Pho Hiep Grill Chateau + Rita's

Ah, the glory that is Fall Break...we are so $%#@ lucky in San Diego where it's 75+ degrees and sunny and beautiful almost every day.

This is "Fall" for San Diego and no one is wearing heavy sweaters, coats or scarves...

TC's friend Sherlock was spending the day with us and I took the girls out to lunch...

Cape Town

Last Friday TC and went to check out a fairly new restaurant up in Mira Mesa. It's in this strip mall east of the Pyramid on Miramar Road.

Just look for the flags and remember that's it's across from a golf course. It's a bit of a random place to put a South African restaurant...

but of course we were willing to drive up to give this place a shot..

My mom's 75th

Earlier this evening we celebrated my mom's birthday...

She was so happy that all of us were there, including all seven grandkids...

Taking the L to Taraval: First Stop - Kingdom of Dumpling

Near our hotel was the L-Taraval Streetcar (which I erroneously referred as a 'trolley' in a previous post, please don't hurt me native SF readers). It costs $2 per adult, and .75 for those under 18. This is the very end of the line at 46th and Wawona Street.

Interestingly, the streetcar's money machine wasn't working that day. Correction, it worked for me, so I did pay $2 but Bert, TC and all the other customers wishing to pay cash got to ride for free.

El Indio & Return to Meshuggah Shack

If you've ever driven in Mission Hills, parallel to the 5, you may have seen El Indio's iconic signage with the now-politically incorrect Indian.

After all, that's what "El Indio" is..."The Indian".

El Indio has been around since 1940 and is considered one of San Diego's iconic eateries. I haven't been here in years and my lunch adventure with TC took us here only because I couldn't find parking where I wanted in Little Italy (our original destination) and then, like a doofus, got lost on the one way streets and ended up on the freeway, so...

Nearly there...

Slowly but surely we were making progress...

as we headed up the 101 to our eventual destination of good ole SF...

Return to Classic Rock Sandwich Shoppe & Subterranean Coffee Boutique

Remembering how much we liked this place last year, TC and I went back to North Park at this quirky sandwich shoppe with rock and roll memorabilia...

The same guy who made our sandwiches last year was there along with Cheryl Dagostaro, the very friendly and chattty owner...

Junz Terikyaki & BBQ + a price hike at Hammond's

Near the northeast corner of 30th and University is a place that we'd always walked by and well, kind of ignored.

It was an Islander style eatery and I figured, I could get that kind of stuff down south. My original plan that day was for TC and I to have lunch at Nate's Garden Grill with TC, but after arriving there, didn't realize it was closed on Mondays, so....

TC wanted something Asian and thought it would be cool to try this place out, the place we know as the restaurant with the advertised "completed meal" photo ($4.64 for the record)...

Noodles Noodles

On the corner of 16th and Palm in the nebulous area between San Diego and IB is this nondescript strip mall, B ay City Plaza...

It's not quite IB, but still in an unincorporated part of San Diego that some call Nestor or even Egger Highlands (according to the SD Reader article linked at the end)...

All I knew was that there was a new Thai place to try out...

Panama 66 & the SDMA Sculpture Garden

It was so nice being in Balboa Park once again. We used to love going here  back in college and would often take TC here when she was but a wee toddler...

We wanted to check out the new beer-centric eatery that took over the old Sculpture Garden Cafe ext to the SD Museum of Art...

Return to Bake Sale Cafe & Bakery

[Update - Bake Sale is closed as of Spring 2017]

After picking up TC in the morning, we had to drop her off at a marathon dance practice. We would be alone once again. It seemed so odd not to have her with us that morning.

One of these days, we'll have to visit the new Library. We love the look of it, especially the open dome...

We liked our first visit to Bake Sale so much that we had to return...