Category Archives: around san diego

around san diego

dolphin-watching and bluff-strolling at sunset cliffs

August 28, 2013

I love hosting friends and family. We were so lucky to have so many people looking out for us while we backpacked — everything from strangers offering rooms in their houses to new friends lending us their cars — that once we came back to America, we were excited to pay it forward.

Now it’s been long enough in San Diego — more than 7 months! — that we have favorites and must-sees. My cousin, Runjini, has been visiting us since Sunday and together we’ve been essentially doing a Greatest Hits of San Diego Tour. It brought me back to the time three years ago when we visited San Diego and were totally, completely charmed.

But back to the point of this post. On Monday we headed to Sunset Cliffs, a coastal neighborhood in Point Loma with beautiful cliffs and coastal trails for gentle walks. There’s far less pedestrian traffic here than, say, La Jolla, and it’s an impeccable place to watch a sunset. Add to that the fact that we saw dolphins (we were too far to catch them on camera, but still!!!) and a seal sunning himself in the middle of the ocean!

It was a cloudy morning, but when you live in sun-drenched San Diego where the weather is perfect all the time, a little gloom feels a little nice sometimes.

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around san diego - San Diego eats + drinks

donut bar: san diego’s first artisinal donut shop

August 21, 2013

Beyond San Diego’s plentiful Mexican food, I’m always whining about all the foods in New York that I can’t find here. Well, I can check artisinal donuts off the list now because San Diego recently opened Donut Bar, a gourmet donut shop with a long list of flavors that rotate each day, everything from nutella, creme brulee and red velvet to birthday cake, chai and chocolate Heath.

I met my friend, Gloria, for breakfast — I use the term breakfast lightly — just one hour after the place opened. They make about 1,000 donuts every day and if you go too late, especially on weekends, you run the risk of fewer flavors to choose from. (The hours of operation read “Mon-Fri 7am — Sold Out.”)

Gloria ordered the glazed and I got the coconut drizzled with chocolate. The donuts, about the size of my face (no, really), are soft, spongy and totally on par with Dough, my favorite spot in New York. They also sell coffee and tea, and host a quaint upstairs cafe with regular seating as well as leather loungers with built-in electrical sockets. It’s one of the few places I’ve come across in San Diego that actually deserves the hype.

Check it out…

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around san diego

torrey pines: the most beautiful hike in san diego

August 19, 2013

There are plenty of hiking trails in San Diego and each has its own marquee feature, but for a quintessential San Diego hike, go to Torrey Pines. It’s truly the outdoorsy place to be. The trails are located in Torrey Pines State Preserve, a well-maintained coastal park with a link to the beach. Eaman and I had hiked a portion of this park three years ago when we visited San Diego, but not until this past Friday did we revisit the beauty since moving here.

Let’s get something straight though: If you’re relatively active and able-bodied, minus a steep initial incline to enter the park, there’s not much intense hiking to be had; it’s mostly strolling. That said, it’s one of the most picturesque spots in San Diego — the kind of place that makes me excited to live here.

We went on a particularly sunny day, which isn’t always the case given its coastal location, so the views were extra blue and stunning. We parked for free by the beach — and avoided the $10 lot fee — made our way up into the park, did a quick loop around the Guy Fleming Trail and continued up to take the North Fork Trail all the way to the beach. All in all, it took us about two hours, including breaks for photos (after the jump). Then we got Mexican food at Roberto’s because, I mean, if you’re going to have the classic San Diego outdoors experience, you obviously follow it up with the classic San Diego dining experience.

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around san diego

neighborhood watch: ocean beach

August 12, 2013

A lot of people made Ocean Beach sound like a dirty hippie commune with a flea-ridden dog beach. I can’t vouch for the dog beach because we still haven’t gone, but we finally explored the ‘hood known as OB this past weekend and guess what? I love it. It feels exactly like what I — and probably most other people — picture San Diego to be, what with the sun worshipers on the beach, board shorts-clad beach bums walking the streets and people of all ages getting around via bicycle.

OB seemed to have a wonderful mix of ages, couples and families with a nice beach, chill eateries and really great antiques browsing along Newport. In the seven months since we moved here, this finally feels like the quintessential San Diego experience.

Here, the 6 steps to a perfect day in OB:

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around san diego

6 things i’m loving about san diego right now

July 31, 2013

We recently hit the six-month mark in San Diego and to be totally honest, there are some things that I don’t love about this city. Lately I’ve been getting bogged down with all the negatives (as I see them), but I’m trying to snap out of it. I mean, it’s really hard to compete with New York City and international travel, so I can’t say it’s all San Diego’s fault — not to mention the fact that it’s been a mere six months.

What’s been helping me is to focus on what I do like. Here are six specific things that I think are so special and wonderful to San Diego:

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around san diego - Food

the weekend at a glance

July 29, 2013

A little glimpse of life lately…

I don’t know why I bother buying Teddy stuffed animals when he rips them to shreds. To be fair, I only buy his toys at Ross or T.J. Maxx so they’re much cheaper and he’s painfully adorable when he first meets his new toy, but this particular one lasted one day before Teddy ripped an ear off. On Sunday, he ripped the other ear off. Poor blue pup.

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around san diego

the (holiday) weekend at a glance

July 8, 2013

A glance at the weekend that made Thursday feel like Saturday, Friday feel like Monday and Saturday feel like…Tuesday?

I finally, finally baked an American Flag Cake. It consisted of boxed cake mix, Cool Whip and berries, so, sure nothing supremely innovative here. But there is something so wonderful about a junk food cake like this. I thought I’d have had leftovers to give to the neighbors, but that obviously never happened.

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around san diego

a beach day in la jolla

July 3, 2013

Memorial Day Weekend I wanted to go to the beach with Eaman’s friends who were visiting, then Teddy got diarrhea and I was sequestered at home. In mid-June, Eaman’s family came to visit and I let them have a long day of beachy fun while I took care of the puppy. That’s all fine and well — this is the responsibility I accepted when becoming a puppy owner — but after I got back from my week at home in New Jersey, I basically mandated a beach trip.

So last weekend, we packed up the badminton set, magazines and body board and headed to our favorite beach (so far): Windansea in La Jolla. It’s clean, populated by a nice, non-fratty clientele and there’s a good amount of sand to lay on. On that day, the waves were huge and the surfers were doing all sorts of tricks. It was crazy to watch some young kids get out there, too.

And when it’s a beach day, I can’t not have Mexican food, so we tried out the chain Rigoberto’s. You must order the beef rolled tacos with cheese and guacamole (pictured after the jump). You must not order the chicken anything — very suspect meat.

We ended the day at Bardot, an artisanal ice cream shop that specializes in girly, gourmet bars. (You may remember that this was #12 on my summer checklist!) I had a hard time deciding between flavors: mascarpone and dulce de leche or mint chocolate chip? Raspberry green tea or strawberry cheesecake? We ended up sharing the “Honey I’m Home,” a cookies and cream bar topped with an Oreo covered in edible glitter. The glitter may or may not have been the deciding factor. These bars are expensive ($5-6 each), but legit. Fun fact: Bardot is the first place where I’ve seen alfajores — traditional South American sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche — since our three-month stint in Argentina.

Click onwards to see what this beach, those rolled tacos and that sparkly Oreo are all about:

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