HI HI HI HI HI HI HI!
Those of you who follow on Instagram know by now that FH and I took a quick trip to San Diego last week. We rented a place on airbnb, which was a perfectly-situated adorable apartment… slightly on the major flight path of the airport (the above picture was taken standing outside the apartment). Every day I waited for the loud crashing sound of the airplane not quite clearing one of the buildings…
While our primary goal was to take care of wedding-planning things, we managed to accomplish my secondary goal of eating our faces off as well.
Seriously. So much eating.
If you’ve never been to San Diego I insist that you go – it’s basically in the 70s all year long with the only downside being the humidity which hovers around 1,000,000% at any given time. But the city is absolutely gorgeous and full of delicious foodstuffs, like these:
We ate here the last time we visited the San Diego area, but this time we “coincidentally” ended up staying just a few short blocks away… so we ate here a few times on this trip. On top of the delicious food, I love the ambiance of this restaurant. I did learn, however, that you must make reservations. They are booked. Always. All the time. However, if you like to live on the edge (like us) and not make reservations for anywhere, you can grab a seat at the bar if one is open and still enjoy everything the menu has to offer along with friendly chit-chat from the bartenders.
Below you will see the formaggi + salumi (a sort of build-your-own charceuterie board) which comes with a pear compote, several mustards, red pepper, and some of the best honey I’ve ever tasted. Amazing. Below that is their ricotta gnudi with arrabiatta sauce which, although it only comes with five little gnudis (to be fair, it’s a “side” item) is actually rather filling. They are light, pillowy ricotta dumplings swimming in a bright and flavorful tomato sauce. Lastly, their giant meatball (also a “side” item, I was clearly feeling snacky this day). I’m a bit of a meatball snob but this meatball is pretty solid. Their pizzas are all amazing as well.
FH and I stopped in for lunch after walking 23942384 miles around the city and shared their giant panzanella salad and some french fries. Their panzanella isn’t as bread-centric as most, which I consider a plus, however I’m not sure what percentage of a salad is supposed to be bread in order for it to be officially considered a “panzanella.”
This particular salad comes topped with all of my favorite things, including pickled red onions, finely sliced salami, and feta cheese. My tummy is rumbling just thinking about it…
Fun fact – even though everyone stares at me like a crazy person when I say it, “panzanella” is actually pronounced “pan-za-nell-uh’ and NOT ‘pan-za-nay-uh’. Look it up, I promise. No go forth with this knowledge and do with it what you will.
FH and I passed by this place on our way to breakfast at Hash House and the aroma nearly took us off our course. We stopped in on the way back to our car and couldn’t resist ordering a couple lattes, a prosciutto sandwich, and an almond croissant to go.
This place has what very well may be the best latte I have ever put in my mouth. Hands down. Their almond croissant was a standard croissant split and filled with sweet almond paste and topped with sliced, sugared almonds. It was to DIE for, and their prosciutto sandwich is lightly-grilled, just enough to warm the insides, and one bite will transport you straight to Italy.
I mean, I’ve never been to Italy, but I’m assuming that’s where it was taking me…
Hash House is pretty well-known and I’ve been to their Vegas location before but didn’t realize they had locations elsewhere in the country. The food is good but I think they are more known for their over-the-top portions. These pictures really do the food no justice because these plates are at least 12-inches in diameter… at least.
FH got the french toast which is dipped in banana cinnamon cream with pecan maple syrup. It comes topped with pecans, strawberries, and roasted bananas. I got the strawberry frosted flake pancakes which are pancakes filled with, you guessed it, strawberries and Frosted Flakes. Because how many times have you been eating your pancakes and wondering why they weren’t filled with Frosted Flakes?
I’m pretty sure any one menu item here could feed at least four people… just saying. But of course you’ll never share them because there are so many options that you will want to try…
This was on our list to stop at as part of our “wedding cake” investigation. I had planned to try a few flavors of cake but since we ended up here at 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning, my body wasn’t as prepared as I’d have liked it to be. We settled on trying a flavor similar to what we were considering for the wedding and grabbed a lemonade too.
We tried the Ivoire Royale which has layers of vanilla bean-soaked pound cake, whipped white chocolate ganache, fresh berries, and whipped cream.
