It’s August. Corn season—that hallowed dental flossian time—is upon us. Peak summer means the fruits from local farms are downright NC-17. It’s also hot-adjacent, so we search out top-notch sashimi and interesting fruit punches. And because we’re contrarians, we also find ourselves tucking into a warm lobster roll in North Park, vying for a father’s love. Anyway, these are the stories behind the best things we found this month—things we’d recommend to friends who didn’t owe us money. Salamat.
Chef Ethan Yang grew up folding dumplings in his dad’s San Diego restaurants—such as the former Fortune Cookie in Rancho Bernardo, which drew on the family’s Taiwanese and Chinese roots. So the Taiwanese beef noodle soup on the menu at Glass Box (a lovely glass-enclosed sushi and pan-Asian spot at Sky Deck in Del Mar) is a family pride—the result of Ethan, dad, and his brother tinkering endlessly with various bones (they finally found the perfect bone, only sold by one butcher in LA).
But the dish that shows off his raw fish skills is the albacore—lightly cured in soy, mirin, and toasted sesame oil, flame-torched to caramelize, and finished with smoked shoyu, chive oil, shiso oil, house-pickled sweet peppers, and crispy rice pearls. —Troy Johnson
Luce Bar & Kitchen
Double-Cut Duroc Pork Chop
“Wait, where is it?” I hear this a lot when suggesting Luce for drinks or a bite. The Bay Park restaurant is smack dab in a part of the city that isn’t conventionally attractive: on the side of the 5 freeway, next to a bevy of service-looking storefronts. To be in this area, you either live here (homes here are fairly excellent with that bay view) or are getting a muffler fixed. A better reason to be in Bay Park: An evening at Luce, a locals’ haunt. Get the Duroc pork chop (the chefs’ chop, with darker meat, higher fat content, better marbling) with collard greens, toasted grits (toasting anything results in a better version of that anything), and a mustard glaze that makes you feel like you’re in the South enjoying sweet tea with friends. —Nicolle Monico
Courtesy of Sipwell Wine Co.
Sipwell Wine Co.
Tiny Victories
Ever walk into your kitchen during the afternoon feeling recklessly free and decide the time is exactly right for a glass of Champagne? Maybe you crushed a work project or navigated a 4-year-old’s meltdown with the elegance of a global diplomat. You ever then pour that glass and are immediately pulled away by other demanding life errata—and by the time you eventually return to celebrating being alive, you find the remaining victory-juice sits in the popped bottle, losing its steam, and serving you a metaphor for your day?
Hilary Cocalis solved this for me with Carlsbad-based Sipwell. Tiny Victories is a Champagne-style sparkling white in a 250ml can (a glass and a half—the correct amount), the first can-conditioned sparkling wine on the market, fermented with true Champagne yeast. Crisp apple, a little citrus, that biscuity thing good bubbles do, zero sugar. It’s also the first canned wine to crack Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100, so now there’s no excuse not to celebrate all of life’s tiny victories. —Claire Johnson
Courtesy of Pete’s Seafood and Sandwich
Pete’s Seafood and Sandwich
Warmed Lobster Roll
If my dad were to rank his favorite things, I think I’d make the podium, but there’s no way I’m outperforming this lobster roll. And why would I? We went to Pete’s on Father’s Day, and Peter DeCoste brought out 5 ounces of Maine lobster smothered in warm butter, tucked haphazardly into a grilled New England–style roll, served with a simple coleslaw and basic fries (no need to overshadow the star). Pete’s has a cold version with mayo, too, but there’s something about warm lobster that really wins over dads and their lobster-jealous daughters. –Lili Kim
Valerio’s 1979
Turon
Valerio’s 1979 is a quintessential San Diego family story. In the 1950s, the grandparents opened their first bakery in the historic Philippines city, Cavite. Their son, Jimmy, would bake and sell bread before school. After enlisting in the Navy and being stationed in San Diego, Jimmy and his wife, Gloria, opened his own version of the family bakery in National City in 1979—a huge hit and home-away-from-home spot for the city’s massive Filipino community.
Four-plus decades later, with four locations across SoCal, it’s on the third-gen of Valerios. The new blood is reviving the name and place with all kinds of Filipino comfort food, and the turon is a star. The classic Filipino treat is a ripe, sweet saba banana and jackfruit, rolled in lumpia wrapper, deep-fried, and covered in sticky, caramelized brown sugar. “Dessert lumpia” is a phrase to live a life by. —Troy Johnson
The former pastry chef at two of the country’s top restaurants—Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, and Niki Nakayama’s n/naka in LA—is making fresh, fruit-filled mochi in San Diego. That sentence alone should be enough.
Mochi is a deep Japanese tradition—a glutinous rice flour turned into a soft, pliable, delicious food putty. It’s texture as a food group. People often first experience it as the covering of ice cream, but Gemma Matsuyama Yamada’s from-scratch mochi is softer, more delicate, the temperature of a nice breeze. And inside, she simply places slices of the best, peak-season fruits (strawberries, stone fruit, you name it). The cantaloupe is otherworldly—get it now; the season goes through October. —Troy Johnson
Tamarindo Del Mar
Elote Spears
Summer is corn’s time. It is not your time. Not my time. Corn’s time. I feel like a caveman tearing flesh from a rib, but instead I’m sucking every last drop of corn juice off the cob. And in San Diego, the Mexican street food elotes are the apex form of corn appreciation.
Tamarindo Del Mar balances the sweetness by charring the kernels, adding some luxurious fat (smoked chipotle crema), a more interesting salt component (cotija cheese), and some greens for your mom (cilantro). That chipotle crema drizzle unlocks a fire within me to elbow my tablemates for the last one. —Emma Veidt
Drip coffee, espresso, cold brew, teas, and a handful of latte choices—Immersion in Little Italy doesn’t overcomplicate its menu (enough with the half-caf-vanilla-caramel-unicorn-upside-down shaken lattes). Its drinks are anything but boring, though. Try the photo-worthy roasted black sesame latte, which has a hint of one of the greatest flavors known to humanity (toasted sesame), is creamy without being overly sweet, and delivers an instant jolt. —Nicolle Monico
Finjan Coffee Co.
Sparkling Arab Fruit Punch
One sip into this deep-indigo, muddled-blackberry-and-mint-loaded, super-carbonated fruit punch, my pupils widened. I ordered it on a first-time visit this month and returned six days later for an encore. The people behind Tahini (our 2023 critic’s pick for Best Middle Eastern food) have tapped into SD’s caffeinated scene with Turkish coffee outpost Finjan. The star of its fruit punch is Vimto Syrup—a cordial mix of blackcurrant, raspberry, and grape juices—diluted by sparkling mineral water. It’s a light drink perfect for summer (that I’ll be drinking year-round). —Emma Veidt
