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Road Trip – The Alston Park Loop, The Riverfront Promenade, Dinner at Angele Restaurant, and Returning to the Fink (Napa)

Cocktails, Dog Friendly, French Restaurants, Marin, Napa, and Sonoma Counties, Road Trip, Travel

Our one full day in Napa started with pastries being delivered to our room in the Napa River Inn. These are from Sweetie Pie a bakery – sandwich shop located in the Old Mill Complex next to the hotel.

A bit too much sweets for me; but we saved most of it to have as an afternoon snack.

We then headed out to Alston Park and spent the morning doing an easy walk along the Alston Park Loop Trail. A nice walk along the meadows, groves, and of course alongside some vineyards.

Of course we had to finish before things got too sunny/hot as JJ does not do too well under those conditions.

After which we headed into downtown and found parking on 1st Street….man, it gets pretty busy here, where the Missus did some shopping.

For some reason, the Missus just didn’t find Napa to be much fun….She thought it was on the boring side???

We returned to the hotel and finished off the pastries and had a nap. After which, the Missus just wanted some time to read, so I decided to take JJ out for a walk along the Riverfront Promenade which basically cuts thru downtown Napa. Here’s a view of our patio which was right along the promenade.

It was a nice little walk.

We walked all the way to the First Street Bridge which has a nice view of the promenade.

And there was shade for our fragile, heat sensitive, little squirt.

Check out this mural in front of a Tiki Bar named Wilfred’s……kinda sterotypical, yeah?

JJ and I took Main Street back to the hotel.

I kind of enjoyed some of the architecture.

I saw this church on the way back and walked over.

This is the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1874 in the Gothic style.

When dinner time rolled rolled around, we had noticed a French restaurant named Angele located just a few steps from our accommodations in the Historic Napa Mill.

So, we dropped on by and there were a bunch of al fresco tables available out front. The menu was quite interesting; a nice variety of dishes. As is our usual, we went with three apps and one main.

The baguette was nice and crusty, though a bit “doughy” for my taste.

I was fascinated by the Potato Beignets.

These were interesting. The exterior was crisp, though we weren’t big fans of the overly pasty and sweet filling.

The Pate de Campagne was “by-the-book” and quite good. Very porky, slightly offaly, hint of boozy sweetness-pungency.

The much needed cornichons and mustard allowing for some pungent, palate cleansing counterpoints.

The Beef Tartare was a bit on the mushy side.

And the use of capers was a bit on the heavy-handed side, though not bad overall.

The piece of Veal Sweetbread was huge!

It looked like it was overdone, but was quite tender-creamy. The jus was quite winey, though not unpleasant. The sweetbreads were a bit livery, but overly “metallic” in flavor.

The service was friendly and welcoming. And while not in the same league as L’Escargot in Carmel which we dined at a few days earlier, it was a nice meal overall.

Angele Restaurant
540 Main St.
Napa, CA 94559

It was still light out when we finished dinner, so we took a walk along the Promenade.

There’s so much public art in Napa. This one is named Grateful Harvest.

After crossing the 1st Street Bridge, we came across this.

This is the China Point Overlook and Park.

Did you know that Napa once had a Chinatown? From this park you can see the location of Napa’s Chinatown, which was razed in 1927 to make way for a Yacht Club. Which by the way was never built.

We then headed back to the Napa River Inn. From the sign at the door to front lobby it seems like “Ember” had checked out with only JJ and Nola being the two “VIPs” left.

After relaxing a bit, as I did the night before, I headed next door to The Fink for a nightcap. This time I took JJ along.

The woman working smiled as we entered and said “oh, I’m so glad you brought the pup along this time!”

And the owner…”the Fink” himself asked me if I had noticed anything strange the previous evening. When I said “no”, he told me the story of the hotel being haunted!

Yikes, it was time for a cocktail!

JJ was indeed treated like a “VIP” here as several customer came to pet him!

It was a really cool cocktail bar!

