The Corner, Huntington Beach, Orange County, CA

 Ah, the moon overhead shown brightly over one of the Orange County's many strip malls as my wife and I exited the car.  It was date night and I was attired in a shirt with actual buttons on it.  My wife, as always, looked beautiful in jeans and black blouse.  We made our way to one of the few non-chain restaurants in Orange County.  A little place hidden in the depths of Huntington Beach that served small portions but with big taste.  We had decided to go out to... The Corner.


Housed in what was once a Chinese Restaurant, if you look up you will see the original red tiling along the ceiling, is a hip retreat from the mainstream.  In a slightly darkened room with no windows, is a series of tables and booths have been placed for maximum comfort and my guess to focus on the main attraction of the restaurant, the food.  The atmosphere was loud but friendly that night.  The waiter just having finished talking to the table over and receiving a few belly laughs.  My wife and I took a seat and only had to raise our voice a few decibles to hear one another.

The wait staff, we had a bearded waiter that could have doubled as an action star, came to our table with a smile and a laugh.  I was already in a good mood when he asked us if we want anything to drink.  As it is date night I break my usual taboo about ordering whiskey with ice and decided on a Whiskey Sour Julep.  My wife ordered a Dark and Stormy, which has rum, lime, and ginger beer, on the rocks.  My wife has a weakness for ginger beer.  Our drinks arrive and we decide to try a couple of meatball sliders while we peruse the menu.  They come out fast and are just as advertised, chunks of meat and cheese on a french roll.  They are also delicious.  We also get some bacon wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese.  They are melt in your mouth good, and I don't even like blue cheese.

Best of all though was one of the special appetizers, poutine.  I don't see it in a lot of places but when I do I almost always order it.  This is usually a concoction of fries, cheese curds, and occasionally something other ingredient, a protein most of the time.  It came out in an oversized bowl and at first I didn't know quite what to do with it, but then I grabbed a potatoe skin, dipped it into the cheese sauce and luxuriated in the taste of pure unhealthy food.

My wife and I finally decided on our "Not Entrees" as the amount of food is not quite an appetizer and not quite an entree.  It is a great amount of food if you are not that hungry, or if you are like us and want to try a bit of everything.  I order the Block Cut New York Steak in a wine sauce reduction.  I'm curious to see if it is as good as the one I make at home.  Usually they are not, but with this place I decide to give them the benefit of the doubt.  My wife ordered the Korean BBQ Chicken.  They make a point of telling you it is "non-traditional" and when you see it you know why.


My wife and I engage in idle chatter as our food is prepared and I decide to get a Dark and Stormy for myself.  I normally don't do drink reviews and I'm not going to start now.  Let me just say if you come to The Corner you have to get one.  A few sips later our food came out.  My steak was cooked perfectly.  Medium Rare as I believe all red meat should be cooked.  The wine reduction was really good but the steak barely edged out something I would have been able to accomplish in my own kitchen.  Still it was tasty enough that I did not need a doggy bag at the end of the meal.  My wife's chicken was a very interesting mesh-mash of flavors.  I liked it.  The chicken was cooked perfectly but the whole lettuce wrap delivery left a bit to be desired by me.  My wife on the other hand really enjoyed it.  I will say that the cilantro-lime emulsion that came with it was so good I would have put it on just about anything.

Overall this place was an amazing find.  And with that... all credit for finding this place goes to my wife, and her monthly AAA Magazine, but Shhhh!  Don't tell anyone, as most of the hip places in Orange Country are quickly changed into chain eateries, or Starbucks.  I think it has something to do with the city charter.  I kid! Check this place out the next time you are in town.  I promise you will not be disappointed.



The Corner
8961 Adams Ave.
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
(714) 968-6800
http://thecornerhb.com/

Big Kahuna's, Pacific Beach, San Diego, CA

Big Kahuna Cheese Balls, so good almost forgot to take a picture.

I rarely go to a restaurant based on advertisement or publicity.  For me it is all about taste.  Well there was one place that had this pop up where they had a slow jazz song about their chocolate cake, but that is the exception rather than the rule.  Let's say I rarely go to a restaurant based on publicity, but I guess I had to make a an exception this once.  After all if Samuel L. Jackson says "Mmmm-mmmm, that is a tasty burger" in Pulp Fiction, well I've got to give it a try myself.  Which is how I found myself stepping into Big Kahuna's.  (Disclaimer: It isn't really the same place as in the movie, but that didn't stop them from putting a sound bite from it into their web page.)

