Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2014

Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2014

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Chile Relleno Taco @ City Tacos

I’d been told repeatedly by many that I needed to try City Tacos in North Park. That tends to make me wait longer, only because I fear there’s no way it can live up to the hyperbole. But City Tacos did. What an excellent little joint. The chile relleno taco is especially good, lightly beer battered and filled with Oaxaca and Cotija cheese and put on a housemade flour tortilla (with chopped tomato, onion and cilantro). 3028 University Ave., North Park, 6719.296.2303

Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2014

Fall Squash Salad @ Sea & Smoke

Chef Matt Gordon is behind a couple of my favorite salads in San Diego. The first is his watermelon salad. The second hits right now during the fall, with roasted butternut and pumpkin squashes, pomegranate seeds, fennel, arugula and feta in a pomegranate vinaigrette. Even if you’re an unrelenting carnivore, roasted squash is one of the best meat replacements there is. 2690 Via de la Valle, Del Mar, 858.925.8212

Best Things I Ate This Month: November 2014

Photo by Luis Garcia

Huli Huli Chicken @ Sea180

In December, I’ll be reviewing Sea180 Coastal Tavern—the Cohn Restaurant Group’s waterside dining perch in one of the city’s funkiest beach havens. It’s a cliché, but true. Ordering the chicken off any menu is the best way to get a read on the kitchen staff—since anyone who can make that blank slate of a protein taste markedly unique has some skill. Anything with a “pineapple-teriyaki sauce” generally scares the bejesus out of me, since I’m sure to get a cloying, sweet bomb. But Sea180’s is excellent with chicken thighs, just the right amount of restraint and salt on the sauce, a wonderful steamed bamboo rice and a Baja slaw. Eat this with a cocktail on the deck and watch the sun dip into the Pacific. 800 Seacoast Dr., Imperial Beach, 619.631.4949