s learned with his 26 years in the industry, and what that billion-dollar Constellation Brands acquisition felt like. Plus, he’s giving us the scoop on Cutwater’s most popular canned cocktails and what makes them “crushable.”
We’re gearing up for our big 100th episode, which we’ll be taping on Hornblower Cruise’s Sights & Sips Cocktail Cruise June 22. And we want you there! Enter here for a chance to win one of 10 pairs of tickets to join us on the bay.
On today’s show hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram discuss the shock of Anthony Bourdain’s death and the legacy he’ll leave. In our local scene, there’s the opening of Punch Bowl Social and Prepkitchen San Marcos, as well as the Red Fox Room and Aero Club’s moves.
Today’s guest is Jennifer Davies, the San Diego Tourism Authority’s Director of Cultural Tourism for Balboa Park. We talk about the park’s Food Truck Fridays series and what’s going on with the restaurant scene in one of San Diego’s most visited landmarks.
In hot topics, we’re discussing how people are pointing fingers at a local hospitality group for the death of hundreds of fish in Lake San Marcos. When reached for comment, the group, which handles day-to-day activities of the lake, referred us to a work plan organized by the Citizens Development Corporation, which maintains upkeep of the lake. They say they “are currently working with stakeholders, residents of the surrounding community, and State regulators to arrive at a long term solution to many issues including nutrients, excess algae, and fish kills at the Lake.”
We’re also chatting about Jimbo’s suing Horton Plaza. They claim the shopping center’s lackluster performance has cost the natural grocery store millions in sales thanks, in part, to low foot traffic. Plus, we’re gearing up for our big 100th episode, which we’ll be taping on Hornblower Cruise’s Sights & Sips Cocktail Cruise June 22. And we want you there! Enter here for a chance to win one of 10 pairs of tickets to join us on the bay.
On today’s show hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are dishing out restaurant openings, like Calozzi’s Cheesesteaks, JuneShine kombucha bar, and The Crack Shack’s collaboration with Salt & Straw ice cream.
In the guest seat is Valentina Di Pietro, co-owner of Little Italy restaurant staples Monello and Bencotto, which earned Troy’s pick for Best Italian in this year’s Best Restaurants issue. Valentina chats about her career evolution from working in public relations for Dolce & Gabbana to opening a restaurant in Little Italy before it was the buzzy neighborhood it is today. She gives us the scoop on the one dish everyone is going nuts for at her restaurants and the recipe her co-owner husband won’t share “until his death.”
Plus, we’re gearing up for our big 100th episode, which we’ll be taping on Hornblower Cruise’s Sights & Sips Cocktail Cruise June 22. And we want you there! Enter here for a chance to win one of 10 pairs of tickets to join us on the bay.
In today’s episode hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are discussing San Diego restaurant news, like Supernatural Sandwiches heading to Pacific Beach, a major dinner event with all female chefs happening May 27, and a barbecue concept headed to San Carlos this summer.
Joining us is Brian Malarkey, chef and co-owner of Herb & Wood, Farmer & The Seahorse, and Green Acre. He’s here to celebrate making the cover of our new Best Restaurants issue—that’s Herb & Wood’s sea bass on the cover—and winning Best of the Best Fancy Restaurant, as chosen by Troy. He’s also dishing about the highs and lows of being a prolific restaurateur, the shaky start to Herb & Eatery (Herb & Wood’s next-door café), and the two new restaurants he’ll be bringing to the city in 2019.
Plus, we’re gearing up for our big 100th episode, which we’ll be taping on Hornblower Cruise’s Sights & Sips Cocktail Cruise June 22. And we want you there! Enter here for a chance to win one of 10 pairs of tickets to join us on the bay.
On today’s show, we’re chatting about a pasta shop headed to the East Village, Le Parfait Paris’s new beer and wine garden at Fashion Valley Mall, and a healthy eatery coming to Solana Beach.
Our guest is Emmanuel Piqueras, executive chef of Pisco Rotisserie & Cevicheria in Liberty Station and Carlsbad. Over some ceviche and Peruvian beer, we’re discussing how he landed a TV show, partnering with Sammy Ladecki on the Peruvian concept, and why this New York-based chef wanted to work in San Diego.
In Two People/$50, we’re dining at Alexander’s, Panama66, Fathom Bistro, Bait & Tackle, and Born & Raised.
In today’s episode hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are discussing the vendors heading into the Little Italy Food Hall this summer, Genteel Coffee in the East Village, and Frost Me Gourmet’s second outpost. Today’s guest is San Diego legend Ralph Rubio of the eponymous fish taco fame. He talks about his first job at Old Spaghetti Factory, how a 1974 spring break trip to San Felipe gave him the inspiration to launch Rubio’s Coastal Grill, and exactly how he expanded from one Mission Bay Drive location in 1983 to 203 Rubio’s across six states. In Two People/$50, we’re dining at Café Secret, Blue Ribbon Artisan Pizzeria, Saffron, Cucina Enoteca, and Solace & the Moonlight Lounge.
This episode is sponsored by Manchester Grand Hyatt’s Brew30, a modern gastropub pouring 30 different types of local craft beer and serving burgers, salads, and more.
On today’s show, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking about CH Projects’ cocktail concept now open at Westfield UTC, Uptown Tavern’s Dinners in the Dark series, Bird’s Rock’s new Del Mar outpost, and a charity bake sale happening this weekend. Plus, we’re taste-testing Salt & Straw’s “May Flowers”-themed flavors.
Our guest is Marco Provino, chef-owner of Lemon Grove’s Giardino Neighborhood Cucina and Verandina in Imperial Beach. He gives us the scoop on how IB reminds him of his Sicilian hometown and which neighborhoods he thinks could be the next restaurant hotspots.
Plus, we’re dishing on all sorts of new stories on our site, from Troy’s “two-bite rule” to an ultimate Mother’s Day guide. In Two People/$50, we’re dining at Ibis Market, Dija Mara, Caroline’s, and Costa Brava.
On today’s show hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking about The Pearl’s new eatery helmed by a former Campfire chef, Saffron’s new location debuting this summer, and One Door North’s new happy hour.