Basket of Fries

It was Sunday a little before noon and I was feeling the need for something simple but tasty.  The wife and I had been to Big Kahuna's once before.  I'd been looking for something a little more authentic Hawaiian and was really not impressed by what they had served me, but I wanted to give this place a second chance.  I decided I'd go with something they were known for this time, their burgers.  We were greeted warmly and told to take a seat anywhere.  We chose a seat near a window and started parusing the menu.  I already knew what I wanted but after looking through the menu I thought we'd try an order of Big Kahuna's Balls too.  I wasn't too impressed with the name but anything with garlic, butter and cheese baked onto it can't be all bad.

Big Kahuna Burger

The balls came out first and on my first bite I knew I was going to love them.  We only ordered six of them but despite not being that hungry I had to stop myself from finishing them all off before our burgers came out.  I was amazed these little balls of dough packed such amazing flavor.  As I was finishing off my third ball our burger's came out.  I had opted for the Big Kahuna Burger.  It was a one and a half pound burger with Monterey Jack, Chedder Cheese, tommato, red onions, cabbage (which was a nice change from lettuce), Mayo, Ketchup, and Mustard.  Despite the size I wouldn't say it was the biggest burger in town (as noted on their website), but it was no small fry either.  In addtion I ordered fries and they brought out a large basket of them, more than enough for my wife and I to share.  The first bite of my burger completely redeemed Big Kahuna's for me.  The burger was cooked perfectly to order, the ingredients were fresh, and it was full of flavor.  The soft toasted bun is what pushed it over from very good to great for me.  My wife ordered the Teriyaki Pineapple Burger.  I managed to snag a bite and found it to be one of the better Terryiaki burgers I've had.  Again, a good melody of flavors, and none of that cloying Terryiaki aftertaste that keeps me away from those types of burgers.

I was pleasantly surprised on my second trip to Big Kahuna's.  The next time I feel the need for a quiet, well relatively quiet, restaurant to enjoy one "tasty burger" Big Kahuna's will definetly be at the top of the list.

Big Kahuna's
3780 Ingraham Street
San Diego, CA 92109
(858) 270-9200
http://bigkahunaspb.com/

Fat Sal's Deli, Pacific Beach, San Diego, CA

The Front Door No One Uses

 Sometimes you just feel the need for something that's bad for you.  You know what I mean, something that goes beyond the bounds of unhealthy and slips into down right disgustingly decadent.  Something that you don't want to know how many calories went into it, or how it will make you feel afterwards.  Something with the word "Fat" in the title, which is how the wife and I wound up at Fat Sal's Deli.

Packed until we got there, must have just missed the lunch crowd.

I usually don't go to downtown Pacific Beach as it is a royal pain to find parking.  This time I didn't care.  I'd just run a good eight miles, half it uphill, and my body was screaming for something bad for me, which is after all half the reason I exercise anyway.  After crusing around for a good ten minutes to find a parking spot my wife and I walked up to Fat Sal's.  Though it label's itself a deli you won't find any blocks of chicken or ham to be carved.  Everything is done in the back and most of the ingredients aren't the type you'll find in a deli anyway.

A large opening in led into pretty much brand new tables bolted to the ground and a long legged stools to sit on.  We walked up to the cash register in the back, made our order, and then ambled on down to a recently vacated seat near the front, the perfect spot for people watching.  About 20 minutes later our sandwhich came out.  Now this is where it gets good and decadent.

How can something so small looking be so bad for you?

I had decided to go with the Fat Sal.  It was an "extra wide" garlic bun filled with roast beef, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, fries, brown gravy, and mayo.  Wow that's a mouth full.  It was stuffed, literally with everything that was bad for you.  I took a big bite and managed to get a piece of roast beef, mozzarella stick, and onion ring.  I got to admit when I list of ingredients online I wondered if they could really make it work, but after the first bite I realized they had.  It was actually pretty good.  The only thing I didn't like about it was the lack of roast beef.  It was like they sacrificed a delicious cut of meat in order to put the cheaper fried food into the sandwich.

