Elijah’s Restaurant is hidden behind some other stores and restaurants in the Whole Foods/TGIF plaza on Villa La Jolla Drive and Nobel Drive. It is a little hard to find, but it makes for a nice, casual meal. It offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner items, as well as a bakery foods. I ordered the “Empire State Building” from their mile-high sandwich category, and it didn’t disappoint. The pricing here is a little high, but the service is good, and it hasn’t been overly crowded the couple times I have gone.

To celebrate the completion of two finals, we took the suggestion of a friend and ate at Pangabi Tandoor. It is a very small Indian restaurant in the middle of a bunch of companies, but that doesn’t hurt the food quality one bit. Despite the fact that its a bit out of the way for students, and maybe even the business people that come here, this place does good business. It is easy to see why: they cook their indian food fresh, and it isn’t too expensive. One of my friends was absolutely amazed at how his Chana Samosa (Samosa in Garbanzo bean-type sauce and yogurt), and another one of my friends pretty much eats here whenever she can. For myself, I plan on making the drive here every so often (despite gas prices!) and picking up some authentic indian food.

Cafe Japengo is a pretty deceiving name. Its not really a cafe, and what kind of food would a place called Japengo serve? Well Japengu seems like a fusion of words, and thats what food is serves! Asian fusion, with a focus on Japanese. While I can’t pretend to know what “engo” comes from, I’m just gonna assume it has that suffix because it sounds snazzy.

Anyways, Japengo sits in the Aventine Restaurant square across from the Hyatt in La Jolla. Some neighboring restaurants include Fleming’s, Melting Pot, and Blue Coral. The moment you see the set of restauarants forming a semicircle around a valet area, you know that this is an expensive area. It is geared towards business people, being near the Hyatt, but don’t let it stop you from going. Japengo has an awesome atmosphere: it is dark, but not too dark; it has bamboo and rock decorations on the side; the sushi bar looks professional; and overall it feels very modern, but natural since there is so much wood.

The service was what I expect from a nice restaurant; nice, didn’t rush us, and we didn’t end up waiting too long for anything (except near the end of the meal). The utensils were replaced for each course of food, which was pretty crazy.

On to the good stuff: food! Armed with the knowledge that my sister’s work was gonna pay for this meal >=D, I pretty much ordered indiscriminately. I got a crab cake appetizer, which was panko crusted and topped with pear compote and another sauce. There was only one, but it was chubby and filled with crab-tacularness. For my main dish I got rack of lamb, which was over mashed potatoes (by the way, they had like FOUR DIFFERENT KIND OF MASH POTATOES throughout the menu. it was insanity) and had tempura vegetables on the side. The meat was a little chewy, but good. The sauce gives it a nice kick, and luckily they don’t overdo the sauce. The mashed potatoes…man… they were mashed in with some brocolini (i think), and it was exquisite. Best mashed potatoes evar. Incidentally, my sister wasn’t very hungry, so I ate all of her dish (i only ate half of mine, under the theory that mine would be better as leftovers as hers). She ordered Miso Sea Bass, which is seabass, shrimp tortellini, and floating vegetables in a truffle broth. The seabass was cooked great, but the truffle sauce was very powerful. Maybe I’m not classy enough to appreciate it. The tortellini was absolutely excellent.

Since that paragraph is getting long, I’ll talk about my dessert here: Chocolate Lava Cake. Since I LOVE this dessert and never eat it, I decided to order it despite my fullness. Dessert goes to another stomach right? It came with Vanilla Gelato, a chocolate stick, some fresh fruit, the cake itself, and an almond thing on top of it. Man, chocolate is good. For fuller descriptions, see below.

All in all, I prolly ate around 90 dollars worth of food, which is pretty redonkulous. But it was tasty and I definitely wouldn’t mind eating here again.

My camera was still outta battery (i’m lazy), but the dishes were awesome looking. You’d have to ask me in person to see them on my phone though.

Upon entrance into Broken Yolk, one thing will come to mind: it is freaking loud in here. After that, you’ll notice the place is pretty big and packed. The waits aren’t too bad since the place is so big. When we got our table, we kind of just sat there looking at a menu for a while. No server came by at any point. My mom asked a guy walking by if we can order, and eventually that guy got our waittress. Pretty bad if you ask me.

After a pretty long wait for breakfast, our food came. The menu is pretty diverse, which is a plus. Unfortunately my camera died after a picture of the menu. The food was pretty good, but nothing that wows you. Anyways the bottom line: the service was craptacular (she came by 3 times: take our order, give our food, give the check) and the food doesn’t make up for it. Although, they do offer a special for 23 bucks where if you finish a giant plate of stuff you get it free and a name on a plaque (dozen egg omelet, with hash browns, chili, and bunch of other stuff on top).

