with a friend and former co-worker...
I hadn't been to a San Diego Restaurant Week event in years and I'm glad that she reminded me of it. Great Maple was our destination, chosen because the set lunch menu was $15; there were two choices for each component, and it wasn't too far out and could find parking easily (ugh to downtown, La Jolla and Little Italy). The lot was full but I found parking on a side street rather easily.
The place was packed but we had a table (I actually made reservations just in case).
My friend whom I shall dub "Wonder Woman" (aka WW) also ordered the maple bacon donuts for us to share. My eyes bugged out when I saw this come to the table! For some reason, I was expecting mini donuts, not full sized ones lacquered with maple frosting and sprinkled with a copious amount of thick cut smoky bacon.
I could only manage one and I ate only the frosted top and the bacon. The donut itself was rather dense and I didn't want to eat the whole thing and not have room for our early lunch.
We each chose one from each category -WW had the salad while I enjoyed the pumpkin curry soup. I liked that the cucumbers were cut into matchsticks for her salad. My soup also had a touch of cinnamon chili oil which gave it a tiny bit of a kick. The grilled "crouton" was a little too hard for my liking though.
WW had the crab cake with more salad plus roasted asparagus. Her crab cake was definitely substantial and meaty. My beef sandwich looked cool coming out, but after staring at it for a few minutes, I realized there was no easy way to eat this gracefully. The fried onions may have looked impressive, but were cumbersome on top of the sandwich itself.
I ate this deconstructed...pushing the onion strings aside and concentrating on the meat itself, which I dipped into the flavorful meat juices.
Our next stop was Barrio Logan's Cafe Virtuoso...I was hoping we could try their mini mocha flight but was informed that it was discontinued (insert sad face here).
Instead, we each chose a drink from their new fall menu - The Jane Goodall for me and the Poisoned Apple for her.
Looks so lovely and had a nice balance of flavors - the Nutella was very subtle while the banana was the most prominent flavor. I really liked this trio of flavors.
WW's Poisoned Apple was pretty good as well, but didn't look like it had a lot of ice in it (unless it melted that quickly?).
Had a great time with early lunch and Fall drinks with my friend!
Previous visit to Great Maple:
July 2015 with TC
Previous visit to Cafe Virtuoso:
February 2018 (this was a coffee compilation post)
Hmmm, I may need to go back for that Creature from the Black Lagoon drink (matcha with espresso). If you don't already know, Pumpkin Spice is not my thing. Unfortunately, it's the season for all things pumpkin spice related, but I a taking a hard pass on permutations of that flavor.
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