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

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Nobu, San Diego

One thing I have noticed about San Diego dining is that a lot of the high-end chain restaurants are gaining popularity. I could be totally off the mark on this observation, and please chime in if I am.

For example:
*all claims below are from San Diego Magazine 2009 (Readers' Picks)
Best of the Best: The Oceanaire Seafood Room. CHAIN.
Best Steakhouse: Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. CHAIN.
Best Asian Fusion: Roy's Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine. CHAIN.
Best Sushi Bar/Japanese: Nobu. Also a CHAIN.
Now people. That to me, seems like a lot of chains dominating the dining scene. You know what they say, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".

For my first night in San Diego, a few friends and I decided to check out Chef Nobu Matsuhisa's San Diego Nobu chain. We were pleasantly surprised and had a nice meal there.

Chef Nobu opened his first restaurant in Peru at the age of 24. It wasn't until 1994, after forming a close relationship with actor Robert DeNiro, that the first Nobu restaurant opened in New York City. It was a huge success, and he now owns 24 restaurants around the globe.

Chef Nobu has certainly gained popularity and success over the years: Nobu Las Vegas was awarded one Michelin star in 2007, and the chef has appeared in movies such as Austin Powers Goldmember and Memoirs of a Geisha.

To start, we had a platter of sauteed shishito peppers and edamame. Both were sprinkled with a generous portion of sea salt.

This was the first time I had tried shishito peppers, and I was surprised at how mild they were. Japanese cuisine is normally mild, and these peppers fit the glove.

Shishito Peppers and Edamame

For my salad, I ordered the heart of palm salad with jalapeno dressing. The hearts of palm were fresh and crunchy (not like the canned stuff I was used to), and they were shaved very thinly. The jalapeno dresssing was mild, and it was mixed with a lime juice. Pink peppercorns were used as a garnish for the dish. I shared this dish with everyone at the table to spread the joy.

Heart of Palm Salad with Jalapeno Dressing

My generosity was reciprocated by J sharing his Nobu style shashimi tacos with me. We each had a yellowfin tuna taco, and a crab taco. Both were topped with a creamy avocado sauce. The tacos were delicious and the tuna was melt in your mouth, gotta have more tuna. Need I say more?

Nobu Style Sashimi Tacos

Other starters included the carrot tempura, and

Carrot Tempura

King crab tempura with butter ponzu sauce.

King Crab Tempura

For my main, I ordered two things:
The first was obvious, spicy yellowfin tuna roll. For those who don't know, I CANNOT have sushi and not order a spicy tuna roll. I have an obsessive personality, so when I'm hooked, I'm really hooked.

Spicy Yellowfin Tuna Roll

My second dish was the baby abalone sashimi. Actually, I chickened out, and had a combination of the sashimi and cooked abalone. As it turned out, the raw abalone was MUCH better than the cooked version.

Both the cooked and raw abalone were combined with a light garlic sauce, and the cooked version was sauteed with shiitake mushrooms and asparagus. The dish was garnished with green and purple kelp.

Baby Abalone

R is a small eater and ordered the new style yellowtail sashimi. The difference between regular sashimi and their new style sashimi is that the new style is sliced very thinly and is combined with soy sauce and garlic. R really enjoyed this dish. He was still hungry afterwards and ordered a veggie tobanyaki.

New style Yellowtail Sashimi

M ordered the beef tobanyaki: beef, asparagus, enokitake mushroom, and shiitake mushroom all cooked on a ceramic dish.

Beef Tobanyaki

N ordered the shrimp tempura roll. The wasabi at Nobu is hand chopped and is not the creamy goo one would normally see.

Shrimp Tempura Roll

J ordered a combination of sushi and sashimi: uni, mackerel, unagi, and yellowfin tuna sashimi.

Sushi and Sashimi

For dessert, I ordered the passionfruit malasadas, bite sized passionfruit filled donuts. Served with the donuts were fresh strawberries and strawberry sorbet. A simple yet satisfying dessert.

