Islands Restaurant – holiday offerings

Nov 272012
 

S and I had a great time at Islands before, and I was recently invited to visit again and check out some of their holiday offerings. We had just been talking about going for Monday Night Football, so we took the opportunity to try the new items and catch a football game.

We started out with some drinks. Islands is offering new spiked coffee drinks, and from my experience with their cocktails, they can be quite strong.

Spiked coffee drinks

I decided to try the Irish coffee, and S went with the Islands Golden Ale, which is his “tried-and-true.”

Islands Golden Ale and Irish Coffee

The Irish coffee was, as I expected, pretty strong, but I also liked it a lot – probably because the sugar and cream helped tone down the taste of the alcohol. S liked it so much that he decided to try one of the coffee drinks, too.

Cocomo coffee

He went with the Cocomo coffee, which is creamier than the Irish coffee. I actually liked this drink even more than the Irish coffee – probably because it’s more chocolate-y. You can also order the coffee drinks decaf, if you don’t want to mix caffeine and alcohol.

Cheddar fries

Not a holiday special, but I love cheese fries, so we wanted to try out Islands’ version. It was pretty good – crispy fries, gooey, melted cheese, scallions, ranch sauce… what more could you ask for?

For our main entrees, we both went with burgers. One of the restaurant’s new items is the turkey patty, made with a mix of ground turkey, applesauce, seasonings, bell pepper, celery, and scallions. I was pretty intrigued by this description – normally I find turkey burgers to be dry and pretty bland compared to juicy, meaty beef burgers. Would all the mix-ins make a difference?

Mavericks turkey burger

I chose the Mavericks burger with the turkey patty. First thing I did was take a small bite of the patty itself and was pleasantly surprised by how flavorful it was! The applesauce and veggies made the burger less dense and “meaty”, but the patty was juicy and very well-seasoned. This must be the only turkey burger I have ever liked.

Mavericks turkey burger with side salad

FYI, also on the Mavericks burger: BBQ sauce, Islands Reds (crispy fried red onions), American cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles. I opted for no mayo and a whole wheat bun. You also have a choice of endless fries, onion rings, steamed veggies, sweet potato fries, and small garden or Caesar salad. I chose garden salad with sesame dressing.

Hula burger with onion rings

S chose the Hula burger (beef patty), which has sauteed mushrooms, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and also Islands Reds. He really enjoyed this, too. For his side, he chose onion rings, which weren’t great – the breading wasn’t properly seasoned and was overall very bland. I wish we had tried the sweet potato fries instead.

After our very satisfying meal, our waitress brought over the restaurant’s “Secret” menu item, Pipeline Porter floats.

Pipeline Porter floats

You’ve probably had a root beer float before – vanilla ice cream on root beer. Well, this is vanilla ice cream on top of Pipeline Porter beer (from Kona Brewing Co). The beer is brewed from Kona coffee and boasts a roasty aroma and earthiness, which theoretically pairs perfectly with the sweet vanilla ice cream. Unfortunately neither of us really enjoyed it – I think the bitterness of the porter didn’t really work as well with the ice cream as one would have thought. In the end, we scooped out the ice cream and then drank the beer separately. Haha.

Overall, though, it was a good dinner, and as I’ve already mentioned, I was very impressed with the turkey burger. When the manager came out to chat with us, she said that the patties are made everyday so that the mix-ins stay fresh. I have some friends who don’t eat beef, and I was excited to share with them the news of a good turkey patty. The atmosphere at Islands is great, and the waitstaff is very friendly. I’m sure we’ll be back for football and drinks again!

Disclaimer: As I’ve noted above, I was invited to Islands by a PR company. Our meal was complimentary, but all reviews and opinions are my own.

Islands Restaurant
3351 Nobel Drive, La Jolla, CA

http://www.islandsrestaurants.com/

Hours: Sun-Thu 11am-10pm, Fri-Sat 11am-11pm

Slater’s 50/50

Nov 022012
 

I’ve heard so much rave about Slater’s 50/50 that I had to check it out for myself! My first taste of the burgers there was at SD Restaurant Week’s Kick-off Tasting event, where they served quarters of the famous 50/50 burger. By the way, I should explain – the name comes from their half ground beef, half bacon burger patties. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?

