The one and only Tommy Gomes along with Mitch Conniff of Mitch’s Seafood opened up TunaVille Market and Groceries over a year ago! I have known Tommy for over a decade now and have some great memories of when he was at Catalina Offshore. I basically stopped going to Catalina after he left in 2019. And then of course Covid hit. And then Tommy Gomes got his own television show; the Fishmonger. Look him up now and he's listed as a "Television personality"…..well, at least they got the personality part right!
Anyway, a couple of months back Candice asked me if I'd like to meet her at TunaVille and I jumped at the chance! It would be great to see Tommy and interesting to see if time and "fame" had change him at all. Well, it hadn't, to me he's still the same old Tommy. I had a great time and have returned to TunaVille several more times, even when Tommy's out being a "personality"!
I'm just going to breeze thru this post since I'd like you to just drop by the place for yourself.
The shop is located on Driscoll's Wharf in Point Loma. Though getting there the first time using Google Maps was weird as I put in the address and it tried to take me into the gated Government facility there!
My best advice; if you have problems when on North Harbor Drive, just look for the vintage Driscoll's Wharf sign.
Park in the lot, you can get 1 hour of free parking from the machine in the lot. I park in Lot 'F'.
From there you head toward the water and Regatta Walk.
I like walking along the waterfront….a real "working" wharf. On Saturdays boats are selling their tuna along the wharf.
Unlike the owner, TunaVille is fairly discrete. Sometimes there's a sign outside, otherwise just look for this storefront.
On one of the days I visited, Tommy saw me coming and opened the door for me, waving me in:
Tommy: "See a television star is opening a door for you….."
Me: "Wait, I thought PeeWee Herman was dead……"
You get the picture! It's still Tommy!
The shop is spacious, clean, and wonderful…..
With lovely fresh seafood….I've gotten the wild shrimp from here a couple of times. And as always, Tommy is devoted to the local fishing community.
And prepared items as well.
But visit a couple of times and you'll see that there's a special place where Tommy likes to hold court.
It's at the table right across the dry aging cabinet.
Where Tommy will entice and ply you with wonderful samples of dry aged seafood.
And ever the showman, Tommy will extol you with the virtues of what you are tasting.
You can tell Tommye is in his element here.
And Tommy is really a proponent of what he call "seacuterie", basically charcuterie of the sea.
And strangely enough, the Missus has been into this stuff over the last couple of months too. Here's my last haul from TunaVille. BTW, the Missus loved those percebes that Tommy recommended. It brought back fun memories of Portugal.
And while perhaps his celebrity and success has changed him a bit over the years, he's still Tommy. Recently, I dropped by to get some Salt Farm Ghost Pepper Salt, but they were out. When I asked Tommy about when he was getting more in; he asked me to hang on a minute….and proceeded to call the company and order some for me! His heart is as big as his personality.
So, I'm now a regular customer, whether it's seafood, some stuff for the Missus's "seacuterie" dinner, or just to say hello (which can last up to an hour!).
It was good to see that Mister Grumpy Tommy was doing well!
TunaVille Market and Grocery
4904 N Harbor Drive Suite 102
San Diego, CA 92106
Current Hours:
Wed – Sun 10am – 5pm
Closed on Monday and Tuesday
This was not bad, the dumplings were on the smaller side, but it came with 14 in my order. The skins were a bit on the more chewy-doughy side, decent. The filling was pretty finely minced, light and tender, very moist, though the flavor was quite mild. The black vinegar came in handy in upping the flavor.
So, how did the dumplings handle the drive back home? Well, even though the wrappers looked a bit "stiff", these were more tender then those on my previous visit. A good amount of chives provided an almost garlicky "zip" to the dumplings. Even though I really couldn't make out shrimp in the finely chopped filling, I could taste them. Again, the fillings were fairly light, and this went rather well with the 6 year aged Zhenjiang Black Vinegar we keep at home.
