Panaderia Gonzalez is now Panaderia Cazares

After getting my prized tortillas and the trio of coyotas from Otay Farms Market...

I headed south on Broadway and hung a right on Coronado Ave. As you cross the bridge across the 5, hang a left on Hollister (it's near that awesome birria place, Birria Fernandez)...

Otay Farms Market revisits

Last month I was down South doing errands and thought to revisit this place...

Otay Farms Market...where I once bought the elusive Lay's Spicy Ketchup flavor chips sevderal years ago.

I noticed the signage on top of the building was new...

The demolition of Marian High School

From this...

(photo from my "IB" post from February 2008)

to this...

The sign is gone replaced by banners advertising new local businesses. Some bozo decided to put an upside cross and the number of the beast as well, which is just totally rude and disprespectful...

Revisits to K-Pasta, Star Dust Donuts, West Coast Cafe & Oasis Ice Cream + Yogurt Heaven

I was expecting to brave the lines at Kula Revolving Sushi this morning....

Instead, we went to the corner of 13th St. and Donax in IB for one of our tried and true faves...

Mila's Lakeside Cafe

Sometime last month Bert visited his mom over in Lakeside...

and took her out to lunch at a nearby cafe...

TC's birthday dinner + dessert @ Pho Hiep & Grill + Tap Tap Boba

[As of late 2015, Tap Tap Boba is now called VaniTea Cafe]

We were originally going to have dinner here...

but there were no tables available and we didn't want to wait (it was already 7 pm)...

so Pho Hiep Grill  a few doors down it was!

Fifteen

Today TC turns 15...

If you want to get technical, at 4:33 pm she will be exactly 15 years old...

The Swiss Restaurant & Bar

After dropping off our luggage and personal  effects at our hotel, we headed out to dinner..

and since this was Santa Maria, land of tri-tip bbq, we headed to a local steakhouse...

Pismo Beach Pier & Farmer's Market

Back to Pismo we were...

next to The Scoop where TC enjoyed a cone several years ago...

Margo Dodd Park & Shell Beach

Right next to Dinosaur Caves Park is Margo Dodd Park and Shell Beach...

Shell Beach is an unincorporated area near Pismo and has awesome ocean views and really nice homes...

Cotija's revisits

Sometimes I forget that this place is here...

Cotija's taco shop, on the eastern edge of the Vons shopping center in Bonita. Although TJ Oyster Bar's second location is right around the corner and Lolita's is across the street, there are deals to be had here...

Pavaraga Espresso Bar

In the tiny Bonita Plaza, not  Plaza Bonita the mall, but the strip mall that is also home to the original location of TJ Oyster Bar is a new, as in opened two weeks ago new coffee shop...

Pavaraga hails from Hawaii and the Bonita location is their first on the  mainland...

We had to give it a looksee earlier this afternoon...

Beignets from Cafe du Monde mix

It's the weekend...

which means I can drink coffee...So a coffee soda for breakfast it was. This time using a dark roast from Caffe Calabria. The cup in the front is the simple syrup (made last week when we first made coffee soda), which is dark since I used raw turbinado sugar.

I asked Bert the other day if he could finally make these...

A gift from the lovely and generous Kirbie from her trip to New Orleans earlier this year. It was time to finally open it...

Point Reyes Lighthouse

It truly did take us almost two hours to get from Point A (El Cerrito) to Point B (Inverness)...

We drove on a few twisty roads followed by lonely roads such as this passing through dairy farms (Strauss Creamery was one!) complete with grazing cows...

Random drinks...

A collection of stray photos featuring drinks from the past six months or so...

Earlier this month...

on a beautiful sunny San Diego day (which is usually almost every day except recently)...

we attended the Prof's wedding...

Return to Chi Chocolate and the Women's Museum of San Diego

Before going to our next museum outing, we passed by Chi Chocolat...

where Bert and I picked up a couple of pieces of chocolate...

San Diego Comic Gallery - Inaugural Exhibit: Kevin Eastman

Last month during our last free Friday of vacation went to check out the newly opened San Diego Comic Art Gallery...

The gallery is the first of its kind in San Diego to focus on the comic book as an art form.

Located in Barracks 3, the gallery's inaugural exhibit featured the work of Kevin Eastman, the creator of the famous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

Cafe Hielo

It was finally time for dessert a few doors down...

We were supposed to go here but got sidetracked by the allure of the new dumpling shop...

Dumpling Hut

The next stop on D's birthday food crawl was actually unplanned.

One the northwest corner of Clairemont Mesa Blvd and Mercury is the same strip mall that houses the mediocre and gringofied  Pho Fusion, and Mercury Grill (which Kirk has posted on back in 2011), which incidentally Dumpling Hut replaced.
The strip mall also featured the now defunct Aria Kabob (which TC and I enjoyed) which is now Chaba Thai (also posted by Kirk in 2013). So much turnover!

