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Saturday, April 19, 2008

noon - 4 pm

$30

This year’s annual Taste of Uptown Hillcrest event is going to be more spectacular than ever! With over 40 participating restaurants and a new coinciding Sidewalk Sale, the Uptown/Hillcrest area will be alive with local flavor.

Local businesses will have great deals and plenty to see as you stroll around Hillcrest sampling the many diverse styles of food it has to offer. Ticket holders will be able to taste rare and new dishes from some of the area’s best-known eateries, including new participants such as Aladdin Restaurant, Big City Bagels, Chef’s Wok, Terra Restaurant and Bar, St. Tropez Bakery and Bistro, Rannoosh Mediterranean Cuisine, and Viva Pasta.

Dick’s Last Resort. Pasta

I remember sampling this dish and asking Dennis “Is this only pasta?” His reply was that he had eaten the one tiny piece of meat that they had served on our sampling tray. As for the part that I did taste, the pasta was not that special.

The Wild Thyme Co. Miso Honey Martinis, H20 melon gazpacho shots and poke bites.

This was one of the restaurants entered under the “raw food” category. We weren’t particularly fond of any of these dishes. I couldn’t stomach the strange pink gazpacho shot and thought the sauce surrounding the ahi was quite salty!

Baleen Restaurant (left). Pineapple and Thai chile glazed pork with buckwheat, bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, pineapple and mushrooms. Atoll Restaurant (right). Hawaiian braised beef short ribs.

For a dish that was served in asian take-out boxes, this one was surprisingly quite delicious! This made our favorites list instantly as we dug into the tender pork, pulled out long strands of noodles, and nibbled the complimenting vegetables! As for the short ribs, there wasn’t as much flavor in the meat as I would have preferred.

Brandt Beef (left). Indian spice rubbed beef carpaccio. Molly’s Restaurant (right). House dry aged leg of lamb loin carpaccio, pine nut, sultanas, preserved lemon, local organic spinach.

Neither Dennis nor I have really eaten carpaccio before but it definitely wasn’t to our taste. What we did notice was that the beef from Brandt Beef was a bit icy, as if they forgot to let it thaw a little more before serving. We can’t really comment on the food anymore with our unfamiliarity of this type of food.

Morton’s The Steakhouse. BBQ beef burger with mayo…?

Are you kidding me?! With all the fancier dishes out there, this one did not seem to be a good representation of a STEAKHOUSE. We took one bite of the sandwich and well… it just tasted like some kind of boring meat wrapped in bread, with only mayo to season it!

Jake’s Del Mar (left). braised short ribs on a tiger shrimp couscous with a pomegranate reduction. Oceanaire (right). Seafood sausage. (three types of seafood)

I’ve eaten at Jake’s before and the food is generally tasty but the sample didn’t turn out as well for me. Dennis and I, as well as many other guests we spoke to, loved the seafood sausage from Oceanaire though! It felt like a healthier yet still yummy version of sausage to me! Not to mention, it was wonderful that the chef and the servers were dressed from the 40’s era!

Flemming’s (left). Sirloin carpaccio fillet tenderloin with pickled sweet onion, mixed greens, striped beets, pumpkin oil and arugula oil. Esquire’s (right). Chicken gumbo.

I don’t remember this one too much but now that I know what carpaccio is, I’m guessing that we didn’t like it too much either. As for the gumbo-like soup, I felt like I would have rather had the jambalaya from the Taste of San Diego. This one was a bit lacking and I hardly wanted to eat it.

Gringos Cantina (left). Fillet mignon with a chipotle glaze. Clay’s La Jolla (right). Tiger Prawn skewers with bok choy pine nuts red cabbage onions and a honey creole mustard.

The beef from Gringos tasted tough and did not have much flavor in it, other than the sauce around it. In fact, the picture looks similar to a brownie or something! The tiger prawn skewers were definitely one of our favorites of the day. We absolutely loved the robust flavor of the bacon penetrating into the shrimp. The shrimp sauce was a little too sweet for my taste though.

California Cuisine (left). Tea sandwich with a sweet potato brios fougra taurine apple compote arugula candy kumquats. Sally’s Restaurant (right). Something with Salmon.

