foodies: a southern california food blog

I love when Groupon has tasty treats as their daily coupon offering. Today (or rather, this weekend’s) offering is cupcakes from Haute Pink Cakes. Half a dozen cupcakes for $8 (regularly $18). I love trying new bakeries, so this is an awesome deal. You can be sure I will post a review in the future!

Want in on the deal? Just visit Groupon to get the coupon – the coupon will be up through Sunday!

Here’s a couple of shots from their Cake Gallery:

Last week I was invited by McFarlane Productions to visit 1 of 7 San Diego area restaurants for a sneak peek at an upcoming menu made especially for San Diego Restaurant Week. San Diego Restaurant Week is in it’s sixth year and is held twice during the year to highlight and showcase the city as a premier dining destination. Over 180 restaurants will be participating in San Diego Restaurant Week, offering 3 course meals at a fixed price (either $20, $30, or $40). It’s a great way to explore our city’s many dining options for less!

My choice of the restaurants offered up to me was Island Prime, one of the restaurants in the Cohn Restaurant Group. The menu looked tasty, and I will be honest, I wanted an easy parking situation.  I didn’t want to pay and arm and leg to park nor did I want to have to hunt for parking. Island Prime, located on Harbor Island with it’s own parking lot, offered what I was looking for. Hey, we all have to have our priorities in order, right?

Island Prime is a located in a prime location: right on Harbor Island with stunning views of Downtown San Diego and Coronado. The staff spoiled us by setting us up in a corner table, with a perfect view of the bay and the city. It was a stunning sight and throughout our dinner, Stacey and I would gaze out at the water and watch the occasional boat or stare at the pretty, pretty city lights.

If you ignore the reflections in the photo above, you can sort of see what I’m talking about.

Our waitress greeted us enthusiastically, showing us the drink menu and the wine menu after greeting us. She was particularly excited about their black bramble martini ($11 – left drink in the photo), a drink that has “house infused pineapple vodka shaken with fresh blackberries”. Stacey opted to try this drink after seeing how excited our waitress was about it. After drooling over many of their drink options, I decided on the maharaja ($11 – right drink in the photo), a martini with “house infused apricot vodka, licor 43 & chai syrup shaken with fresh lemon & lime”. My martini was very flavorful and I felt like I could taste each flavor in the drink – it was sweet and refreshing and didn’t taste anything at all like an alcoholic drink. With a pretty star anise floating in my drink, I sipped this slowly throughout our dinner to make it last as long as possible. Stacey’s martini was also delightfully refreshing with fresh fruit in it, also another drink that dangerously tastes nothing like an alcoholic beverage. Stacey was also very pleased to discover that her pineapple garnish was also infused with vodka. Her face lit up with a happy grin after chomping down on the pineapple.

For San Diego Restaurant Week, there are three options for each course. Additionally, if you’re a wine lover, you can get 3oz. wine pairing with each course for $55 (vs. the regular $40). For our appetizers and entree’s, Stacey and I got the same thing: the blt wedge salad and the 8oz. filet mignon. Our meals also came with freshly baked popovers and a delightedly sweet jalapeno butter (I think it might have been honey and jalapeno, but I’m not sure).

I can’t tell you how much I adored this blt wedge salad. Particularly the buttermilk-maytag blue cheese dressing.  I’m not a big fan of tomatoes, either, but let me say that I ate them, just as a vessel for the dressing. After I had eaten every bit off of the plate, I demolished the remains of my popover and used it to soak up the rest of the dressing. So. freaking. tasty.

In little to no time after our salads, we were presented with these lovely dishes containing our main meal: 8oz. filet mignon, sea salt mashed potatoes and haricot verts (basically a French green bean). The filet mignon was so tender it almost melted in my mouth. The edges of the meat was crisp and flavorful and I lovingly smeared the mashed potatoes onto each bite. The haricot verts (I’m trying to resist calling them simply green beans) were sauteed in garlic and I don’t know what else, but they were flavorful and had a nice crisp, bite to them. Our mashed potatoes had that cute rosemary stem as a garnish and halfway through the meal, Stacey decided to de-stem it and sprinkle it on her potatoes. I followed suit and enjoyed the extra fusion of flavors. Try as I might, I was unable to clean my plate off entirely. Stacey though, kudos to her, succeeded where I could not. And yet there was still a third course in our future!

The manager came by to tell us that sadly, they were out of their apple crumb cheesecake. Instead we were treated to both of the remaining desserts that they did have for sampling: the chocolate hazelnut torte and the pineapple upside-down cake. I will say that, in addition to the parking situation, the idea of eating a chocolate hazelnut torte sounded so deliciously delightful that I could not pass it up.

The torte, with a raspberry coulis and a smattering of chocolate sauce falling down one side, was decadent. When I took a bite, it was surprisingly light and melted immediately in my mouth. It reminded me of cotton candy, but without the grainy texture or super sweetness. There were also crunchy little bits to chomp up in addition to the chocolaty goodness.