The Fink
530 Main St.
Napa, CA 94559

Odds and Ends – The Salted Egg Yolk Chicken Wings from Taste of Hong Kong, What’s up with Oxtail Prices, what Made my Xmas Day, and Other Stuffs

Chicken Wings, Chinese Restaurants, Markets & Grocers, yoso-silly

Just a couple of things as we recover from New Years.

The Salted Egg Yolk Chicken Wings from Taste of Hong Kong:

Remember how I was mourning not ordering the Salted Egg Yolk Chicken Wings during my last post on Taste of Hong Kong? Well, last week we did a revisit to ToHK…I decided to not take any photos since I’d just done a post. But then the chicken wings came out.

My goodness, these were terrible! Something has changed with the batter as it was too wet-mushy and had an almost mealy texture to it. There were fried (burned) slices of garlic incorporated into he batter, which had a strange sweetness. The wings had been overfried and while the exterior was saturated, the meat was tough and dry. What a bummer!

This is what it used to look like.

Well, I guess we can cross this dish off my “favorites” list.

Taste of Hong Kong
4428 Convoy St.
San Diego, CA 92111

What’s up with Oxtail Prices:

The Missus had thoughts of me making my oxtail soup for New Years, so I went to Zion to see if they had oxtails….I found them, but look at the prices!

I guess I haven’t made oxtail soup in ages? I don’t remember paying this much for oxtails! I need 4-5 pounds for my soup….but yikes! I did go to other places, but all the oxtails were over $14 a pound!

Is this the norm?

What made my Xmas Day:

On Christmas day, I took JJ up the street to visit the local donut shop and grab my usual. Like I wrote back in 2020, I think these businesses are part of the “fabric” of the neighborhood and I try to support them. Especially if the place has such wonderful owners as the Cambodian couple who run TK Donuts. So, I try to visit at least once a week and I guess because I used to go there like 4-5 times a week during Covid to help them stay open, they still remember me!

And on Xmas day, after I got my usual, they asked me to wait a minute and handed me a bag with something wrapped in foil. They told me that “this is something that just finished cooking for Christmas”, it’s a traditional family recipe. What was it?

My goodness, it’s Cambodian style roast chicken! It was still hot when I got home. Actually, the Missus loved it and took most of it to work for lunch the next day!

They are so nice! And this beautiful gesture made my day and really touched me!

TK Donuts
3095 Clairemont Drive
San Diego, CA 92117

Please be careful out there!

The major storm that hit us on Christmas must have made international news? Because fellow blogger and good friend Kat sent me an email wondering if we were ok! Bless her…Kat, you’re amazing! I emailed her back saying I didn’t think it was too bad. Then a day later, I took JJ to Western Hill Park after having my usual morning coffee and my goodness!

There were actually three trees down in the park! Yikes!

So please, be safe out there and take care!

Happy New Year

Italian Restaurants, Markets & Grocers

Well 2025 is in the books! Hope everyone had a fun and safe NYE!

Things were pretty much the status quo for me….I started NYE shopping for some Osechi at Nijiya. Something I’ve been doing since 2005!

These days the selection is pretty straight forward as I think many folks preorder their stuff.

Still, knowing that Nijiya opens at 8am on NYE helps as I don’t think too many folks know that. It was pretty empty at that time. I’m making some of my own stuff these days, so I just got something simple to have with lunch/dinner on New Years Day.

To be honest, most of this is for sentimental reasons these days…..

One thing I did notice was how much cheaper the Hamachi Kama was!

So, I immediately sent the Missus a text! She told me to get one…..and I got a really good looking kama.

Of course, when I got home I found out who this was for…..it wasn’t us. Shades of Shishamo!

As for NYE…..we decided to have dinner locally and made reservations at Romanella which had a special New Years menu. At $65 it seemed quite reasonable.

We basically had one of the regular apps – the lamb chops; and the NY dinner, with oxtail meatballs (of course), the Chilean Seabass, with the Limoncello Cake for dessert.

It was a nice dinner….the Missus got the Limoncello Cake….which She loves to go.