The tea sandwich was definitely something new that we had never tasted before and was quite on our ‘dislike’ side of foods. It tasted too sweet and fell all over the place as we ate it. As for the salmon dish, this one must have been decent because I remember helping to clean off the plate.

Chive (left). Szechwan peppercorn dusted duroc pork tenderloin with Japanese cabbage cake fuji apple compote black bean preserve. Moondoggies (right). Shrimp ceviche and chips.

We were thrilled with the shrimp ceviche here! It were fantastic!

Bondi. Australian lamb cutlet with apple mandate chutney and rose beet and green bean salad with goat cheese dressing.

This one was easily among our favorites. Lamb, in our experience, seems easy to mess up but this one turned out splendid! We nibbled every tasty morsel off the bone.

Beach City Market. Backed mussels with cavier and crab meat.

I don’t eat mussels too often but the overall taste was decent to me.

Beach City Market (left). Smoked mussel with salsa fresca and Maui onion. Mediterranean Bar and Grill (right). Salmon roulade, has goat cheese smoked salmon capers mayer lemon and micro arugula.

I wasn’t as much of a fan for the smoked mussel dish. We also ate food from Buster’s Beach House, but forgot to take a photo of it. It looks like the food from last year’s festival. Dennis remembers the coconut rice the most.

Quarter Kitchen. Caviar taco.

We somehow missed the caviar taco booth the first time around but when we arrived a bit after 3pm, the food was already out! The chef did pull out a hidden sample in an ornate holder from under some napkins but he didn’t let us have a taste! We’ll just have to imagine that it was wonderful and that we would be able to sample them next year.

Another exciting year at the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival!
http://www.worldofwineevents.com/

Lynn and I attempted to cover over 50 restaurants in 4 hours this year!

Concept Catering by CK (left). Smoked Salmon Potstickers with Mango Relish infused with truffles. Arterra Restaurant & Bar (right). Duck confit with marinated cucumber and tangerine chile glaze.
We really liked the salmon potstickers with their unique fishy filling, but unfortunately the skin was soggier than normal due to the portable stove and a rush to quickly serve the growing crowd. The relish added a bit of sweet yet healthy touch to the dumpling but we thought it was a slight out of place for this appetizer. -L
The duck confit immediately became one of our favorites after we popped the succulent sandwich-like sample into our mouths. The flavor of the duck had the perfect sweetness and the fresh cucumbers around it balanced it out by working as a compliment. -L

Two Peas in a Pod. A sweat pea hummus with a little bit of yogurt pancetta and fresh mint on a crostini.

The hummus definitely had a nice slightly creamy feel in the mouth with a decent sprinkle of the pancetta bits and green. All in all, it wasn’t too bad of an appetizer but the ratio of bread to topping led to a slightly drier mouth after consuming the samples. -L
Sage Cafe. Butterscotch creme brulee.

This was a fabulous dessert! After piercing the crystalized sugar top layer, we dug out the creamy sweet insides and it melted in our mouths! -L

Rice Restaurant (left). Butternut squash lobster crepe with amaretto cherry and grand marnier orange reduction sauce. Romesco Baja Med Bistro (right). Taco.

The crepe sounded interesting enough and it tasted pretty good too. The Romesco taco was surprisingly good. The meat was extra tender and the sauce had just the right amount of spice to it. -D

ChileCo. Moroccan “scotch” quail egg, quail consomme-cider sip. Wild sage n’ elderberry smoked quail breast, quail confit n’ coconut shu-mai.

These items were presented on flat bamboo stalk with a slight concave dip in center. The shu-mai and smoked quail breast had some great flavor to it. Thats all I remember about it. -D

Jade Theater (left). Spicy tuna crab, stuffed shiitaki tempura style with a sugar spice with a thai vinaigrette and a sate sauce with a daikon salad. Harbor’s Edge (right) at Sheridan Hotel in Marina. Asian braised short ribs.

Jade’s spicy tuna crab was one of my favorites at the festival. I had to go back for seconds later in the day! The braised ribs were just so-so. -D

Terra Restaurant and Catering. Kabocha squash and dungeness crab flan with chai tea smoked arctic char.

