San Diego Eats and Treats

I just got back from San Diego and I’m not functioning well. I just need my own bed, my own food, and less PMS. Then my life would be complete. But at least I’m back with my best friend, meaning my dog, Jackson. I missed the sh*t out of him.

So I ate a f*ck ton in San Diego. Really, too much. But I guess that’s what you do on work trips/vacations. I decided to not workout at all, just to give my body a complete break and be able to rebuild a little bit, so I was actually really pumped to get back in the gym when I got home. My workout proved what my diet had been like the past few days, but at least I got in the gym for something on a Sunday.

Anywho, when I got to San Diego, I asked everyone on instagram where were the best places to eat. Well, there were over 300 comments about restaurants. Someone told me to go to ‘On the Border’. What? Are you high? Have you been to that place? Weird. But there were a ton of great recommendations. Even though I obviously didn’t try all of them, here are some great ones I’ve heard of before for any of you who plan to visit San Diego, as well as all the places I tried!

• The Flying Pig
• Prepkitchen
• Hodad’s
• Cowboy Star
• Not So Fast Paleo Food Truck
• Candelas on the Bay
• Point Loma’s Seafood
• Great Maple (for brunch)
• Buona Forchetta (gf pizza)
• Bo-Beau
• Cucina Urbana
• Cafe 21
• Underbelly

Now let’s talk about the places I tried! When I got to San Diego, I was too lazy to go anywhere right away, so I ordered room service. Terrible idea. I was obviously instantly disappointed, so I showered up then headed out solo to Carnitas Snack Shack. It had popped up on my yelp recommendations and had a ton of good reviews, and then a ton of people recommended it on my instagram. So I grabbed a cab over and was surprised that the “restaurant” was actually really like a snack shack. It was a little shack that you ordered at the window then took your food to go or went around the corner to sit down and wait for your food. They also had another shack in the back that you could order beer or wine at. Since I was starving, I ordered some wine, chips and salsa, then two pork tacos.

Their guacamole was awesome and they had this really good jicama and corn slaw on the side of the tacos that were awesome, but I kind of felt whatever about the tacos. I’m a big taco person. We have tacos at least once a week at home in Denver, but these were just kind of meh. I just wanted a little more pop of flavor like salt or spice or something. It was still good and really big portion for tacos, but I was crazy impressed like so many other people. Still worth going to because the ambiance was really fun. And I’m guessing their smothered fries are pretty awesome. I mean come, they’re smothered fries.

The next day I was lucky enough to get to go to Pete’s Paleo kitchen, cook and hang out with him, then I got to try his bacon. It’s f*cking awesome. Like, seriously, awesome. You have to try it. Then we headed out around the bay and I thankfully found a gluten free cupcake at Frost Me Cupcakes to eat later that night. I’m a weirdo and like eating dessert by myself in my hotel room, in bed, while watching MTV. Judge me. Do it. Before I ate my cupcake in bed, I ate dinner at Comun Kitchen and Tavern, but I sadly felt whatever about it. I order a carnitas tostada and the steamed halibut and both weren’t super flavorful. I think I should have tried something else, but the tomato salad was AWESOME and I hate salads, so that says something. So I’m glad I had my cupcake to end the night with. And I saw Chris Humphreys (Kim Kardashian’s ex husband) right by the restaurant because they were at a gym that was above the restaurant. He’s gigantic.

The next morning I started my day off at the Little Italy Farmer’s Market. This farmer’s market is AWESOME. It’s like 3 blocks long with gluten free stands, paleo products, jewelry, artwork, produce, meat, really whatever you want. I didn’t end up getting anything because I needed cash, and had none, but I did get a mocha while I was in Little Italy. It was sweet and made up for the fact that I didn’t get a molten lava cake at the gluten free bakery stand.

I’m also glad I held back because my friend Vanessa from Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind, Stacy, and I all started the day off with brunch at Barleymash. A bunch of people recommended this place in gas lamp, so I just had to try it! They have a mimosa bar AND a bloody mary bar. We decided to do the mimosa bar, where I made a pomegranate peach mimosa then pretty much just drank champagne straight from the bottle. We had the ALL IN hash that had pork belly confit, short ribs, pulled pork, beer cheese sauce and potatoes with an egg on top. I was so stupid full. But it was totally worth it.

THEN Vanessa pulled out her newest cookies she just made. If you haven’t heard already, Vanessa is writing her first cookbook and it’s going to be crazy insane awesome. I’ve been lucky enough to try a ton of different of recipes from her book and they are FANTASTIC. On Saturday, she brought us s’mores cookies. Dead. They are LITERALLY the best thing I’ve ever eat. Or at least up there. I took like a billion pictures of them.

After brunch, we went shopping. Don’t you worry, I’ll share all of my fun finds on Friday! Once we shopped, we needed a cocktail obviously. So we went to Craft and Commerce for a cocktail and and some Devils on Horseback (bacon wrapped dates) and some gin drinks. I don’t remember what it was, but I know it wasn’t strong enough. Still delicious but come on people. Poor in the gin.

We changed and headed out to dinner. At this point, I was still pretty full from sugar the entire day. But you gotta do what ya gotta do when you’re visiting girlfriends you barely get to see. We decided we wanted to have Searsucker for dinner because even though I thought I had eaten there before, I never had. And I wanted to actually see what it was all about. And it was AWESOME. I didn’t want to stop eating. We had duck fat fries, then farm bird lollipops, then artichoke hearts + gruyere + tomato, and jalapeno-chorizo “corn off the cobb”. AND THEN, we had brown butter cake and double irish whiskey sundae. It was stupid awesome. I just wanted to stay there for hours and never stop.

Last but not least, we had cocktails at Noble Experiment. It’s a speak easy in the back of the restaurant Neighborhood. You don’t really know where it is when you go into the restaurant. You just wander back through the super small restaurant back to the small area where the bathrooms are and if you’re lucky, someone pushes open the wall of kegs so you actually know where the speak easy is. Or at least that’s how it was for us. Thankfully Vanessa made reservations so we got in and had FANTASTIC cocktails. At this point, sugar was the last thing I need, but when in Rome. I had some gin concoction that was magical. Check out how sweet the ceiling was. And the walls were lined with skulls. So hip.

Do you have any favorite places to eat or drink in San Diego?? Share in the comments below so readers can visit those places too!