S and I actually weren’t super impressed with the burgers from the Tasting Event – we thought it was way too salty. But one of our friends kept telling us to try it, and that it was his favorite burger in San Diego (and perhaps ever), and there was a Yelp check-in deal (10% off from 10pm-close, not sure if the deal is still available). So we decided to head over for a late-night meal.

Normally, I believe there’s quite a wait (we called in once on a Saturday evening, and the wait time was 2 hours!), but there were quite a few tables available when we went on a Thursday after 10pm. It’s a pretty typical sports bar with several TVs, booths, and a pretty large bar. Our waiter told us that they have over 100 beers on tap!

100 beers on tap

(By the way, this is another cell phone camera post… I should really just tie it around my neck or something.)

S tried the Breckenridge Vanilla Porter, and I had a sip. It was very vanilla-y, yet it went surprisingly well with the smoky flavor of the beer.

Breckenridge Vanilla Porter

For the burgers, you could either “create your own” – select the type of patty and fixings – or choose from one of the restaurant’s creations. I went with the monthly special, the “Big Bad BBQ Burger.” It featured a patty composed of ground beef, ground pork belly, and ground pork shoulder.

Big Bad BBQ burger (burger of the month): mix of ground chuck, ground pork belly, and ground pork shoulder seasoned with Pete’s Firehouse Sub, coleslaw, red onions, colby jack cheese, four strips of bacon (I got it on the side), Pete’s Firehouse BBQ sauce, brioche bun ($9.95 for 1/3-pound)

It was really a great burger – the patty was very juicy and had a nice char, the fixings were appropriately portioned, and the bun was a nice, toasted brioche. I asked for the bacon on the side since I actually don’t enjoy bacon on my burgers (blasphemy, I know), and I’m glad I did because the bacon was quite salty. I don’t think we even ate all four strips of the bacon. But anyway, I really enjoyed my burger.

Build-your-own burger: 50/50 patty (mix of ground chuck and ground pork belly), chipotle mayo, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, fried egg, brioche bun ($8.95 for 1/3-pound, $1 for egg)

S chose to make his own burger. The toppings he chose were simple, but I thought he did a great job since everything went well with the patty and tasted great together. The chipotle mayo here is really tasty – flavorful, but not overpowering. He really enjoyed his burger creation.

Overall we liked our restaurant experience much better than the tasting at the SDRW event. I found the patty very well-seasoned and flavors balanced. I can definitely understand why my friend claims that this is his favorite burger in San Diego. However, I have seen other reviews that lamented its inconsistency – so hopefully you’ll have the same great experience that I had!

They really do love bacon here.

Slater’s 50/50
2750 Dewey Rd. #193, San Diego, CA
http://slaters5050.com/

Hours: 11am-1am daily

Neighborhood (two visits in one post)

Sep 192012
 

Neighborhood is one of S’s favorite restaurants in San Diego, but we don’t go nearly as often as we would like because 1. it’s difficult to find parking in downtown, and 2. the restaurant often has a really long wait-time. He said that once, he and some friends waited over an hour and a half and could not get a table! I guess that shows just how good and popular it is.

Since moving to SD, I’ve been to Neighborhood twice, and I’ll compile the two visits into one post. For the first visit, we came pretty late (around 10pm), and I did not have my camera, but fortunately my friend M brought his camera (which is also much nicer than mine) and took pictures for me.

The bar offers quite a few beers on tap, and even has draft whiskey and root beer! I really wanted to try the root beer on tap, but too bad they ran out.

Clockwise from top left: Lindemans Framboise, Stone Arrogant Bastard, Allagash Curieux

The food is overall contemporary American – burgers, hot dogs, salads, all with high-quality and creative ingredients.

The Neighborhood burger: caramelized onions,blue gruyere cheese, pepper greens ($10)

The burger is a pretty solid option – the patty was juicy and flavorful, and the bun was nicely toasted. I’m a fan of blue cheese with beef, and I think that the gruyere helped tone down the blue cheese a bit so that the beef flavor still comes through the most.

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