Christine "Known Eater" N.'s Profile

Tacos with a View -  we had heard so much about this place from foodie friends that we had to come check it out.  It's basically a taco shack in the middle of the San Elijo campgrounds.  We were able to park on the street nearby for free.  The selection here is very special.  Not your average taco shop!  There's oyster, lobster, duck, and many other kinds of meats.  I got the lobster with bacon and the shrimp tacos.  My SIL got the duck taco.  The street tacos are pretty small but with some chips my two-taco meal was complete.

We sort of had a mishap with our order.  We kept waiting for them to call our name when the food was ready, but did not hear them calling our name.  It was at least 25 minutes after we ordered, when we went up to check.  They said they kept calling our name and then just put the food up on the shelf.  Well, we didn't hear them calling our name, so we got cold food.  It was not that yummy.  

The big deal here really is the ocean view.  I don't know of any other taco shop with a view like that!

I think I would have given this place an overall 3-stars if it wasn't for the ocean view.

We bought a DailyDeal coupon worth $25 to this place a while back, so we decided to try it out today.  We were there right when they opened at 11:30AM and we were the first ones in there.  There weren't very many people there for lunch.  The menu selections were good.  I had Crispy Yaki Beef Tenderloin with rice and salad.  My husband had Chicken Pesto Sandwich.  The beef was pretty good, but very dark and saucy.  The pesto chicken sandwich didn't really have much pesto in it, much to the disappointment of my husband.  But it had applewood bacon, pounded grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, and avocado.  Overall the experience was pleasant, but the food was just sort of okay and didn't really stand out.  I don't think I would come here and pay for a full-price meal without the coupon though.  There are plenty of other places with yummier food for this price.

My husband's company holiday party was last night a few blocks away.  They had a special price deal with Park Manor Suites for last night, so we booked it without really thinking about it.

I'm not really into old-style hotels, but I realize that everyone has different tastes, so my two-star rating isn't really about the old-style decor.  

1)  Check-in - we were slightly crunched for time to get into our room so we could change into clothing appropriate for the holiday party.  However, Bobby the front desk person was not in a hurry to check us in.  He spent at least 5 minutes on the phone with someone before attending to us.  Most hotels that I've been to has had more than one person at the front desk, so that if the phone rings, there is someone else there to help customers check-in.  That was not the case here.  Bobby spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone before attending to us.  It seems that the right order of customer service is to put the phone on hold while attending to the customer in front of you first.  That's how I've seen other hotels and restaurants do it.  We were not very impressed with this.

2)  The common area was decorated for Christmas and everything looked spectacular.  This was really nice and a plus.

3)  The free parking lot is a joke.  There are 40 spaces for 70 rooms, plus I think the employees park there.  There were no spaces when we checked in, so we had to park on the street 2 blocks away.  Good thing it was after 6pm on a Saturday, which meant we could park on the street where it's normally 2 Hour parking only.  I don't know what you would do during the day.

4)  Upon checking into our room on the first floor, we noticed that you could hear a lot of street noise and traffic inside the room.  This was not good.  I'm a light sleeper and street noises usually keep me awake or wake me up easily.  A Minus.

5)  The room was rather large, as it was a suite.  We did not make use of the kitchen area though, so no comment on that.  The decor was old.  And the couch looked really old and worn and uninviting.  However, like I said, people have different aesthetic preferences.  My preference is a more modern hotel.  The TV was old-style tube and kind of small.

6)  Bathroom was small and old.  Obviously it had everything you would need in a bathroom:  toilet, bathtub/shower, and small stand-alone sink.  I prefer to have counter-space so this was a minus.  But wait until you hear what happened to the bathtub.  We were trying to get to sleep around mid-night, when our next door neighbors got back to their hotel room.  The woman decided to take a bath.  The rooms have super-thin walls and a large crack under the common door, so you can hear EVERYTHING.  (More on that in my next point.)  So when she was drawing water for her bath, the water noise was quite palpable in our room.  THEN she put some music on and got into the bath tub, and proceeded to SING quite loudly to the music (Whitney Houston) while taking her bath.  My husband and I couldn't help but chuckle.  I'm telling you, the walls were so thin we could hear every word.  But that wasn't the terrifying part.  After she finished her bath, she unplugged the bathtub and suddenly, we heard this loud popping sound, and heard water splashing up into OUR bathtub in our room.  It was too late and dark to get up to check it out, but this morning we went into the bathroom and sure enough, dirty bath water and some black stuff from the pipes were in our bathtub, just stuck there.  We didn't take showers before we checked out, but we made sure to tell the front desk about it.