Also, there is a lot of parking behind the restaurant.

At Five Crowns, each crown is a star. The building seems like its from a couple centuries ago in England (or something like that). If you want to use their parking lot, its mandatory valet, but you could probably find parking away from the restaurant for free if you looked. Something to note about this place is that its pretty classy. They expect the same from its guests, which means no shorts and scrubby clothing (my normal clothing). The plus about this is that the meal feels more meaningful than say a meal at your local Denny’s (yay?).

Now if you’re coming to this restaurant, don’t expect to have many spectacular veggie options; this place is known for Prime Rib. It’s owned by Lawry’s, which pretty much means you KNOW it has quality meat. As it was my birthday I just ordered whatever, and started with some lobster bisque, which was super creamy. I ordered the Henry VIII cut of prime rib: 20 oz of meat and bone goodness. (Un)Fortunately for my stomach, we ordered souffle and also got a free birthday strawberry trifle. Incidentally the trifle tasted better than the souffle, but both tasted good overall.

Great service, food, and atmosphere (its not too stuck-up). If you’re willing to spend a little more for some good food, not a bad option.

Looking for a vegetarian place since meat just makes you sick? Try out Veggie Grill. Although I wouldn’t answer that question as “yes”, i ended finding out about this place from a friend. The restaurant format is order and take a seat and put your number up.

I didn’t get to quite taste their full menu (had wisdom teeth taken out the day before), but the chili that I got was pretty good. They have flavored sandwiches made of wheat, soy, and other non-meat ingredients in lieu of the normal beef and chicken. I definitely want to go back and try those sometime. Seems like a great place to go in between classes if you go to UCI.

Macaroni Grill gives you what you expect from an American restaurant serving Italian food. It has a nice atmosphere suitable for families, but not does not overwhelm you. The food is usually pretty average and is kind of expensive. Not a bad choice for a meal if you feel like going out.

There are two extraordinary desserts in SD, and I wasn’t really sure which one I picked when decided: it could be a cafe-style or trendy restaurant-style. We ended up with the cafe-type location, which was really nice and cozy. The outdoor seating was perfect for summer san diego nights, and is comfortable feeling overall. Unfortunately there was a long line to order, but that was somewhat expected. You wait in line, look at all the pretty desserts, order at cashier, and sit. They bring the desserts to you.

Now to the main reason you’re reading this: their desserts! We got 2 desserts: a flourless chocolate cake and a Shangri La cake. When you get your desserts they look even more delicious since they pretty it up and put some tasty sauces all around. They also put random flower petals around the dishes. Fancy. The taste of the desserts were very good, but I’ve had better at some places. A huge plus was that they didn’t overwhelm you with sweetness and the flavors were pretty original compared to standard fare. Nonetheless, I’ll take a molten chocolate volcano at a nice restaurant over these fancy desserts anyday. I would definitely go back and try even more desserts, they all look super delicious, and I think its a matter of picking right.

We went here for friend’s birthday, based purely on name and look. Dunno why he chose this place (there were like 5 korean places on the street, some nicer looking), but we did. Fortunately, it was pretty good, though very empty since it was Tuesday evening. We ended up sharing a daeji bulgogi, which was very good. I ordered a pajeon (seafood pancake) for myself, much to the surprise of the hostess (since most people order it to share). My friends seemed content with their food too.

This place has 3.5-4 star food. 3 star service: there were not many people, and somehow the service still was very slow. I ended up paying a lot since me and the non-birthday friend paid for the birthday guy, and the food was kinda expensive.

Wandering around Ocean Beach, we were trying to decide where to eat when we came upon Hodad’s. I remembered reading something about it on Menuism (and a friend on Citysearch…boo!); we decided to dine at this loud and lively place. You seat yourselves, or you can be lazy and wait for someone to tell you where to sit. The atmosphere is… awesome: license plates from everywhere fill up the walls, often with amusing names; there is a car with a table inside it; a wooden bicycle; a baby doll in a wetsuit; and just cool decor. Rock music brings an energetic feel to the place, but it doesn’t seem to overpower your ability to hold a conversation. The service is also super good; our server offered samples of their 3 microdraft beers to my friends, the food came out quickly, and it was just very good.

Anyways, to the food. My friends absolutely loved their microdraft dark beer. I got a strawberry malt which completely obliterated me; it was wayyy to big. The burgers, though, compete among the best. Greasy, large, and oh so tasty. Beats out In n Out and other burger joints in my opinion. You can get them with bacon, veggy patty, or no patty at all (called the Unburger). Be sure to get it with fries, they are very good! The dark beer also apparently goes well with the burgers.

Bottom line: Great atmosphere and service, Great food.