The Fat Sal

My wife settled on the Fat Anthony which had chicken fingers, mozarella sticks, fries, marinara, on top of ham, genoa salami, pepperoni, provolone, sweet peppers (thought she always holds the peppers), shredded lettuce, tomato, and red wine vinaigrette.  Half of that belongs to another hero sandwich in and of itself.  I took a bite of hers and though it wasn't bad but I liked mine better.  I put it down to not being a big fan of marinara in a sandwich.

The Fat Anthony

After we had finished eating we ambled out fat and happy, only to see "supposedly" Fat Sal just outside hustling a few departing patrons to "foursqure" and "Facebook" the hell out his place.  Normally that would be a big turn off for me, but this time it was nice to see an owner really pushing his business to succeed.  "Fat Sal" managed to do it without being a total jerk about it.

Outside of the sandwiches being good but not great, I really liked Fat Sal's.  It had a nice open PB atmosphere, the tables were clean, and the people were nice.  I'll probably head back there the next time I feel the need to eat something that I have no question is horrible for me.  I can't wait to try the Fat Juanita.  ... ouch...  I just hope my heart can handle another round.  It hurts a bit just thinking about it, but hey no one lives forever.

Fat Sal's Deli
956 Garnet Avenue
San Diego, CA 92109
(855) 682-4373
http://www.fatsalsdeli.com/

El Patio, Chula Vista, San Diego, CA

 There are few Mexican restaurants so good that I go there and don't feel the need to order meat.  Strike that, there is only one.  My wife introduced it to me when we first started dating, and told me it was a place that her parents went to in their youth.  In the middle of Chula Vista there is a place that looks like a bomb shelter on the outside and an authentic Mexican restaurant on the inside.  It is a place of sweet aromas, and kind faces, and people who start off speaking Spanish to me, but quickly realize I am a gringo, and switch back to English.  It is one of my favorite places to grab Mexican food, and the only place I order Chile Relleno.  That place is El Patio.

Now my wife does not like the fact I mention this, but El Patio is a hole in the wall, and if you have ever been inside of it the lack of a view might turn you off, but the inside is decorated with beautiful paintings that take the eye away from the small windows looking out (if you were to stand on a bar stool) to the street.  Recently they have updated the restaurant with new booths, and a new menu.  Thankfully the menu only looks new, it still has the favorites that lured my parents-in-law there so many years ago.


So my wife and I were free on a Friday night and felt like something special so we headed down to Chula Vista for a bit.  We were greeted at the door, and quickly shown to a booth were we proceeded to snack on chip and salsa with a side of hot carrots (small bowels of pickled slices carrots, onion, and jalapenos).  My wife and I ordered while I sipped on ice tea.  Before I'd even gotten to my third ice tea (I was pretty thirsty after running right before we came) they'd brought out our food.


I had a number ten, two cheese stuffed Chile Rellenos with a side of rice and beans and a single gigantic tortilla (usually one is enough to fill me up, but I was pretty hungry that night). My wife went with her usual, the Guacamole Enchilada with rice and beans, which I just realized is also Vegetarian, go figure.  As usual my Chile Rellenos were perfect.  Scrumptious chilies stuffed with cheese.  I usually stack it with the rice and beans on a strip of still steaming hot tortilla and shovel it all into my mouth.  My wife, meanwhile, managed to finish one and a half Guacamole Enchiladas before calling it quits, but not without a big smile on her face.  I should add to this day my wife compares every Enchilada, Guacamole or not, to the ones at El Patio, and they almost always come up short in comparison.


So a smile on our faces, and a bulge in our bellies my wife and I exited El Patio.  Who knows when we will return.  Judging from my wife's expression I'd guess sometime next week.

El Patio Restaurant
410 Broadway Street
Chula Vista, CA 91910
(619) 422-9745
http://www.elpatiomexicanfood.com/

Eddie's Philadelphia, North Park, San Diego, CA

 

Just to let you know this reviews takes place over two different visits to Eddie's, apparently I really really like it.  There is no way I could eat all the food presented in this review in one sitting... well maybe.

