James Went To San Diego

Las Vegas was over, and it was time to get in the car and drive to San Diego. Why San Diego? Well, again, my sister had suggested it as she had already been to San Francisco – I might have chosen the latter.

But as soon as I did the briefest amount of research on San Diego (basically finding out that it was the craft beer capital of USA plus lots of Latinos), I thought that it might really, really be my kind of place. And we did very limited research beforehand, as we both thought there was no point in getting too excited – covid could easily scupper our trip.

We could have flown, but thankfully my sister agreed to drive – why fly when you can spend hours watching desert, admiring pylons and seeing my first ever lenticular cloud.

Plus we got to stop at Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner. To enjoy warmed sliced bread, microwaved turkey slices, curly fries and some weird gravy that tasted more like white sauce.

And why make your menus soooooo difficult to read, USA? Rated 4.5 on Google also. Let that be a warning to you.

Also mountains:

North Park

So I’d done some limited research to decide where to stay – a couple of the barrios sounded a bit, erm, maybe don’t walk around in, but North Park looked perfect in terms of location – not one of the more expensive areas though I think we still paid £850 ish for an Airbnb for 4 nights – and also North Park is home to loads of breweries.

Plus you could easily walk to Bilbao Park or the gay area, Hillcrest – and in an hour you could walk to Little Italy or other areas of downtown. It was perfect for our needs.

The first night happened to be St Patrick’s Day – we had no plan so walked to the brewery area, saw a sign pointing to “beer and pretzels” so thought why not. We ended up talking to a really sweet couple, drinking green beer with them, though annoyingly he had even better hair than me – longer hair in a plait at each side. Alas, by time we had finished drinking there, the places we’d been recommended to eat in the local area were closed, and we ended up at some late night Italian. Really nice beer. Shame about the pizza.

On the Friday, we decided to go to Breakfast & Bubbles for brunch – which is entirely as you would imagine, painted light pink, prosecco everywhere, fake flowers, pink disco ball, tons of women. Photo stolen from the internet as I didn’t get a good one.

However they did an amazing breakfast. In the UK, you have eggs benedict, eggs royale, etc – well, in the USA, eggs benedict is basically anything they want to serve you with eggs.

So I ended up having short rib eggs benedict. And it came with gravy. Beautiful gravy too!

Bilbao Park

After that we walked to Bilbao Park. At first I was wondering what kind of park has a dual carriageway running right through it. There was quite a lot of scrubland, a fair scattering of homeless people and after 10-15 minutes I was wondering if this was the worst large park that I’d ever been to.

Then we turned right, kind of on a whim but also because there were buildings and we needed water.

At which point we came across some stunning buildings, many of which were housing various museums and art galleries.

Some clearly resembled the Moorish architecture of Sevilla, others looked perhaps more Italian in style – and some were more of London.

And the Japanese gardens were stunning. Yeah, and that sunshine. Gosh. Perfect temperature too, I guess 23’C with a breeze.

After a couple of hours in Bilbao Park we continued our walk towards downtown San Diego – knowing the two areas to visit for fun were the Gaslamp District and Little Italy, but knowing little else.

It did become a bit dodge where the park ended and downtown begun, some run-down buildings, plenty of homeless people, some people who were clearly having a very good time on crack/meth. And I had a reluctance to take my phone out to check directions.

We stumbled across Gaslamp Quarter in the end, which was basically a long road of places like O’Neills but with friendly Americans – and, of course, a great beer selection. Though with a little more Wi-Fi, we found the better places were actually off the main strip (shock horror), including a hotel rooftop bar where we caught the last of the proper sun – and I had one of the best hazy IPA’s all holiday – plus hot women.

We then went to watch the sunset – I cannot actually remember where, or work out where it was from a map. Plus I was pretty drunk. And then we had the most amazing burrito – for just $6.00. OMG. Thank you to the Uber driver for the tip.

Hash House A Go Go

We had a restaurant in our hotel in Las Vegas called Hash House A Go Go – they have 10 locations and the original one around was around the corner from where we were staying in San Diego. Sometimes life just speaks to you.

Menu problems again though. Jeez, USA, how many fucking fonts do you need on your menus?

I ended up going for another benedict – Andy’s fried chicken. Which was fried chicken, tomato, spinach, smoked bacon, mozzarella, chipotle cream, scrambled eggs (on a benedict…yeah) – and that was all on top of mashed potato and biscuit – biscuit is basically a large bread-like scone.

I was still stuffed the day after. I’d come to America planning on healthy brunch/lunch then a more sizable dinner. Hmmm.

Little Italy

We then walked to Little Italy, which was around an hour away, but the weather was gorgeous, temperatures around 22’C and we had around 8,000 calories from breakfast to burn off.

