Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2017

Curried Couscous @ Mendocino Farms

Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2017

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Mendocino Farms does a hell of a job with responsible food, including a bevy of plant-based goods. At a recent tasting of their La Jolla location, I tried their Rescued Burger—a veg burger made from leftover pulp from a juicery. It was good. But the star of the show was this simple side dish, couscous jazzed up with curry powder. A little kick, a little cream, a few carrot bits here and there. Sometimes the biggest revelations lie in the most unassuming places.

8975 Villa La Jolla Dr., La Jolla

Chili @ Waypoint Public

Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2017

Possibly San Diego’s greatest chili cook-off (no offense to my beloved O.B.), the SoNo experience is coming. The event is a celebration of the creative-class success stories in North Park and South Park, with over 40 restaurants slow-cooking beans and meat and surprise ingredients in the streets. During the recording of our “Happy Half Hour” podcast, we got a glimpse at Waypoint Public of chef Rich Sweeney’s chili skills, and this bowl was a doozy—the surprise element being a cheese ball coated in Doritos. Chili, the most playfully obscene of all the foods.

3794 30th Street, North Park

Oysters @ Hog Island Oyster Co.

Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2017

I’ve been traveling this month, filming “Guy’s Grocery Games” for Food Network. We film it in Santa Rosa, which suffered huge losses in the catastrophic fires. Our hotels were full of families who’d lost their homes. Guy Fieri, a Santa Rosa resident, set up a relief kitchen for the first responders and served over 30,000 meals. On one weekend off, we decided to get out of town and head west to Tomales Bay, home of famed oyster fisheries. And Hog Island is the most famed of the fame, and this oyster is why—oysters come out of the water 20 feet from your table, and they grill them right there. This particular one is their BBQ bourbon chipotle butter oyster. It’s the kind of bite that smooths out the sharp edges of life. Hit the road, find this place. It’s a mecca.

20215 Shoreline Hwy, Marshall