So my sister drops by for a visit, and the first thing that runs through my mind is that I need to find a tasty but acceptable meal, she is a bit of a picky eater, for her to enjoy.  I take a look around my kitchen but all I have is some cheese and a few saltine crackers.  Well that would fit the bill in terms of acceptable, but it wouldn't be very tasty.  After some consideration I remembered a place that I used to run by when I lived over in Golden Hills.  Well the place is actually in North Park, but I passed as I was training for a marathon so yeah it is a bit far away.  Anyway I'd gone there once or twice and remember it being amazingly tasty without adding too much spice/heat to the dish.  I look to my lovely wife and with a smile we whisked my sister off to one of the best little Philly inspired eateries in San Diego, Eddie's Philadelphia.

Eddie's is nice, comforting, and clean.  The inside is decorated with a wealth of items commemorating the great city of Philadelphia, from the Philly's (the baseball team) memorabilia to articles depicting some of the city of Brotherly Love's celebrities.  It is all bling, but nice bling, and you can tell just by looking at it that the owners went to a lot of trouble to make it known just how important Philadelphia is to them.  You can feel the love, for lack of better words, they have for Philadelphia.  Glancing at all the bling we walk up to the register and my sister and wife order the Avocado Burger, my sister with Sweet Potato Fries and my wife with the regular fries.  I order a Patty Melt with fries, and we all get drinks.  We pay up and grab a couple of cups sitting next to the soda machine, which is conveniently located right next to the cash register.  Then we amble on back to our table.  My wife and I tell my sister about the first time we came here.

Eddie's Specails

You see Eddie's has changed a bit since it first opened.  There was a time that you didn't automatically get fries with your burger.  My wife and I used just order a large fry and have this gigantic basket of fries placed before us.  More than enough to share.  Nowadays though fries just come with the burger, or sweet potato fries, or onion rings, etc.

A few minutes later the same woman who took our order brings out the food, and I take a bite, and it is just as good as I remember it to be.  The ground beef is seasoned perfectly, and for awhile we sit there and try and figure out why it taste so good.  Is it the meat?  There is no way this stuff isn't at least 20% fat, if not more, and its juicy, perfectly juicy, almost dripping down my hand, but not so much that it causes a mess.  My sister digs through her burger, and I take a bite of it with nothing on it.  I think I taste cumin, and we find a big piece of garlic in the meat, but that is as far as we get.  Whatever is in the burger, whatever is mixed with the ground beef, it is great, definitely in the top ten, maybe top five of my favorite burgers.

The fries are as good as ever.  Big thick, crinkle cut fries, second only to steak fries in my book, with not too much salt, and cooked just long enough so they are crispy but not burnt.  My sister's Sweet Potato Fries on the other hand are not that great.  After I steal a few I decide to stick to my own food.  Yet another tasty meal from Eddie's, which is why I went back a few days later.

I'll admit the first time I went to Eddie's I ordered their steak sandwiches.  Made with prime rib I thought, how could you go wrong.  Well I don't know how they did it but back then it was just off enough for me to prefer the burger.  Still I like giving places a second chance, and Eddie's definitely deserved it, so I went back there with my wife to try it again.  I ordered the Cheese Steak and Onion Hoagie, of which I have a great weakness for, and my wife got the regular cheese steak.  We also got an order of chilli fries, because I'm always looking for a good chilli fries wherever I go.

After a short amount of time the server brought out this gigantic sandwich for me, and my wife.  I could be wrong but the cheese steak seemed bigger this time than last time, or maybe it was because I ordered a hoagie.  Either way I was hooked on my first bite.  My wife took a bite of hers, and enjoyed it as well, but couldn't quite finish it.  That was probably my fault as we both dug into the chilli fries.  The chilli was all beef and had just the right amount of cheese and onion mixed in to it.  I wolfed down more than half the fries in addition to my hoagie, and was stuffed, but in a good way.  Eddie's had re-established my faith in their cheese steak.  Now I can't wait to go back, maybe I'll try the onion rings.

Update:  Not sure if they have new owners, but came back for the hoagie and it was different, and not in a good way.  Also the service was a bit sub-par.  I'll drive by and give it another chance before I declare it changed not for the better.