Today’s guest is David Warner, corporate executive chef for Eat.Drink.Sleep. (Tower 23 Hotel, Lakehouse Resort & Hotel). After working the kitchen at JRDN and partnering on the now-shuttered Bottega Americano, Warner is back at Jrdn. He’s talking about their new menu and why he came back.
Plus, we have an update on Balboa Park’s food desert and an in-park vacancy that we want a local chef to fill.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking about The Cado, a pop-up museum about avocados that’s opening in San Diego, a new burger spot by way of Portland, and Great Maple’s second location.
Our special guest is Saranash Oberoi, better known as OB and the chef-owner behind Masala Street, a La Jolla restaurant that’s elevating San Diego’s Indian cuisine. He’s talking about working at a two Michelin-starred restaurant, his journey from being paralyzed to opening this restaurant, and his famous chef father who he’s partnered with on Masala Street.
In Two People/$50, we’re dining at Mitch’s Seafood, The Venetian, and Wa Dining Okan.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking about Lionfish’s new rooftop dinner series, the upcoming restaurant-bar replacing South Park Abbey, and a new empanada spot downtown (we’re taste-testing some flavors on the show).
We’re also taking FAQ reader questions. Where should you dine for your anniversary? What’s a hip and cool place that’s not crowded? Where should you take visitors? We’re answering it all.
This episode is sponsored by Kaaboo Del Mar, the three-day music and comedy festival, featuring Katy Perry, Foo Fighters, Robert Plant, and more at the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds September 14–16.
On today’s show hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking about Soda & Swine coming to UC San Diego, University Heights’s upcoming restaurant-brewery, and a new dessert shop in Del Mar Heights with rainbow-colored cakes.
Our special guest is PJ Busalacchi, general manager of Little Italy’s Barbusa and part of San Diego’s famed restaurant family. PJ dishes about the evolution of the family’s brand, shifting focus back to Little Italy after years in Hillcrest, and what it was like growing up with his Sicilian father, or as Troy calls him, Papa Joe.
We end with Two People/$50, including Little Lion Café, Harumama, Queenstown Public House, and OB Garden Café.
This episode is sponsored by Kaaboo Del Mar, the three-day music and comedy festival, featuring Katy Perry, Foo Fighters, Robert Plant, and more at the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds September 14–16.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking restaurant news, including the new Queenstown Bistro at Westfield UTC and Marea, a fair-trade coffee company started by local pro athletes, like Rob Machado. Plus, we’re sharing all the details about a contest we’re hosting with Puesto, where your personal taco recipe could land on Puesto’s menu. Get all the info here—submit by March 31! This week’s guest is Deborah Scott, Executive Chef and partner at Cohn Restaurant Group, one of San Diego’s most prolific restaurant brands whose projects include Bo-Beau, Coasterra, Island Prime, Vintana, and most recently, Libertad. She chats about how Hillcrest has evolved, the challenge of finding good cooks, and diners who text her for reservations. We’re also chatting about a very hot topic—are you for or against sharing food at a restaurant? We end with Two People/$50, including Masala Street, The Friendly, and Bull’s Smokin’ BBQ.
This episode is sponsored by Kaaboo Del Mar, the three-day music and comedy festival, featuring Katy Perry, Foo Fighters, Robert Plant, and more at the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds September 14–16.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking restaurant news, including Herb & Wood’s new brunch, an Indian-Chinese spot now open in Mira Mesa, and Pokirrito’s Impossible Sushi Burrito made with the Impossible Burger. Plus, we’re sharing all the details about a contest we’re hosting with Puesto, where your personal taco recipe could land on Puesto’s menu. Get all the info here—submit by March 31!
This week’s guest is Jorge Farfan from Lolita’s, the local restaurant chain that’s celebrating 34 years in business. After launching in Chula Vista, they’ve since opened five more locations, with each son running a location and their sister on board as company president. Jorge gives the scoop on how the family-owned and -operated business came to be, which family members still work there, and how their father still comes in at 5 a.m. every day to cook. Best of all, he reveals something about his family tree that blows all of our minds.
We end with Two People/$50, including Monello, Harumama, Blue Water, Family House of Pancakes, and Malahat.
On today’s episode hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking restaurant openings, including Maestoso in Hillcrest and La Colombe café at Westfield UTC. Plus, we’re sharing all the details about a contest we’re hosting with Puesto, where your own personal taco recipe could land on Puesto’s menu. Get all the info here—and submit by March 31!
This week’s guest is Jordan Brownwood, co-owner of Royale, a burger and craft cocktail eatery situated between Point Loma and Ocean Beach. Jordan, who previously worked as a bartender at bars like Rare Form and Tamarindo, talks about how he launched the concept as a food cart in Austin before opening as a pop-up within Park & Rec. Late last year, they debuted their own brick and mortar on Voltaire Street in the old Session Public space. On top of the restaurant, he and his wife also run a 15-acre avocado, citrus, and hops farm in Escondido. As Troy says, apparently the man hates free time.
Our hot topic is about the 13 food-centric words that Merriam-Webster added to its latest edition, everything from kombucha to natto.
We end with Two People/$50, including Nonna, Little Lion, and Shank & Bone.
And have you voted in our Best Restaurants poll yet? You have until Friday!
On this week’s episode, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson along with producer Archana Ram are talking restaurant openings, including the new Shank & Bone in North Park, Modern Times’s plans for a plant-based restaurant in Encinitas, and Herb & Wood’s North County expansion. Our guest is Arturo Kassel, owner of Whisknladle Hospitality, whose restaurants span Catania, Milagro Winery in Ramona, and the eponymous Whisknladle in La Jolla, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary. He talks about how La Jolla has changed in the last decade, why restaurants “age in dog years,” and their latest ventures in Sorrento Valley: Gravity Heights brewpub and Park Commons food hall. Our hot topic is about a start-up working on a once-a-day capsule to keep peanut allergy sufferers from, well, suffering. We end with Two People/$50, including Chennai Tiffins, Red Fox Room, and Ruth’s Chris.
This week Troy Johnson and producer Archana Ram are chatting about an OB winemaker who earned heavy duty medals at a national wine competition, the new Nectarine Grove in Leucadia, and the Little Italy Food Hall project slated to open this summer with tacos from Sam the Cooking Guy and pizza from Ambrogio15.