Passionfruit Malasadas

J ordered the cajetas and blueberries: cajeta cream, blueberry preserves, crispy cocoa filo, and Japanese beer sorbet. Cajeta is a thickened syrup made of caramelized milk, and is similar to dulce de leche. The only difference is that cajeta is normally made of a combination of goat's and cow's milk.
If you were wondering about the beer sorbet, it was different but wonderful.

Cajetas and Blueberries

R ordered the lemongrass and honey dessert. This was layers of lemongrass mousse, honey gel, and hazelnut cake. On the side were fresh kiwis, and kiwi gel.

Lemongrass and Honey

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, we were pleasantly surprised by the food. Everything was wonderful and we all left the restaurant satisfied.

Nobu
207 Fifth Avenue
San Diego, California, USA
Telephone: 619-814-4124

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Cocoa Nymph Chocolate

I'm baaack! San Diego was a blast. The weather was fantastic, the food was good, and I had lots of fun in the sun.

I'm heading to Sydney in a few days, so I'll try really hard to squeeze in a post or two about my food adventures in San Diego in between now and when I leave.

My sister-in-law just got back from her trip to Vancouver, and of course, brought back some edible goodies for me. This time, she brought me Cocoa Nymph chocolate.

Cocoa Nymph is a local Vancouver chocolaterie that was started by former civil servant, Rachel Sawatzky. She started out by making chocolates for her co-workers as a hobby. They enjoyed them so much, that, she was encouraged to sell her cocoa delights. Well...the rest is history. You can watch a great video on Rachel's inspirations, and her story on how she got started on the Cocoa Nymph home page.

Cocoa Nymph carries a range of chocolates and confections including truffles, marshmallows, toffee, and candied pecans. They have a great shopping section on their website where you can pick and choose your personalized box of individual chocolates, and then have it effortlessly shipped to your door.

I received two chocolate bars: Urban Nymph and Sea Nymph.

Urban Nymph is a 45% deep milk chocolate bar with coffee and caramelized cocoa nibs. This was my favorite of the two. There was a nice strong coffee aroma throughout the bar, and the cocoa nibs were fun to eat. You can taste the love in this chocolate bar.

The Sea Nymph bar is 64% dark chocolate with fleur de sel and bits of Cocoa Nymph's English toffee. Of the salt and toffee, I expected the toffee to be the more prominent flavor. Au contraire. I didn't taste a lot of English toffee, but there were little surprising pockets of sea salt throughout the bar.

What I loved doing after dinner was take small alternating nibbles of each chocolate bar until I had my sugar fix. I'd take a small bite of the Urban Nymph, then a small bite of the Sea Nymph, then back to Urban Nymph, and so on. It was heaven!

Cocoa Nymph
3739 W. 10th Avenue (at Alma Street)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Telephone: 604-222-4477

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Forever Fondue, San Diego

CK and I stopped in at Forever Fondue after one of his work shifts nearby in La Jolla. We had always wanted to try fondue at a restaurant, and decided to take the opportunity to do so.

Each table at Forever Fondue is equipped with a burner for fondue hot pots. We weren't exactly sure what to order, so our waitress popped by to guide us through the menu. She was friendly and helpful.

After some thought, CK and I ordered the original fondue dinner for two, which includes a salad and cheese appetizer of choice.

We both started with the warm mushroom and spinach salad with no bacon. The salad consisted of spinach leaves, sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, and red onions. This was all tossed in a champagne vinaigrette.

Warm Mushroom and Spinach Salad

For our cheese fondue appetizer, we ordered the Queso Baja: a blend of Wisconsin sharp cheddar and Emmental, with red onions, jalapenos, and salsa mixed in. Dipping items included tortilla chips, Granny Smith apples, cauliflower, bread, tomatoes, and celery. I liked the spiciness of the cheese dip.

Queso Baja Cheese Fondue

The main fondue pot was a beef Burgundy broth served with a platter of meats, veggies, and sauces. Meats included beef tenderloin filet, teriyaki sirloin, Tarragon chicken breast, citrus and garlic tiger shrimp, and bay scallops.

