Southern California - San Diego (Part 2)

After touring the college in San Diego, we started our sightseeing.  A woman told us there were Chinese restaurants up and down the Convoy street. When we got there, we found many Korean restaurants and only a few Chinese ones.  We assumed it must be a little Korean town, we decided to try the Korean food since there were many to choose from.  We took a glance of a few restaurants in one of the plazas, and decided to go into this cute restaurant, called "Friend's Korean House".  Its home rustic ambiance and aesthetic looks like something out of Seoul Korea. The food was so good and the price was great.  We ordered a Bibimbap which is liked a mixed vegetable rice bowl, a Korean beef lunch special and a bowl of crab noodle soup.  I have to specially point out the crab noodle soup actually came with 2 half pieces of small crabs, not imitation crab meat, and it was only $6.99.

Friend's Korean House

 Friend's Korean House

4647 Convoy St,,#101A

San Diego, CA 92111

After lunch, we headed to one of the famous tourist areas, Coronado Island,  where all the cruiseships docked.  The Hotel Del Coronado is the main attraction on the island. It occupies 28 acres of Pacific coastline property In San Diego.  It is only five miles from downtown San Diego. It has hosted the twentieth century's most famous and infamous, from Marilyn Monroe to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  The weather was at 65 degree Fahrenheit and not windy at all. There were many tourists there on that day.  Last time when I visited, it was so windy, and there weren't many people there.  We enjoyed the nice walk inside and outside the hotel. The white, sandy beaches are ranked as one of top ten beaches in the U.S.

Main Entrance of the Hotel

Other Entrance into Hotel Del Coronado

Courtyard

Hotel Lobby Restaurant and cafe are located here.  You can browse through some shops, historic exhibits and photographs downstairs, or enjoy a meal on the terrace with a spectacular ocean view.

 Dining Hall

Crossing the bridge

View from the bridge

After crossing the bridge back to San Diego, we stopped at Old Town.  We were not able to find a parking space and decided to just drive around for a short tour in the car.

We originally wanted to go to  Gaslamp Quarter to shop but instead walked at Horton Plaza before dinner.  Horton Plaza is an outdoor mall, but we were not really interested shopping in those stores where you can find them in common mall.

Gaslamp Quarter

We left the mall about an hour later about 7 o'clock, and we headed to Little Italy.  This is the first time I've visited there.

View of Little Italy at Night

We walked around to find a restaurant and seeing so many people lined up for this restaurant called "Buon Appetito".  We decided to wait for a table there.  It didn't take us too long to get a table on the patio outside the restaurant where it was more of a street cafe feel.

Buon Appetito

Buon Appetito Italian Restaurant

1609 India St.

San  Diego, CA 92101

The food at this restaurant was so good with reasonable prices.   We ordered these dishes from their dinner menu, Linguine Allo Scoglio in white sauce, Capesante Ai Porcini , Salmone Alla Griglia , and my favorite, Cioppino.  Our waiter provided good service by telling us the kind of sauces that were used in the dishes so that we would not be surprised.  We also ordered their seafood soup of the day. There were a lot of seafood in the soup and dishes. The house-baked fresh bread was warm and exceptional, especially dipped in accompanying garlic-tomato salsa.   The food was fresh and in good portion.  I don't think I have ever eaten something that fresh and with so much seafood in the dish.  Since the food was so good, we figured the Tiramisu had to be good.  Sure enough, it was very light and not sweet.  We took our time to enjoy the wonderful meal, and by the time we finished it was after 9:30.

Overall,  the food and the service were just superb at this place.  It was no wonder that when we walked down the rest of the street, Buon Apetito was the only place still lined up with customers. I am glad we found a very nice restaurant.

As we were strolling along the street in Little Italy, we went into this grocery store, Filippi's Cash and Carry. The store looks like a Mom and Pop store.  You can find all the Italian local goodies in here. They carry so many brands of Olive oil just like how we Chinese have many different brands of soy sauce.

The sausage, pasta, olives are Italian. They sell these salty fish just like the Chinese do .

I bought these cookies on the way out, and I regret that we didn't buy more.

They were just totally different from the Italian cookies you buy in a box from other grocery stores.  These were so fresh, not too sweet, and just excellent cookies to have.   Since I didn't know what kind of cookies they were, I just got one from each of the small containers,  and I got a total of 8 cookies for less than $5.  That was so cheap compared to the bakery shop I go to in my own town, and these just can't be compared. My kids told me that the next time we come here, we have to buy more cookies.  The only cookies we won't get again are the wedding cookies and amaretto, because it was too sweet for our taste.

In the back of this shop, there is a restaurant with a lot of customers.  It was so cute that I had to take a picture of the restaurant.

There were many customers inside the restaurant. I later learned that this is a good and popular restaurant for pizzas. The next time we come here, we have to try this restaurant for sure.

 Filippi's (Little Italy)

1747 India Street
San Diego, California 92101

We will definitely revisit Little Italy for their food and shops.  I was all awe of the food and shops.  We could only see so many things in such a short time.  This trip was just wonderful but unfortunately we had to head home the next day.  It's good to know that we have found some new places to visit in the future.