We’re excited to bring back previous Happy Half Hour guest Matteo Cattaneo, owner of Buona Forchetta in South Park and Officine Buona Forchetta in Liberty Station. He’s on the show to announce his latest concept—a non-profit Italian-style bakery benefitting local elementary schools. Located in the former Rebecca’s café space, the still-unnamed spot will serve breakfast, pastries, and more and is set to open in the next few months. That’s on top of the Neapolitan pizzeria’s already busy expansion, which includes the Enoteca Buona Forchetta bottega in South Park, a newly minted vendor spot in Petco Park, and upcoming Buona locations in Encinitas and Coronado.
We end with Two People/$50, including Born & Raised, Campfire, Et Voila’s happy hour, and Tacos La Mezcla at South Park Brewing Co.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking restaurant openings, including where Shake Shack is opening in San Diego next and a new Japanese eatery slated for Kensington.
Today’s guest is Greg Homyak and Esthela Davila of San Diego BeerTalk Radio. They explain how they turned their love for craft beer into a wildly successful podcast, the reason breweries are in industrial parks, and offer their take on the 72 and Hoppy beer. We also discuss recent news about the dispute over a new Constellation Brands facility slated to open in Baja.
We end with Two People/$50, including The Land & Water Co., The Brew Project, and MishMash.
In today’s episode, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are chatting restaurant news, including the new Waterbar in Pacific Beach, Point Loma Fish Shop’s debut, and the closing of the first Bull Taco location. Plus, some need-to-know news about Pancho Villa market.
Our guest is Isabel Cruz, the chef who helped launch Isabel’s Cantina, The Mission, Coffee Cup, and Barrio Star. She’s talking launching restaurants in San Diego more than 20 years ago and what to expect from her cookbook, out this April.
In Hot Topics we discuss the 4,000-calorie diet that members of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard team are chowing down on during the Olympics.
We end with Two People/$50, including Tac’ul, Neighborhood, Galaxy Taco, and Sammy’s Valentine’s special.
In today’s episode, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking about restaurant news, including a new Taco Stand, a new brewpub, and a big barbecue spot headed to San Diego.
Today’s sponsor is Torrey Holistics, a city-approved medical marijuana facility in Sorrento Valley. Ruthie Edelson, the company’s marketing director and graphic designer, joins us to talk about changing the stigma of marijuana, why it shouldn’t be called a “drug,” and more. (You can also read all about San Diego’s huge leap into the cannabis industry in our February issue.)
Joining us in the guest seat is Gary John Collins, founder of Air Conditioned Lounge and its new adjacent event space, The Glampisphere. He explains why business was easier in the past and shares his secrets to longevity in San Diego’s restaurant-bar scene.
In Hot Topics, we discuss the new AmazonGo store in Seattle.
We end with Two People/$50, including Café Chloe, The Coffee Cup, Salt & Straw, and Cantina Mayahuel.
On today’s Happy Half Hour episode hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are coming at you from the Manchester Grand Hyatt inside Brew30, their new modern gastropub that pours 30 different local craft beers (including one from Tijuana). We’re chatting with assistant food and beverage director Matt Rapping about their Super Bowl specials—giveaways, beer deals, and prizes!—plus their Freshfor30 beer collaboration with Stone Brewing Co. Plus, they have the Impossible Burger, which we’re taste-testing on the show.
In other restaurant news, Harumama opens in Little Italy, Salud expands, and Cesar’s in Rancho Santa Fe switches concepts.
Today’s guest is Judith Downie, an archivist at Cal State San Marcos who’s working on the Brewchive, a collection of historic papers related to San Diego’s beer scene—think recipes, brewer logs, and more. She gives us the scoop on Greg Koch before he launched Stone and how women played a big role in beer during the pre-Prohibition era.
In Hot Topics, we discuss the Ingniter incubator and whether it’s a worthwhile model for new breweries.
We end with Two People/$50, including Campfire, Hanna’s Gourmet, and When Pigs Fly.
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In today’s episode hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking about restaurant news, like two Hillcrest openings—Better Buzz Coffee and Copper Top Coffee & Donuts (Did you know donuts are the Instagram subject?). Plus Troy has the First Look on Bivouc Ciderworks in North Park and Little Italy’s Cloak & Petal.
Today’s sponsor is Torrey Holistics, a city-approved medical marijuana facility in Sorrento Valley. Christine Bordenave, the company’s director of purchasing and compliance, joins us to explain the different between THC and CBD, how they’re capping dosage in edibles, and the launch of childproof packsaging. (You can also read all about San Diego’s huge leap into the cannabis industry in our February issue.)
Joining us in the guest seat is Richard Blais, Top Chef All-Star, chef-partner of Juniper & Ivy and The Crack Shack, podcaster at Starving for Attention, cookbook author of So Good—the list goes on. He tells us why he moved to San Diego, how he got to star in a cat food commercial, and what it’s like to work with Troy on Guy’s Grocery Games.
In Hot Topics, we discuss dining trends for 2018. Less dinner Instagramming, more chilled red wine.
We end with Two People/$50, including Village North, and Richard’s two picks, the Sea Señorita at Crack Shack and—wait for it—the shredded beef from Trader Joe’s.
Subscribe to the Happy Half Hour on iTunes or Google Play, or listen below.
On today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are coming at you from La Jolla at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego’s Dream House. The organization—which provides accommodations, food, and more for families with a critically ill or injured child at a local hospital—is hosting its 14th annual raffle. There are more than 2,300 prizes to win, from a Maserati and a New Zealand vacation to the $4.9 million mansion we’re podcasting from. Enter to win at sdraffle.com (early bird deadline is February 16!).
In Hot Plates, we’re dishing about the makeover at Nine-Ten La Jolla, a Modern Times expansion, and a new ice cream shop from Dark Horse Coffee Roasters.
Our guest is Tom Gable, former food critic and wine editor at San Diego Magazine. He talks about how he went from writing finance columns to covering food and wine, what the city’s food scene was like in the ‘80s, and which neighborhood was considered the French capital of San Diego back in the day. Tom also shares his top pick for a budget-friendly white wine.
