Cucina Urbana

It's been a loooong time since I've gone to a new interesting restaurant... which is one reason I haven't posted anything since January. The other reason is that I just got too busy. And another reason is that my garden looks like $h!t right now and I'm embarrassed to even call it a garden. I do, however, have some lovely squash growing despite my neglect, and after eating at Cucina Urbana last week, I'm inspired to make some of my own fried squash blossoms (pictured here). Stuffed with ricotta cheese, lightly fried and served with aioli-- I ate them all and didn't give any to my husband (he was leery anyway).




The other delicious thing I had there was a watermelon rose martini... sadly the waiter spilled half of it on my leg, but it was on the house and he brought champagne for our anniversary, so I forgave him quickly enough.




If it's your turn to plan a date night, this is what you should do: Park at Balboa Park's Organ Pavilion, take a stroll through the botanical gardens, then walk across the Laurel Street bridge to the corner of 6th and Laurel for dinner at Cucina Urbana. My husband and I each got a personal pizza: I got the mushroom with truffle oil (ooooh so good), and he got a spicy pineapple prosciutto pizza (also so good). The decor is rustic and artsy-- I wore jeans, but some people were more dressed up as well, so anything goes. The wait staff is very friendly and the food is superb (if you didn't pick up on that already)--they use fresh ingredients from local farms (like Suzie's) and create seasonal dishes.

We didn't make reservations and so we had to wait until there was an opening at the bar area (we didn't wait long), but if you want to sit at a table you definitely want to make reservations ahead of time--they book up nearly every night (even on weekdays).

Cucina Urbana
505 Laurel Street
619.539.2222

These are a few of my favorite (food) things

The holidays are here and it only took one trip to my parent's house (where my mom puts out a amazing fresh baked goods every 5 hours) and I already have an extra 3 pounds to carry around on my runs...and no, it's not the type of 3 pounds that can be lost in a lengthy bathroom session. It's 3 real pounds and there are more to come if I'm not careful.

Trying to stick to a vegan, or even vegetarian, diet over Thanksgiving wasn't possible, but I'm not beating myself up over it (though my intestines are still in recovery mode). So, when I came home from the holiday break, and was explaining all this to a friend, he told me that I'm an OPPORTUNIVORE. (It's the love child of "opportunity" and "omnivore" in case you missed that.) Apparently this is a real thing--he didn't just make it up. What it means is that I'm realistic about life and its complications concerning food. Our diets are determined by so many factors: location, finance, travel, allergies, the list goes on and on. So, I'm realistic about the way I eat and make no apologies when I have to veer off my vegan course. When it's possible and I have the time, money and resources to do so, I will always choose vegan. However, if it's inconvenient to others or simply not possible because of travel, I will do what is most logical. So there. Opportunivore. Spread the word.

In the mean time, here a few holiday treats I've tweaked so that I don't feel like I'm missing out on the good old fashioned holiday goodies:

Favorite Thing: Milky Hot Chocolate

New Favorite Thing:

-Heat 1 C sweetened or unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk in a sauce pan

-Add dry, non-dairy, cocoa powder (to taste)

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1/4 tsp nutmeg, allspice, or pumpkin spice (or more to taste)

**Optional: add a 1/4 tsp of peppermint or vanilla extract**

Favorite Thing: Eggnog & Eggnog Lattes from Starbucks:

New Favorite Thing:

Rice Milk Eggnog: It's not as good as the real thing (obviously--what is better than real eggnog?!) But, I found that it's good if you do 1/2 rice milk eggnog with 1/2 sweetened almond milk. This makes it a tad thicker like the real thing. Or, add the "eggnog" to your coffee instead of regular creamer. That is goooood.

Favorite Thing: Apple Pie

New Favorite Thing:

-Peel, core and slice about 4-5 apples to fill an 8 x 8, lightly greased, pan

-Toss with lemon, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg (as much as you like)

-Then toss with 1C of oatmeal or your favorite granola

-Drizzle maple syrup or agave nectar over the top of everything (Put about handful of oats or granola on top if you want a little crunch).

