Author Topic: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do  (Read 3520 times)

wealthviahealth

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San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« on: February 07, 2015, 06:04:46 PM »
I will be making my first trip to San Diego and So cal in general next month. Very excited for this trip and wondering
what suggestions folks have for restaurants, cool things to do, as well as tips for getting around.

FuckRx

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Re: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2015, 07:02:28 PM »
awesome! such a great place to visit. I love LA if you can get around before or after traffic hours 430-6p. Fridays after 3p-630p are a disaster in all of southern Cali like many other places. In LA Hollywood is cool to drive through, if you're younger Hollywood Hills on Sunset strip for all the clubs. Beverly hills aint my thing but if you wanna see insane home just drive through and Bel Air too. Since you'll be among a lot of Persians might as well stop by westwood Blvd and get some Persian food. Shamshiri grill is the shit. San Monica has amazing restaurants but naturally expensive. If you stay on the westside you can check out the UCLA campus and there is great food that's a little cheaper like Berkley in Frisco. Korea Town and China town are awesome if you know where to eat. If you wanna check out great beaches you could do Hermosa Beach or Venice beach, awesome people watching and good food again. If you want to drive through Topanga Canyong it's a nice view down and if you wanna be a baller have dinner at Inn of the Seventh Ray, if it's raining even better because it's built into the hilltops and has these cool plastic covers.
Orange County, Newport Beach I guess but I dunno, people love it but I don't get it. Irvine is dead, and Santa Ana, I don't think much to do there. San Diego, now that's awesome. Beaches are sweet for California (crappy compared to other countries). Surfing is great, standup paddling at La Jolla shores. San Diego will have car2go in the downtown area. Downtown is neat, not the crappy barf-streets like the gaslamp that everyone goes to, nothing there, promise you, tourist traps. go to East Village, the Marina (don't eat there $$$). In downtown area check out Evolution Fastfood for great vegan foods like burgers chilli cheese fries etc. A beautiful cozy restaurant that's a tiny house turned into a restaurant is Wet Stone, beautiful and reasonable. Has a lot of South American wines and the owner is usually there and he is a peach, Christian. You could check out Balboa Park, it's ai'ght. La Jolla has some nice walking around that you can do at night but very sheeshy for my taste. Relayrides is really popular in SD and OC, dunno about LA but I'm sure. Super easy and really great way to save a lot on car rental, peer to peer renting you know. 

enjoy, have a blast. hope others here can give you more specifics.

overlord34

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Re: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2015, 07:05:19 PM »
My wife and I spent July and August this year in San Diego.  Loved it out there.

Some things I would recommend - taking the cliff walk at Torrey Pines and then walking back along the beach (gorgeous, especially at sunset), exploring or picnics in Balboa Park, bike rides around Mission Hills, doggy beach at Ocean Beach (fun to see all the dogs having a great time by the water), Cabrillo National Monument (located high above the city with sweeping views of the ocean and bay), Coronado, the beach at Del Mar, and walking along the promenade or sea kayaking by La Jolla shores to see the sea lions.  We'd also go to a great Improv Theater in North Park called Finest City Improv; Thurs/Sun shows that run 3 hours for $6 and Fri/Sat that run only $10.  There's also good hiking - Mission Trails regional park is supposed to be nice - but sadly I didn't make it out there or do all that many hikes.  People like the downtown gaslamp area but I'm not really a huge fan.  Old town can be fun but touristy.  The San Diego automobile museum in Balboa Park has some really cool classic cars.

For restaurants we usually ate around the Hillcrest/Mission Hills area because that's where we were staying, which is a great locals area in general to spend your time away from the touristy stuff.  La Posta is a cheap burrito place that was right by us with amazing burritos. We also really liked Jiyoti Banga which is a vegetarian place but the food's really good that I expect even meat eaters will enjoy it.  We enjoyed a Thai place called Amarin Thai.  A good vegan place we liked a lot was called Evolution, it's a fast food type place with fake burgers, chicken, etc. - probably the closest thing I've ever eaten to real meat since I became a vegetarian.  Whole Foods in Hillcrest has a Thursday deal where you get a pizza with two toppings for $10.  We also liked a greek place called Country Kabob in Normal Heights.  If you want to do something a little fancier, there's a place called Betrand at Mister A's.  A little pricey but you can sit outside and see the city skyline, really nice to sit there and enjoy being outside for lunch.  Another place that's pricey but with good atmosphere and food is called George's; it's located in La Jolla and has seating right on the ocean.

