I recently saw Eureka! at the Bacon and Barrels event in San Diego with their award-winning Maple Bacon Old Fashioned. We were later invited to dine at Eureka! and find out more about the restaurant. It was a beautiful day to be sitting outside in their large patio area and we were looking forward to trying a few items from their menu.
Eureka! has plenty of craft beer and whiskey options so Dennis started out with the St. George Spirits Breaking and Entering Bourbon served as an old fashion muddled. This drink can be served on the rocks or however you prefer. Dennis thought it was very smooth and had a lighter, mellow flavor. Eureka uses these huge ice cubes to keep the drinks cold, which slowly melts, keeping your drink from getting diluted too fast. The garnish above includes these dark gourmet maraschino cherries, not as sugary sweet as the bright red ones you'd normally find with fruity cocktails.
I've been meaning to check out Kamikaze 7 for a while now. Each time I walk by the front door, the giant Asahi logo from the back of the restaurant beckons me to enter. Seriously, who would not be entranced by the sight and idea of a cold beverage on a warm summer day? The other thing that grabbed my attention are the hanging katana right above the chairs. Not only do they look pretty cool, but they add an air of excitement! Just make sure not to stand up and stretch your arms out!
I try not eat out at sit-down restaurants that often during weekday lunch times though due to a small amount of time for lunch break. But since my friend came down to the gaslamp for lunch, I figure it's time to try out this place.
The menu was simple with a short list of specialty sushi rolls. While most of the other sushi restaurants I've been to provide a much wider selection, I figure that perhaps this narrow offering is a focus of quality over quantity. And with the relatively higher prices, it better be good!
I missed an opportunity to try out Thai Time III with the lunch gang so convinced two other coworkers to join me a few weeks later. It’s a bit hidden off Genesse Ave near Balboa Ave because the strip mall's back side is facing the main street, but the restaurant itself had more seating than the little mom and pop shop I was expecting! We passed by the hostess stand and grabbed seating in the back section, showered with soft light from a window nearby.
The lunch specials start at $8 for vegetarian or $9+ for meats and include a small soup and salad. The peanut-flavored dressing on the salad wasn’t too thick or strong flavored and meshed well with the lettuce. The soup was a bit sparse, with a few micro pieces of carrot and zucchini floating throughout
One of my coworkers recommended Boomerangs Gourmet Burgers so we took a breather from work and headed down Clairemont Blvd. From the street, the building was super plain other than the upper left portion calling out the name of the restaurant. On the other side, there was a small parking lot with angled car spots and an apartment building feel, with the restaurant to the right. Once inside, you could grab seating to your right or climb the stairs to the rest of the restaurant...
Upstairs, the bar area to the right seemed trendier, or rather, the tables suddenly took on a more modern appeal (wooden tables and chairs) verses the more brightly colored booths and seating in the rest of the place. The four of us sat down at a table and pondered the menu.
The Create-Your-Own Burgers plate gave you options for three mix-ins, choice of cheese, choice of meat/weight and sides. Special sauces and certain items are an extra charge. Decisions decisions! About 15 minutes after ordering, the food began coming out. The burger platters came with the burgers separated and the accompanying side order.
Dennis and I have date nights for celebrating special occasions and have found ourselves at Roy's La Jolla a couple of times (including their happy hour recently). From Faye's Fork, I found out they had recently rebranded this location to "Roy Yamaguchi’s Pacific Rim Cuisine" which is quite a mouthful! After a quick phone call today, I found out that it was only a test run and had been changed back to just Roy's. Thank goodness!
For our most recent visit, we decided to try their Sunday Special 2 course, which contains a salad appetizer and a two meat entree for $29.95. They were out of ceasar salad, Dennis's favorite type of salad, so we went with the Baby Greens Salad. The dressing was described as a Japanese Yuzu Honey Emulsion but had a slightly citrus-y taste, like a tangerine. It was spread over an otherwise very simple salad with shaved carrot, cucumber and grape tomatoes. I feel like the ceasar would have been better had it been available but at least this one was a reasonable size.
Once a month, I get to dine out and catch up with my fabulous book club girls, plus we throw in some book talk, as little or as much as we feel like. In May, we all met at Bangkok Bay located in Solana Beach. It was the first visit for all of us so we were excited to try out this place.
Since we were doing family style, we decided to order the Tom Yum with tofu, in the "fire pot" size. This was about double the price of the "bowl" but could feed a lot more people!
Here's my portion. The five of us each ate a bowl of this size and there was enough left over for one extra bowl. I like the simplicity of a dish like this. The soup broth is rather typical and I like the texture and shape of the tofu in here, holds its shape but easy to eat. I especially like that there were mushrooms in the mix.
Saturday May 31 was the 1st Bacon and Bacons event in San Diego. I've never volunteered for an event before but decided to sign up myself. A group of us helped during the morning shift which started at 8am!
Once our shift was over, we were set free to raid the event! Early bird admission allowed us to get into the event at noon and regular admission started at 1pm. Since I was starving by this time, I decided to visit all the food booths first! At the entrance we were given environmentally friendly dining tools: a compostable plate, biodegradeable plastic cup, and the wrapped utensils we made earlier. The event is a zero waste event so all trash was divided into compost, waste, and recycle bags.
My first stop and closest to the front was the Duck Dive booth. They were serving their Three Little Piggies sandwich from their menu. I thought it was a little dry, maybe because the applewood smoked bacon, roasted pork loin, and pork belly were overpowered by the ciabatta bread. Cooked spinach and white cheddar rounded out the rest of the sandwich.
The Pork Belly and Waffles from West Coast Tavern immediately caught my eye! It even contained a dollop of BACON BUTTER! The combination of fatty pork, batter, butter and sweet syrup together was heaven to me and one of my favorite samples that day. I wish I had gotten a second helping later but was too busy exploring all the other tents!
Dennis and I had $60 of promotional credit at Benihana and only one month left before it expired. Rather than using it all on two entrees with the dinner show chefs, we decided to explore as much of the happy hour menu as possible. And we were able to try so many items!
Our first visit was on a Thursday around 6:30pm and there was a little bit of a wait. We bypassed it by getting seated at the sushi bar instead.
