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If you can live without the claw and knuckle meat of Maine lobster, the spiny species (a.k.a. rock lobster) served regularly at Ortega’s Mexican Bistro will feed you decent measures of tail meat plus yummy chunks from the base of the animal’s antennae
Since opening for breakfast and lunch in Pacific Beach three years ago, the Fig Tree Café has branched into Hillcrest with a dinner menu that isn’t available at its mother location. At least not yet.
The hungry miners who flocked to this area for rich surface ores more than 150 years ago are long dead,
although their legacy is loosely acknowledged through smoky tritip and other meaty meals at the Old Town Mining Company
Taking its cue from the original café founded 129 years ago in Chieri, Italy, the two-month-old Caffe Vergnano 1882 in Hillcrest is giving coffee drinkers a jolt of Italian tradition in a chic and artful setting.
If a devastating earthquake trapped me inside BICE Ristorante for an extended period of time, I’d want it to be within a breathable space alongside the dining room’s well-endowed cheese bar.
The pickings are slim in San Diego for late-night dining. And the list grows even shorter if you’re looking for a hot meal past the witching hour, say on a Monday. Yet in the hub of Hillcrest we find Saigon on Fifth, open until 3 a.m., daily and located on University Avenue—not “Fifth.”
If you’ve never eaten poutine, Alchemy in South Park is one of the few places in San Diego that you’ll find the French-Canadian dish, available in a teased-up version during weekend brunch.
At the quaint, humble Mediterranean Cafe, you can take a culinary romp through Greece, Italy or the Middle-East—or even Florida if you make it to dessert.
At four months young, Eden Restaurant has whooshed onto the Hillcrest restaurant scene with the kind of razzle-dazzle you’d expect if Bobby Flay brought his Mesa Grill into town. The difference is that Eden isn’t backed by a national celebrity chef, and its menu of creative comfort cuisine with Southwest inspirations sprinkled throughout remains a work in progress
As the owner of Hillcrest’s only subterranean restaurant, Nouri has steadily built repeat business through lively handshakes, hugs and conservations with his customers as they dine from clay tagine pots amid colorful fabrics and twinkling Moroccan lamps.
“It doesn’t get any better than this,” a friend in our group blurted as she extracted meat from a crab claw amid a shiny view of the downtown skyline winking at us from across the bay.
The ultimate litmus test that determines the soul of any Italian
restaurant lies in its grated cheese. Apertivo makes the grade with shakers of freshly grated Parmesan placed upon each table. No flavorless sawdust here