Throwback Thursday: San Diego

For Adam’s 31st birthday he requested a trip “somewhere warm”. If I had my way, we would’ve gone to Fiji. But since he likes “shorter” flights, I chose the furthest one possible… California. I researched the places with the best food, must-do’s and must-see’s and ended up planning a trip to San Diego and L.A. I have an entire itinerary (literally breakfast/lunch/dinner/activities planned) so if you ever need that, just e-mail me! For now, I’ve summed up our favorite places from San Diego below.

We tried to stay on the East Coast time as much as possible so waking up to the sunrise was easy.

We stayed at the Catamaran Resort and Spa which was right on the “beach”. I wouldn’t exactly call it a beach even though it had sand and water but I noticed a lot of the beaches in the San Diego area were different from what we see on the East Coast. We grabbed an acai bowl from Juice Kaboose (SO GOOD) and headed to our first stop,  hiking at Torrey Pines. This trail for us was very easy but it had really amazing views!

    

  

After hiking we quickly changed into our bathing suits and put our name down on the waiting list at the restaurant, Poseidon in Del Mar. The beaches in Del Mar were all wet sand which made it a bit awkward to lay out so we took a walk along the water before they called us to let us know our table was ready.

We had one of the best seats in the house! We decided to eat light and ordered a Thai Salad and Fish Tacos to save room for our dinner later on. The food was excellent and the view was even better.

Dinner reservations took us into the gaslamp district which I assume is San Diego’s “downtown”. I had read great things about Searsucker (Brian Malarkey from Top Chef is the chef) and we couldn’t wait to try it all!

 

and…we did. From top to bottom — Spicy shrimp and grits, chimichurri steak, cheddar croissants, pretzel crusted salmon, jalapeño chorizo corn off the cob (melt in your mouth) and the s’mores bar.  

Phenomenal.

The next morning brought us to The Mission, which we ended up eating at twice during our stay. They had a ton of options and San Diego does not cheap out on portions, that’s for sure.

I had the green tea latte and that huge platter on the bottom which was papas con chorizo. Adam ordered the gluten-free french toast and you would’ve never guessed it was Gluten Free. We headed to La Jolla to walk around shops and see the stinky seals beach.

 

The seals were stinkier than you can imagine but it was still a cool experience. Dinner was at C-Level, another amazing restaurant with ridiculous views. We sat outside and listened to the steel drum singer while the sun set over the skyline.

As usual, we ordered a ton of food but all of the walking we did every day made up for those extra calories.

From top to bottom – Seared Ahi Stack (crab, ahi tuna, avocado/mango salsa, caviar, plantain chips), Lobster and Fontina BLT sandwich, Peanut Butter brownie sundae with butterscotch fudge and bruleed bananas, oysters and butternut squash gratin.

This is getting kind of long… so part 2 of San Diego next week. Happy Thursday!