Nijiya Japanese Market is a favorite stop because of the organic Produce section as well as the prepared foods area. I wrote about some 'grab and go' meals in 
There is a two sided refrigerated area near where you stand in line for the cash registers. One section has various sandwich choices.
This is a "Mix Sandwich" ($5.49) on white or wheat. Four different fillings- Tuna Salad, Egg Salad, Ham with butter and a Lettuce and Tomato with cheese and mayonnaise. Each piece of sandwich in this mix is 1/3 of a crustless bread sandwich made with three bread slices and two layers of filling. 
The "Fruits Sandwich" varies daily. This one had melon and pear and orange along with whipped cream in between slices of a quality white bread. 
Picked up some sushi while I was there and we had a nice meal.
There is a Chicken Cutlet sandwich ($5.99)-breaded deep fried chicken with a house made tonkatsu sauce (A Pork Cutlet sando is $6.99). On this day the Fruits Sandwich was simply strawberries with whipped cream. 
Placed between the three Chicken sando sections were three smaller lettuce/tomato/cucumber/mayonnaise sandwiches. A nice, balanced meal.
Marukai has two 'grab and go' island refrigerators as well as closed door freezers and a small hot deli counter. There is just so much inside this small yet packed market. 
The egg salad sando ($4.99) as well as the katsu pork sando ($4.99) are exceptionally good here. You can see I also purchased the potato salad and some katsu chicken (which is really tasty from here). {Yes, we use Christmas plates all year.}
Located between Marukai and Nijiya is 
The Mix Sandwich here ($7.99) consists of four sandwiches, each 1/3 of a whole sandwich. Egg Salad, Tuna Salad, Ham with lettuce and a Japanese Potato salad sando. Each sandwich is fresh and flavorful and fancy. Again, katsu chicken was purchased as a 'side'. 
First off, the grilled sourdough was fantastic, texturally and in taste. As for the mussels, well the shellfish was tender enough, but the "escabeche" was really weak. I'm used to a good acidic, flavorful escabeche, the addition of paprika for smokiness, more points for garlicky-oniony tones, all of which seemed to be missing here. To be honest, any number of tinned mussels from Tunaville (post upcoming) would be more enjoyable to us then this. But heck, that sourdough was good on its own. On a positive note, this brought back wonderful memories of our lunch 
Neat and clean interior seating. There is also outside seating and a small menu, which is nice. Many items can be ordered vegetarian. Our waiter said that most everything here is made from scratch.
We both wanted the cucumber salad ($6) on this rather warm day. It was *excellent*- cool, refreshing, with just enough salt and sesame oil to compliment the smashed cucumbers.
The Ma Po Tofu with pork and rice ($12.50) (you can also order vegetarian for $2 less) was a shareable portion. The sauce had the brightness of Sichuan peppercorns and the silky tofu was plentiful while the bits of pork complimented the flavors and added texture. A very balanced dish. 
Under "Signature" dishes on the menu were Chilli Wontons (12) ($10.50). We had to try these. Not much chili on top, but there is a great house made chili crisp on the table which enhanced the porky goodness of these large, two-bite wontons in a stretchy, thin wrap. The broth at the bottom of the bowl was wonderful with a rich porkiness and subtle chili heat.
And yes, it was quite full of Cha Lua, Thit Nguoi…… What I think banh mi purists' will appreciate, I'm looking at you "Billy" is that Phoung Nga still includes cucumbers in their banh mi, a rarity these days. The bread, as usual is a bit heavily baked (onsite), making it more hard and crusty than having a nice balance of light, crusty-flaky. But these days, this is almost a blessing, as much of what I've had is soft and doughy. There's a good amount of pickled veggies, the jalapenos were present, but not overly spicy on this visit. This was a nice lunch for me.
Man, this location of Boston Market had been here forever! I decided to walk on over to see what was up….hoping that perhaps an interesting eating establishment was coming to this location. I should have known better. It's a chain swap out. At least it's California Fish Grill which claims serve only "Responsibly Sourced Seafood". You can read about 