Getting around is really easy because the city is so close together.  That's a big advantage compared to other cities.  I think you'd be happier with renting a car but there is a bus system that I found pretty reliable and $5 buys an unlimited pass to travel for the entire day.  There's also a trolley but not sure if it goes that many places.  Biking around is doable depending on which neighborhoods you're traveling to; travel between certain neighborhoods can be challenging due to very steep hills.

FuckRx

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Re: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2015, 07:10:27 PM »
Oh if you wanna do north park that's off the hook at night. it's the gay community along with hillcrest. so much fun. awesome bars, people are so friendly. there is Peace Pies in hillcrest, cool place for food. There is Polite Provisions in north park that's a bar and has restaurant next door, great meatballs and burgers. You can check out Coronado Island but again, very sheeshy for me and I never got the "island" feel on there. If you walk through the Del Hotel I think there is something romantic there. at night you can stroll on the sand.
back to downtown really cool bar that's in little Italy called craft and commerce, younger hipster crowd but sick drinks. if you want really authentic thin italian pizza do isola pizza. delish NY pizza there too at Landini's.

You can get from LA (union station) to OC and down to San Diego (Santa Fe depot) really easily with Amtrak. it's not affected by traffic and has wifi and used to have booz but apparently no more but they make flasks for that problem. it take 2 hours or so to get from LA to SD. I used to love to go bar hopping in downtown LA on weekends, there is soooooo many sweet bars near that union station with a quick cab ride. if you stop in solana beach instead of Santa Fe Depot then you'll be in northern SD. rich sophisticated crowd that's not pretentious, just good people with money. it's called solana beach and right next to it encinitas. beautiful beach homes. Swami's has the best long boarding you can do. awesome right wave and on bigger days you can catch a great left.

overlord34

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Re: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2015, 07:12:42 PM »
Rx - I love that you mentioned Evolution, that was our favorite spot.  We'd be there all the time for chicken sandwiches and vanilla milkshakes.

KMMK

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Re: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2015, 07:28:12 PM »
I was just there last week. For the big expensive things I really enjoyed Seaworld and the zoo.
For cheaper things Balboa Park. For cheap hidden things we discovered Murray Lake Park, which had almost nobody there, when there were tons of people the same day at a park 5 minutes away. I had no idea this existed - didn't come up on the tourist lists.
For breakfast we loved the Broken Yolk Cafe. There are a few locations but because we had such a great
Experience at the location on Midway the first time we were there, we went again. Not sure if other locations are as good. For other restaurants, this seems like kind of a weird recommendation, being a chain, but we had one of our cheapest non-Chipotle meals at the Cheesecake Factory. I have several dietary restrictions and surprisingly they were really good for that too.
Torrey Pines was already mentioned. That area was really nice.
Nearer to LA Venice Beach was fascinating- like the opposite of Vegas, where we'd just been.
We also did the Paramount Studios tour, which I'd recommend if you're into the behind the scenes stuff. But generally the traffic in LA is so bad, that I wouldn't go unless you really want to see something specific or are doing an alternate transport method. We just had a car, and it was pretty hard on my husband, the driver, being stuck in traffic for so many hours.

bwall

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Re: San Diego, Where to eat, what to do
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2015, 11:03:26 PM »
I will be making my first trip to San Diego and So cal in general next month. Very excited for this trip and wondering
what suggestions folks have for restaurants, cool things to do, as well as tips for getting around.

What do you enjoy doing? There is a ton of stuff to do in San Diego, but a lot depends on you definition of cool?

As far as restaurants is concerned: the entire world is in San Diego; Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, Russian, Middle-Eastern, Greek, Brazilian, and of course European and American fare as well. And Mexico is 30 minutes away and the Mexican food is probably the best in the USA. Where should we start?
Do you want classy with a nice view? Or cheap local places loaded with character but no finery? Fine dining that tastes amazing, or just a decent place nearby the hotel?
BTW: airbnb has tons of places on offer in San Diego. Maybe there you could find a good place to stay? Or is couchsurfing.com more your style? Traveling with family or solo?