Loading ...California Beers to Try Right Now
Photo from Terra Vox via Flickr
Beer selection in California can be compared to wine selection in Europe. There are hundreds of breweries popping up throughout California showing off IPA’s, lagers, stouts, fruity beers, darker-than-Guinness-beers, organic beers, and much much more. A road trip through the state will not only give you an eyegasm, gut your taste buds will be sure to fall in love with many local beers that are finding their ways into the spotlight of so many local eateries. Not all of the breweries are producing top grade beers, but these six beers are from breweries that have captured the hearts of true beer enthusiasts and amateurs alike. Read more
Cuckoo for cupcakes – San Diego’s newest cupcakery opens with a bang
Grand Opening of Cups La Jolla
The place to be last Saturday night was not some swanky downtown lounge, fancy restaurant, or crowded club in the Gaslamp – it was a bakery. Yes, a bakery.
Cups is a new, and very unique, all organic cupcakery in downtown La Jolla whose grand opening celebration on January 30 was a tremendous success.
If you have walked around downtown La Jolla recently, a weekend or evening pastime that I highly recommend, you may have seen the storefront of Cups boarded up with an alluring “Coming Soon” banner outside. Originally I thought, “not another one.” Read more
Looking for that Extraordinary Valentine’s Day Idea?
Photo from VirtualEm via Flikr
With Valentine’s Day fast approaching and money still, well tight, coming up with an original date idea can be daunting and, face it, intimidating. And while a walk down San Diego’s beaches offers lovers romantic sceneries and perfect photo-ops, why not add a little delicious, affordable, pizzazz to that special day?
Karen Krasne’s Extraordinary Desserts offers couples the perfect, affordable setting, to intimately connect and oh yea eat amazing dessert! With locations in Balboa Park and Little Italy the widely acclaimed dessert restaurant offers a wide variety of decadent sweets that range from “dark chocolate tea cookies with organic pecans” to “berry devonshire tarts,”there is no doubt a dessert to satisfy every palate. Read more
Cohn Restaurant Group expands their culinary empire
For the past twenty-five years, the Cohn Restaurant Group (CRG) has slowly expanded their culinary footprint here in San Diego by opening classic and unique dining establishments. The San Diego-based and family-owned Cohn Group currently owns and operates eleven restaurants throughout San Diego County. Each establishment offers its own unique dining experience with one main component in common – an obsession with hospitality. That obsession translates into exceptional food offered at the highest level of service. With an attention to detail, each restaurant is also aesthetically appealing in design offering customers a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. The success of the Cohn formula has translated into numerous awards and accolades for all their restaurants.
La Jolla Strip Club
For the first time, the CRG is duplicating the theme of one of their signature restaurants through their most recent expansion – La Jolla Strip Club. The CRG took their highly successful Downtown Strip Club theme of a 21-and-up, “grill your own” steak restaurant and duplicated it in the University Town Center (UTC) area of San Diego. The new La Jolla Strip Club restaurant and vodka lounge features a casual and friendly steak house atmosphere. Read more
Tasty Takes – Roast Duck, and Tips on Ordering Dim Sum
Emerald Restaurant is one of my go-to spots for breakfast. Dim sum is not as easy to find in San Diego as in Los Angeles, but if you want to avoid the traffic, parking fees and the chaos of a huge dim sum restaurant, go to Emerald.
Another advantage of Emerald is that it opens at 9 am on Saturday and Sunday, even though it may look closed. If you’re like me and my husband, you know that there aren’t too many restaurants on Convoy Street open at that hour. We’ve spent several mornings driving up and down that street looking for an open restaurant, to no avail. But alas, we found Emerald.
The roast duck is always a treat. The fatty skin that separates from the meat is really the star of the show. It’s juicy and crispy and full of flavor. Don’t expect this meaty indulgence to be as piping hot as our American palate has come to demand, however. After all, it’s been doing laps around the dining room in an unheated cart.
The art of ordering dim sum is about patience. When first seated, the diner may be bombarded with a procession of carts, and women trying to get the table to take one of each item. But keep your composure, use your right to say no, and take your time no matter how much pressure you get.
Unless you have a very large appetite, or you are expecting lots of leftovers to take home, aim for no more than four dishes per person. Decide which dishes you must have ahead of time, and hold out for those. For instance, my husband must have the chicken feet. So we ask for them, and they make sure we get them. Otherwise, because we are not Chinese, we may not always be offered the chicken feet.
Never been to dim sum and don’t know what to order? Here are 
some of my other personal must haves:
- Steamed Spareribs in Black Bean Sauce
- Stuffed Bean Curd
- Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf
- Rice Noodle with Beef
- Shu Mai and/or Dumplings – pork or chicken
- Baked BBQ Pork Bun (trust me, as weird as it seems this is my dessert)
- Sweet Tofu (it comes around in a big pressure cooker pot)
Emerald Restaurant
http://www.emeraldrestaurant.com
3709 Convoy St. Suite 101
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 565-6888
Mon – Thurs: 11 am – 12 am
Fri: 11 am – 1 am
Sat – Sun: 9 am – 12 am