I didn’t like this one at all. Besides smelling like it just came out of the sea, it even tasted like it too! There was this strong saltiness to it and a strange tangy flavor that reminded me of ham… -D

The Guild Restaurant and Lounge (left). Thai inspired ceviche with seared hamachi carpachio. The Shores Restaurant (right). Braised kobe beef short ribs. Maple sweet potatoes. Micro chive sprouts and old vine Zinfandel sauce, chile oil.

I can’t remember how the ceviche tasted. Instead of chewing and savoring the flavor, I downed the whole thing like a shot. Probably not the correct method of eating it… but it was fun! As for the braised kobe beef, it was tender enough but was lacking flavor. -D

Sammy’s Woodfire Pizza. Beets and lettuce?

I wish they had served pizza instead! -D

Roppongi (left). Maine diver’s sea scallop. Daikon dashi tempura green beans. Dynamite aioli, green tea salt. Pacific Del Mar (right). Maine lobster cocktail. Layers of napa cabbage poached maine lobster meat topped with kimchi foam garnished with micro cilantro sprouts and sesame cracker.

Roppongi’s sea scallop was super tiny. That photo above is about the actual size of it! Luckily the tempura was good enough to make up for it. It wasn’t soggy as we expected it to be. Pacific Del Mar had a tasty lobster but that was it. The cabbage tasted plain and the cracker was average. -D

Oasis Bar & Grill. Grilled stripe bass with grilled finnel. Tomatoes and picholine olives with aged cherry vinaigrette.

Lynn and I couldn’t agree on this one. I liked it because of the vinaigrette flavor but Lynn didn’t like it because of it. But the one thing we did agree on was the awesome little trays the stripe bass was presented on! -D

Sweet Cheeks. Carrot Cake.

The carrot cake was a good snack between tasting the other foods. -L

Blanca Restaurant (left). Day boat diver scallop with vidalia onion-potato rosti, butter braised smoked onions nueske’s bacon beurre blanc. Bernard’s Restaurant (right). Orange zest sea ursin flan, center cut ahi tuna, lobster consomme, califlower mousse and orange tuile.

The scallop was good but we didn’t care much for the potato underneath. The bacon flavor was an interesting element. I just wish it was a bit more subtle in flavor. The orange zest sea ursin flan was weird. Weird bad. I thought it was supposed to be traditional flan but it was some kind of soup with ahi bits in it. -D

Horn Blower’s. Sweet Potato carrot confection.

JRDN Restaurant (left). Braised lamb with eggplant caponata plus shaved manchego cheese. Dussini Mediterranean Bistro (right). Grillle and marinated red deer with swiss charred and roasted Montreal mushrooms.

Braised lamb was somewhat boring. The shaved manchego cheese didn’t help. I thought the marinated red deer was interesting though. I can’t really judge the quality of it because I’ve never had red deer before but I liked it. -D

http://www.ccssd.org/

In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Center for Community Solutions (CCS) held their third annual Chef Showdown on October 4, 2007 in Balboa Park’s Casa del Prado Courtyard. This year’s theme was “Taking a Stand Against Domestic Violence.” The event included food samplings, both a silent auction and a live auction, and an “Iron Chef” style competition to raise funds to support CCS’ sexual assault and domestic violence prevention and intervention programs throughout San Diego.

Upon entering, I was greeted by CCS’ friendly staff. Numerous tables were set up with food samplings from fine restaurants throughout San Diego County. In the middle, more tables were set up for the silent auction. Some of the items up for bid included spa treatments, cooking classes, and cookbooks.

I didn’t realize that there was more until it was announed that the cooking competition was about to begin in a second courtyard area. There were three secret ingredients: dragonfruit, a variety of spreads, and freshly flown in mahi mahi (which were probably 4 to 5 feet long!). Each of the two teams had 5 top chefs from some of San Diego’s best restaurants.

Here are some of the incredible food samplings:

While talking to a few of the chefs from Barona, I found out that they have their own culinary academy on site. Since I don’t eat beef or pork, I did not try this appetizer, but it did look well crafted with vibrant colors.

Viejas was also present. I enjoyed their jumbo shrimp very much, but the gazpacho “shooter” had too much cilantro for me.

