17 Convoy Street Eateries with Patio Dining

The magic of convoy right now is the convergence of two (sometimes three) generations.

May 27, 2021

How Convoy Became the Heart of San Diego's Asian Food SceneRELATED ARTICLE

Grocery store Woo Chee Chong opened along Convoy Street in 1979. From its aisles fanned a whole scene of mom-and-pop cooks and chefs, often first-generation Americans launching humble spots in the area’s innumerable strip malls— like Tina Tran, who cooked phở and Vietnamese signatures for her neighbors until the demand grew into Phuong Trang (opened 1992).

Now, the next generation is sprucing up the area, bringing modern design and obsessive maker culture, a movement arguably kickstarted by Common Theory and its pan-Asian speakeasy Realm of the 52 Remedies. The Convoy charm is expanding beyond Kearny Mesa, too. The family behind popular seafood boil room Crab Hut got a James Beard nomination for Kingfisher in Golden Hill a few years ago, and Cross Street’s Korean fried chicken is now in Del Mar.

Three things especially marked the area this year: After being destroyed by a fire in 2020, beloved made-to-order Cantonese dim sum spot China Max reopened under next-gen ownership who leaned into dumplings, noodles, and xiao long bao but retained the footprint for weddings and cultural events. Longtime local Japanese grill master Tatsuro Tsuchiya (Yakyudori, Yakitori Hino, Sushi Tadokoro) opened Yakitori Tsuta, his 18-to- 20-course concept with 12 seats, giving the binchōtan coal-art of Japanese grilling its first omakase experience. And super grocer Zion Market started working with designer Michael Soriano (Vin de Syrah, Realm of the 52) and should be unveiling a wildly immersive, multiple-restaurant-and-bar world on the rooftop later this year.

TAHINI-guy-fieri

John Dole

What’s a guy to do with a Harvard Law degree? For Osama Shabaik, the surprising answer was to join forces with good friend Mahmoud (Moody) Barkawi to open up a Middle Eastern street food restaurant—Tahini—and earn the Guy Fieri Triple D stamp of approval.

“We were lamenting over the fact of how inaccessible [Middle Eastern food] was,” Shabaik explains of Tahini. “It’s the food we grew up with and that we always reminisce about. But a bigger part of it was, ‘How can we own a business that we’re proud of in terms of the values that it embodies?’”

What started off as a 10’ x 10’ farmers’ market stand run by two students with one shawarma machine in 2013 turned into a values-driven, brick-and-mortar business in 2017. “For us, there was a fear of going and working for a company or someone where our values may not have aligned. One of the big reasons as to why we went forward with Tahini was to be able to chart our own path,” explains Shabaik.

TAHIHI-pita-falafel

John Dole

It’s easy to see why Tahini is catching the attention of locals (and Fieri) in Kearny Mesa. The casual atmosphere and easily-customizable menu almost downplay the fact that everything is made using top-notch ingredients—such as the antibiotic-free chicken and beef, marinated in more than 10 fresh herbs and spices. Their claim to fame is their chicken shawarma pita (a.k.a. The Esquire) packed with french fries, garlic, Sriracha, tomatoes, and pickled cucumbers.

Little things also count—like their squeaky halloumi cheese sticks. Breaded and fried to crispy, non-oily bites, dip them into a serving of sticky-sweet fig jam. Though the Tahini fries are a loaded, nap-inducing joy, the pickled turnips are the best thing on their menu.

TAHINI-fries

John Dole

Beyond food, Shabaik and Barkawi were determined to create a welcoming space to hire refugees coming from the Middle East. “For folks that may or may not speak English, it’s just one small way to give them a taste of home,” says Shabaik. The duo have also established a working business model, an increasingly hard thing to accomplish in the restaurant industry.

They provide above-minimum wage pay to all staff members, invest in eco-friendly, biodegradable packaging for food items, and commit to halal meats, local produce, and a from-scratch approach for all their menus. As their website says, “When it comes to respecting the earth and the communities that make it up, no price is too high to pay.”

Sick of cooking? Order takeout! The SDM staff is sharing their recommendations, plus one expert’s pick, for where to get takeout this week in San Diego. You can satisfy your hunger cravings and help support our local restaurants all with one order, so dig in!