We end with Two People/$50, including the bar at Jake’s Del Mar and Red O.
On today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are coming at you from La Jolla at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of San Diego’s Dream House. The organization—which provides accommodations, food, and more for families with a critically ill or injured child at a local hospital—is hosting its 14th annual raffle. There are more than 2,300 prizes to win, from a Maserati and a New Zealand vacation to the $4.9 million mansion we’re podcasting from. Enter to win at sdraffle.com (early bird deadline is February 16!).
In Hot Plates, we’re chatting about the new Lucha Libre in North County, a noodle shop now open in Coronado, the Portland ice creamery that’s making waves in San Diego, and where Extraordinary Desserts will move after its Bankers Hill lease is up this year.
Our guest is Kevin Templeton, born and raised San Diegan and Executive Chef of Gaslamp’s Barleymash, Smoking Gun, and Spill the Beans. He talks about running three restaurants in the downtown neighborhood, how the area has changed, and his work with Olivewood Gardens (he takes more than 700 pounds of compost to the National City non-profit every week!). The rest of his free time? He’s playing in the local death metal band Godhammered.
Happy new year—we’re back with our first episode of 2018! Hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram kick things from Petco’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo.
In Hot Plates, we talk about the re-opening of K Sandwiches, a new poke spot in Westfield UTC, and a boutique in Point Loma Village that’s launched a beauty and cocktails event series.
And have you heard? The Impossible Burger is finally available in San Diego, at Jaynes Gastropub in Normal Heights and Trattoria Ponte Vecchio in Del Mar. The plant-based burger, made of wheat, coconut oil, and potatoes, also has heme, a unique ingredient that makes the veggie burger “bleed.” Producer David has tried it, and he chimes in on the Impossible’s taste.
Our guest is David Mead, co-founder of Baby Clydesdale, a local line of small-batch sauces, including a preservative-free sriracha and vegan pesto. He talks about growing his business, selling at farmers’ market, and why everyone starting a business should watch Mad Men. (He’s also featured in this month’s San Diego Magazine cover story about local farmers’ markets.)
Today’s Happy Half Hour is our special year-end wrap-up, with hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram and digital wizard (our “guy with the wires”) David Martin
We’re starting as we always do with Hot Plates, including a new sushi spot in Leucadia and two openings in Bankers Hill—a coffee shop from a popular local roaster and an Italian restaurant courtesy of a father-son duo from Rome.
This week’s Hot Topics include a New York Times story about how recent Southern California wildfires have devastated avocado and lemon groves, and the biggest food trends of 2017, according to USA Today.
Finally, we’re bringing you our favorite food moments from the past year, along with some of our most memorable Happy Half Hour episodes:
New Restaurants Minou Born & Raised Officine Buona Forchetta
Meal of the Year Grand Ole BBQ Market Restaurant + Bar Biga The Hake Trust
New-to-Us Finds The Puffle Barleymash Giardino Masala Street Herb & Eatery Civico 1845
Favorite Happy Half Hour Guests Jason McLeod of CH Projects Restaurateur Terryl Gavre Matteo Catteno of Buona Forchetta Matthew Lyons of Tribute Pizza Lucila De Alejandro of Suzie’s Farms (a tearjerker!)
We’re off next week—see you in 2018!
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are coming at you live from Petco’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo.
We’re talking the latest local restaurant news, like the new Landon’s Gourmet Kitchen in San Marcos offering on-site childcare, plus a new pizzeria coming to North Park.
Joining us is Dr. Andrew Weil, the founder of True Food Kitchen, which opened its second San Diego location last month at Westfield UTC. He tells us why he created a restaurant, his favorite dishes at TFK, and more.
Plus, we’re talking about our favorite bars and restaurants to visit this time of the year. Hello, holiday visitors!
In today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are chatting about restaurant news, like a new cocktail shop in North Park and a collaboration between Regents Pizzeria and Mastiff Sausage Company that will benefit the charity No Kid Hungry. Plus, we tell you why you have to visit Polite Provisions before Christmas.
Today’s guest is Stephen Kurpinsky, the spirits and beer director at Level2, the hip cocktail-focused bar at George’s at the Cove. He’s telling us about his new project that involves developing drinks based on San Diego neighborhoods, like an OB cocktail with hemp.
Subscribe to the Happy Half Hour on iTunes or Google Play, or listen below.
Today’s Happy Half Hour is brought to you by the YMCA. At the YMCA, build more than muscle. Build relationships. From BodyPump and Pilates, stretching and strength training, to indoor cycling, water exercise and yoga, you’ll find something that’s fun, supportive and keeps you moving together.
Today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour is sponsored by Vom Fass, the Hillcrest boutique that sources small producers around the globe for its collection of whiskies, brandies, oil, fruit vinegars, and more. They’re telling us all about their “try before you buy” policy and how you can mix the most creative cocktails using, yes, vinegar.
In Hot Plates, we’re talking about the latest from the Café Chloe team, plus a coffee shop in Crown Point and Lemon Grove’s new Italian restaurant, Giardino Neighborhood Cucina.
Today’s guest is Karen Krasne, chef-owner of Extraordinary Desserts. She tells us how she began her business selling cakes to Neiman Marcus in the late ‘80s for events. That led her on a career that has included working at Hotel Del Coronado (for three hours), cooking in Cancun, and baking out of her dad’s home kitchen. She’s also telling us about her holiday desserts and a new limited-edition cookie that gives back to a great cause.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Trilogy Sanctuary and La Vecindad.
Today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour is sponsored by Vom Fass, the Hillcrest boutique that sources small producers around the globe for its collection of whiskies, brandies, oil, fruit vinegars, and more. They’re telling us all about their “try before you buy” policy and how you can mix the most creative cocktails using, yes, vinegar.
In Hot Plates, we’re talking about the new True Food Kitchen at Westfield UTC, Catalina Offshore’s Good Food nomination and the East Village’s You & Yours Distilling Co., whose founder Laura Johnson was just named on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.