The pineapple upside-down cake came with cardamom ice cream and a rum caramel sauce. Being that I am not a big fan of pineapples, I ate around the pineapple, instead savoring the sweet cake and rum caramel sauce. I took a moment to just eat the caramel sauce as well, which was creamy and of course, delicious.

We stuffed ourselves silly. I congratulated myself on choosing a spot with easy parking as it quickly became a blessing as we waddled out of the restaurant, filled with goodness and the peace that only a quiet and serene evening overlooking the San Diego bay can give you. Thanks to McFarlane Productions for treating us to this spectacular meal and giving us the opportunity to showcase a meal for San Diego Restaurant Week!

Here’s the full menu that Island Prime is offering, along with the wine pairings:

Be sure to check out San Diego Restaurant Week’s website for a full listing of participating restaurants and their menus! Restaurant Week starts on Sunday, January 17th and ends Friday, January 22nd.

Island Prime
880 Harbor Island Dr.
San Diego, CA
(619) 298-6802

I had been down in the Hillcrest area trying to visit “Taste: Artisan Cheese Shop”, but on this particular visit it was sadly closed again (it took me awhile to finally get down there for some awesome cheese!). To make the trip down south not totally useless, I stopped by Uncle Biff’s Killer Cookies for a cookie tasting.

I tried two kinds of cookies. One was the “Double Peanut Butter”. It was soft, moist and definitely peanut-buttery! The cookie had a good texture and flavor to it.

I don’t remember the name of this one, but it’s got chocolate chips and almond toffee pieces in it. I really liked the almond toffee in it – haven’t seen that in a cookie before! Again, very good cookie and good combination of stuff in it. I got this one still a bit warm, too, so the chips were kind of melty. Excellent!

The cookies are $1.75 each – kind of steep for one cookie, but the quality and flavor are quite high. Check them out if you’re in the area (you can also order some on the website and get local delivery!) and have a major sweets craving – you won’t be disappointed!

Uncle Biff’s Killer Cookies
650 University Ave
San Diego CA 92130
(619) 291-2433

The Starlite is a place I’ve been wanting to visit for awhile. I originally thought about going here for my birthday dinner, but my boyfriend’s son would be with us that night, so that plan was out. I went a couple of weeks later with my friend, Heather, for a little birthday redux.

The Starlite offers a locally grown, hand crafted menu. The menu changes daily depending on what foods they are able to get locally. Looking at the sample menu and with what we got that day, there do seem to be a few staples on the menu. The Starlite is a great place to try different meals with locally grown foods from San Diego.

They also have a really interesting drink menu.

I got the Kentucky Colonel ($8) – Buffalo Trace Bourbon, ginger beer, lemon, house made cherry vanilla bitters. It was served in a large copper mug which kept it cool for the entire dinner (and yeah, it took me pretty much the whole dinner to drink it). I loved the ginger beer flavor in the background with the bourbon – it was a bit sweet and not too strong – excellent for me. Heather got a drink called the Velvet Diablo (awesome name) and I had a sip of it – and it actually kind of had a little spicy kick to it.

We got the Cheese Plate ($12) with a variety of cheeses, some local honeycomb (in the cup), some fruits and some toasted hazelnut raisin bread. I don’t remember what kind of cheeses they were specially, but there was a blue cheese (on the far right there) a soft, goat like cheese (far left) and then two harder cheeses in the middle. All were really good with the fruit, the honeycomb and the toasted bread. I really enjoyed the bread – I’m not even a fan of raisins, but the addition of big hazelnut chucks was divine to me. I loveeee cheese!

I suppose I could have gone for a fancier, local food dish, but after reading the description for the burger I wanted it! This is one of those, “seems to be a staple meals” since it’s also on the sample menu on the website: “The Burger ($13): All natural Brandt beef patty, Gruyere cheese, caramelized onions served on a brioche bun with dijonaise, house made pickles & fries.” It was really delicious and perfectly cooked. I kept munching on the fries, too, even though I was done. Heather got the same thing and did the same as me – munch, munch, munch. But it was delicious!

I didn’t get any shots of the inside of the bar, but we were actually sitting outside on the patio but it was weird because it still felt like we were indoors – but with the stars overhead. Also when you first walk in you’re struck by how pretty and cool the place looks – the bar is sunk into the middle of the floor with cozy booths and tables all around it and a pretty neat looking chandelier.  Even the entrance to this place is cool – a hexagon shaped door. Totally a great place to chill out and relax with a few friends if you’re in the area. Highly recommended!

Starlite Dining and Cocktails
3175 India Street
San Diego, CA 92103
(619 358-9766

Here’s a couple of photos from the baby shower cake I made this past weekend for my good friend’s baby shower.

The theme was baby feet and polka dots, so I made it fit as well as I could. The baby blocks and feet are made from chocolate molds!