late night happy hour at the lazy dog restaurant / mission valley – san diego, ca

The last few softball games Jake has had have been later in the evening – at 8:30PM. This gave us a chance to check out some late night happy hours I’d been curious about.

happy-hour-menu-lazy-dog

The first one we went to was at the Lazy Dog Restaurant. They have regular happy hour Monday-Friday from 3 to 6PM. Sunday through Thursday they do a second happy hour from 9PM until close. The menu is the same for both times. Anything with an asterisk next to it is a happy hour (smaller) portion.

hydrant-tap-bar

Happy hour here – like most places – is only in the bar and patio area. I didn’t notice this on our first visit, but they have a fire hydrant as the tap! It amused me.

cajun-fries

[cajun fries – $3]

The cajun fries were much better than from our inital visit. The fries were perfectly crisp with a good dusting of cajun seasoning on them. It wasn’t too spicy for me to munch on these and the side of chipotle ranch gave them an additional kick of flavor. This is a HUGE serving for $3 and would be an excellent size to share among a few friends.


potato-hush-puppies

[loaded potato hushpuppies – $3]

These little loaded potato balls were a bit spicier than I remember – it tasted like they added another spice on the inside, or maybe it just seemed spicier because I had already eaten some semi-spicy things? Still, very creamy and very flavorful. This is the full sized portion.

grilled-garlic-flatbread

[grilled garlic flatbread – $3]

This kind of reminded me of a seasoned tortilla or pita bread. In retrospect I probably wouldn’t order it again though it was okay in flavor and taste. It wasn’t bad but also not really memorable. Mild garlic flavor, I almost wished we just had garlic bread or breadsticks instead.

buffalo-chicken-nuggets

[spicy buffalo chicken nuggets – $4]

You can tell right away that they are made by hand. Each one was a different size and space. Our waitress told us the chicken is never frozen here, ensuring a fresher product and it shows. They were juicy little nuggets of white meat chicken with plenty of buffalo sauce on it. Too spicy for me, but Jake loved them.

wok-fried-calamari

[wok fried calamari – $6]

This dish was like a whole meal coming with a bed of brown rice (or white – your choice). It’s marked as “spicy” but it didn’t taste very spicy to me, but I was also able to avoid anything that looked really spicy (peppers, jalapenos) and prevented it from going into my mouth. Ordering this plus all of the other items proved to be too much food considering Jake wouldn’t eat this (oh noes, seafood, helps!). It had a nice sweet-almost-spicy flavor from the glaze on it. It was battered as well, kind of masking the taste of the calamari, but it was still pretty good. I’d order it again if I had another seafood friend with me. 

All in all, this cost us just around $20 with tax and tip for two people and it easily could have served more. There are also other really good choices on there I’d like to check out in the future – like the $5 personal pizza or 1/4 late night burger.

The Lazy Dog Restaurant
1202 Camino Del Rio N.
San Diego, CA 92108
(619) 481-6191

Lazy Dog on Urbanspoon


6 thoughts on “late night happy hour at the lazy dog restaurant / mission valley – san diego, ca

  1. Good prices for two! Did you notice the dog bone taps? I saw those first before the fire hydrant. Just curious, do you know if they are dog friendly?

    1. Hi Lynn – The prices are really cheap – we could have gotten less items and been quite happy! I did notice the bone taps, hehe – so cute! I love the subtle “dog” touches throughout the whole restaurant. And yes they are dog-friendly. There’s a large patio where you can sit with your dog. You can see my previous review where I brought my dog with us: http://food.theplainjane.com/2013/10/23/lazy-dog-restaurant-and-bar-mission-valley-san-diego-ca/ – they have a doggie menu, too! (Either steak or chicken with white rice – I don’t remember the price though).

  2. Oh man as someone who grew up with hushpuppies as cornbread balls, my first reaction to those potato hushpuppies was to scream in my head, “BLASPHEMY!”
    But then, fried potato balls sound pretty good, too 😛

    1. Hi Jinxi – Haha… yeah these aren’t hushpuppies, but I think they just really wanted to use “puppy” to refer to something! They are pretty good though, whatever you want to call them. 🙂

  3. I always love the LATE happy hours. I mean, who can make happy hour that starts at like 3p in the afternoon. I remember your previous post about this place and wanting to try them. The flatbread looks totally like a pita bread! I think you did good with a total of $20!

    1. Hi Faye – Yes, I’m starting to dig the late night happy hours. It’s nice to have the options! I want to try out a few more. We got a lot of food – too much, really – but I love that it was cheap and that most of them were regular sized portions.

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