Today’s guest is Adam Hiner, co-founder of Boochcraft, the San Diego-based company that makes kombucha with a boozy spin. He gives us the scoop on how Boochcraft started, all the trial and error that went into making the drink (at one point they tried adding in moonshine), and their most popular flavors.
Plus, we’re talking about hops and how climate change may make beer more expensive.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending Buona Forchetta, Shake Shack, and Arrivederci.
Today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour is sponsored by the upcoming SoNo Fest & Chili Cook-off. We’re joined by Waypoint Public chef Rich Sweeney and SoNo co-organizer Brijet Myers to chat about the 8th annual event that includes nearly 40 restaurants making chili, plus a holiday craft market, craft beer, and more on December 3 at the intersection of 32nd and Thorn streets in between North and South Park. Even better, the event raises money for McKinley Elementary School’s Spanish, art, and music program.
In Hot Plates, Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson are talking about City Tacos’s expansion to La Mesa and a revamped downtown hotel with three food concepts from The Patio Group. And Troy tells us about the fifth taste known as “umami” and what he thinks the sixth taste is.
Today’s guest is Mad Monk Tea co-founder Taylor Drye who explains what single-origin tea is all about.
In Two People/$50, we’re recommending UnderBelly and Plant Power.
We’re bringing you today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour from North Park’s Waypoint Public, one of nearly 40 restaurants participating in this year’s SoNo Fest & Chili Cook-off. We’re joined by Waypoint chef Rich Sweeney and SoNo co-organizer Brijet Myers to chat about the 8th annual event that includes chili, beer, a holiday craft market, and more—all taking place December 3 at the intersection of 32nd and Thorn streets. Even better, the event raises money for McKinley Elementary Schools’ Spanish, art, and music program.
In Hot Plates, Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson are talking recent restaurant openings, including a local chef headed to TV on the next season of Top Chef and Buona Forchetta’s expansion.
Today’s guest is Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. Plus, we’re talking about the potential cuts to farmer’s market funding.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking recent restaurant openings, including a new Breakfast Republic in Carmel Valley, Draft Republic in Carlsbad, and the charitable coffee concept, The Dojo, in City Heights.
Today’s guest is Jill Davidson, president of the San Diego Brewer’s Guild and sales manager at Pizza Port. She’s here to chat about San Diego Beer Week (kicking off this Friday), and what it was like to start as a Pizza Port bartender in 2010 and move up to sales manager.
Plus, there’s a crowdsourcing attempt to buy Anheuser-Busch, and sales for wine and spirits are on the rise—making beer marketers nervous.
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Rudy’s Taco Shop, Dan Diego’s, Liberty Public Market, Petite Madeline, and the Oceanside farmers market.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are chatting about restaurant news, like the new Blue Water Grill in Carlsbad, a chic new Japanese spot in La Jolla, the buzzy chef now working in Oceanside, and our thoughts on Shake Shack’s recent opening in Westfield UTC.
Today’s guest is Jason McLeod, the chef-partner of Consortium Holdings, better known as the team behind—to name a few—Ironside Fish & Oyster, Soda & Swine, Craft & Commerce, and most recently $7-million steakhouse Born & Raised in Little Italy. He talks about coming on board the cocktail-centric restaurant group to expand its food, the beauty of dry-aged steaks, and why we need to change the narrative of San Diego’s food scene.
Plus, inspired by Anthony Bourdain’s recent rant on Yelp, we discuss the pros and cons of the review site. And what did Food & Wine get right and wrong about San Diego dining?
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Civico 1845, Mendocino Farms, and Hooley’s in La Mesa.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking about the latest restaurant news, like the opening of Stella Public House in San Marcos and a new Cuban-inspired lounge in the Gaslamp.
Our guest is chef Accursio Lota of Liberty Station’s Solare. He’s back from a recent trip to Italy where he was one of 20 chefs selected from around the globe to compete in Barilla’s 6th annual Pasta World Championship. He talks about charming a panel of five Michelin-starred chef-judges with his seafood carbonara and whether Italian food could be the next fast-casual trend.
Plus, foie gras is illegal again.
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Bar Bodega, Fattoush, and Supannee House of Thai.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking about the latest restaurant news, including the closing of Romesco and Hard Rock Café, and the opening of Cross Street Chicken and Beer in Kearny Mesa. Plus, you can now own a share of Mission Brewery.
Joining us is Chris Puffer, longtime Brian Malarkey collaborator and general manager behind Herb & Wood, Searsucker, Farmer & the Seahorse, and other eateries. He talks about delving into design for the first time with Herb & Wood (like H&W’s super-cool server uniforms), the Little Italy renaissance, and what he’s learned from his experience in opening 16 restaurants from coast to coast. Plus, he shares the secret menu item at Herb & Wood.
In hot topics, we’re chatting about the Great American Beer Festival, where Pizza Port, Bagby Beer Company, and other local breweries picked up awards.
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Masala Street, Cantina Mayahuel, and the Hillcrest Farmers Market.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are talking about the latest restaurant news, like second locations for both Nomad Donuts (North Park) and Mendocino Farms (Del Mar).
And we’re joined by Angela Landsberg, Executive Director of the North Park Main Street association, which is hosting the Taste of North Park, a dining and drinking event on October 14 with food from Crazee Burger, Tamarindo, and more, plus 16 craft brewers, like Modern Times Beer and Thorn Street Brewery. (Word to the wise: The event always sells out!)
Today’s guest is Claire Groebner, Development Coordinator at Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center, a seven-acre garden in National City that provides nutrition education, cooking classes, and other health-focused resources to the public, particularly in the South Bay. Claire explains why National City is a “food swamp” and what Olivewood is doing to shift the perspective through kids’ field trips, gardening lessons, and open house events (the next one is September 29!). Also, she tells us the story of one of their “kitchenistas” who just opened this restaurant.
In hot topics, we’re chatting about the ongoing legal battle over the term “natural.”
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Dumpling Inn, Little Lion, Dark Horse Coffee Roasters, and Plant Power Food.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are chatting about the latest local restaurant news, including the opening of Little Italy’s Born & Raised, a swanky steakhouse housed in a gorgeous space that cost $6.5 million to build out. Plus, Plant Power Food has debuted a drive-thru in Encinitas.