-Bake at 350 until the juices boil a bit and apples are soft (I have no idea how long that takes, I don't pay attention. I just check on it every once in a while).

** This recipe is also really good with some dried cranberries and fresh slices of pears.**

That's all for now. As I come up with more tweaks to holiday favorites, I'll post 'em.

Please share any healthy versions of classic holiday recipes you might have up your sleeve-- I'd love more recipes to try!

Dandy Drink

I got dandelion greens (among other fun things) in my farm box on Wednesday. All I know about cooking dandelion greens is that you can boil them. And the only reason I know that is because I read it in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (his mom used to make that and only that for dinner some nights because they were so poor). Well, two things: 1. I did not boil them for dinner and 2. I didn't store them in the crisper and now they are wilty and sad...(like the rest of my garden). Soooooo. Since I've been on a green smoothie kick lately, I decided to improvise and made a....

Dandelion Pumpkin Smoothie:

1 bunch (about a handful) dandelion greens
1/2 C cooked pumpkin (or canned will do)
1/2 C frozen berries
1 banana (because a smoothie just isn't a smoothie without one)
1 T chia seeds
1 scoop protein shake mix (soy or whey protein shake mix will do.)
1-2 C hemp, soy or almond milk
some ice if you want (I like it chilled just from the berries)
oh. and I added a scoop of almond butter just for fun.

It was good.
But I just realized that the protein shake mix I used has ingredients that are derived from milk. So much for a vegan shake. Cuss.

The Mule

Vodka, Ginger Beer, Lime, Angostura Bitters

Drink this only if you...
A.) LOVE ginger. It's uber-gingery. Kinda burns.
B.) Like to drink drinks that don't taste like alcohol but get you cussed up if you have more than one.
C.) Are obsessed, like me, with the old west and wish you could always drink drinks out of tin cans.




The Mule is at:
Starlite
3175 India Street, 92103
619.358.9766

Five Days of Food

I ran the AFC (America's Finest City) Half Marathon on Sunday--three days ago--and have been using that as an excuse to eat and drink whatever I want for the last 5 days... if you do the math, that's 2 days before the race and 2 days after the race (not including race day)...and I'm still going strong. I wonder how long I'll be able to use, "I'm treating myself to this because I earned it." Eventually it will turn into, "...I earned on Sunday four months ago." That's not really going to work (unless I run a 1/2 marathon every weekend--which I may consider).

In any case, I'v eaten some reeeeeeally good food the last five days starting with the Barona Indian Casino Buffet. I know what you're thinking. Buffet? Ew. I thought the same thing... buffets=diarrhea. You're just going to have to trust me that I won't steer you wrong here. We plan to go back soon and this time I won't be as distracted by the crepe, exotic cheese, and mongolian bbq stations as I was this time, so I'll have some pictures for you. Since I don't have any pictures, let's move on to Alexander's the next night (Saturday night, the day before AFC).

Observe our pre-pasta appetizer: Melty Brie with a whole clove of roasted garlic. (Also note I got so excited to squish the garlic out of the clove that I forgot to take a picture when it was still all pretty...oops.) A word of caution about this dish: should you eat it and have a significant other that you plan on being around for the next two days, you need to do the following every hour: brush teeth, use mouthwash, chew gum, and spray perfume/cologne on self consistently. You will stink for at least two days as you leak garlic from every pore. But it's so worth it.


Moving on to the next night (Monday) after the race. It was a friend's birthday, so he wanted to try a new restaurant that opened in Little Italy called Craft and Commerce. They're motto is, "Demandless." And while their menu is a single page with only 3 entrees, they don't seem to expect their patrons to demandless from the bar. (The drink menu is three pages.)

