It's Restaurant Week in San Diego, aka the best time of year. Twice a year about 100 restaurants all over the county participate in the event, which consists of having fixed price menus of an appetizer, an entree, and dessert, with 3 different choices per category.
The restaurants win by getting a surge in business and new customers, and us consumers have the excuse to try out places we've wanted to go to but needed that extra push. Here are my two reviews of this week: Cafe Coyote in Old Town, and The Prado in Balboa Park.
Cafe Coyote restaurant review
Old Town San Diego is the only place in San Diego to see tortillas being made by hand in nearly every window. Old Town is the original San Diego and the host several museums of how the post office, the Wells Fargo carriage stop, the famous Whaley House, and the old hotels used to look like. It's a healthy sample of San Diego's Mexicana history.
Cafe Coyote has been named countless times as one of the top Mexican restaurants in the county, and for a fixed menu price of $30 a dinner I was sold in finally trying out this staple.
Cafe Coyote is much larger than it appears on the street--which one full side being a restaurant, the other full side being a bar, and an in between patio. Since it was a few minutes past 9pm we were seated in the bar.
The first round
Tortilla soup and a side salad. Soup: A-, Side Salad: C
Let me just tell you that we had an amazing server. She wasn't pushy, gave us our space, and gave us the salad for free because she wasn't sure if they were out of soup so she asked me to chose two options. She also didn't charge us for soda and gave us a gentle head's up when the kitchen was closing so we could get our ice cream.
Anyway back to the food. Here's a confession: I've never had tortilla soup before (and no for any particular reason). That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed my little soup. It came in a small ceramic bowl with just enough chicken and just enough kick to put a delighted smile on my face. Isn't that the thing with appetizers? They're the first impression and it sets the mood by having something yummy to share. Unfortunately my soup was a tad lukewarm, though I think this was due to walking the soup from kitchen area #1 to kitchen area #2 in the cold outdoors.
The salad was nothing special. Iceberg, a few slices of tomato, and done. Ugly and boring. I have no idea why people order salads for appetizers when they cost 50¢ and you can make it at home. Why not order potato skins instead, which take over an hour to cook at home, or spinach artichoke dip, which takes a ton of ingredients you don't normally have in your pantry? I digress.
Entree round
Slow-cooked pork carnitas: B
The funny thing about me learning how to cook is that I'm starting to gleefully discover that there are some dishes I'm better at making myself. Case in point: my pork carnitas came with guacamole that looked like green toothpaste and didn't taste that much better. My guac is ridiculously good (according to me and the fact that it's gone in minutes) with tons of lime, a 4:1 ratio of avocado to tomato, and few nice dashes of pepper and garlic salt. Also, my tortillas are better than Cafe Coyote's. I could tell that their baking powder was a wack amount and not enough salt. Don't get me started on the weird microwaved Spanish rice.
These three things just about killed the dish, but admittedly the slow-cooked pork was amazing. I was greedy for it, and ate it in small bites to make it last longer. The next day I had carnitas for breakfast because I loved the pork so much.
Dessert
Fried ice cream: B-All it was was vanilla ice cream with corn flakes and an extreme-sugary syrup on top. I mean, I guess it was fried, but it wasn't a wow ending. More like standard vanilla ice cream with too few flakes and way too much syrup.
Overall grade: B-
The Prado restaurant review I've wanted to go to the Prado for just about forever. My boyfriend and I go to Balboa Park maybe once every other month or so and along with the class and glamour of the museums and architecture I just knew that I had to dine at The Prado at least once. Since my boyfriend treated me to Cafe Coyote, I treated us for dinner last night.
The Prado is surprisingly youthful for being geared toward people with money ie 40somethings. It has rich hues of reds and oranges, with enough light and dark wood colors to feel homey while also feeling special. Not too too stuffy, but just enough to remind you that you're not at a Chevy's. Once again, I have to comment that Restaurant Week is so awesome because I was the youngest one in there by at least 10 years and I wouldn't have ventured in otherwise.
First round
Spicy Calamari Fries with korean chili sauce, napa cabbage slaw: B
So maybe it isn't fair for me to judge this one because I don't really like seafood, but hey, I'm the one who's typing. The calamari itself tasted fresh and the sauce that coated each one was sweet and a tad hot for a nice flavor (though the sauce drenched the calamari). I thought that coleslaw was an odd choice for an upscale restaurant and it didn't really do it for me. My boyfriend, however, said it was in his top 3 calamari eats of all time.
Entree
Thai Style Yellow Curry Chicken and Red Bell Pepper Pappardelle: C,
Red Wine Braised Short Ribs with horseradish mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus, gremolata bordelaise sauce: A-
Let's start off by saying that The Prado falsely advertised. The whole reason I chose to go to The Prado that day was to try their Thai Style Yellow Curry Chicken. Well, we get there and only the tofu version of this dish is on the restaurant week menu. So whatever, I asked the waiter about it and simply ordered it separately and the bf ordered the Short Ribs off the fixed price menu.
Well...a very long wait later and the waiter comes out with the chicken version for me and the tofu dish for my bf. He offers that my boyfriend snack on the tofu until his real meal comes out, but then tried to take it from him once the ribs came out (I mean, he could have been just clearing the table but you don't take food when someone's still eating it.). Just add this with my bf getting a glass with food smudges in it, plus the waiter trying to put my napkin on my lap (it's not that nice of restaurant), plus our order taking about 35 minutes to come out when it ordered it the same time as the appetizer, plus feeling generally on the bottom of the priority list, and I knew I'd be tipping low. 99% if the time I tip 20% or better and nearly always give a $1 to local bakeries or sandwiches shops. This guy was only getting 16% from me. I felt guilty about it, but he did lower than the bare minimum.
I digress. My Thai Curry Chicken was ok. It tasted like sweet Indian curry and I liked the pappardelle noodles. But the chicken pieces were unseemly scrawny--like they were meant for a 3 year old. If chicken is the main attraction, it should look like chicken pieces, not like a peeled apart chicken nugget.
The short ribs were pretty amazing though. Slow-cooked. Smoky with tang. Hearty and succulent. Why I'm not a vegetarian. The only weird thing was the horseradish mashed potatoes. Maybe some other people would like it, but it was too off of a flavor for mashed potatoes, especially since the potatoes were solid white and didn't correspond with the taste. Maybe a cajan-style mashed potatos or roasted potatoes instead? My boyfriend loves potatoes and he barely touched his.
Dessert
Pumpkin crème brûlée: A+
The saving grace. Holy fuck this was good. The custard was the perfect texture of creamy with that crisp layer of sugar on top. I don't know what they did to the pumpkin seeds but they manages to soften them into candy nestled between the cream, with some sugar pumpkin chips decorating the top. It was absolutely delicious and the only reason I left a 16% tip instead of 15%.
Overall grade: B+
Bottom line: I'm glad I tried both restaurants; I'm not sure I'd go back to either unless someone else was paying.
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