Romanella Cucina Romana
3055 Clairemont Dr.
San Diego, CA 92117

All in all, a nice NYE!

We hope everyone had a great New Years Eve and wishing you all a wonderful 2026!

It’s the Et Voila Time of the Year

Cocktails, Dog Friendly, French Restaurants

Well yes…it’s that time of the year again. Funny how we get into these habits. Even though we had other plans for NYE….we’re going to stay closer to home, Et Voila always comes to mind, especially for Happy Hour. Though we’ve had some NYE meals at ET, we just decided to drop by. Especially since they now have a “special” black truffle menu.

Which you can add for $18 to any dish, or pick something from that menu. Because we had JJ in tow and were sitting outside, we could take advantage of the Happy Hour menu as well.

So, we placed our order, of some HH favorites, and a truffle dish off the menu. And of course I had a Huckleberry Bourbon to start.

It seems a bit weaker these days…but maybe its the HH curse?

This time there was no charge for the half baguette. Perhaps it’s based on what you order?

First up were the Beignet de Champignons ($10 HH). My goodness, this is what we usually order during HH with mixed results. This time it was so perfectly fried.

So crisp, the mushrooms almost buttery…my goodness! Which hides a mild earthy-saltiness. That aioli…which is almost like a basil driven thousand island does fine as well. Perhaps the best we’ve had over so many visits.

Unfortunately, another HH staple for us, the Raviolis aux Champignons (HH – $15) was off the mark for our tastes.

The raviolis were really tough, the sauce overly sweet, and we couldn’t make out the flavor of white truffle at all. I think we’ll be giving up on this one.

The next item, another HH staple set everything right again. The Terrine de Porc (HH – $13) was indeed “porc-y”.

It was quite offal-y and liver-y as well…so that whole grain mustard helped clean the palate and the sinuses. The Missus prefers the baguette with this to what is served.

And then what was supposed to be the “star” of the evening….from the Black Truffle Menu, we got the Champignons a la Royale ($28)….I know, we’re really into the fungi here.

First off, we really enjoyed the crisp and cheesy Parmesan Toast. For some reason the Perigord Black Truffle flavor didn’t come thru. The usually strong fragrance and nutty-sweet-earthy-ultra umami flavors quite faint. The sauce was too thin and watery, but had a decent mushroom flavor.

The Royale was more mushy than creamy and though it did have truffle and mushroom duxelle, the flavor didn’t come thru sufficiently for us.

Service was very nice as always. The woman serving us remembered JJ from our visit last NYE! She kidded us about loving our fungi. Though two of four is not that great in terms of dishes…it has us wondering if our tastes have been changing quite a bit over the last couple of years? At least the Happy Hour prices aren’t too bad.

Et Voilà!
3015 Adams Ave
San Diego, CA 92116

Side Dish Sunday – Keru (Kale) Kurogomae

Cooking, Recipes

Recently, the Missus has been wanting all those “comfort” type dishes. Like Niku Dofu.

Of course, it can’t be “JUST” xxxx dish. There has to be some “side dishes” as well. Which ends up looking like this.

And yes, the Okra Kurogamae are still in the game so to speak. But recently, the Missus who has been on a gardening thing got some kale seeds from the library and they’ve been growing like crazy. It’s surprisngly tender…thing is; we’re not quite sure what type of kale it is…maybe Brazilian or perhaps Portuguese Kale?

Not sure; but it’s quite tender. So, at one point I wondered how it would do using at Kurogomae type sauce and served like a fukusai? It’s a bit of a pain, but after a couple of tries, I got the ratio down.

Of course, you need to squeeze out all that liquid from the kale.

Though 5-6 ounces of kale will make only that serving you see above. And so; this ain’t no cheapie dish…but the Missus really enjoys it…for now… You can do this with spinach as well.

The main difference between this and the okra version is it does well with some acidic and pungent notes. Anyway, here goes….

