dining out San Diego-style

We got to San Diego (Hotel Circle area) on Thursday night around 9:30pm so it was too late to go downtown. Since we were only there until Sunday morning, we figured we can dine at two nice restaurants. Armed with printouts of restaurants in the Gaslamp, downtown and Coronado areas, we were ready to venture.

Friday night we went to Chive. I read great reviews about it and was really hyped about eating here. Touting itself as serving modern cuisine, the restaurant has an industrial look and minimalistic decor. The only outstanding things were the lamp chandeliers and metal chairs. Instead of bread, we were given edamame to nosh on, which I thought was somewhat odd. We started with beets and goat cheese towers with hazelnut and port gastrique and the albacore tartare with apples and micro greens. The beets and goat cheese were coin-shaped and stacked so high they needed to first be disassembled. The beet and cheese combo was a good match but the tartare was a bit disappointing.

I followed with the braised pork belly with cauliflower/potato puree and pork cheeks over braised cabbage with bacon - that was absolute pig heaven. Interesting that the kitchen dared to serve pork belly as this is a very fatty cut. I enjoyed it but it got to be too rich after awhile. Emmanuel had the tenderloin, mashed potatoes and mustard greens with a cabernet reduction. It was a generous cut and was very tender and the cab sauce was good.

The service was just okay but it was jazz fest weekend and they were quite busy. The waiter did recommend a mid-range priced wine that went well with our meal. Overall the food was better than expected but it did not live up to the hype. Would I go back there? Of course I would. I love these new culinary techniques: gastrique, foam, emulsion, etc.