Urban Solace’s Skillet Fried Shrimp was also good (but not as big as Viejas). I did not care for the Chili Grits (underneath). It tasted like bad corn bread. The Watermelon/Tomato/Cucumber Salad was drenched with a pomegranate vinaigrette and mixed with pine nuts and feta.

The Oceanaire provided a spicy Ahi Poke. I talked to their representative about Chef Brian Malarkey (from “Top Chef”) and without realizing that I had not seen the finale yet, she told me she couldn’t believe that _____ had won…

Pictured here is Hacienda de Vega’s crunchy flat beef taco. I sampled their lobster version. The shell added a nice crispy crunch to the lobster meat mixture.

Quarter Kitchen had cute little martini glasses of layers of guacamole, salsa, and creme fraiche topped with a peppery baguette (thinly sliced).

The Wild Thyme Company offered three different samples in martini glasses: Bangkok Thai (udon noodles, carrots, cucumber, peanuts, and thai peanut sauce), Strawberry Blue (spinach, maytag blue cheese, strawberries, candied walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette), and not pictured is Miso Honey with Salmon (napa cabbage, watercress, sugar snap peas, wonton chips, and honey miso dressing). The Bangkok Thai has a spicy taste that is not overpowering. The udon noodles had a nice soft consistency to it. I only sampled the salmon (not the whole dish) and it was tender.

Croce’s provided large crispy wontons filled with an Ahi poke mixture.

The Shores

Chef Amy DiBiase of Baleen made Dungeness Crab Sopes with Strawberry Papaya and Smoked Chili Cream.

Avenue 5

Isabel’s Cantina offered samples of chicken and rice with a delicious lemony sauce.

One of Barona’s chefs carefully makes creme brulee. This was my favorite dessert. It was incredibly creamy with a sweet, crunchy top shell. It was so good that I came back for another one and when I did, the chef was eating one. You know the food has to be amazing if the chef can’t keep his mouth away from it!

San Diego Desserts had an assortment of sweet treats that I kept coming back for more. Their chocolate cake is heavenly.

If you’ve been to Hash House a go go, then you already know about their generous portions. This is a double portion of their Bread Pudding. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but the plate was larger than my head!

I’m sorry to say that Vincenzo’s Canoli only looked delicious. I’m not sure what it was, but I didn’t like the pastry shell. I enjoy Janoli from Sweet Lady Jane in LA and they use a shell made of what appears to be a cross between peanut brittle and a thin layer of rice crispy treats.

J. Taylor’s Restaurant had a unique display of test tubes filled with Fig Mousse with White Chocolate Soil and Candied Orange Zest. The soil was delicious. It was like finely crushed cookie crumbs. I’m not a fig person, so I didn’t enjoy the rest of the dessert as much, but I could definitely taste the orange zest.

Blanca’s Butterscotch Pot de Creme with Single Malt Chantilly and Salted Caramel Sauce. This was another delicious dessert. It looks like the new thing is having desserts in little shot glasses.

It was a great night of sophisticated food beautifully plated and CCS was able to raise thousands of dollars for their programs. =)

Our Taste of Downtown adventure continued as we trekked down 5th St.

Henry’s Pub

The same dish as last year was served here. Dennis liked the salmon, saying it had a nice brush of lemon on it but the internal temperature of the fish was cold. We skipped out on the mashed potatoes because we’ve already had them before and we had a long night of tasting ahead of us!

Aqua Blue

This was a seafood wanton with shrimp and scallop inside. The wanton was boring and the yucky sauce didn’t add anything to it.

Bella Luna

Dennis tried the samples here, which was just spaghetti and sauce.  The servers were very stingy on the portions, by giving only THREE pieces of noodle and hardly any sauce.  It was hardly enough to sample but since it tasted bad anyway, it worked out so that we didn’t have to waste food by throwing the rest away.

Alambres

We thought this was one of the worst samples of the night. The chicken in the fajita mix was very dry and bland and overall it was oily. If this was an example of the type of food this place serves, we’d never come there again. The beans and rice were normal, ordinary side dishes so we didn’t try them, especially after tasting the chicken.