Troy’s Picks

From Troy Johnson, food critic

Wa Dining Okan

Order: Bento box

3860 Convoy Street, Kearny Mesa

ED Fernandez Restaurant

Order: Birria

2265 Flower Avenue, Nestor

Marie’s Picks

From Marie Tutko, editor in chief

Hawaiian Fresh Seafood

Order: Ahi poke

6491 Weathers Place, Sorrento Valley

HiroNori Craft Ramen

Order: Shoyu ramen

3803 Fifth Avenue, Hillcrest

David’s Picks

From David Martin, digital media director

Louisiana Purchase

Order: Crab boil

2305 University Avenue, North Park

Thotsakan

Order: Thai lunch special

1153 Sixth Avenue, Downtown

Erica’s Picks

From Erica Nichols, associate editor

Shawarma Guys

Order: Lemon cream chop fries

3012 Grape Street, South Park

Wicked Maine Lobster

Order: Lobster tacos

3040 Carlsbad Boulevard, Carlsbad; 2820 Historic Decatur Road, Liberty Station; 550 West Date Street, Little Italy

Tim Mays’s Picks

From episode 188 of the Happy Half Hour podcast

Buona Forchetta South Park

Order: Neapolitan pizza

3001 Beech Street, South Park

Pizzeria Luigi

Order: Custom pies

1137 25th Street, Golden Hill; 717 Seacoast Drive, Imperial Beach; 2121 El Cajon Boulevard, North Park

Shawarma Guys 

Blonde City Creative

The Feed / Miho Catering Co.

Kevin Ho and his business partner, Juan Miron, were in Vegas at a catering conference when news of the pandemic broke eight months ago (or 60 months or however long ago this started). A flood of cancellations for their MiHo Catering Co. started coming in. Hitting snooze on reality like many of us did, Ho came home to San Diego and went straight to a long-planned beach camping trip with his family.

The intent, as with most modern vacations, was to unplug from the bleeps and bloops and notifications. Not a shot.

“I was in denial a little bit,” says Ho. “But I kept getting blasted by my staff, rightfully so. I told my wife, ‘I need to plug in somewhere because I think the world is ending.’ So I went to a coffee shop and found out, oh… the world is ending.”

Catering hasn’t gotten the big “help” headlines during all this. Most media has focused on saving the restaurants, because they often have higher rent and fixed costs. Catering had been a bright spot in the food world—a US market that went from $58 billion in sales in 2017 to $64 billion in 2019. Restaurants, which operate on tiny margins (three to five percent, on average), were filling their bookkeeping gaps by catering events.

Then, events were canceled. Weddings, holiday parties, retirement parties, birthday parties, baby showers—all gone. Some caterers switched to providing meals for workers on the front lines. They tried doing family-style meals, delivering groceries to clients, tried everything.

MiHo, one of the city’s top caterers, went from over 100 employees to fewer than 30. Instead of competing with restaurants for meal-delivery business, they chose to help companies who had invested big in office culture—kombucha on tap, good coffee, food and drink as a work perk—re-create a little of that magic for their newly remote workforce. They’re also spearheading a movement to include mobile COVID-19 testing as one of their services.

I spoke with Kevin Ho this morning about the view from the catering world:

Troy Johnson: What was the initial effect?

Kevin Ho: On the catering events side, that completely disappeared. We went dark right away. Unfortunately we had to furlough a ton of people. Our staff was bigger than it had ever been; that was such a huge disappointment—to tell that many good, hard-working people they don’t have a job.

How’d you reinvent yourself?

We had to identify what changes would be cyclical and what was a structural, long-lasting change to the industry we know and love. We already had a pretty strong delivery program that we launched in 2017, so thankfully we were always approved by county health guidelines to keep offering delivery. But our bread and butter is corporate, and that fell off the map entirely.

You’ve started doing select events again. How are you pulling it off?

As things started to improve, we developed our own health and safety protocols. That was treacherous, because everything was so uncharted and untested. It took us time to embrace the fact that it’s an essential, core responsibility. I truly believe that in larger firms you’ll see executive roles like “chief health and safety officer.’ That’s just part of the job now. We have policies we vote on and amend according to health orders, and training manuals and policies that we agree to with our clients.

What specifically are you asking your clients to agree to?

Our policies are very strict. We’re demanding small guest counts, private residences, single-household. We really look to restaurants. Right now they’re not supposed to be serving guests indoors, so our practices go hand-in-hand. For the most part, people who are still inquiring about events aren’t as inclined to be as safe and health conscious as we would like them to be. There are [caterers] who are more stringent than we are, but a lot of our competitors have abandoned all public health and safety. We lose business to firms who are just going to let people gather without any kind of masks or restrictions. I’m not judging them at all. When I look back, my team and I will be proud of the way we went about it. We’d rather leave money on the table.

And you’re starting to test everyone at your events?

We have created some partnerships with local operators who provide licensed rapid antigen testing. We have registered nurses who we’ll send to clients, or they can do drive-thru testing at our site. They’ll get the results in 15 minutes before we do the event. Testing is just going to become part of everyday life. Even though the testing doesn’t eliminate COVID, it will allow schools and offices and hospitality to conduct their activities with a higher level of assurance.

Is this a moneymaker?

It’s not a moneymaker. We spent so long writing our testing program and I will happily share it with every other operator. It’s crazy—I’m used to talking about food temperatures, and now we’re creating mobile COVID testing units. I hope that every single American can have free access to testing and ideally we can help with that. I hope Amazon starts shipping testing kits to homes. I hope one day I will have tests that my family and I can take at home weekly.