Today’s sponsor is the Taste of North Park, a dining and drinking event taking place October 14 with food from Crazee Burger, Tamarindo, and more, plus 16 craft brewers, like Modern Times Beer and Thorn Street Brewery. (Word to the wise: The event always sells out!) Mike Hess of the namesake brewery stops by to tell us all about North Park’s evolution and why this event matters.
Joining us for the guest segment is restaurateur and self-proclaimed “cook” (she doesn’t call herself a “chef”) Terryl Gavre. The seasoned vet of San Diego’s restaurant scene opened downtown’s Café 222 25 years ago with money earned from a screenplay she sold to Lifetime (true story!) and went on to open Market in Del Mar, Bankers Hill Bar + Restaurant, Acme Southern Kitchen, Bake Sale, and more. She gives us the scoop on what it was like to live and work downtown when she first opened 222, and she reveals her one biggest gripe with our city’s restaurant landscape.
Plus, we’re talking about how Whole Foods is faring after the Amazon acquisition and why drinking coffee makes you crave a donut.
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Hane Sushi and Bistro du Marché.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are coming at you live from Petco’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo. We’re talking the latest local restaurant news, including the new Snooze that just opened in La Jolla, a dim sum restaurant that just debuted on Convoy, and Green Flash Brewing Co.’s expansion to the Midwest.
Joining us Trish Watlington, owner of Mission Hills's The Red Door and Bar by Red Door. She’s also the force behind Farm to Fork week, a discounted dining event, which highlights small restaurants, farms, wineries, and breweries who are loyal to local purveyors. Farm to Fork returns September 9 with a kick-off event at the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market.
Plus, we’re talking about the rising trend of low-waste cocktails and news that Americans are buying more food at Wal-Mart.
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including James Coffee Co., Amarin Thai, and Biga.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson, along with producer Archana Ram are coming at you live from Petco’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo.
We’re talking the latest local restaurant news, like the new Carruth Cellars Wine Garden in Little Italy and the opening of a new burger spot on the SDSU campus (and yes, they have whiskey at this location, too).
Our guest is chef Steve Brown, an Imperial Beach native. He’s a big part of the South Bay uprising, with his dinner pop-up series Cosecha, Temp° in Chula Vista opening next month and Bar Logan debuting in Barrio Logan by the end of the year. As if he weren’t busy enough, he also has plans for a two-story eatery in Imperial Beach.
Plus, we’re talking about the rising trend of cannabis-infused dinners. Brown tells us why it’s not as simple as “throwing in weed butter and calling it a day.”
And we share our recommendations for Two People/$50, including Pali Wine Co., Surati Farsan, Karina’s Seafood, and Solare.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, Troy Johnson, David Martin, and Archana Ram are talking the latest dining and drinking news, like the prospect of Target Express coming to North Park and Salt & Straw’s winter debut in San Diego. Plus, The Goods coffee and donut shop hits Carlsbad, and Smoking Gun is now open in the Gaslamp.
Today’s special guest is Morgan Tenwick, Modern Times’s quality manager and the only female advanced cicerone in the world. She talks nerdy to us about yeast, fermentation, cell counts, and just how many gallons of beer Modern Times has had to dump for quality control (spoiler alert: not much). She also tells us what it’s like to work in her male-dominated industry. Fun fact: females were the first brewers.
Plus, the Moscow Mule mug may kill you, and Oprah is launching her own brand of packaged foods.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson are talking the opening of a new Nomad Donuts, Point Loma’s newest beer tenant, and a wine tasting room now open in Little Italy.
On our show is Karen Fortmann of White Labs, a local company that specializes in pure liquid yeast and fermentation products. Translation: White Labs makes homebrewing that much better for the rest of us. She talks about the science behind the booze and how they were able to pitch 96 different yeast strains into one beer.
Plus, are milennials killing the beer industry?
In today’s episode of Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith and Troy Johnson are talking all about a spate of restaurant closures, including Bice downtown and Tasting Room Del Mar. On the bright side, charming neighborhood spot Counterpoint in Golden Hill is still going strong; chef Chris Osbourne (ex-Cowboy Star, Pendry) has joined the team.
Today’s special guest is Matthew Lyons, owner of Tribute Pizza and winner for Best Pizza Variety in this month’s Best of San Diego cover story. He talks about starting as a pop-up operation to cooking up some of the best pies in town in a historic North Park space.
We’re bringing you today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour from Provisional Kitchen, Café & Mercantile at The Pendry hotel in Gaslamp. Joining hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram is assistant food and beverage director Tiffany McClintock and chef Stefan Schleigh. They tell us all about Provisional’s new summer menu and what exactly a chambong is.
Today’s special guest is Michael Trimble, executive director of the Gaslamp Association. Our historic downtown neighborhood is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, so Michael takes a look back at how far the area has come, what’s debuting next, and what it’s like to have 25,000 people wander the Gaslamp during Comic-Con.
We’re also sharing restaurant recommendations, including Juniper & Ivy, The Monkey King, and Las Cuatro Milpas.
We’re bringing you today’s episode straight from Nason’s Beer Hall at The Pendry hotel in the Gaslamp. Joining hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram is Pendry's Executive Sous Chef Matthew Dickey. He tells us about the elevated bar food menu and beer selection at Nason’s, plus their most in-demand dishes. Pro tip: Get the soft pretzel.
We open the show with restaurant news, including the Italian eatery Maretalia on Coronado and two eateries headed to La Jolla Village. Today’s special guest is Daryl O’Donnell, the executive chef for the San Diego Convention Center a.k.a. the man helping feed thousands at Comic-Con. He’s full of fun facts—they bought 20,000 hot dogs for Comic-Con and have a Willy Wonka-style contest happening this weekend—and is fiercely committed to sustainability. Nothing goes in the trash in his kitchen; it’s either composted or donated to the San Diego Rescue Mission.
We’re also discussing bacon prices are going up, pork belly lovers.
We end the show with Two People/$50, including BeeSalt Balcony Tribute Pizza. Bar Bodega, Harney Sushi, and Salud.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram talk restaurant openings, like a healthy food café now open in La Jolla, the Horton Grand Hotel’s new restaurant, and Viewpoint Brewing Co. debuting next week in Del Mar.