7)  THIN walls - terrible experience.  Like I said, I'm a light sleeper, so being able to hear every word and noise from the next-door neighbors, plus the street noise, was quite a terrible experience.  This was compounded by the "doing-it" noises in the middle of the night that woke me up.  Nobody needs to hear that.  Don't come here if you're a light sleeper, seriously.  Not only were the walls thin, but the common door between rooms has a LARGE gap between the door and the floor, which compounds the noise problem.  ARGH!

8)  The view from the roof-top restaurant / breakfast area saved this review from a one-star.  The view really was spectacular.  You could see the SD harbor, Balboa Park, downtown, etc.  And the complimentary free continental breakfast was very nice.

I give this hotel 2 stars because I just can't get over the extremely thin walls and what happened to our bathtub.  It's not acceptable to me.

After hearing about Hodad's for years on local food lists, we finally decided to check it out.

I am really shocked that this place is even on any lists of "best hamburgers".  Really?  The line was about 20 feet out the door, so we had to wait about 25 minutes.  I don't mind waiting for really good food, but I didn't have that here.

We ordered onion rings.  Those were decent and fairly good.
I ordered a cheeseburger basket with fries and lemonade.  The fries and lemonade were good.  The hamburger had a mix of warm meat and really cold veggies and sauce.  It was too thick to really take a good bite.  The bun fell apart already at the beginning due to the wetness of all the sauces.  Not my favorite.  The worst part was the hamburger meat.  It looked and tasted like a frozen patty from the grocery store.  Strangely and unnaturally rounded.  Did not taste like fresh hamburger meat at all.  I also like my burger charbroiled on the grill, and it did not taste like that at all.  

Hodad's was a HUGE disappointment, after all the hype we'd heard.  I would go to Burger Lounge, Smashburger, or Five Guys instead.  I really wanted good hamburgers after all I'd heard about this place.  It wasn't what I got.

A friend of my husband's recommended this place.  After seeing the great Yelp reviews, we gave it a try tonight.  We arrived before 6pm to secure a seat.  It was a little hard to find in the industrial park.  Plenty of parking.  The place is very no-nonsense.  You walk up to the counter and order your food.  Then you pay, and then sit down and wait for your order number to be called.  

Hubby ordered Chicken Makhni while I ordered Chicken Tikka Masala.  We shared basmati rice and garlic naan bread.  Boy was it delicious!  The makhni was smoky flavorful.  The tikka masala was such yummy tandoori chicken in curry sauce.  Everything was very flavorful.  They didn't ask us how spicy we wanted our food, so we did not receive very spicy food.  Next time we will specify the right level of spicyness for us.  We usually eat about medium spicyness in Indian food.  The garlic naan had the just right chewy consistency and flavors.  We could not stop eating.  We're so excited to find such great Indian food not too far from home and for such a reasonable price!

Ever since we discovered Bongiornos, we have been ruined for all other pizzas.  Love the thin crust with just the right amount of chewy-ness.  I almost always get the meal deal with one garden salad and one slice of pepperoni & mushroom pizza, and a drink.  My husbands gets the salad, plus 2 slices of pizza and a drink.  Meal deal slice prices are very reasonable.  We have tried Pizzeria Luigis and Bronx Pizza and Bongiornos is still our favorite.  It's especially good after getting in a good run on the coast by the beach.  :)

I've been to this place twice now and I really love the #5 BBQ Pork sandwich.  Both times I got it with all the marinated veggies plus jalapeno peppers and it's delicious!  I love the bread, it cinches the deal for me.  I love the warm crispy outside and warm soft inside.  I would come here for the bread alone!  Hubby had the chicken sandwich the first time and he said it wasn't as good as the BBQ pork.  I haven't been able to try the egg rolls because both times I went in the evening for dinner and they were sold out.  The taro ice boba was also delicious.