Plan B - 30th Street Cafe

A few days ago, I met up with Cathy of Mmm-Yoso. Our original lunch destination was this place:

which unfortunately (and I failed to read the hours correctly on their website) is CLOSED on Mondays and Tuesdays!  This is a small eatery and catering place on Adams Ave that I'd read good things about. One thing that attracted me was their  focus on one international cuisine a week. This week was supposed to be German food! Alas, it was not meant to be this day....

So instead, Plan B was to consult my GPS to see what else was nearby...

It also helped that I had a coupon for this place, 30th Street Cafe, and that both Cathy and I had never been there. It's always fun trying out new places, don't you think?

The 30th Street Cafe is south of University Ave  so it's away from the major darlings of 30th St, like Urban Solace, The Linkery, Toronado, and their ilk. It's located midway between University and Upas and doesn't really have anything else next to it.

The cafe shares space with the LGBT Pride organization. The cafe has a small walk up ordering area which also has a tiny kitchen. There is a long hallway which leads to office spaces and across from that is a dining area. If you choose to dine outside, there is a small shaded patio as well.

Their menu:

The dining area:

On the shelf are local handmade itsems, like jewelry and those sewing "tomato" pincushions. On the buffet table are all the utensils, napkins, cups, cucumber, and even take out boxes.

We ordered one sandwich each - this was the "reverse" so you are looking at Cathy's Caprese on rye with her choice of side salad. We both liked the dressing, not too vinegary.

This was mine - the 30th St.Grilled Cheese which had four types of cheeses, aioli, and sun dried tomatoes. The bread was nicely grilled and man, could you taste the butter! I say that in a good way too!

My side of choice was this potato salad. Now I wasn't expecting much, but this was a really good potato salad! It had quartered baby red potatoes that were still firm but not raw, obviously. The were green onions on top and a light creamy dressing that benefited from the addition of mustard seeds. Very flavorful.

All this needs is bacon! Just kidding, it was great on it's own!

We gave each other the other halves of our sandwiches. This was half of the Caprese half and again, like my grilled cheese, it was a very tasty sandwich. Grilled rye, oozing cheese and fresh tomato and basil....

The view from our window:

I'm kind of glad that Hanna's Gourmet wasn't open that day. Both Cathy and I felt that this was a place we'd return to.

30th Street Cafe
3620 30th St.
San Diego, CA  92104
(619) 296-7966

See their menu here (it needs to be updated though; prices have gone up)

Reviews:
SD Reader (August 2012)
and the usual bag of mixed reviews from yelp

At the cafe, we chose to just have waters and refrained from getting our coffee here  because we wanted to go somewhere else for it...that place shall be our next stop!