Eddie's Philadelphia Steaks Hoagies and Burners
3501 30th Street
San Diego, CA 92024
(619) 296-6325
http://www.eddiesphilly.com/

Gordon Birsch, Mission Valley, San Diego, CA

I am always looking for someplace to take my parents to eat when they come down to San Diego.  The only problem is that while somewhat adventuresome they are somewhat hesitant to go to the many hole in the wall locations I prefer to visit.  It is a bad habit they picked up from going to so many chain restaurants.  While there are a few expensive locals I like to hit every once in a while I wanted something that looked nice but wouldn't break the bank, and most importantly had good food, but wasn't part of some gigantic chain.  After consulting with my wife, a native of San Diego, she finally mentioned a placed that I'd been thinking about going, and then she sealed the deal by saying, "... and they have great garlic fries."

Gordon Biersch is a great big brewery/restaurant located in Mission Valley.  While it is a chain, it is not a big chain with only five in California so far and a few scattered throughout a couple of other states, and the menu looked pretty good.  Upon walking up to it I was a bit worried I was walking into a TGIF, but once you enter the double doors at the front you get more of a low key sports bar feel to it.  No obvious flare on the walls, and the front of house is friendly and respectful.  After we had been led to our seat I took a look at the menu, and was unsurprised to see a fair amount of bar fare.  There were the obligatory sliders, egg roles, and wings you'll find at any restaurant, and further down a variety of burgers, tacos, pizza... actually you name it they probably had it, and of course beer.  My usual feeling when seeing so many different things on a menu is that when a restaurant has a lot of different items on it they don't have the time or expertise to do any one of them well.  Still I have been proved wrong in the past, and as I said there was beer.

After perusing the menu my wife surprised me by not ordering a burger, instead she got the California Cobb Flatbread, and I ordered a New York Steak Sandwich with garlic fries.  Then I did something else totally out of character for me.  I ordered a beer.  This is not to say I don't like beer.  After being in San Diego for so long it is hard not to have formed an appreciation for the cold sudsy drink produced in large quantities in this area.  It was just not something I did very often.  The reason being that I am, as my wife puts it, a light weight when it comes to alcohol.  Still there are certain occasions when the taste of a nice cold beer is not just wanted but needed, and as this was a brewery I thought I would give it a try.  My wife and I each ordered a Hefenweizen, which was delivered shortly to us from the bar.

Now unlike food, which I tend to, and will below, examine in detail due to having tasted and examined a wide range of flavors and styles, beer is probably one of the things I know little to nothing about, but I know what I like, and I really liked this beer.  For those of you that know even less about beer than me, a Hefenweizen tends to be one of the slightly lighter fruitier beers, or as the menu states it had, "...subtle notes of banana and clove."  All I know is that it is the type of beer I prefer, and in this instance it was delicious.  Now, if this was due to the workout I'd just finished, or the warmness of the day I can't say.  All I know is I liked it a lot, enough to go back and have another, but on to the food.

After I'd drunk enough to become slightly inebriated, about fifteen minutes or so, the food came out, and on first seeing it there was certainly a great deal there.  I'm used to getting maybe half of a steak when I order a steak sandwich but this time they sent out what looked like an entire steak.  With relish I took my first bite and was surprised to taste they had not seasoned the steak, not even a little.  On occasion I will come across a steak that doesn't need any seasoning, a good rib-eye perhaps, but this was not one of them.  I won't say the steak was bad.  It came out medium-rare, cooked pretty much exactly how I like it, but out side of a hint of salt and pepper it tasted like a big piece of meat.  The fried onion string, garlic aioli (of which I barely tasted), and spinach (which I now love on a my burger/sandwiches) helped, but just enough to make it taste good, not amazing.  The dish though was saved by the garlic fries, which by some miracle had, just the right amount of garlic on them.  When I say just the right amount I mean a little more than a normal person would enjoy, as I really really like garlic.

