Hard Rock Cafe offers updated menu

The Hard Rock Cafe San Diego (801 Fourth Avenue, downtown) along with 100+ other locations world-wide, recently upgraded the food and drink offered. We recently sampled all the new items and came away with a song on our lips and a smile on our faces.

Before being seated we enjoyed an extremely refreshing Magical Mystery Tour Mojito, as well as an Air Mexico Margarita. Both drinks are highly recommended.

After sitting, first came the Red Berry Press, a clever, refreshing drink with a clever presentation. Initially served in a French press, the diner can squeeze the fresh strawberries, raspberries and lemons into the liquid mixture of Svedka Clementine vodka, home-made lemonade and Sierra Mist lemon-lime soda. The more you press, the more impressed you’ll be with the flavorful berries.

Next we were served a Grilled Chicken Arugula Salad. This was a very tasty plate of baby arugula, grilled chicken slices, spiced pecan, dried cranberries with fresh oranges. The salad was tossed in lemon balsamic vinaigrette, and topped off with crumbled feta cheese. Along side the salad was Hard Rock’s Twisted Mac & Cheese: cavatappi pasta tossed in a 3-cheese sauce with roasted red peppers, parmesan parsley bread crumbs and grilled chicken breast.

We were next presented with the HRC’s Smokehouse Barbecue Sampler: Barbecue Chicken, (brined then basted with hickory bbq sauce); Hickory-Smoked Ribs, (St. Louis style, rubbed with signature seasonings and basted with hickory sauce) and Mini Smoked Beef Brisket Sandwich, (slow-cooked for 14 hours, topped with crispy onions on grilled sourdough bread).

The next new menu item were the Legendary Burgers and Sandwiches, consisting of the Fiesta Burger with its house guacamole and roasted jalapeno salsa, the Tango Burger with its Quality Black Angus Premium beef and HRC custom Sloppy Joe mix, and the Grilled Vegetable Sandwich  with its portobell mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, roasted red peppers and grilled asparagus.

True carnivores visiting the Hard Rock will not want to miss the new Cowboy Rib Eye. It’s a 16 ounce bone-in rib eye steak, USDA choice (of course) and aged for 28 days. Mine was a perfect medium-rare.

My absolute fave drink of the night (and maybe ever) was the delicious, delectable Twist and Shout. The Guiness Draught Beer provided just the proper amount of bitter taste to balance the sweetness of the Bacardi OakHeart Spiced Rum, the Dark Creme de Cacao and the chocolate syrup, and the saltiness of the Monin Salted Carmel Syrup. Once you add the Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Ice Cream, whipped cream, and in a surprise move, Hard Rock Cafe’s signature applewood smoked crisp bacon, you are pretty much drinking heaven.

The music, and musical memorabilia go without saying, but this new menu makes a trip to the Hard Rock, for dinner and drinks, a rockin’ good idea.