Boy it has been awhile since I have posted! Sorry to be so
sporadic. Just have had a lot going on.
I’ve been saving some pictures to put up a post about
something I find neat about San Diego. I think many big cities have
neighborhoods, and San Diego is no exception.
It has been fun exploring the quaint neighborhoods, finding places to eat,
coffee to drink, ect. (parking in most of them is not the part I find quaint,
haha) One of the things I really enjoy is that some of the neighborhoods
actually have signs!
Little Italy:
Little Italy is near downtown and the waterfront. Its
awesome, because as I’m sure you can guess, it has lots of great Italian food.
The other thing that is neat about it is that it has this Farmer’s Market full
of fruits and vegetables, flowers, crafts, and food vendors galore! I first went to this Farmers Market last fall
with some gals from church - Diana, Grace, Hong, and Victoria. I had a very
interesting food experience here (I think I told you in my post from Sept 2012
that I would tell you about what I ate there and post a picture. Well, here it finally is!) We all decided to split. . . . A SEA
URCHIN!!! And here we all are pictured with it! So, when you buy it, it is technically
still alive on ice. They pretty much just cut off the top, and you eat the stuff
inside. It kind of tastes/has texture like salty buttery flan. Well, at least I can say I’ve tried
it! OH! And Little Italy is home to Extraordinary Desserts, which if you have been following the blog (or come to visit me!) has come up before. I need not say more. :)
North Park:
North Park is also a neighborhood full of awesome places to
eat, and people do actually live in this neighborhood too. I was introduced to
North Park by my friend Cerise. She’s cool like that. We went to this great
breakfast place, and then we went to this coffee shop called Café Calabria.
In part, I really like it because it has character, and I feel like I could
actually sit and hang out in it, unlike the coffee shops near where I am in
University City/La Jolla, where they are all so busy and all chains anyway.
(even though I love Peets!) And this is
one of those coffee shops where they make awesome designs in the foam of your
coffee. The second picture of coffee is a drink they have there (which I've never seen anywhere else) called Bicerin. It's basically Nutella, shot of espresso, and a bit of foam. Stir and drink the chocolately hazelnutty coffee goodness. Yum. 
Birdrock:
So Birdrock is this small neighborhood south of downtown La
Jolla and north of Pacific Beach. All I know about it is that to get through it
you have to go around 5 consecutive roundabouts, and that there is this
fabulous coffee shop called Birdrock Coffee. It is the San Diego version of
Stumptown, for those of you who know what that is. They roast their own coffee and
you can get a cup of Chemex coffee, purportedly the best way to make coffee
ever. And Amy, my friend who I tried out this great coffee place with (see pic below!), thinks
its better than Stumptown. :) The
coffee shop is a few blocks from the beach, and its pretty open – all the
windows/walls in the front are open, you can feel the cool sea breeze as you
sip your latte. Totally chill. The morning we went there, they had live music, and they apparently do this quite often! It was really great. Everyone else thought so too 'cause there were a lot of people there! Means it must be a great place. I need to go back. . .
Gaslamp District:
This part is downtown, near the San Diego Conference Center,
so I’ve been here for Society for Neuroscience meetings before I ever even
moved here! We would come down here to find lunch and dinner while at the
conference. I don’t actually spend much time there at all in now that I live
here. It is full of random shops, clubs, and restaurants, and houses the Ghirardelli
Chocolate Store. It’s like a coffee shop, only for chocolate and ice
cream. And by this I really just mean,
it smells like chocolate! And you can buy chocolate, and gigantic ice cream sundaes
covered in fudge and brownies! (this
gives me good memories sharing these sundaes with several good friends on fun
trips to Chicago too. . . )
And I’m leaving out Hillcrest, Clairemont, all the beaches
(Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, ect), Bankers Hill, Point Loma, and many more. I haven’t even explored them all! Just wanted to share a few highlights I’ve
found though!
So. . . maybe this post really was an excuse to talk about
food and coffee. . .