Today’s special guest is Jaime Fritsch, a local photographer with a passion for food, sustainability, and responsible sourcing. He tells us all about what it’s like to work with Javier Plascencia—Fritsch shot the chef’s new cookbook, The Soul of Baja—and hosting the controversial dinner event, Death for Food. Plus, he explains why Bracero really closed.
On today’s Happy Half Hour podcast, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram talk restaurant openings, including Fools and Kings in Mission Hills and Park 101 in Carlsbad Village.
Our special guest is Catt White, the CEO of San Diego Markets and the force behind some of the city’s largest and most successful farmers markets, including Little Italy Mercato. She chats with us about what it takes to be a bonafide “farmers market” and how the city can better serve our farmers and producers. Joining the conversation is Lucila De Alejandro, co-owner of Suzie’s Farm, the 70-acre organic farm that recently announced it’ll be shutting down. She talks about why the farm is closing, the future of agriculture in San Diego, and what listeners can do to help.
Also, is cannabis the savior of farming? Let’s discuss.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour podcast, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram are chatting restaurant openings and closing, including a new taco spot in North Park.
Today’s guest is Brien O’Brien, a San Diegan currently cooking his way through this season of Masterchef. The Pacific Beach resident tells us about what he made for judges during the interview process and what Gordon Ramsey is really like.
We’re also talking about the best food documentaries on Netflix right now, an avocado heist, and the link between French fries and mortality.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including Enoteca Adriano, Oceana Coastal Kitchen, Tartine, and Petite Madeline.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour podcast, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram are talking local restaurant news, including what’s coming to the space once occupied by Café Bleu in Mission Hills, Ceviche House’s move to Old Town, and a two-level Gaslamp property due next month.
Today’s guest if chef Brad Wise of Trust, Troy’s pick for Best New Restaurant in this month’s Best Restaurants issue. He chats about what it was like to start working at JRDN just a few days after moving to the West Coast at age 21, working in a 12-story hotel in Bakersfield, and the most agonizing 21 minutes of his life.
We also chat about Amazon buying Whole Foods and female chefs who are leading the cannabis cuisine revolution.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including Yokohama Yakitori Koubou, Upper East Bar, and Panca.
It’s our 50th episode! And it’s a boozy one.
Hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram chat about local restaurant openings, like a pizza drive-thru coming to Pacific Beach and the Quartyard’s move in the East Village.
Joining us is the North County-based team behind Misadventure & Co., a vodka company that makes their alcohol from past-due baked goods. They tell us all about how they actually make the spirit, plus the sustainability mission behind their brand. They also brought us a few handles, so of course we do a taste test.
We also chat about the problems with the rising popularity of mezcal and Coors rereleasing Zima.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including The Land & Water Co., Plumeria, and Wrench & Rodent.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram talk local restaurant buzz, like the heated debate about 10 Barrel Brewing, a Hillcrest staple closing, a collaboration between Tajima and Carnitas’ Snack Shack, and what to expect during Negroni Week (like a peppercorn-bell pepper libation at Officine Buona Forchetta)
Our guest is chef Nick Brune of Eco Caters, a sustainable local food business that caters the San Diego Gulls, Los Angeles Kings, the Dodgers, and more. He’s also leading his SoundBite Dinner Series at Lot 8, the new event space in Mission Valley.
We’re also chatting about the rise (and fall) of fancy burgers and 58 of the most stupid orders chefs have ever heard.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including The Hake, 608 Oceanside, and Biga.
On today’s Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram chat local dining news, including Tacos el Gordo and Tacos el Franc opening downtown, the closing of Del Mar’s Mia Francesca, Lot 8 debuting in Mission Valley, and a grown-up take on Chuck E. Cheese coming to North Park. Plus, pssst: La Jolla may be getting a Crack Shack!
Today’s special guest is Catalina Offshore Products’ fishmonger Tommy Gomes, a native San Diegan with deep roots in the city’s tuna fishing scene. He tells us about his history, how to cook fish via his YouTube channel, and Catalina’s new line of canned tuna.
We’re also discussing the San Diego chef who’s making waves at a Noma pop-up in Tulum, Mexico and Pinterest’s “Shazam for food” app.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including Volare.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram discuss local dining news, including rumors about a brick and mortar location for the hush-hush dinner series Cow by Bear, the newly renovated (and newly named) rooftop at Hotel Solamar, and a new two-level market coming to North Park. Plus, Whisknladle Hospitality has announced a new project set to debut in late 2018.
Joining us is Rachel Dutton, assistant professor at UC San Diego’s Division of Biological Sciences who studies cheese and its microbes. Yes, a professor of cheese! We profiled the scientist in our June issue and today Rachel drops by to talk about how her research can lead to better tasting cheese, a must-read food nerd book by Harold McGee, and what it’s like to be married to one of the Cheese Twins, who also took home gold in Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race.
We’re also discussing how scientists just can’t figure out how to make a natural version of Lucky Charms.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including Lionfish at the Pendry Hotel, Bahia Don Bravo, The Taco Stand, and Facing East Noodle & Bar.
On today’s Happy Half Hour podcast, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram discuss local dining news, like the opening (today!) of Bo-Beau’s newest location in Hillcrest, the new Chinese spot Village North on Convoy, and Wrench & Rodent chef Davin Waite’s new menu items made with—wait for it— banana peels.
Today’s special guest is Tommy Baumann, general manager of Bali Hai. We chat with Tommy about the resurgence of tiki culture, working in a restaurant family, his favorite tipple on the menu besides the potent Mai Tai, and the upcoming Tiki Oasis event.
We’re also talking about how Britain is banning junk food ads before 9 p.m., the launch of healthy food prescriptions, and the mislabeling of certain seafood.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including Fifth & Rose at the Pendry Hotel, Blue Door Winery, Azuki Sushi, and Minh Ky.
In today’s episode of the Happy Half Hour podcast, hosts Erin Chambers Smith, Troy Johnson, and producer Archana Ram discuss local dining news, including the opening of Cutwater Spirits, a new lunch menu at Officine Buona Forchetta, Liberty Station’s new farmers market, and the upcoming Wolf in the Woods restaurant headed to Mission Hills later this year.