Quick background on the joint: There are two other trendy-hipstery-I'm-to-cool-for-my-own-self places downtown. One is called The Neighborhood and the other is El Dorado (I'll probably write about them at some point). Anyway, somehow these three places are connected through the owners and, as far as I can tell, Craft and Commerce is the hybrid-love-child of the first two. The food, for example, is like The Neighborhood, but instead of fancy PB & J or jalapeno mac & cheese, you get hot dogs that look like this:



And the drinks are like El Dorado with their "craftiness" and the New York-drink-mix-master-guru that was flown in to create avant garde cocktails for both these establishments. Observe the birthday boy finishing off what was Craft Drink #1: Mother's Ruin. (I picked it out for him...that's not in poor taste is it??)



Yes, that is a bowl of alcohol and yes I just about wet myself when I found out it is served in a tea cup. (I had an Alice in Wonderland party earlier this year and I served cocktails out of tea pots...so, I nearly bounced myself out of my chair and onto the floor when they brought out the bowl of booze and ladled it into tea cups for everyone.)

Mother's Ruin: gin, spiced black tea infused vermouth, lemon, grapefruit, champagne.

Craft Drink #2: The Eulogy. The name says everything.

The Eulogy: gin, bianco vermouth creme de viollete, absinthe.

I should also mention, that if you're a beer person, they serve craft beer from nearly all 30 of the local San Diego breweries. So the drinks are amazing and the food is too, but you might be wondering if I ordered and ate those hot dogs. Nope. Those weren't mine, I don't eat meat from restaurants (remember?). But I heard they were amazing, and supposedly Craft and Commerce buys from local farmers and butchers. I need to look a little more closely at this rumor...and I would have asked the owner last night... but, well, you saw those drinks...

I could go on and on about how we went to Extraordinary Desserts after and pigged out on french goodies, or how amazing the breakfast burrito I've been eating (in shifts) all day today has been, but I'll spare you. For now.

Until next time:

Alexander's is in North Park at 3391 30th Street. 619.281.2539
Craft and Commerce is in Little Italy at 675 W. Beech Street. 619.269.2202

Running is my Happy Hour...

...but I also really like happy hours with booze involved too. And, the happy hour week begins tomorrow.

My favorite one of the moment is C Level Lounge in Island Prime Restaurant on Harbor Island Drive. The patio is literally on the water (you can practically touch the huge yachts and sail boats that glide by) and the view includes the downtown skyline -- with all it's embarcaderoness, the Coronado bridge and military base -- directly across the water, and all the way over to the lighthouse on the tip of Point Loma. The view is good, but the happy hour menu is what keeps me coming back (...even though I'm on summer break and don't really have an excuse for happy hours).

All food and drinks on the happy hour menu are $5 each. These are my favorites:

Fried Calamari: They're almost too cute to eat sometimes... but they're too good not to.

Sangria*: Housemade sangria with blackberry brandy & grand marnier. omg.

The Scallywag*: Plymouth gin, lemongrass extract, fresh lime & soda. omg. omg. omg.

*Be careful with these. You'll drink them like soda and then end up napping for hours when you get home. No more than two per person if you want to function afterward.

C Level Lounge, Island Prime Restaurant

880 Harbor Island Drive

The Marie Antoinette

Pearl Plum Vodka, Champagne, Lavender Syrup, Grapefruit.

I was intrigued by the name, then curious about plum vodka and last hypnotized by the idea of lavender syrup.
Then I drank it. It's like a unicorn peed magic fairy tales into a glass.

$10 at The Pearl Hotel, 1410 Rosecrans Street
Happy Hour 'till 7pm: $3 beers, $5 well drinks.

Cucumber Basil Martini

The Westgate Hotel on 2nd Avenue, downtown, just made a new, fun drink menu. Go on a Saturday night to catch Gregory Page and the Make Believe Orchestra (9:00-midnight) in the Plaza Bar. Quite swanky.

Cucumber Basil Martini: Vox vodka, fresh basil, cucumber, ginger and nutmeg.

Also good:

Gin's Cup: Bombay gin, homemade ginger syrup, fresh lemon juice, orange, cucumber, cinnamon and soda. (Take the straw out and drink straight from the cup so you can smell the cinnamon as you sip.)

Horse's Neck: Knob Creek bourbon, house made bitters, house made gingerale.