Looking over to my wife's flatbread I saw that the grilled chicken, bacon, avocado, tomatoes, cheddar, blue cheese, and baby green looked a little lacking.  Still after point behind her and saying "Hey is that your cousin?", I stole a piece of piece of it for testing purposes.  After a deft smile of contrition I had a bite, and tasted something leaning towards healthy.  It wasn't a bad flatbread, and here I am doing my best not to add the word pizza as it does not apply in the least to this dish, but it was hard to find a bite that had all the ingredients in enough abundance to really add flavor to the bread.  Oh, the bread was pretty good, but it looked like the chef did not bother to throw on enough to really make it great.  Still I finished off the piece and then proceeded to drink more amazing beer, which in the end made the meal pretty good, especially as I had a gigantic piece of steak to get though.

Okay, maybe not the best meal in the world, but I will say that the service was phenomenal, and again the beer was amazing.  For the beer alone I'll go back there to try something different, hoping that the unseasoned steak was just a mistake done during a slow lunch, and at the very least I now have another place I can take my parents.  Gordon Biersch is just entertaining different enough to fall outside the trappings of a chained restaurant, and just clean and well lit enough to be suitable for the less adventurous of my family.  Until then, cheers, and I'll have another beer.

Gordon Biersch
5010 Mission Center Rd.
San Diego, CA 92108
(619) 688-1120
http://www.gordonbiersch.com/locations/san-diego-ca

Crazee Burger, North Park, San Diego, CA

So it's the 4th of July, and neither my wife nor I really feel like cooking lunch.  After some discussion we find ourselves on the road with one though in our mind, we need a burger, a really good burger.  This isn't my first time trying to hunt down a good burger, but it is the first time I've tried to do it on a holiday.  My usually go to places are closed but I take a chance and head over to the North Park, and then I see an open sign in the doorway.  Parking the car we get out and walk into Crazee Burger, where half the fun is deciding just what you want in the bun.

Okay I made that last part up, but it sounded good in my head, and it is true.  Crazee burger is known for its wide variety of burgers.  You can get anything from Angus beef, to ostrich, to my personal favorite, wild boar.  The line is predictably long but not too long that day.  Being open on the 4th is not only good business but a godsend for people who just don't feel like barbecuing.  My wife and I get to the back of the line and take a look at the menu, and then I remember the bad side of having so many choices... that there are so many choices.

For the adventurous eater there is a wide array of tasty burgers, and that's not even considering the type of meat you want.  For instance, outside of wild boar I also enjoy the taste of gator, kind of like chewy chicken, you can add great flavor to it.  A quick glance at the menu and I know this will take forever so I do something uncharictaristic and decide I'm just going to have a regular meat type burger, nothing exotic.  Okay that cuts down my options from 54 to 18.  Still not an easy choice, and I just cut out my favorite Santorini Burger as it is half lamb.  Okay, I guess if I am going to do beef, and it is the 4th of July I'll try something in theme with the day so I get the Texas Burger, as it is one of the few burgers with BBQ sauce.  My wife goes with her usual Dansk Burger, as she has series weakness for Blue Cheese.

We get an order of fries and two drinks and look for a seat.  We find a table with dishes but the staff, which as far as I can tell is just two guys working the front, despite being busy get it cleaned off for us in less than a minute.  Then we sit down to enjoy the madness.  The place is packed but the kitchen is still cranking out burgers at a regular speed, and when we finally get our, about 10 minutes later, it is well worth the wait.  My Texas burger is cooked perfectly, and topped with bacon and Hickory smoked BBQ sauce, with and my first bite is filled with flavor.  The burger is good, but its really the sauce that does it for me.  The sauce is faintly sweet, and combined with the bacon comes together as one of the better burgers I've had in San Diego.  I glance over at my wife's burger, with a fair amount of Blue Cheese on it and remember my wife also got avocado on it. It's hard to miss as you can see in the pictures there is pretty much half an avocado sitting on top of it.  Which is perfect for my wife.  I hazard a taste and the avocado is amazing, but I find blue cheese a bit too dry for my palate.  A minute later we remember the fries and after apologizing the server brings that out.  As much as I admire the creativity of the salt and Parmesan cheese blend I'm not a big fan of it.  Next time I think I'll just go with the onion rings.

So overall a nice little meal at a nice little place.  The man at the front says goodbye but I barely hear him.  I'm already thinking about the next time and what kind of strange and exotic meat I'll get, probably the gator.

Crazee Burger
4201 30th Street
San Diego, CA 92104
(619) 282-6044
http://crazeeburger.com/