mad dogs cafe / pacific beach | san diego, ca

Ahh, another Groupon deal. If it weren’t for these sites (LivingSocial, BuyItWithMe, etc.) I would probably try less new places. But luckily they exist – and are heaven sent for a food blogger on a budget! I bought two of the Groupon deals for Mad Dogs Cafe in Pacific Beach – $8 each, good for $20 each (I spent $16 and got to spend $40 at the restaurant – awesome). Jake and I took the kids again for a meal out – but we stayed on budget this time! Luckily they were patient with me as we rang up our order – we each got a dog of our choice, shared some chips and shared some gelato in the end. Good deal.

Their main items here are the Mad Dogs – your choice of sausage inside of a baguette roll. Prices range from $3.99 for a Frankfurter hot dog to $4.99 for a Sweet Italian Sausage or Andouille Sausage. You also get to pick what kind of sauce you want inside in the baguette with your dog. They’ve got a bunch of sauces, including your traditional mustard, ketchup and relish to the not-so-traditional, such as bbq sauce, sweet chili sauce, raspberry chipotle, curry, wasasbi mayo and their signature mad sauce.

I got the Polish Dog ($4.50) with just mustard inside. I didn’t feel like going crazy. I liked how the baguette wrapped around almost the entire dog – keeping whatever sauce you ordered safely inside of your bun. The polish sausage had a good smoky flavor to it as well – I really liked it!

We got 2 large orders of Fresh Potato Chips ($1.99 for a regular size, don’t remember how much the large size is) and some mad sauce on the side. I wanted to at least try the mad sauce, but I didn’t want it on my dog. I tried the freshly made potato chips with some of the mad sauce and I must say – their mad sauce is pretty killer. It’s sweet and slightly tangy with a bit of spice to it. It had a really good flavor. Jake thought it was perhaps a concoction of ketchup and mayo and laughed at me for “liking something with ketchup” (yes, I don’t like ketchup – how un-American of me). He tried to get the workers there to tell him what was in the sauce, but since it’s a secret all we could find out was that there was A) no ketchup (haha!) and B) there was mayo. In any case – the mad sauce is highly recommended with these excellent homemade potato chips!

Of course we had to get some gelato for sharing. We each tried a bunch of flavors.

After sampling a few of the flavors, such as the Nutella (yum), Pistachio(yum), Hazelnut (yum) and Panacotta (tastes like cake!), I decided to get half vanilla and half hazelnut. Getting half and half was a good idea – it tones down the flavors a bit and gives a little variety for your tastebuds. Really good gelato, too – creamy and rich and it really hit the spot after lunch.

I only went .40 cents over budget, too. How awesome is that! Mad Dogs Cafe also serves up breakfast all day – such as sandwiches, scramblers and crumpets – making this a good breakfast spot, too. I think I’d like to come back in and try a crumpet!

Mad Dogs Cafe
746 Emerald St.
San Diego, CA 92109
858-750-3114