Humprey La Jolla at Sheraton Hotel, La Jolla

During spring break, we visited San Diego again. This time we stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in La Jolla. 



A beautiful hotel to stay in at a special rate of $110 for that night.  We were also told the hotel restaurant is offering 50% off the entrees from the menu that night only.  We were estactic to hear that and went there for dinner.  We walked through the beautiful poolside area before arriving the restaurant around six o'clock that evening.

The Humprey La Jolla is located inside the hotel. There was a lounge before entering the dining area.

We were seated at this right sided booth.  The place had a very nice ambiance and comfortable seating.
The sourdough bread was still warm when the waitor brought it to us.  It was so good that we asked for  second before our food arrived.

We ordered fried calamari as appetizer.  It was cut and fried into long strips, not what we expected.  We were dissapointed at the taste too.



I have never had beef wellington before.  This was a little bland in my opinon but it's not a bad dish.

 I ordered the fillet mignon. It was so delicious that it just melt in your mouth.

My daughter ordered this salmon with resotto, and it was just to die for.

 I couldn't remember what this is.  I think this is mahi mahi.  All the side dishes went really well with the fish.
All the entrees were around $19 to $28 originally.  With the half off, we were very happy with the delicious meal.  That was a very nice and fine dining experience.

Humprey La Jolla
3299 Holiday Court
La Jolla, CA 92037

(858)453-5500

San Diego, CA

Last week we traveled to Southern California again and stayed at the Country Inn & Suites San Diego North.  We had reserved a standard room for the night.  It was nice that the front desk upgraded us to a suite with no extra charge when we checked in.. 

Country Inn & Suites By Carlson

5875 Lusk Blvd.

San Diego North, CA 92121

(858)558-1818

The suite was comfortable, except the A/C in the suite was really noisy.  This was the bedroom.  The living room was very nice with sofas, tv, refrigerator and a desk.  

There was a complimentary breakfast buffet in the morning.

There were omelets,bacons, hash brown, oatmeal,cereal, orange and apple juice, coffee, tea and milk on this side of the station.

A self-serve waffle and toast station where you can have toast, bagel and waffle with serveral kinds of syrup to choose from.

After breakfast, we visited the Premium Outlets mall in Carlsbad, which I will describe in another post later.  We had a late lunch at the ocean view cafe in UCSD.  It has a spectacular view.  There were many selections on the menu, from sandwiches to other hot food.  They also had an impressive array of pastries and smoothies.  All were made fresh.

Ocean view cafe

 Overlooking the ocean

Later that evening ,we went to 99 ranch market to get some fruits and drinks before heading to dinner.  I heard so much about this one restaurant and decided to go there for dinner.  The place is located inside a Chinese grocery center.  The food was really good and the portions were huge.  We ordered a plate of rice with roasted duck.  It was so delicious that we ordered an extra half of a duck afterwards.

 The congee we ordered tasted average, but the amount of preserved duck eggs was generous in the congee.

 We loved the beef chow fun which was not greasy and was stir-fried well.

We also ordered a red bean cold drink, and to my surprise, it was really good.  We couldn't finish the congee, so we packed it to go. The place is open until very late in the evening.  It is certainly a place worth to visit at anytime for good food at an affordable price.

San Woo restaurant (inside the 99 Ranch Market)
5975 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 95211

San Diego - Extraordinary Desserts

The waiter at Buon Apetito told us the Extraordinary Desserts closed very late at night.  We went there after dinner.  Look at the modern design of the front. 

Extraordinry Desserts

1430 Union Street

San Diego, CA  92101

(619) 294-7001

Luscious cakes decorated with edible flowers

 There were plenty of sitting area inside.

 See the price of each dessert? $8.50 per slice, really pricey.

Even though these desserts look so beautiful and delicious, we were just too full to try any of them.  We left and drove back to Los Angeles and stayed at the luxurious place for another night.

San Diego - Buon Apetito Restaurant

We had traveled to San Diego several times in the past.  We loved the vicinity of the area.  We spotted this big and white church along the freeway..  This is a Mormon church as I later found out.

  I love the scenic drive along the freeway.