Today’s special guest is Mia Vaughnes, founder of Good Neighbor Gardens, an urban sharecrop program that farms yards in San Diego homes and schools. They deliver locally grown, pesticide-free produce through a unique CSA model and are currently farming in 84 gardens, as far south as National City and as far north as Encinitas. She talks about the top crops of the season and supporting school garden education. Plus, a cool hack for growing avocados.
Speaking of the green fruit, we also chat about a variety of avocados that may grow year-round in California, how hipsters driving up the cost of certain foods, the Aunt Jemima recall (check your freezer!), and a study about who eats the most fast food. It’s not who you think.
We end the show with recommendations for Two People/$50, including Barbusa, TJ Oyster Bar, Tajima, and Moncai Vegan.
What it’s like to be the general manager of a super fancy restaurant (Mister A’s), new restaurant openings in North County and North Park, plus the best things Troy Johnson ate in San Diego this week.
Bracero shifts to a new concept, high-end restaurants are disappearing, and George’s at the Cove and Galaxy Taco chef-partner Trey Foshee stops by
Bo-beau Kitchen unveils a new project in Hillcrest, The Prager Bros. stop by, and we debate the merits of toasting bread
Curadero opens downtown, a local kombucha brand explains why you need to be drinking the probiotic drink, and the US Grant Hotel talks cocktails
OB Surf Lodge opens, Omar Passons talks “shopping with our values,” and the US Grant Hotel dishes on its upcoming Easter buffet
Catalina Offshore debuts canned tuna, Buona Forchetta drops in, and Stone Brewing Co. releases a Toilet to Tap beer
A new distillery opens in the East Village, a beloved chicken eatery closes, and Cutwater Spirits bar manager Christian Siglin stops by
Holy Matcha debuts in North Park, a beloved Mexican eatery returns to Ocean Beach, and Jacqueline Coulon from the Little Lion stops by
A female chef event at Cucina Enoteca, a new ramen spot in Bankers Hill, and “The Craft Beer Attorney” stops by
A new farm-to-table concept debuts in La Mesa, the man behind “the best BBQ in the city” stops by, and more
Stella Public House expands to North County, the behind-the-scenes scoop on our annual Best Restaurants poll, and Herb & Wood’s executive pastry chef stops by
The Pendry brings five food and drink concepts to downtown, lauded Oceanside chef Davin Waite stops by, and more
Philz Coffee opens in Encinitas, a new Mexican eatery is announced for Liberty Station, and two poultry farmers from Ramona stop by
Westfield UTC expands its food scene in a major way, a restaurant in Spain finds a novel way to feed the hungry, and the founder of Kitchens for Good stops by
Trust to open a new cocktail concept in Hillcrest, why you should take photos of your food, and Bird Rock Coffee Roasters’s Chuck Patton stops by
A new Hillcrest restaurant opens, the restaurant industry faces a major bubble, and Urban Solace’s Matt Gordon stops by
Javier Plascencia splits with Bracero, Farm to Fork Week launches, and Cook Pigs Ranch founder Krystina Cook stops by
An iconic bayside restaurant closes, Karl Straus Brewing Company expands, and the founder of “LinkedIn for the restaurant industry” stops by
Oscar’s brings fish tacos to North County, a wine bar opens in Liberty Station, and our cocktail columnist Kelly Davis dishes on the best drinks in town
Bird Rock Coffee Roasters wins big, a major project debuts at the Port, and the owners of Le Parfait Paris stop by
A pizzeria opens in Bird Rock, the best local holiday foods, and a lesson in entertaining from AMIHO Experience
Gourmet Indian street food debuts in La Jolla, a long-awaited sandwich shops comes to Encinitas, and chef Daniel Wollinsky of Cucina Sorella stops by
A Taiwanese trend debuts on Convoy, holiday gifts for foodies, and the future of fine dining in San Diego
A major burger brand lands in San Diego, real restaurant talk with the owner of Breakfast Republic, and Troy shares behind-the-scenes scoop from the Food Network
Modern Times expands, new dishes debut at Puesto, and Catalina Offshore vet Dan Nattrass stops by
A speakeasy opens in Oceanside, Puesto reveals the recipe for a perfect margarita, and Café Gratitude stops by to chat healthy eats
A wine bar opens in Little Italy, a beer app brings growlers to your door, and a Nomad Donuts chef stops by the show
Malarkey does salads, Troy’s rants about tips, and we all get into good grapes from Escondido with a local vintner
A matcha café to open in North Park, PETA says beer is healthier than milk, and restaurant real estate pro Nate Benedetto stops by
Saffron expands, The New York Times profiles a local chef, Campfire’s bar manager stops by with cocktails, and more
A former Charger opens a cafe, why bison is in vogue, and a certified cheese specialist talks fromage
Mastiff Sausage Company opens in North Park, a happy hour taco cart in UTC, the secret diet of food critics, and Azúcar's chef-owner stops by
A major restaurant opens in Carlsbad, Domino’s delivers pizzas by drone, and a designer stops by with behind-the-scenes scoop on San Diego’s top eateries
The gateway drink to sour beers, a beloved Mexican eatery opens a new location, fried chicken-scented sunscreen, and more
Shark Tank vegan cinnamon rolls, everything you need to know about good coffee, and the virtues of warm beer
A beer-themed hotel, new burgers in North Park, and Carnitas’ Snack Shack chef-owner Hanis Cavin stops by
A raw-focused menu in Carmel Valley, urban chicken coops, and insight from a local farmer
Vintage arcade games in La Mesa, Chipotle’s new fast food venture, and MasterChef winner Claudia Sandoval drops by
A downtown bakery serves beer and donuts, Chef Tim Kolanko talks Liberty Public Market, The Best Thing I Ate This Week, and more
Episode 2 of the Happy hour. We discuss edible spoons, food photography trade secrets, and a whole lot more. Hosted by Chief Content Officer of San Diego Magazine Erin Chambers Smith, and San Diego Magazine and Food Network personality Troy Johnson. Enjoy!
San Diego Magazine's weekly podcast covering all things drinks, dinner, and dessert happening San Diego.