There was an abundance of sauces served with our meal. I can't remember them all but some included dill wasabi aioli, garlic butter, spicy peppercorn, sesame ginger, terriyaki glaze, creamy chive, and grainy mustard. I liked the mustard and garlic butter the best. Nice and simple.

Meat and Veggie Platter

Here's our fondue pot in action...exciting stuff.

Beef Burgundy Fondue

I found our metal plates kind of entertaining, almost Medieval-like.

For dessert, we ordered a chocolate fondue made of 1/2 milk chocolate, and 1/2 dark chocolate. This was fun to eat, and you really can't go wrong with hot gooey chocolate.

Chocolate Fondue

Dipping items include bananas, strawberries, rice krispie squares, pineapple, and white cake. The bananas were definitely my favourite.

Chocolate Fondue Dipping Items

Overall, it was a fun experience, but the food didn't wow us.

I enjoyed the cheese and chocolate fondue a lot, but the main beef broth fondue was aiight. It is what it is: food boiled in broth.

Forever Fondue
909 Prospect Street
La Jolla, California, USA
Telephone: 858-551-4509

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The Beach House, San Diego

Back in June, I met a bunch of friends at The Beach House in San Diego. This restaurant sits along the coast line, and is a stone's throw from the Pacific Ocean. We scored a table outdoors, and watched the sunset as we ate our meals. Overall, the food isn't bad, but the 45 minute out-of-the way drive was definitely more for the view than anything else.

The original Beach House restaurant in Laguna Beach was founded by Gale Pike in 1968. It has since expanded to locations in San Diego and Dana Point, and all three restaurants are still family-owned and run by the Pikes.

The title picture was the view from our table. The ocean was arm's length from where we were sitting, and needless to say, the view was stunning. The weather was perfect, and there was a nice breeze coming off the ocean.

We ordered the crispy calamari with marinara sauce to get things started.

Crispy Calamari

I also ordered my favorite salad: Caprese salad.

Caprese Salad

The Caprese salad here had ripe heirloom tomatoes, shaved red onion, micro basil, and creamy burrata cheese all mixed with a balsamic reduction and basil oil vinaigrette. The salad was very nice, and I really enjoyed the burrata cheese.

Burrata Cheese

TK ordered the Steamed Shellfish Combination plate: king crab, clams, greenlip mussels, shrimp, and sea scallops in a white wine herb broth.

Steamed Shellfish Combination

 Ed ordered the creamy lobster bisque.

Lobster Bisque

After our appys, the sun started to set...beautiful, isn't it? I can get used to this.

I ordered the Pacific Mahi Mahi for my main. The mahi mahi was served with shiitake mushrooms, baby bok choy, and edamame. This was all served over a bed of kaffir lime jasmine rice with a spicy coconut curry broth. Unfortunately, I found this dish to be quite bland. There was just not enough taste. The spicy kick was there, but that was about it.

Pacific Mahi Mahi

TK ordered the lobster linguine. Six ounces of diced lobster tail tossed with tomatoes, green onions, and a light mushroom cream sauce.

Lobster Linguine

J ordered the Hawaiian Yellowfin Tuna. This was pepper crusted Sushi-grade ahi seared rare, and served with a mango coulis, wasabi aioli, whipped potato, and mango salsa. He loved this dish so much, he forgot to share!

Hawaiian Yellowfin Tuna

B ordered the Kona Kompachi: sushi grade Hawaiian Yellowtail with a citrus-chile marinade, fava beans, and corn succotash. The sauce was a smoked tomato beurre blanc, and the dish was topped with a generous portion of fried leeks. B also really enjoyed his dish.

Kona Kompachi

Ed decided to be the black sheep and ordered a non-seafood dish. He got the 6 oz. Queen cut filet mignon served with roasted potato, asparagus, crispy onions, and cabernet demi glace.

Filet Mignon

I was the only one able to stomach a dessert, and ordered the strawberry shortcake. Unfortunately, it just wasn't my night. I found the cake to be too much cream and not enough strawberry. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Strawberry Shortcake

This was our view by the end of the night.

The Beach House (Cardiff By The Sea)
2530 South Coast Highway
San Diego, California, USA
Telephone: 760-753-1321

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