I wanted to go to Little Italy again for several reasons. One was to buy some art supplies which I couldn't find from our local store. Secondly I wanted to visit a place called Extraordinary Desserts because I heard they have beautiful desserts there.  My daughter also wanted me to buy some pastries there to bring home. .

We went to the same places we visited last time for pastries first, then went across street to get some art supplies.   There was no line at Buon Apetito, so we decided to have our dinner there again.  We ordered something different but one of my usual whenever I was at a Italian restaurant.

Here's Buon Apetito's menu in case you want to know what these are:



My favorite - Cioppino

Orrecchiette alla Barese

Cognilio alla Mamma Pina

Caspesante al Porcini

My favorite was the first one (Cioppino) and the last one (scallops with porcini mushrooms).  The second and third one (braised rabbit which tasted like chicken) I wasn't too excited about it.   We were really full with the addition of the freshly baked bread.  We needed a walk to burn off the calories and it was a nice day to walk a few blocks to Extraordinary Desserts.

San Diego - Little Italy

We went to the Little Italy district after our delicious lunch at Friend's Korean House.   I wanted to get the cookies from Filippi again.   The scene in the day time at Little Italy is very different than the night time when we visited last time. 

This is the Filippi's grocery restaurant where I bought my Italian cookies from:

These were the cookies I got from the deli area, $15 for a whole box.  I was told these were just shipped last night from a New York Bakery.  They were shipped almost everyday from New York to the bakery.  These cookies were $8.50 per pound and compared to the pastries sold at the nearby bakery for $13.99 per pound, these Italian pastries to me are wonderful at a cheaper price.

As we were walking back to our car, we passed by this little shop and I was drawn to the designs of the jewelries that were displayed.  The sales lady was really friendly and told me everything from the store was from Italy.  There was a big murano pendant that was made with platinum, originally priced at $179 and was on sale for $79.  It's unfortunate that I couldn't take any pictures as there was a sign that saidify no picture taking is allowed.  But they are truly remarkable designs and not really expensive for the quality of the design.  The store has a website where you can browse but it's sad that there's not much to browse on the site.  The website doesn't show any of the beautiful jewelry in the store.  I guess it's my point of interest to see the next time I visit there again and maybe get a couple of the quality pieces there for a better price compared to the ones found in the Bay Area.

Antica Rome Bazaar

Antica Rome Bazaar

1501 India St. Suite 106

Little Italy, San Diego 92101

We also passed by the Italian restaurant we visited for dinner last time.  it looked so different during the day time.

Buon Apetito

This yellow house really caught everyone's eyes and it looks like it is a private home.

As the sun almost set down in the late afternoon, we were ready to drive back to Los Angeles and join our relatives for dinner before heading back to our home sweet home.

San Diego Friend's House Korean Restaurant

We were visiting San Diego again last weekend.  The nice thing about blogging is I am able to find all the information on my blog about where we have been before.  I was able to get the address and went to the same Friend's Korean House again for lunch.  It's named Friend's House Korean Restaurant according to the business card I received from the owner.   This time I was prepared to take more pictures.  Here's the outside of the restaurant:

Friend's House Korean Restaurant

4647 Convoy St. #102

San Diego, CA 94211

(858) 292-0499

I like how this little restaurant was decorated with Korean home's rustic ambiance:

We were seated at the same table and the waitress was very friendly.  We ordered the same seafood noodle and bipbimbap again.

Bibimbap $5.99

They also served these delicious little kimchee dishes on the side. Of course, we got a second refill on these side dishes.

This is the seafood noodle soup I was bragging about.

Seafood Noodle Soup $6.99

This is also one of our favorite Korean dishes to order, rice cooked in a stone pot.

Dol-Sot Bipbim Bap $7.99

The food was in considerably big portions for the three of us but was so good.  I think we liked the stone pot and noodle soup better since they were served hot in the bowls.  The only thing we would had wanted was to have some hot tea to go with the meal.  For some reason, a lot of Korean restaurants we go to do not serve tea.  I am wondering why as I know Koreans are also tea drinkers.  Many of them like to drink rice tea.  That's something that puzzles me and would like to find out somedays.