Keru Kurogomae
5-6 ounces Tender Kale or Spinach
1 Tb Kosher Salt
8 Cups water
Ice water

Sauce
4-5 Tb Black Sesame Powder
2 Tsp Sugar
2-3 Tsp Soy Sauce
2 Tsp Apple Cider or Rice Vinegar
1 Tb Sesame Oil
1-2 Tb Avocado or other neutral oil (optional)
1 clove garlic grated
Fresh Ground Black Pepper to taste

  • Rinse Greens
  • Add Kosher Salt to Water and bring to boil
  • Add greens and blanch quickly
  • Drain and place greens into ice water
    – Mix together sesame powder and sugar – combine well.
  • Add soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil.
    – Check consistency. Add neutral flavored oil as needed to create an acceptable texture.
  • Add garlic
  • Taste and add fresh ground black pepper as desired.
  • Drain greens well and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
  • Chop kale into three pieces, then squeeze out excess liquid.
  • Separate kale leaves and mix into sauce. Coat well.
  • Refrigerate at least an hour before serving. And mix again before plating.
  • Top with sesame seeds (optional)

Funny thing. Just as this is kind of a mash-up; so is another dish that I’ve been making as well, using my base recipe for Niku Dofu and another traditional “old school” recipe I grew up eating. I’ll get that one done soon!

Revisits – Nate’s Garden Grill and Village Kitchen

American/New American Restaurants, Breakfast/Brunch, Chinese Restaurants, Dog Friendly

Nate’s Garden Grill Revisited:

Well, the Missus has the “gardening bug” going really strong! We’ve been hitting up Walter Andersen Nursery at least once a week these days! Yeesh….

Anyway, She mentioned wanting to check out City Farmer’s Nursery on Euclid…..well now; opportunity knocks! Since Nate’s Garden Grill is right next to the nursery and my goodness, we hadn’t been to Nate’s since right before Covid! So, with JJ anxious to do some more exploring we headed out for breakfast.

Man, the place was pumping on this Sunday morning!

We got what was an old favorite of ours; the Pulled Pork Hash and an Avocado Toast on Pretzel Bun. The Missus went in to order while I got us a table on the patio.

Where JJ made himself right at home. There was some live music, so I made sure we sat on the other side of the patio out of the way of folks.

The Pulled Pork Hash was a bit of a disappointment.

Other than the crisp, perfectly buttered, and tasty sourdough toast. The pork lacked smokiness and was really chewy, the eggs overdone, and the dish was on the bland side. In a rare move, we had to grab some salt from the condiment table…and then went back for more hot sauce. Too bad, because this was one of our favorites from previous visits.

I’ve always enjoyed the Pretzel Buns at Nate’s and which didn’t disappoint with the Avocado Toast.

Slightly chewy, mildly salty-nutty, and crisp crust. The avocado was really creamily mashed, wish there was more of it. Didn’t care for the bacon which was really thick cut and chewy, rather than crisp like I enjoy.

Overall, not an especially pleasing breakfast. Though the two young ladies loved JJ and asked us if he could have some steak! Good lord……we got bland pulled pork and chewy bacon…..he got steak? What is this world coming to? So, I guess if JJ had his way; we’d be here often…..

Nate’s Garden Grill
3120 Euclid Ave.
San Diego, CA 92105
Current Hours:
Tuesday 11am – 730pm
Wed – Thurs 11am – 9pm
Friday 11am – 9pm
Saturday 8am – 9pm
Sunday 8am – 5pm

Dining In at Village Kitchen:

It’s become a standard routine that when we return from one of many road trips that the first thing the Missus wants is…….well, Chinese food of course! And after returning from one of our road trips, the Missus was thinking of visiting Village Kitchen. I had thought we had just done take out recently….but no, that was from all the way back in November of last year! Man, time has flown by!

Another interesting tidbit is that She wanted to dine in…..looking at all my posts on Village Kitchen it seems that my last seven posts on the place were takeout visits! And the last time we’ve actually eaten in the restaurant was….yes, you guessed it, before Covid!

Over time we’ve noticed that several of our favorite dishes are no longer on the menu. We stuck with one old favorite, one that has been +/- over the years, and one new item from the menu.

