The Marine Room, San Diego

During one my afternoons in San Diego, a group of us went sailing on Mission Bay.

Sailing on Mission Bay

We hired a skipper for a few hours, who manned the boat and taught a few of us how to sail.

Skipper John

I had my turn and got to do donuts in the water. People were screaming and we had a great time! To top it off, the weather couldn't have been more perfect.

Afterwards, we all headed to La Jolla where we strolled along the cove, and shopped until our stomachs growled.

We wanted a dinner with a nice view, so based on an older New York Times 36 hours in La Jolla article, we went to The Marine Room.

The Marine Room has won over a dozen awards, with the most recent ones being "Best Chef Award", "Most Romantic Restaurant", and "Best Overall Service". In existence since 1941, the Marine Room is attached to the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club resort.

The restaurant is almost aquarium-like with its large glass windows. It is just steps away from the water, and this is the place to get a close up view of the tide coming in. On some occassions, you may even see the tide crashing against your window. We didn't score the best view in the house, but we had no complaints. Below was the view from our table. We watched the sun set as we enjoyed an elegant meal at The Marine Room.

View from The Marine Room

For starters, I had the fennel pollen diver scallop and foie gras. For those who are not familiar with diver scallops, they are scallops actually collected and harvested by hand. They are much fresher and less grittier than the scallops collected by boat. Here is a great entry on diver scallops by Food and Tell food blog.

Served with the scallops and fois were whipped purple cauliflower, royal trumpet mushrooms, a cumin crisp, truffle, and Torani Amer syrup. It's hard to tell in this picture, but this dish was excellent.

Diver Scallop and Fois Gras

M ordered the pumpkin seed crusted blue crab cake served with buckwheat noodle, Serrano ham, tangerine lace, and açai berry infusion. I really liked the the ham/crab cake combination, but I didn't care much for the pumpkin seed/crab cake combination.

Pumpkin Seed Crusted Blue Crab Cake

My main was the Colorado free range veal tenderloin cooked medium rare. This was served with fleur de sel, apple fritter, truffle corn cake, white asparagus, and elysium black muscat. The veal tenderloin was amazing! The meat was juicy and tender, and it just melted in my mouth.

Colorade Free Range Veal Tenderloin

R ordered the sesame peppered ruby red ahi tuna. It was served with Thai rice, mango daikon salad, avocado beignet, and white port hibiscus sauce.

Sesame Peppered Ahi Tuna

M ordered the butter roasted Maine lobster tail. His dish was served with cashews, eggplant quinoa, heirloom melon, linguiça (Portuguese cured pork sausage), and elderflower tarragon emulsion. M loved his dish.

Butter Roasted Maine Lobster Tail

N ordered the black Angus center cut filet mignon served with cumin Gouda potato, Guajillo Butter, mountain berry chutney, and petite Syrah glaze. She felt the same way about her filet mignon as I did about my veal tenderloin.

Black Angus Filet Mignon

J ordered the Country Meadow rack of lamb. The lamb was served with black currant mustard, crushed pistachio, St. Andre bread pudding, rosebud jam, and sage garnacha reduction.

Country Meadow Rack of Lamb

For dessert, I ordered something light: the sorbet trifecta. This was three scoops of fruit sorbet with a sprig of mint and a stick of chocolate. The three flavors were: port blackberry, peppered blood orange, and apple green tea. All were packed with flavor, and my favorite was the apple green tea.

Sorbet Trifecta

N ordered the Ibarra Aztec chocolate cake. The cake was served with pineapple confit, agave morello cherry coulis (sour cherry coulis), and a pepitas crisp.

Ibarra Aztec Chocolate Cake

J ordered the cobblestone pie. This was pretty much an ice cream cake, but with gelato instead. The pie had a layer of espresso gelato with chocolate chunks, and a layer of vanilla gelato. A nice spiced caramel sauce was drizzled over the pie. The espresso gelato was excellent.

Cobblestone Pie

The Marine Room
2000 Spindrift Drive
La Jolla, California, USA
Telephone: 858-459-7222