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

Southern California - Lincoln Plaza Garden, Monterey Park

We had our brunch at this dim sum place called Lincoln Plaza Garden the next morning.  The restaurant was located inside a hotel.  It opens bright and early morning at 7:30 am.  When we got there, it was already 10 o'clock, there was no line but many customers already  inside the restaurant. 

Lincoln Plaza Garden林肯海鮮酒家

123 S. Lincoln Ave.

Monterey Park, CA  91755

(626) 571-0018

What was amazing about this place was they have great selection of dim sum and their price was also unbeatable.  Every dim sum was only $1.80 per plate regardless of its size.  They were all steaming hot and delicious.

Even the roasted duck was only $1.80 each plate.

These noodle wraps were so fresh that the fried doughs were still crunchy inside the soft noodle wraps, accompanied by sweet soy sauce.

Fried twin doughs wrapped with wide noodle sheet

Minced beef over rice with dark soysauce

 Beef tripes (top left),  Ha Gow (steamed shrimp dumpling, front)

Pork wrapped with bean curd skin

 Steamed shrimp tofu and stuffed bell peppers 

 Fried taro cakes, stuffed with pork and chives

All kinds of baked buns

We usually don't ordered buns at dim sum place as it would fill us up eaily.  We rather have more other dim sum.  These were pineapple buns stuffed with pork or chicken, which the top layers of the buns were more crunchy.  They are different than cha siu bao (pork bun) type of buns.  The sizes of the bun were big.  Although these buns were good, but they tasted too sweet to be stuffed with meat．I would prefer to get the standard kind of pineapple buns without any filling.

These huge fried doughs just came out from the kitchen.  The honey and oil were still dripping on the plate.  Nowadays it's hard to get them freshly made!

Fried twisted doughs with honey

We were so happy with the price and food that we even ordered some buns to go.  This is definitely a place to visit again.  Whenever you go to dim sum place, remember to always have some hot tea, the darker the better to help burn off the calories from these greasy food.

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.