Carlsbad-Oceanside

Wade Hageman of the very successful Blue RibbonPizzeria in Encinitas (west of the I-5) will add another venue when he opens The Craftsman New American Tavern. After Mother’s Day takes over the spot that is Savory Casual Fare also in Encinitas (east of the I-5). Expect a late June/early July opening with a menu of “Hand Crafted Comfort” food emphasizing house made sausage, charcuterie, artisan cheese and Hageman’s farm to table approach with ingredients from local farmers, breweries and wineries. Savory Casual Fare, 267 El Camino Real Suite A & B, 760-634-5556, Blue Ribbon Pizzeria, Lumberyard Shopping Center, 897 S. Coast Highway 101, Suite F102, 760-634-7671.

When Savory closes after Mother’s Day, owner, Pascal Vignau moves to Chandler’s Restaurant in the soon-to-open Hilton Carlsbad Oceanfront Resort & Spa.

Go French for a week and dine at some of San Diego’s best: The Marine Room, Vagabond, Bleu Boheme, Winesellar & Brasserie to name a few. The Second Annual Tour de Cuisine (French Restaurant Week) runs from March 24 to April 1. Click here for more information and to see the three-course menus.

The Red Door Restaurant & Wine Bar named Miguel Valdez, who has been with the restaurant for a year and a half, their executive chef. On April 4 and June 20, Valdez will accompany guests on a tour of the Mission Hills Farmers Market, buy ingredients for the dinner, then return to the restaurant to enjoy an inspired meal. Four courses $45, with wine $70, and evening includes one of Chef’s recipes. For information: 619-295-6000.

**Wolfgang Puck’s venture into San Diego with JAI at the La Jolla Playhouse, may soon be short lived. It seems that they miss their after theater audience by closing at 10 pm, and there’s no lunch service that might catch people looking for a quiet place to meet. For many San Diegans, traveling to a university campus to see a play or eat dinner, is more than they can bear…

**Downtown, we’re hearing the Ivy will soon have a new management company. What that means for Quarter Kitchen, and the rest of the property, well, time will tell. Stay tuned.

**Opening in February, across the street from Ivy, in the former site of EXY, Jared Van Camp, well-known Chicago chef will oversee the kitchen of Quality Social. From their press release: “no guest list, no cover, no dress code. The destination will carefully pay tribute to the most treasured elements of the iconic dive bar, with a devil-may-care attitude serving as a visceral component. “ Sounds like a no pretense place that will serve house made charcuterie and some fun dishes such as a BLT with a confit of pork belly and heirloom tomatoes, or a smoked in-house hot dog served in a Pabst Blue Ribbon carton. And no frilly drinks, either. More to come when it opens.

**Pizza seems to be the latest inexpensive comfort food to blanket San Diego. Coming in April, the second location of URBN opens in North Park at University and 31^st. The coal fired pizza joint is Jon Magnin’s spin-off of BASIC Urban Kitchen + Bar. He opened his first URBN in Vista in 2008 and plans to open 10 to 15 more up and down the coast.

**Support your local restaurants and dine out during San Diego’s restaurant week that runs from January 17 to January 22. Check for the participating restaurants and their menus (three-courses for $20, $30 and $40, depending on the venue). This is a good time to try new places and support our local restaurant economy.

**The Counter Burger arrived in Carlsbad and if you’re in the area of Calle Barcelona and the shops in the Forum at Carlsbad, this franchise that began in Santa Monica in 2004 is making waves. It’s a build your own burger joint and should do well in North County. Buzz hasn’t tried it yet.

It is that time of the year…holiday madness begins with Thanksgiving. Here are a few ideas for the day that include places that will happily feed you and the family. Also included are places to get turkeys, should you decide to cook at home.

If you’re interested in a Heritage turkey (it looks and tastes a bit different than our usual big breasted beauties), check out and try one from Heritage Foods. They have other meats and food items that would satisfy any home cook. Buzz regularly orders turkey from them and Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch.

Not interested in messing up the kitchen? Then, take the family out to eat at one of the myriad of choices San Diego offers…here are just a few:

Arterra will offer a plated three-course dinner for $39 while Red Marlin (with a gorgeous bay view) let you choose from a buffet for $42. Truluck’s, Paon and many others will serve dinners also.

For something healthy and the diet restricted, check out Healthy Creations in Encinitas. They offer meals to go as well as a gluten-free baking class on November 19. Haven’t had a chance to take a look, but sounds very good.

We’re hearing that there may be some cranky ex-employers of those souls who left to open Paon. Word on the street is that much of Paon’s menu is word for word (recipe for recipe, perhaps) that of Winesellar & Brasserie. Buzz hasn’t been to Paon so can’t comment on how Steve Barr and chef David Gallardo are doing there. (We also wonder when–or if– they will change their web address to Paon instead of Persecarlsbad–the first name they had until they heard from the original Per Se in NYC.) Winesellar has executive chef Matt Smith, who cooked in France and Spain as well as at the original Laurel Restaurant & Bar and Myres Macdougal as host and sommelier (studying for his Advanced certificate) as well as a top notch Wine Spectator wine list.

And, New York comes to Blanca with a new executive chef, Jason Neroni who cooked his way around the Big Apple at such well-known eateries as Tabla, Table 21 and 10 Downing. Haven’t been yet to taste his farm to table, down-to-earth cooking, but it sure sounds good.

In these recessionary times, it’s great to see new places open–we all need to get out once in a while.

