The Best and Worst of San Diego Food

Best Breakfast In San Diego

2005-10-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

The best breakfast in San Diego is at the Hob Nob Hill. First, you get the best service in town. The waitresses are caring, considerate, polite, and attentive. You feel wanted and appreciated. Let's compare that with the wait service at the nouveau Hash House around the corner. There, the wait staff is unattentive and give you the impression that you are fortunate to be in THEIR presence. The Hash House staff seems like that since you were foolish enough to wait 45 minutes to sit down that you will be foolish enough to tolerate their petulance. Had enough with that? Go to the Hob Nob. There are no snobs at the Hob Nob.

The food is the real treat at the Hob Nob. To start they have simply devine coffee cake. It comes in several flavors from pineapple to orange to berry. It is HOMEMADE and served warm with real, churned butter. It comes with all of the breakfast entrees. Other catches on the menu - the HOMEMADE saugage patties; the HOMEMADE corned beef or roast beef hash. If you are into grilled tomatoes, their's are very nice. The HOB NOB is a winner for breakfast. I just got back and am now ready for a nap.

Bully's

2005-10-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I just got back from my first quest for good soup. I went to Bully's in Mission Valley. I know it's about prime rib there, but I heard the french onion soup was good. So I plopped down on one of those comfortable pleather red booths and ordered a diet and the french onion soup. For $3.95 it comes with garlic bread which is okay. (Incidentally, they have nice flat screens to watch sports on there.) As for the ambiance, there is something about the 50 something 3 o'clock martini crowd that I just don't get. Moreover, the music there didn't really fit. It was just strange, perhaps even wrong, to hear DM at Bully's. The soup itself is nothing to sing about, so I need to keep looking around town for that perfect bowl.

Strangely, I also became intrigued by the mud pie. Okay, I know, it's lunch, etc., but I have a genetic predisposition for mud pie abuse. It's my heroin. But I am a critic too and I can tell you that this mud pie was not very good. First, it was too frozen; I needed a fork and knife to cut through the crust. And next, there just wasn't enough crust. True pie fans know that the crust makes the pie and there is never enough crust on one slice. I'm sure you'll hear more about my mud pie fascination in the future.

In the end - Bully's gets a 6 out of 10 for their soup and a 5 out of 10 for their mud pie.

Introduction

2005-10-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

This is a blog devoted to finding good, affordable food in San Diego. I love the trial and error method to finding restaurants. I decided to finally start this blog because the season's first rain has hit town, and I want to find a place in S.D. for some good soup. To me rain and good soup are the perfect combination to a good meal. Nothing is better than a hot bowl of delicious soup on a rainy day.

I know that the Cheese Shop has a daily soup which is apparently good and I know that D.Z. Akins also makes some nice soups, but I wanted someplace that reminded me of eating soup in San Francisco on a rainy day at my favorite soup place on O'Farrell Street eponymously named "Soups." There, they have a choice of 3 homemade soups made daily as well as a delightful chili.

As I yearned to find my San Diego "Soups" replacement, I searched and I searched for soup in San Diego on the internet. I found little info. I saw some place called "Chez...." on a top 10 list. Tres mal and the review said the place "served good soups, sandwiches, and salads." Blah, blah, blah. Then, I saw Souplantation on San Diego's top 10 list. Oh my god. Is it pronounced Sou-plantation or Soup-lantation? I mean I know that they want us to pronounce it Soup-plantation, but where's the other P in the name. Isn't newsstand spelled with two Ss? (Okay, so two of my pet peeves are spelling and grammar.)

Also, what's up with the plantation theme? Maybe it's because I'm not from the South, but when I think of a plantation - the first thing I think of is slavery. Perhaps that's exactly the point because you really aren't treated like a human being as you shuffle through the line at the quasi-buffet style Souplantation. Aside from these tangents, what matters here is that soup is nothing special at the Plantation. The Plantation owners apparently like to keep costs down by feeding their patrons the processed, canned stuff which is good at home sick in bed, but not for $5 a bowl.

So here I am. No good place for soup in SD. I'm getting hungry just thinking about finding some soups. So that's what I'm going to do today. But I'm also fed up (no pun intended) with the quality of reviews in the San Diego Union-Tribune. The San Diego City Beat has some nice reviews on places off the beaten track, but it seems like the U-T reviewer spends half his/her time at places like Bertrand's. I come from a different POV. I think it's easy to make good food that's expensive. But it's more of a challenge to make good food that is inexpensive. It's like going on a vacation - anyone can find the nice, expensive hotels to stay at, but if you do a little homework, you can find just as good a hotel and save lots of $. So my focus, but not my entire focus, will be on "affordable" cuisine in the San Diego area. Anyone is free to post their reviews here - positive or negative, but have fun.

I'm outta here. I'm off to find my soup....