We were actually going to have dessert at a Korean place but when I mentioned, "Oh, that must be new, that Dumpling Hut. Want to try it first?", D was all for it. So off we went...

Coffee 'n ice cream @ Holsem and Hammond's for D

As it is with all of the Educator GF birthday outings, this was a full on crawl...

After our lunch at Chi Extraordinary Kitchen, the next stop was a few minutes away in North Park at one of my favorite coffee places...

Return to Chi Extraordinary Kitchen - D's birthday lunch with the Educator GF's

I was eagerly awaiting a return visit to Chi...

since our initial visit several weeks ago...

with only 3/4 of the Educator GF's in tow (KD was MIA due to a family emergency)...

It's been such a long time...Baja Oyster Bar

Has it really been that long?

Four years it's been...

Coffee Soda with Andytown beans

Recently Bert made coffee soda...

(from my "Andytown Coffee Roasters" post, November 2014)

using beans from Andytown Coffee Roasters in the Outer Sunset...

Passing through Marin County...

With coffee from Well Grounded in our system, we set the gps for our next stop which was a one and a half hour drive to the other side of bay. On the map, El Cerrito and Point Reyes looks pretty close by but in reality, it was a LONG ASS DRIVE! Our first task was getting through this...getting on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge...

which we drove on back in Summer 2011 to check out the Marine Mammal Center (Free!)...

Luckily, we have a transponder (since we use the 125) and guess what people, it works for all bridges in California. So we passed up all of these poor bastards and zipped through more easily than most, heh heh...

Savoie Eatery

Ha, NEARLY one year later, I'm finally bringing this out of the vault...

Partly due to neglect..

and also lack of motivation since I'm still so behind on other posts. But hey, after seeing recent bloggers' posts on Savoie figured I should finally do it before I forget entirely!

Return to Junz, Holsem Coffee, Kanpai, McD's, Jochi Resto Grill & TJ Oyster Bar 2

On our way to Junz in North Park...

we saw this painted roll up door on a side street...

Truer words were never spoken...

Star Anise Thai Cuisine

The lovely Scripps Turd Okeanos sculpture was but a mere shadow of a memory now that TC's performance was through...

Bert and I had eaten earlier at Bella Vista but we stopped by the nearest Thai place for TC's craving...

Okeanos Sculpture (aka The Scripps Turd)

From Bella Vista to the corner of these two streets nearby...

was a rather strange piece of art with an interesting history...

Return to Bella Vista Social Club and Caffe

TC had a performance nearby earlier today. To kill time between the drop off and the actual performance, we went to the Sanford Consortium building near UCSD...

I hadn't been back to Bella Vista (I've shortened the name if you haven't noticed)...since last year. As for the ocean view? You can kind of see it...

The day started off overcast which made for nice and even lighting...

Return to North Park Nursery and City Farmer's Nursery

The same day we went to Chi Extraordinary Kitchen, Bert and I visited a couple of nurseries...

hoping to find some more herbs and vegetables for our garden...

*Can you see the Georgia Street Bridge in the distance?

It was a $%#@ hot day and I was worried that any plants we bought would wither and die in the car...

Sunset Ice Shack

Our dessert would be in the neighboring community of Tierrasanta...

we would be going to this community tomorrow for the Prof's wedding...

but for tonight, we were headed to the Sunset Ice Shack...

Cucina Basilico

Earlier this afternoon Bert came home tired and said, "Where are we going for dinner?"

He didn't feel like staying at home and asked if I could check my coupons for a place to try out..

Soda & Swine, Liberty Station

This past weekend I had the pleasure of joining Kirbie for lunch at the new Soda & Swine in Liberty Station...

Some of your may remember this site as the former location for the short lived Roseville Cozinha...

Pentych in North Park

A few weeks ago while on our way to Dark Horse in North Park...

I'd always admired this wall on the corner of Gunn St and 30th...

Return to Paso Robles + Blackwells Corner and Taco Bell

The small town of Gonzales is off the 101 in the Central Coast...

every time we pass by, I snap a shot of this tower and text it to La Ley. She used to live in Salinas and worked in Gonzales and didn't like it up there.

Our next stretch break was in Paso Robles which we had the pleasure of visiting earlier that summer...

If the temperature wasn't 90+ degrees, we would have enjoyed ourselves more...

Return to Cafe Virtuoso

With breakfast from Manna under our belt, we made our way to the 5...

Our next stop was for coffee...

at a place we hadn't been to in over a year...

In my quest to try actual coffee instead of the iced shit, it's been a compulsion/obsession of mine to make some revisits...