Our walk included this rickety suspension bridge which properly swayed when you walked over it, with a steep drop into what I assume was a snake-filled canyon.

Yes, I was permanently on alert for rattlesnakes. And is that cable fraying on the right there?

Little Italy was probably the area that I thought had the best feel about it, a mixture of craft beer breweries (of course), Italian restaurants (also of course) and some other really highly-rated restaurants. Oh and a British pub. We didn’t go in. Not that one anyway…it wasn’t Sunday.

After a few far too strong beers (4 or 5% beers don’t seem to be a thing in San Diego), we went to a museum of modern art, but they made me wear a mask so I quickly looked around and left for some fresh air. Yeah, I can hear you ask but didn’t I have to wear a mask on the plane for 10 hours? Yeah…kind of…maybe…some of the time.

We walked along the marina for a fair while, then headed back into Gaslamp District, stumbled across yet another craft beer brewery – this one near the baseball stadium, and for a while looking at lots of people in Kaskade baseball tops, I thought there was a Kaskade baseball team, but apparently that is some form of EDM pop star who was having a gig there.

By the evening we were back in Little Italy, absolutely not even vaguely hungry but about to have one of the best meals of my life at a place called Ironside. Again. OK, maybe a slight exaggeration, but wow did we get looked after by the most lovely waitress, who sat us on the table where we could watch the pastry chef at work.

Which, of course, meant sampling her pastry delights – the sweet bread was particularly wondrous.

And for the main meal we both had halibut which was just perfectly cooked, the sauce was gorgeous, the chorizo was superb. We couldn’t eat dessert – but they wouldn’t let us leave without some.

Then I got back home and couldn’t find my phone. My new phone that I’ve bought just before I left for America. My new phone with all the photos that I am boring you with.

Somehow I drunkenly managed to get Skype credit, call the Uber and then shortly after found him on the street waving my phone around.

You really do get looked after in America.

Mission Beach

We woke up on Sunday, and it was raining. OMG. Rain in California. I want my money back.

Oh and there was some noisy half-marathon thing going on.

So, I’d spent about two days discussing with my sister and myself as to whether we should really go to one of the British pubs and have a roast dinner or not. We chose yes. It was like an automated decision, like there was no over-ride switch.

The pub was called – Shakespeare Pub – of course, and was dimly lit with a fair crowd of people watching football. And it was the first place I found selling something like Carlsberg – the first place in both Las Vegas or San Diego that had the option of chemical crap. At least that I noticed.

Hopes weren’t especially high for the roast dinner, but it was actually quite good. And the plumpness of the chicken – wow. Though almost certainly that would be illegal in the UK. Possible Brexit dividend though?

After that we walked along Mission Beach, which was probably the least interesting part of the holiday. We ended up by the evening watching the sunset, though it was quite kind of cold by that point, especially in my shorts.

The evening meal was at a Mexican back in Little Italy, but I wasn’t massively impressed with it. Yes I fell in love multiple times with the Latino women. But the menu was confusing as hell, I struggled to work out what to order, and I think I ordered poorly – steak tacos. And then my sister’s meal arrived 30 minutes after mine. Hmmm.

San Diego Zoo

OK, I’m bored of writing this now and you are probably bored of reading it. Well, you are probably just scrolling past and looking at the pictures.

For the final day, we needed somewhere where we could put our suitcase, so we went to San Diego zoo. I mean, who can resist a monkey or three?

We spent a couple of hours walking around, maybe a few hours, and some of it is really well constructed with almost a jungle feel to part of it – I’d say it surpasses London zoo in terms of quality by some way. And yeah, even the zoo in San Diego has an excellent choice of craft IPA. Of course it does. London had Carlsberg, or some trash like that. Of course it did.

My photographs are nothing special so I won’t bore you with any more, we then went to find a bar in Bilbao Park (which is where the zoo is), to have a rather nice Wagyu burger and yet more insanely nice hazy IPA.

And we got talking to more super friendly Americans, both the Christian anti-lockdown couple next to us, and also the barman, who without prompting said that the place he most wants to visit in the UK is Hull. Aha. He’s a big fan of Philip Larkin.

Cannot say I was expecting that when I just did a quick search for him. Anyway, that was the end of the holiday. The end of the sunshine. The end of the warmth. The end of easily accessible excellent beer. The end of super happy and friendly people. I did fall in love with San Diego. I actually want to move there.

Back to moody, miserable London. With 10 hours on a flight. Most of them with a wet crotch thanks to spilling my vodka apple juice when starting to sleep.

Hope I’ve inspired you to go to San Diego, or at least consider it.