Dakota Grill

This was another favorite of ours! Even though the rich pizza was a little bit cheesy on top, the sweet onion flavor really made this dish stand out to us. I don’t remember what else was inside but the perfectly cooked crust and the overall taste were hard to put down! We should have grabbed another but we’ll do that when we dine here in the future!

Mai Tai Tiki Hut

The chicken and rice portion was not very appealing and the taste reflected that. On the other hand, the sauce for the dumpling was quite nice and complimented the dumpling. I heard from other tasters that the food was good, but apparently the samples didn’t live up to their reputation for that night. Though, a few of us have eaten here before and the food is usually very good.

Gaslamp Tavern

Even though the right wing was flavored with teriyaki, it had a tinge of spice on it. The buffalo wings were definitely more spicy and we had to get water after eating it. Between the two, the meat on the buffalo wing was better but that’s more likely the fault of the wing used, not the flavor and cooking.

Belo

What a disappointment this year! Last year this macaroni dish was very good but this year, it seemed like all the flavor was forgotten and the pasta sauce had been drained from the dish. That was puzzling to us!

Yard House

We thought this eggroll was very memorable. It had a perfect blend of ingredients inside, with just the right amount of meat and veggies. The outside wasn’t as crisp as it should have been but that’s due to the serving bins and the fact that it was already 3 hours into the night. I’d definitely recommend trying this fresh out of the kitchen.

Ra Sushi Bar

Like last year, this sushi roll was awesome. A new sample this year was the chicken wing sprinkled with sesame seeds on the left. The chicken wing had a great subtle sweet flavor and quite a bit of spiciness… we had to run off to grab some water to cool off the flavor but we did enjoy it!

House of Blues

This dish was a lot better than the awfully seasoned cajan catfish from last year. The shrimp was paired with cornbread and drizzled with sauce. The overall taste was decent. The dessert was a banana nut kind of cake and was very good. It was a moderate sweetness and the scattered nuts added a touch of crunch. Dennis couldn’t stop eating it!

Stout Public House

The shepherds pie was fresh out of the oven when we received ours. It was extremely cheesy on top and the insides were very meaty, without much, if any, vegetables.  I like shepherds pie with more ingredients so this one didn’t fall in my favor. Also, we were getting full by this point of the night so we may not have been able to enjoy it as well as we should have.

Sixth Avenue Bistro

The jambalaya was decent at this restaurant. The tomato-based sauce was flavorful and the vegetables were tender. Despite rapidly converging into full stomachs, I couldn’t resist the chicken pieces because they were succulent and perfectly cooked!

Le Cake Chateau

More desserts! Both were like normal pastries with a difference of toppings. The lemon flavor was decent but the strawberry one was much better. The pink cream was very fluffy though and it would have been nice if the strawberry were bigger.

After this last location, we rejoined our group of friends to head out to Little Italy. Unfortunately, we didn’t look at the map too carefully so we parked very far away from the center of the Little Italy tastings and had to do much walking.

Karl Strauss

This was the beer tasting place for this year’s Taste of Downtown. The Karl Strauss beers were on tap for sampling. A few in our group liked the Red Trolley the best.

Petrini’s

The meatballs here were fabulous! Even full, we couldn’t stop munching on them. They also served cannoli, which is a sweet italian pastry shaped like a mini tube with a cream filling. Both ends were accented with a cherry.

Indigo Grill

It was a creamy buttery thing with fish on top but we didn’t really like it all that much. It looks interesting though!

Buon Appetito

The pasta here was not that great but we did let the dish get a little cold before tasting.

It’s a Grind Coffee Shop

Neither of us are coffee drinkers so we didn’t have much input here. Our other group didn’t mention anything special about this place either.

Vincenzo

Once again, very bland red pasta. It was minutes until 9pm so they were about ready to close up for the night. The pasta wasn’t that fresh to begin with.  Another friend of ours had tried it when it was fresher but he commented that even then, it was awful.

Chi Chocolat

Not much of a sampling at this place. We were hoping there’d be some of their specialty chocolates available to sample but there were only chocolate covered strawberries. The strawberries were nicely presented though, with the lighter chocolate wrapped around the dark!  It did taste great in the mouth!
In the end, we hit up over 30 participating restaurants this year. Not too bad since there were only two reviewers and we almost always traveled together.