Nick's Famous Coney Island

Steps away from the Bagdad Theater is this old school sign proclaiming, Nick's Famous Coney Island Food...

I remember seeing it back in 2010 and again in 2012...

Barrio Dogg

Late last month TC took us, her good ol' parents on a tour of SDSU. It was cool seeing her "routine" (where she parks, where her classes are and where she hangs out). State has changed so much since I was last there as a student...

afterwards, she took us here to Barrio Dogg, one of her favorite spots to go with her friends...

Lunch @ Sea 180 Coastal Tavern

Yesterday we had an off campus planning meeting for our department...

Lunch was here, at Pier South in Imperial Beach...

The mandatory stop at Cream Pan - LA Roadtrip Day 1

See the window? And it's already February...

Can you tell I'm a bit behind in my posts? Oh well, this was the storefront next to Starbucks off the Red Hill exist in Tustin...

It's our first pre-stop for Bert's coffee (and a much needed bathroom break) before we head over here...

Cream Pan is almost always our first stop whenever we make any trip up north and this trip was no exception...

Diver down dude! Fathom Bistro Bait & Tackle

Yesterday, we all enjoyed a nice day out starting off with brunch, exploring the bridges in Banker's Hills (those posts will be forthcoming)...

and enjoying the awesome views of San Diego Bay at Shelter Island.

I thought Bert would really like this new craft beer place that just opened up on the pier...

Pop Culture

Sorry to say it, but Fort Vancouver was a bit unexciting.

We needed a shot of something less staid...

Something more attuned to the geeky masses...

Wetzel's Pretzels

We were down at the San Ysidro outlets earlier today...

I wanted to "correct" the spelling and grammar on the sign..."Squozen". Really?

Wicked Wienerz

So, here we were...drawn to the siren call of meat in tubular form...

The kids left on their charter bus at 3 pm. A few of us parents needed a little something for the road...

Otay Ranch Center - Hot Dog on a Stick

Wow, I didn't know Hot Dog on a Stick has been around this long...

I've posted on Hot Dog on a Stick before. So, same old food. Different location. Instead of the usual girls who work here, it was a dude this time. How come guys don't have to wear the tall goofy hat? His was a regular ball cap. I wanted to see him pump those lemons up and down, haha!  Just kidding.

We used the Buy one get one free coupon.

This was the foodcourt at the Otay Ranch mall. It's right next to some sushi place. Haha, phallic.

Bite this...(I spy the Happy Apple, last seen recreated on my birthday cake)

The food court is pretty dead. The Italian place across the way went out of business and there are still two empty store fronts.

A few doors down from Hot Dog on a Stick is the Nestle Toll House place. They must have Filipinos who own this place because look, they sell Halo-Halo!

We've never tried their stuff before since we can make halo-halo anytime we want.

By the way, Happy Friday the 13th!!!

Food at the Fall Festival

Last week TC's school had their annual Fall Festival. Most of the schools in our area have them around October/November. It's usually a fun time for the teachers, parents, kids, and community to get together and play games, win prizes, watch entertainment, fundraise for the different grade levels, and of course, to EAT!

Here's my post from last year. Again, Robsessed's husband was ready with THE PLATTER. He and the other husband were third in line. They came early just for this....Their order for the families: 30 carne asada tacos. Look at the smile on the dude's face as he's laying out the tortillas. "30 fkg tacos?"

There was a fixings bar - limes, onions, cilantro, pickles carrots and jalapenos along with salsa.

This was just the "first layer"...

Here they are in all of their meaty glory...ohhh yeahh....(cue the Barry White Orchestra's "Love Unlimited theme)!

Along with tacos, Robsessed's daughter had Pizza Hut pizza (the cheese kind; they also had pepperoni)...


I bought nearly a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts for us to share...


I've been good, so I ate just one!

Robsessed also brought some drinks from home. This was a "Throwback" Pepsi made with real sugar. Bert had a can of this and found it a bit too sweet.