Tell me about re-creating the ultimate company break rooms.

The huge opportunity we saw was, all of these employees are working from home, some very happily and safely. Our corporate clientele tend to be firms that have the same values we do—purpose-driven and really, really appreciate their teams and want to create an environment they’re proud of. So break rooms had kombucha on tap and Topo Chico water and good coffee. I would go to some of our clients’ offices and I’m like, “Dang, can I work here?” So we talked to them and said, “You’re still that kind of company; let us help you create that.”

So you created a mobile version?

We’ll ship packages to their employees to give them those creature comforts and the same pride that went into their office culture. We’ll have locally roasted coffee beans, because you used to roll into work and get free coffee. Handmade snacks. We’re making immunity supplements because wellness is one of our biggest values.

But it goes beyond that?

Yeah, it’s called Concord. It’s basically a single-payer system with individual ordering. So if a client wants to do an employee appreciation lunch or celebrate something, employees can go to our site and order their meal, then we’ll deliver it to their homes across San Diego County. We’re also launching experiences. We have our gastro-truck, so for the bigger occasions, a company can send our food truck to grill grass-fed burgers fresh right in front of someone’s house.

You can’t make money off driving a truck to a single person’s home and cooking them a burger.

Ha. No. There’s no profit for us. What we’re actually creating is a corporate subscription membership where you can subscribe for a monthly fee for each of your employees—you get access to delivery meals, the gastrotruck, multicourse meals, gift boxes for birthdays and anniversaries or hitting certain company goals. We’re also doing multicourse dinners with beer and wine pairings.

Do you see events coming back?

Until people can get together, we’re not going to break the rules and push for this. For me as the owner of this company, I really need catering. That’s what keeps food on my kids’ table. But personally, I don’t think you should have a wedding today. I really hope you call us and we can book one for 2021 or 2022.

Catering hasn’t gotten the press that restaurants have. How’s that hurt you?

To be honest, I’d rather support my local coffee shop and pizza place and burger joint than support MiHo, who’s headquartered in Kearny Mesa. With my $10 for dinner tonight, I want to support the mom-and-pop that I know really needs my business. The headlines and PR and stuff, we don’t want to take that away from them. Obviously we’re getting our ass kicked, but so are other people.

What’s next?

We were thinking about doing a “Save the Dives Tour.” We’ll park the gastrotruck in front of our favorite dive bars in the city, serve food, and help dive bars sell drinks to go.

Sometimes the canary makes it out. Goes into the coal mine, coughs a touch, pulls it together, darts for the light, lives a long and prosperous life. Tajima was the canary in San Diego’s ramen mine. Restaurant ramen was a completely unproven crapshoot in 1994 when Sam Morikizono took over an existing restaurant on Convoy. He surely didn’t plan on serving it. Ramen was huge in Japan, but few serious restaurateurs stateside gave it a second thought. Ramen was just the beloved plastic package in the bulk-food aisle (thanks to the legend, Momofuku Ando).

“Before I took over Tajima, the place was a Japanese home-food restaurant. Tempura, sushi, noodles,” Morikizono says. “I had a lot of Japanese regulars and they’d always ask me to make this or that. I cooked everything. One day regulars asked me to make ramen. It wasn’t popular in the US at the time, but I made it, and it was a hit.”

Born and raised near Osaka, Japan, Morikizono came to the US after high school at age 19 and cooked in restaurants to make it. Restaurant kitchens have always been key harbors in the making-it process. “I wanted to see a different country,” he says. “In the beginning I didn’t plan to stay forever. I didn’t like it much.”

He was working at Shogun restaurant in LA (he didn’t like LA much, either) when they opened a location in San Diego, and he moved here to be the cook. A year later, Tajima restaurant down the street came up for sale.

Tajima Ramen at Tajima

“I always wanted to be a restaurant owner,” he says. “It was in very bad condition, but that’s why I could afford the opportunity. In the beginning, I tried everything to make the best ramen, but it was too greasy, it was too salty. Eventually, I just tried to make it balanced. I didn’t want to make it too authentic. I wanted to make it for Asian people, Caucasian people, with flavor and umami.”

That may have been the key. Part of the allure of Convoy is the collection of first- and second-generation Asian cooks, adhering to recipes straight from the source. But Morikizono cooked for both palates—where he’s from and where he is. That’s why their spicy sesame ramen—essentially a riff on the classic tantanmen ramen, which itself is a riff on Sichuan dan dan noodles—is an eminently enjoyable bowl of soup.

Twenty years later, Morizikono is still here, and Tajima is revered as one of the region’s best ramen restaurants. The day they opened their sixth San Diego location in College Heights (there are also two in Tijuana) had the bad luck to be the same day the city first shuttered indoor dining.

Morikizono says they’re doing okay. They’ve figured it out as well they can—outdoor dining, to-go orders, Tajima’s long-earned name.