Sumptuous SoCal

With work trips and vacations and all their inherent preparations, suddenly five weeks have gotten away from us. Although this may not make up for our recent lull in activity, I intend to cover a lot of ground here and hopefully bring us all back up to speed. We do, after all, have much to catch up on.

Instead of watching fireworks and attending bar-be-ques with friend and family, Adam and I celebrated our own independence by flitting off to San Diego where I introduced him to the land of my birth.

As I sit here today, flipping through our pictures and enjoying one of the most perfect summer days so far this year, I wonder, “Why couldn’t we get weather like this in California?”

Surprisingly, in the land of eternal sunshine, we caught the tail end of what the locals call the “June Gloom,” and were treated to a rather cool and overcast week. While the East Coast was sweating their way through one of the worst heat waves ever, I was buying a sweater to bundle up in at the beach.

On about the fifth day Adam, in all seriousness, turned to me and said, “I don’t believe you, there is no sun in California.”

Not to say that we didn’t enjoy our vacation, that is certainly not the case, and I think I speak for both of us when I say it was a trip that will have to be repeated soon.

In addition to a lot of sightseeing and a lot of walking, we did a lot of eating. Of course. Not only did we hit up my fast food faves, Jack in the Box, In n Out and a taco shop or two, but we also managed to sample a few more unusual flavors as well.

Our first stop was to a childhood staple, the annual San Diego County Fair. With my mother, brother and Mother’s friend Celine in tow, it was very nearly like old times.

As with any self-respecting country fair, the food in the centerpiece of the experience. Each visit revolves around what giant, fried abomination you plan on eating next. This year was no exception.

There were quiet a few intriguing, and disgusting, options available, such as the new craze in the deep-fry-everything movement, fried butter. Although I am still uncertain as to the logistics of this scientific wonder, I’m sure it somehow originated from Paula Dean.

Instead of this caloric monstrosity, or the chocolate dipped bacon also severed at the Heart Attack Café, we opted for a fried treat of a different variety: frog legs. And amazingly it was Adam who pointed to the flashing sign with the dancing frog on it and said, “Oooh, we have to get those!”

A first for us both, we were expecting the frog legs to taste like chicken, as we had heard they do. Actually, we found them more similar to crab and noticed they really freak people out when eaten in public.

At the request of my mother, we followed up our greasy, gluttonous, finger-licking day at the fair with something a bit more refined; afternoon tea.

We ditched the previous days’ jeans and t-shirts and arrived at the AubreyRose Tea Room in La Mesa like perfect ladies and gentleman who would never even dream of wiping their hands on their pants.

Part gift shop, part English tea room, and all lace doilies, AubreyRose seems a likely hangout for the Red Hat Society. Still, the relaxing and elegant atmosphere was hard not to succumb to. Even for Adam, who only once complained that he had left his skirt at home.

Offering a well-rounded and uncomplicated variety of exotic teas and herbal tisanes, AubreyRose also serves delightful homemade tea sandwiches, pastries and fresh fruit. And of course no tea would be complete without a warm lemon lavender scone. To our surprise, we found it very easy to sip away several hours just nibbling and chatting.

Our SoCal culinary adventures continued with dinner in San Clemente with our friends and former CT residents, Deadrick and Grace. If you’re ever in the area and looking for authentic Mexican food, freshly prepared in an elegant setting, and all with reasonable prices, Avila’s El Ranchito is the place to be.

The service was also some of the best I have ever experienced. Our waitress was so fast that we wanted for nothing and her feet never seemed to touch the ground.

As per usual I wanted a little bit of everything on the menu, but instead I defaulted to a weakness of mine: tamales and any sauce with the word “verde” in it.

The food did not disappoint and even though the portions were generous and quite filling, we couldn’t pass up a giant whipped cream and caramel-topped ball of fried ice cream.

For our next stop, once back with family and friend Celine, we set off to sample the best Moroccan food in town.

Kous Kous in Hillcrest is one of those nondescript, below street level spots that you could walk right past without sparing a second glance. To do so, however, would be a grave mistake.

The lounge area to the right of the entrance with low cushions and dark couches, intricate lanterns and hand-woven rugs evokes a mysterious den right out of the movies. The draperies hung throughout the dining room serve to create several dark and cozy corners, perfect for snuggling in to.

Once seated, our waiter quickly talked us into a family-style meal of three vegetarian small plates, their signature b’stila rolls, the house specialty cous cous, our choice of two entrées and dessert. For $30 per person, we could hardly turn it down.