Our old favorite, the La Rou with Bamboo Shoots Skin was quite good. We actually wanted the version with radish skin, but they were out.

Though not as spicy as we’d like; the smoked pork was more tender than usual; the bamboo shoots slightly crunchy and earthy. Not overly salty, nice savory tones.

I consider the Eggplant and Green Chili with Preserved Egg to be the “signature dish” at Village Kitchen, though we’ve had mixed results ordering over the years.

These days it seems to have a lot less chilies, thus making it less spicy…but oh my; so much pidan! Which the Missus enjoyed…She loves that savory-complex umami flavor, with the ammonia like finish! Well, there was a ton of it here! The eggplant was very creamy and smoky, there was a hint of sweetness as well. This was a huge portion.

The one new item on the menu we tried was the Smoked Bamboo Shoots with Pork Belly.

Not enough black bean to really add much flavor to the dish; which was really salty. The pork belly was tough and chewy as was the bamboo shoots. This one is a “one-and-done”. Lacking in spice.

Overall, not a bad dinner….we’ll stick with our old favorites. We’ve noticed that the portion sizes here sure have gotten bigger over the last couple of years. It was good to actually dine in rather than do take-out for a change.

Village Kitchen
4720 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92117

Hope everyone is having a nice post-Xmas weekend!

El Borrego’s Last Day of Business 12/28

Mexican Restaurants

Just a quick, rather sad post for today. At around 10am this morning, “FOY” Mar sent me an Instagram message of a post mentioning that El Borrego was closing. Needless to say, I didn’t see this one coming. And in the comments of that post El Borrego confirmed this.

And soon after Junichi also mentioned this in the comments of my last post on El Borrego. You can see the post on El Borrego’s Instagram account as well.

It’s a sad day indeed, since I first started visiting back in 2006…..I kinda feel bad for not visiting as often as I should have!

Man, so many places that have been opened for decades are now closing……

Merry Christmas

Blog

JJ would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a joyous time! And keeps dry and safe!

“Whaddya mean dey is no Santa Paws! I just meet him!”

Merry Christmas everyone!

Staying at The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Touring the Whaley House (Old Town)

Exploring San Diego, Staycation, yoso-silly

**** No food in this one. But I figured I needed to finally get this done!

If you recall, we had a fun stay back in early 2024 at the newly renovated Lafayette Hotel. We had enjoyed our stay so much, that we decided to do another staycation, and to finally play tourist and do a tour we’d been wanting to for a while. So yes, we stayed a night at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and double yes, we booked ourselves a tour of the Whaley House! So touristy, yea?

With the Blue Line Clairemont Drive Trolley stop being established at the end of 2021, it was easy to walk on down and instead of parking, just catch the trolley to Old Town. We only had small backpacks since we’d only be staying the night.

At the time of our visit, the restaurant/bar was not opened yet. I believe they are still only doing Happy Hours during weekends now. Anyway, checking in was done by calling a number provided and the really nice young lady met us at the side gate.

We were staying in the Seeley Suite, the largest suite that has a fireplace and a separate sitting room. On an interesting note, the rooms have no television or telephone.

Named for Alfred Seeley who purchased the property to create a stagecoach hotel. The room is on the second floor with a view of Old Town from the wrap around balcony that stretches the length of the building.

Juan Bandini originally built his home on this location, named Casa Bandini in 1829. It was a single story 12 room u-shaped adobe home. In 1859, Bandini struck by illness and in debt transferred the ownership of the property to Abel Stearns who sold the property to Alfred Seeley in 1869. In 1888 Seeley sold the hotel, which over the following years served as a store, pickle factory, and motel.

The rooms really do transport you to another time. And speaking of transport; I opened the book on the table and started reading…..

About various supernatural experiences that took place in this room! Shades of the Historic Anchorage Hotel, huh?

After resting a bit, we headed off to dinner at Tahona….my photos strangely didn’t come out? Perhaps something was going on with the combination of staying at the Cosmopolitan and eating next door to Campo Santo Cemetery? And throw in the little tour we were headed to after dinner……

At the Whaley House of course! Which claims to be the most haunted house in America and has been featured in many of those “supernatural shows” on television.

