Last month I was invited to go to the Coast of Pacific Beach Restaurant Walk. Since it was held in mid-May, of course the clouds rolled in early and made for a gray evening. But no matter – Laura and I still did our fare share of walking and visited 13 of the 28 restaurants on the list. Not bad!
[honey goat cheese crostini at moray’s in the catamaran hotel]
We started at the end of the list and worked our way back up to Garnet.
This is honey goat cheese crostini. The crostini would have been better if it has been a tad crispier, but I still really loved the flavors of the honey and the goat cheese together.
[honey comb and goat cheese]
They also had a little display showcasing the cheese and honey comb they used for their crostini. Yum!
[ribs and beans from tony roma’s]
Our next stop was right across the way at Tony Roma’s. They had samples of their ribs with bbq sauce and their baked beans.
I didn’t think these were very flavorful and the sample reinforced my desire to not ever go to Tony Roma’s…
I’m so harsh.
[cheese pizza samples from ocean’s pizzeria]
Right next to Tony Roma’s is a little pizza place called Ocean’s Pizzeria. They had two kinds of pizzas out the moment we went by: cheese and pepperoni. I opted to just get cheese since pepperoni often times is too salty for me.
These were just okay slices. They were cold and obviously hanging around for awhile and the flavor was just all right.
[chicken kabob from california kabob]
This place was just upstairs from Tony Roma’s and Ocean’s Pizzeria. It took us a minute to figure out what was going on… turns out we had to order these and then wait for them to come out. This may have resulted in a fresher approach, but we ended up having to wait for quite a long time which really cut into our time for the whole event!
In the end, I thought this was a bit too dry. It would have been nice with sauce on it or something to help keep it from drying out.
[big kahunas homemade ice cream]
From there we headed towards the beach on the boardwalk to get some kid sized cones from Big Kahunas.
[chocolate peanut butter + red mint chip / brownies & cream mini cones]
Our cute little cones were just the right amount for a cloudy day. Laura got the two flavored one on the left while I stuck with just one flavor. Normally I’d get chocolate peanut butter, but I wanted to try something new! The brownies and cream was a good choice – nice bits of brownie in a creamy ice cream.
[ahi poke – the wood]
We really had to hike to get to The Wood by going up two flights of stairs and winding all the way around the rooftop. There’s a very pretty view up there and I could see the appeal – especially in the warmer months.
We were treated to an ahi poke appetizer on a crispy wonton shell. This was one of the fresher items we had that day and was assembled on the spot for us. I didn’t like this only because I don’t care for tuna – but Laura really liked it. It was one of her favorites of the whole event!
[calamari pasta – nick’s at the beach]
We headed up closer to Garnet and stopped at Nicks at the Beach on Mission Blvd.
The calamari pasta is good in theory… but by the time we got it, it was cold and the calamari had gotten fairly chewy and hard to eat.
[red pepper soup – nick’s at the beach]
The red pepper soup though was very welcomed by both of us since it was HOT (very important) and had a surprisingly good flavor. Normally I am not one for red peppers, but the flavor was mellowed out in the soup and it tasted quite creamy. We ended up both really liking the soup.
[carne asada taco – pb shore club]
We tried to go to PB Ale House – but they had already closed for a private event. We headed to PB Shore Club right next door. Again we had to order the food (your choice of taco) and had to wait a few minutes for it to come out. The wait was a little bit shorter, but it was still discouraging to have to wait.
The taco wasn’t bad but nothing to really write home about. It was a good size. I believe these are their happy hour tacos.
[ribs & coleslaw – firehouse american eatery]
We snaked our way up to another rooftop to get this item – ribs and coleslaw. I started to feel like the food was stuck on repeat now. More ribs? I don’t remember being very impressed with them or the coleslaw.
[fat sal’s]
We finally made our way onto Garnet and was quickly running out of time to try a few more things. I visited Fat Sal’s when they first opened and was quite disappointed so I was hesitant to try it again. But I figured, eh, why not.
This is Laura’s sandwich which she liked – a combination of Italian meats.
[fat jerry sandwich – fat sal’s]
Me? I went all out and tried a slice of the Fat Jerry – which has a crazy combination of things in it: french fries, mozzarella sticks, an egg, cheesesteak, and chicken fingers. Yes – it is INSANE.
But, compared to my first visit, this little slice was actually quite flavorful and I was more impressed with it this time around. I think our first visit maybe the regular chef was gone or something since it didn’t even look like this.
Anyway. Verdict? Surprisingly tasty!
[chili – cass street bar & grill]
We skipped another Mexican spot and headed over to Cass Street Bar & Grill since someone we talked to earlier said they had this Asian salad thing that she loved… but obviously she was drunk and told us the wrong place or was dreaming because what we got were these little cups of chili. They were meh.
[spicy curry thing – ra ka de ka]
One last stop before we sped over to get dessert. They were continually creating new items over at Ra Ka De Ka, which is a chain Thai restaurant. I got some kind of curry thing that was super spicy and I just ate the rice and gave up.
[cookies – the baked bear]
We had just enough time left to head over to the Baked Bear. They were giving away cookie samples of their many flavors. Normally you use the cookies to create ice cream sandwiches and for the restaurant walk they were just sampling the cookies. In the photo you can see the birthday cake (on the left) and on the right m&m and red velvet. There was also a peanut butter chocolate but you can’t see it. The cookies are quite soft – good for eating with ice cream! I enjoyed and the cookies and hope to revisit soon to try and actual ice cream sandwich.
Thank you to Discover Pacific Beach for inviting me to check out the Coast of Pacific Beach Restaurant Walk!
* Disclaimer – our tickets to Coast of Pacific Beach Restaurant Walk were complimentary. I was not paid for this review and all opinions here are from my own noggin’.
Nice roundup! You tried out so many places. Imagine if you had done the whole shebang.
The Fat Jerry’s thing looked like stoner food (looks good to me!). Your mini cones were so cute – the perfect size for sampling.
Harsh? I’d say Honest. 🙂
Thanks, CC! We were pretty full by the time we got to 13 places but if we had more time there were other places I wish we would have checked out (and places I wish we would have skipped, haha). The Fat Jerry sandwich is totally like stoner food. It was like all finger foods stuffed into a sandwich! I try to be honest, it sometimes sounds harsh when I re-read it haha.
Man. That looks like something pretty cool to do w/ a friend. I tried to find this venue on the link but couldn’t see the details – how far are the 28 restaurants from each other – like is it a 1 mi radius or something? I’ve seen these food walks before but never participated b/c 1) it seemed like a LONG walk and 2) the price to do the walk always seemed kinda high. But I think I should do one if I can plan the walk to maximize the full potential of the food 🙂
And yeah, I totally agree w/ you about Tony Roma’s. I didn’t even know there were still around.
Hi Faye! Since the event is over, they took it down from their website. This particular one was $25 (or $20 if you bought in advance). It *seemed* like it was a long walk, but in reality it was not that bad. Pacific Beach is not as big as you think and the blocks are much shorter than say, Downtown. The Catamaran is maybe 5-6 blocks from Garnet, so it’s very doable. And everything was kind of in a logical line so you didn’t feel like you were really huffing it to go from place to place. This is probably one of the cheaper restaurant walks – Hillcrest is a far better one, but costs more (but also has twice as many restaurants).