The small plates consisted of a variety of vegetable spreads served with warm pita. The zaalouk was a mixture of roasted eggplant, cumin and lemon, the shak-shouka­, roasted tomato and bell pepper, and the khizzou, my favorite, was a spicy blend of caramelized carrots, garlic and ginger.


The spreads were also accompanied by the b’stila, a traditional Moroccan chicken and nut pie, individually wrapped in phyllo and dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar. An odd-sounding combination perhaps, but they were just as our server had described; like an appetizer, entrée and dessert all in one bite.

For our entrées we ordered the ahi tuna brochette, grilled tuna skewers in sharmoula – a lemon, garlic, cilantro and cumin marinade ­– and the Marrakech lamb tagine.

A tagine is a heavy, glazed clay pot with a round, shallow base and a cone-shaped cover designed to trap in condensation during cooking. Moroccan tagine meals tend to take the form of slow-cooked stews.

The lamb, braised with saffron, garlic, cumin and lemon, was perfectly tender and the house specialty cous cous, garnished with caramelized raisins and garbanzo beans was easily the best I have ever had.

To round out the meal we finished with cinnamon-spiced fresh strawberries and mint tea sweetened with orange blossom. The tea, in true Moroccan style, was poured from a silver pot raised arms length above each cup. This technique aerates the tea, just like swirling a glass of wine.

We were stuffed to capacity and still had plenty of leftovers. If we had been back in Connecticut, we would have been eating Moroccan food for a week. As it was, there was still too much to try to stop there.

On Saturday morning we met again for a Cantonese-style brunch, or dim sum.

Celine, knowing the language and the customs far better than the rest of us, took charge of the ordering. As each steaming cart rolled past she pointed at this basket and that until our table had accumulated quite an array of unidentifiable dishes. Celine described each one as Adam tried to mask a growing look of uncertainty. I knew exactly how he felt.


There were steamed dumplings and shumai, spare ribs and rice noodle rolls, glutinous fried rice, congee, steamed meatballs and others.

Since they sat right in front of me, I found I could not shy away, so pecking here and there I slowly worked my way up to some of the more bizarre items.

The tripe steamed with cabbage, as my first introduction to stomach lining, was not bad. However, although the flavor was better than expected, the chewy texture was a bit more than I could take. Next time I think I would prefer my tripe in soup form.

Next Celine showed me how to eat a phoenix claw. An epic name for a fried chicken foot, there is not actually much to eat on a “claw.” Upon finding it was far more gelatinous than meaty, the idea of chicken Jello put me off to this “delicacy” pretty quickly.

Adam wisely avoided the tripe and phoenix claws and instead tentatively nibbled a jin devi, a chewy dough ball filled with a sweet red bean paste and rolled in sesame seeds. My mom is obsessed with these sesame balls and pointed at them excitedly when she spied them on a passing cart.

Filled to the brim yet again, once we went our separate ways for the day I took pity on Adam and promised him some good old-fashioned, normal pizza for supper.

Towards the end of our trip we sat down to a quiet dinner for two at the illustrious Marine Room in La Jolla. Although we had heard that reservations are hard to come by, we luckily had no problem getting a table.

When we were shown to our booth, I think we both heaved a relaxing sigh before settling in to a nice, long, indulgent evening.

Throughout our meal, which was expertly prepared and beautifully presented, different members of the staff kept asking whether we had planned our visit specifically for high tide.

During the day the restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto a 100-foot stretch of sandy beach and the glittering ocean beyond. In the evening, and especially during certain times of year, the ocean waves, highlighted by underwater floodlights, rise high enough to crash upon the glass. We had no idea we were in the midst of a high tide week, we just happened to luck out.

The view was spectacular. The setting sun upon the water, the fishing boat lights in the distance, the sea lion swimming past, it was truly wonderful.

The food was equally spectacular. To start, I had the warm mushroom torte with white asparagus and a 20-year-old Royal Ambrosante and Adam chose the lobster bisque with pancetta and yuzu cream.

Then the Cervena elk and venison with rhubarb preserves and a cacao nib Madeira gastrique for me,


and the lobster and filet surf and turf for him.


For dessert, a cobblestone pie with espresso and vanilla gelato and spiced rum butterscotch, and a confection “trilogy” with a chocolate Kahlua tart, blood orange sorbet and a cherry Amarone pot de crème.

Three hours after first arriving at the Marine Room, we stumbled back to our hotel and slipped pleasantly into a food coma.

From the bizarre to the beautiful, the tasty to the questionable, our seemingly endless exploration of San Diego’s culinary realm was really only one small part of the entire adventure. Spending time with family and loved ones, making new friends, reconnecting with old ones and sharing memories are what bring sunshine to an otherwise cloudy day.