We did not feel the need to stop at any other cake shops while on our trip.
Of course we had to go to Panera.
I know that it’s a chain but whenever we leave Arizona we look for Panera. This was an obligatory stop. They did finally build a Panera here in town but a> it’s out of the way of anywhere I go, b> it’s a super tiny downtown location with a limited menu, and c> THEY DON’T SERVE BAGUETTES!!! WTF IS THAT ABOUT, PANERA!?
Anyway, it was too hot for soup but I got their strawberry poppyseed salad with a flatbread sandwich… AND A MOTHER-EFFING BAGUETTE. BECAUSE I COULD. I think I’m just super not into the bread generally used for “flatbread” anything (lavash and pita are good, anything else… no thanks) but I approved of the salad, and of course of the baguette.
Oh Pinkberry, God of the Frozen Yogurt. Another thing we don’t have in AZ (not in Phoenix at least… how? Not sure.) I will seriously eat anything if you put that luxe chocolate topping on it – “milk chocolate crunch” is what they call it. It’s like a super creamy chocolate sauce filled with crunchy rice crisps(? maybe?)…. I’m not completely sure what is in it really. Probably crack, though, because that sh*t is addictive. I’m getting the shakes just thinking about it…
Donut Bar was the main thing on my radar pre-San-Diego. It was on my list last time but we didn’t make it to the shop because we were staying way far north up in La Jolla. I did not allow us to make the same mistake again.
Donut Bar is famous for its unique and creative donut flavors, and for being crazy busy, and for selling out of everything super early. I’m not sure if Tuesday mornings just aren’t their thing, if the rain scared everyone away, or if sweet baby Jesus was just smiling down on us from above because we saved this as our last stop and hit it first thing Tuesday morning before we left town. We mucked up the parking a bit (I saw a valet stand and urged FH to pull up to it because I forgot any of my meter change and, hello, VALET!) and it turns out if we had driven like five more feet towards our beloved donut shop we would have seen tons of free street parking. Oops.
The Strawberry Split donut was a must, with fresh berries and whipped cream sandwiched between a light and fluffy cinnamon-sugar donut. This thing is like heaven. It’s also huge, actually, all of their donuts are huge. Their yeasted donuts are probably a solid 5 or 6 inches in diameter. FH and I made a team effort to take this one down and still didn’t make it all the way through.
And, because sometimes you can’t choose just one… or two…. or six donuts to sample. We went for the bakers dozen, nevermind that there were only two of us.
Decisions are hard but “one of each” is easy. Unfortunately they didn’t have their “Cro-Bar” cronut, so I have yet to see what that hype is about…
In case you were wondering what $40 of donuts looks like… now you know. bottom-left is the best apple fritter of your life, you already met the strawberry split, a super delicious salted caramel which is a raised donut topped with salted caramel glaze and a sprinkle of sea salt, and a boston cream pie donut.
Up top we have maple bacon – which is a raised donut topped with a maple glaze and, well, bacon (duh). I thought it would have a filling for some reason but it didn’t, the flavor of that donut was great though – obviously – since maple and bacon were made for each other.
None of the doughs are too sweet, which makes it much easier to consume their sugar-laden toppings.
The music note one is the “Elvis” which has banana cream filling and peanut butter glaze, the criss-cross one is a mud pie which is topped with oreo crumbs, peanut butter, and glaze. Then you see red velvet and cookie and cream cake donuts… the giant pistachio-lemon donut (which tasted mostly just like a lemon-glazed donut with a bit of pistachios sprinkled on top), then going back up the right side is a blueberry meyer lemon which was a blueberry cake donut (not much blueberry flavor going on) with a lemon glaze, an old-fashioned donut topped with a delicious vanilla bean glaze, and their famous creme brulee donut. The creme brulee is filled with vanilla cream, and topped with crunchy bruleed sugar. I thought this one would be my favorite but I found the filling to be too sweet and tasted almost just like powdered sugar to me. /Shrug.
Strawberry split was definitely my favorite, the apple fritter and old fashioned were close behind.
Because these came home with us, I had to make sure to take the utmost care on the trip home to ensure their safety. They had a buffer zone around them to ensure they wouldn’t be squished and since they were my babies I made sure to buckle them in nice and snug.
FH definitely judged me.