We met our guide; Hannah who was so full of stories and entertaining.

Back in September of 1852, James “Yankee Jim” Robinson was hanged on the site of what was to become the Whaley House for supposedly stealing a rowboat. It is said that he is one of the “spirits” that haunts the Whaley House.

Thomas Whaley, who had moved to San Diego after his store burnt down in San Francisco in 1851 purchased the lot in 1855, building a single story structure. In 1857, the two story house was built.

Along with “Yankee Jim”, the house, and the Whaley’s ran into some bad luck. Their 18 month old son died of scarlet fever in 1858 and their store burnt down. Trying to change their luck; Thomas and Anna Whaley moved to San Francisco. They ended up moving back to San Diego after the 1868 Hayward Earthquake. And in partnership with Philip Crosthwaite opened the Whaley and Crosthwaite General Store. Which Hannah went over during the tour.

She also went over the suicide of the Whaley’s daughter, Violet in 1885. In 1868, an upstairs bedroom was converted into a theatre and rented out to the Tanner Troupe.

Unfortunately, a few months later Thomas Tanner, the head of the troupe died suddenly. It is said that he also haunts the house.

It is said that you can smell Thomas Whaley’s cigar smoke in the foyer or Anna’s apple pie in the kitchen…along with utensils rearranging themselves. There have been reports of a Native American Man, a Confederate Soldier, and a mystery woman in the converted courthouse portion.

I didn’t smell, hear, or feel anything. But the Missus did say that something tapped Her on the shoulder as She was walking up the stairs!

And then it was a short walk to El Agave for a nightcap, before returning to the Cosmopolitan. We slept well and luckily were not “awakened” by Mr Bandini or his daughter Yisadora during the evening.

Waking early, it was interesting walking around Old Town at that time of the day.

And we also got to check out the bar and restaurant areas of the hotel as well.

That’s a portrait of Albert Seeley on the wall in the dining room.

It was quite fascinating to wander around.

We did enjoy our short overnight stay in Old Town. I’m certain that we really don’t spend enough time exploring our lovely city. I’m hoping to try to rectify some of that in the future.

Whaley House
2476 San Diego Ave.
San Diego, CA 92110

Cosmopolitan Hotel
2660 Calhoun St.
San Diego, CA 92110

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday Stuffs – Hong Kong Kitchen & Dim Sum Replacing Golden City and Dagu Rice Noodle (Miishen) Coming to Convoy

Chinese Restaurants, Exploring San Diego

Hong Kong Kitchen & Dim Sum Replacing Golden City:

I know that the long standing Golden City had closed; but did not expect to see signage for a replacement so quickly…so this caught me by surprise.

Golden City had gone thru an ownership change earlier this year and I guess they just couldn’t make it.

Kind of sad in a way since we used to go to the old location on Convoy and then this location when the moved here in 2005! I’m sure many of you have dined there over the years!

Man, Cathy, the Late Ed from Yuma, and I have done 27 posts on Golden City!

5375 Kearny Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123

Dagu Rice Noodle (Miishen) Coming to Convoy:

During our visit to Eastern Dynasty, I saw this sign up in the location that used to be Dokdo.

Hmmm… Dagu Rice Noodle; Yunnan Crossing the Bridge Noodles, eh? Another big time chain coming to the area. They have locations everywhere it seems; not only in the SGV, but even Madison, Wisconsin and off Buford Highway in ATL….both places I’ve spent time at!

4690 Convoy St. #108
San Diego, CA 92111

And of course I need to have a photo of JJ here, right?

We’ve been going to check out the lights at Clairemont Christmas Park since 2019! We used to take Frankie…so now we take JJ. He was a little squirt last year and didn’t enjoy it as much as this year……

It’s always a fun time. You can even get free home made cookies and cocoa and they had music going as well!

Cross streets of Lana Drive & Jamar Drive San Diego, CA 92117