Paon opens in Carlsbad. It features California French cuisine and a well-stocked wine bar in a luscious setting. The people behind this venture include Steve Barr and chef David Gallardo, both of the award winning Winesellar & Brasserie. Buzz hopes to get a peek very soon.

Small Bar, just opened in University Heights. The same owner as Hamilton’s Tavern in South Park thought a grown-up bar in the area–no over-the-top weird cocktails, just 40 beers on tap and a full bar for those who might want a Manhattan–would be fitting for the neighborhood. Bar food includes Hamiltonesque burgers and more. The website isn’t quite up and running but it’s at 4628 Park Ave., open daily from noon (10am on Sunday) til 2am. 619-795-7998.

Jack’s La Jolla redid their upscale dining room to an Italian venture called Viaggio. The menu features chef Tony DiSalvo’s homemade pastas and much more. Haven’t tried it, as it apparently just opened with little fanfare.

La Jolla based Burger Lounge comes to Coronado and will open their third location at the end of July in the old Island Wok space at 922 Orange Avenue. If you want an organic beef burger with hand-cut in house fries, this is your place. To top it off, they are now one of a handful of green certified restaurants in San Diego.

The Cohn Restaurant Group, that many say sets the bar in the city for middle-of-the-road food and service aimed at the mass market/convention customer, is expanding. They’ve partnered with Sunroad Harbor Island (a subsidiary of Sunroad Enterprises) who just got the go ahead from the Board of Port Commissioners for a $9 million overhaul of the former Reuben E. Lee floating restaurant, currently at the end of Harbor Island. Located conveniently next to the Cohn owned restaurant, Island Prime, the LEED certified restaurant will be designed by Graham Downes Architecture whose eclectic portfolio includes Nine-Ten, Chive, and the redo of its sister property Laurel. Along with Lesley and David Cohn, chef/partner Deborah Scott will operate the Lee. Expect construction to begin late 2009 and finish about 2011.

While we’re on the subject of the Cohn collection, as Buzz reported in May, David’s supposedly best-kept-secret-that-everyone-knew-about is finally out. Hard Work, Inc. (Cohn Restaurant Group) signed a 10-year lease for The Corvette Diner to relocate to the old Officers Club at the Barnett entrance end of Liberty Station. Renovation is underway on the space. And further up the coast, in the coming-on-oh-so-hip Oceanside, the Cohns will open a steak and seafood place called 333 Pacific in the Wyndham Oceanside Pier Resort on Pier View Way and Pacific Street. Expect to see the restaurant open by the end of the year.

The Cohns join others who find Oceanside the newest area ripe for restaurant expansion. Old Town’s popular Harney Sushi just opened their second very contemporary spot on the corner of Mission and Cleveland close to the pier. They have a sake bar, lots of sushi rolls and more. The place was very hip and hopping at their opening just last night.

Good fresh sushi can dent a budget so a couple of enterprising guys, grads from UCSD, Andrew Berlin and Gino Thiers, figured they could serve innovative sushi by deleting the customary sushi bar, thus saving on overhead. They created Sushi-Fix, in Carlsbad, a mostly take-out and delivery place, with a small sit-down area, in the Vons shopping center, just a few signals away from La Costa and the Forum shopping area. Thiers sold his share to Berlin and moved to San Francisco leaving Berlin solo. Their second location in Little Italy at the corner of Cedar and India Street is larger and perfect for the urban neighborhood.

A couple of things I really like about Sushi-Fix: you can order half rolls (4 pieces instead of 8) so you’re able to enjoy a greater variety of flavors; though they use surimi (imitation crab), you can substitute real crab for an additional $1.25 per roll; and they present many of the rolls a bit differently by putting some main ingredients on top instead of in the rolls. For example: the Red Head roll is shrimp tempura with crab and topped with spicy tuna and tempura shavings. The Cobra roll has spicy tuna and avocado with unagi on top and a slather of eel sauce. A salmon skin handroll is crunch with the skin, cucumber, avocado and spouts and a simple salad of peeled, seeded, halved and thinly sliced cucumbers with a light vinegar dressing makes a good counterpoint to the various rolls. Two pieces of hamachi (yellowtail) sushi are fresh and buttery…the rice under each piece is without the dab of wasabi, which is served on the side with pickled ginger so you can add your own level of heat. Most of the specialty rolls run $6.50 to $9.50 for 8 pieces, figure about half that for 4 pieces. Nigiri for 2 pieces runs $2.25 to $2.95. All the food is very fresh and made to order–just in the kitchen–not in front of you. If you do eat in, it’s on paper plates. 7720 El Camino Real, Suite B, Carlsbad, 760-632-8787, 1608 India St., Little Italy, 619-237-7878 www.sushi-fix.com.

Ruby’s Diner, the fixture at the end of Oceanside Pier, is part of a restaurant chain, serving good typical diner food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Ruby’s first restaurant opened in 1982 on the pier in Newport Beach. It’s a 1940’s diner atmosphere, with good hamburgers and. As the longest wooden pier on the west coast (1942 feet), you can get a good workout walking to the restaurant. 1 Oceanside Pier, 760-433-RUBY (7829).

It's Got Bite

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
About San Diego's Food Scene

Encinitas Eats, French Restaurant Week and Red Door

Buzz and Bites: Puck, Pizza and More

Bits and Bites: Gobble Gobble

Buzz From the Bar

Bits and Bites: Carlsbad and University Heights

Bits and Bites: Oceanside to Coronado Update

Sushi on a roll

A gem at the pier

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