Any San Diego, CA ATOTers?

[Descartes]

ATOTers,

I'm going to be in San Diego on business for a few months starting on the 16th. I tend to travel a lot, and when I do I try and make as much of the experience as possible. I'd greatly appreciate any recommendations for nice hotels, restaurants, and general places that I have to see. I tend to prefer local type places and not franchises, but any nice oceanfront hotel would be great.

Also, I'll be traveling home every weekend, but for a few weekends I'm going to fly the wife to San Diego. We'll likely head to LA, maybe San Fran and possibly back around the Carmel area. Are there any other areas that are nice and relaxing that I should take her to see?

Much appreciated!

 

[Cruisin1]

Where in San Diego will you be working. I currently live downtown (Little Italy)... its a great place. Tons of awesome hotels down there, I would recommend staying at the marriot across from Petco, super awesome hotel. If you want a beach front hotel, then the W just opened up one in Pacific Beach called "Tower 23". I had some customers stay there when they were in town and they said that place was super pimp, I went to hang out there and it is definately the hotel to stay at, very modern and there's TONS of "scenary"

 

[NokiaDude]

downtown san diego nightlife is meh at best. If you wanna party, hit up hollywood.

 

[Regs]

I must be in the wrong business hah.

 

[miri]

Newport Beach and the Corona del mar area is a nice area to visit.

If you want to go hiking goto Crystal Cove State park.

 

[oiprocs]

If you're into Chinese food, specially Szechuan (spicy!), go to Dede's Tea Juice City on Convoy Street. Order the boiled fish in sauce, the fried shrimp (or chicken) with red peppers, the cumin lamb, or the beef in brown sauce. I have no reservations recommending those. About 7-10 dollars a plate.

For a more grungier but good experience, if you're feeling Mexican go to Lolita's on Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Anything is good, but the California burrito is one of the draws.

Jasmine's Seafood restaurant is also on Convoy, but it's pricier than Dede's (8-13). From Sunday to Thursday you can get a whole duck for 15 bucks, and they first cut some thin slices of fat off and put it in sandwiches for you, then cut up the rest of the duck and bring it back to you. The rock cod fillet in black bean sauce is my favorite there, and you can't go wrong with the pepper cube steak.

 

[RichieZ]

if you are traveling on business why aren't you staying at a full service hotel. I was down in SD for about 4 months, same thing it was a consulting gig and I flew in and out every week. I'm a starwood guy so I primarily stayed at:
Westin Horton Plaza
W SD
US Grant

Also stayed at the Hilton gaslamp a few times.

 

[Cruisin1]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
downtown san diego nightlife is meh at best. If you wanna party, hit up hollywood.

.... are you serious?! hahahah..... when was the last time you went downtown? Have you been to Stingaree, Altitude, On Broadway, Onyx Room/Thin, Belo, Sidebar.... Nightlife in SD is very much so alive dude

 

[andylawcc]

paging JulesMaximus and anxi80


anyway, pardon the disagreement, but SD has crappy chinese food. all my UCSD friends rather spend 2 hours driving to eat in LA.


also, i guess you can skip the wineries...
instead, check out the breweries


Gaslamp is like the main restaurant/bar area. (SD's Hollywood/Sunset Strip?)

Coronado Island has some pretty nice restaurant too with awesome beach view.

i forgot the names, but supposedly there is still a very good Mexican restaurant in the old town, Jules or Anxi80 can fill you in.

and Miri, you said Newport Beach? did you mean La Jolla beach?

 

[HendrixFan]

I will be down there in a couple weeks, and would love to hear suggestions for restaurants.

 

[440sixpack]

Me = jealous.

San Diego is great, one of my company's clients is located there, and my wife and I had our honeymoon there.

Anyway, let me cut and paste my post from this thread from last year:

I think a lot of what I've done have been suggested already, but I'll list them again as I spent a week there in April for my honeymoon, and my business' biggest client is in SD so I've been a few times.

Zoo/Wild Animal Park - as noted I think the Wild Animal Park is better but it is far out of town, don't know if there's any public transport to there or if a car is a necessity. Note if you want to see all (or even most) of each place, they require a full day, near open to close (unless you're some sort of speedwalker).

Seaworld - haven't been, but it's pretty famous.

Scripps Aquarium - small but decent.

Balboa Park - tons of musuems, some are pretty small/minimal though. If you're going to hit more than a couple of them the Passport is a good deal, gets you admission to every location in the park I believe. Note some museums have somewhat erratic schedules and are not open every day.

Old Town - Nice atmosphere, some shops, and it's one of the stops for a trolley tour that takes you all around SD with various stops you can get on and off. $30/person.

Coronado - Beautiful location, the Hotel Coronado is famous, and you can marvel at the insane gas prices ($1 above mainland when I was there).

La Jolla - the "ritzy area", Mercedes are a dime a dozen along the main drag. High end shops, very nice restaurants. I enjoyed Alfonsos (Mexican) and Top of the Cove (Seafood/American, Hiwaiian Bigeye Tuna was awesome).

Torrey Pines Park - nice walk if you're into nature, beware the walk to the summit is like two miles and that sun gets hot. The famous golf course is also nearby.

Downtown - the Gaslamp district has a bunch of restaurants and nightspots, whatever you're in the mood for is probably there. The skyline is unique as all the skyscrapers have very imaginative designs.

USS Midway - for the history buff. There's also cruises you can take around the harbor, very nice. You go by a lot of military installations (SD is the HQ of the Pacific Fleet I believe and the SEAL training compound is there too, where they filmed G.I. Jane) and if the fleet's in port get to see a lot of hardware pretty close up.

Can't say much about the beaches, only went to one in La Jolla briefly as I'm not a beach guy (and I don't think my wife would enjoy my viewing the, uh, "scenery" ).

Tijuana - had no desire to go, but was advised not to drive there as US car insurance is no good or something. Wasn't worth the hassle or risk to me.

I'm sure there's more natives could point out, but when I rattled off the list of where'd we been, my clients who live there said "Yep, that's about everything".

From the sound of it, I think you would enjoy La Jolla quite a bit. Haven't traveled too far from San Diego proper (apart from what I mention above), so I can't speak to the rest of SoCal much.

Restaurant-wise, I enjoy the Karl Strauss Steakhouse (mini-chain out there, really more of a brewpub but the one in Sorrento Mesa is a fabulous location - in the middle of a big office park, it's a beautifully manicured wooded area, used to be an asian restaurant so it has a very asian.koi pond feel. Humphrey's at the Radisson La Jolla (where we stay) also is very good. There were a few other good places, but I'm afraid the names escape me right now, I'll have to dig them up.

Enjoy, sounds like a great trip - that's what I would like to do; I don't think I could live there permanently, but a nice long visit would be great. :thumbsup: If you'd like greater detail on anything, feel free to drop me a PM.

 

[SpanishFry]

yo. I'm going to S.D. next month. Any specific club or restaurant recommendations?

Thanks