Despite how tempting all those tacos were, I only had two because earlier that day, I'd gone to Rubio's with the co-workers and forgot about having tacos for later. Dammit. But, I still had room to have this hot dog. I love ketchup. I hate mustard.

TC bought some apples with caramel sauce. They had either the Gala or the Granny Smith apples. These were the Gala's. I'm not  a fan of sticky sauce on fruit so I passed on this.

Bert got a small boat of nachos...as you can tell, the theme was junk, junk, junk!

Wait a minute, what is this? In all five years of going to these things, this was brand new, the Sun City Italian Ice cart....

They were generous with their scoops - a bowl was $3 and you could get up to two flavors. The guy also gave samples. I got the chocolate chip (this was really really good!!!!) with cherry on the bottom. When Bert tasted this, he felt like that critic from "Ratatouille" when he tasted the ratatouille...he told me that the flavors reminded him of a cherry cordial which he loves. Man, I only got these two flavors because I thought that lemon, mango, lime, and such would be disgusting paired up with chocolate. Well, this was a win!

TC had a lot of fun roaming around the school's quad with her friends. That's where the entertainment, game booths, and prizes were. We, the parents, just parked our asses in the cafeteria arbor area where we ate, bullshitted, ate some more and blah blah blah. My sister even went with her kids and they don't even go to this school. We only have one more Fall Festival next year and then TC's off to middle school!

On our way to UTC and Hot Dog on a Stick

Even though it was a sunny day, there was a marine layer on the coast. Here's the I-5 right after the Garnet Ave exit.

You can barely see the Mount Soledad cross on that hill (leftish middle)...

As we approached La Jolla, we pass by the white spires of the Mormon Temple. Back in 1993, when I was still in grad school, Bert and I were able to take a free tour of the Temple before they officially closed it off to gentiles (non Mormons). We had to wear these little plastic booties over our shoes so we wouldn't ruin their floors. It was quite surreal being in there. You also had to be invited by an LDS (Latter Day Saints) member and one of the women in the master's program was LDS.

Fast forward to UTC...I remember when going to this mall was an adventure. For us kids who lived down South, this was pretty fkg far to drive. Plus, La Jolla was a lot "whiter" back in the 80's than it was now. It's so much more diverse.  While TC and Bert enjoyed ice skating, I did a bit of walking around, browsing, and shopping. TC had a late lunch from Hot Dog on a Stick.

Here's that nice and healthy lunch - Two corn dogs (Remember the mall scene in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure"? The one with Freud holding a corn dog and tilting it forward as he said, "Tell me about your mother!" Ha ha!).

As you can tell, she loves ketchup.   Mmm, meat tube...fried...

They skated until the allotted time; after that, it was time for the local ice hockey team to take the ice. We headed back home down South to Chula Vista...

Wienerschnitzel

[Two new posts...scroll down for new food porn!]

Some time last month, we used three coupons for Wienerschnitzel. This is the Chula Vista location on Palomar Street. The one on Broadway and H is only a stand alone take out booth, but this sexy bitch of a fast food joint is a sit down place!

This was only the 2nd or 3rd tiime I'd ever eaten at Wienerschnitzel...

The entertainment book had 3 different coupons...

So of course, being the cheap ass that I am, we used all three!

These were on the table, advertising their other menu items:

Coupon #1 was: Buy one root beer float, get one free. So here is one of them (Bert and TC's drinks):

Informative, eh?

The 2nd coupon was: Buy one corn dog, get one Free. So, this was TC's meal.

Here's our trio of Chili Cheese Dogs ($1 each). This was separate from our 3rd coupon - Buy one chili cheese dog, get one Free!

We were quite hungry that afternoon! Here's the chili cheese dog...indigestion here it comes!

Cross section of that dog! Nice and gooey!

And because I'm anal, I took a photo of the informative tray liner...

Lastly, check out this shirt worn by one of their employees who was taking a break...

So, I totally blew my health kick by eating this stuff, but at the time, it seemed appealing.  I think I worked out extra hard that week to get rid of the calories!