12/18/2019, Giorginos, San Diego, CA

 Carol, Danny, and I Went looking for somehting that San Diego isnt known for, and came up with Giorginos, an Italian sandwich shop featuring "Philly" cheesesteaks. Now I will be the first to tell you that this place is no Pats, or Tommy DiNics, or Gino's. Its just not. Here in California you have to NOT have a certain amount of fat and calories or else youre not going to last long in the restaurant biz. However, we all ordered cheese steak sandwiches and while it was not close to a Philly cheesesteak, it was not bad either. As you can see from the pics, Danny is half dont with his before I could take the pic!

To point out a few differences, the bread is not greasy, the sandwich is not totally smothered in cheese, and  you can pick it up with one hand. That being said, there is a goodly amount of sandwich filling in there, with enough cheese, peppers and onions to round it out.

If youre looking for a Philly Cheesesteak, go to Philadelphia. Seriously. Youre not going to find a "Philly" Cheesesteak anywhere else. Its not really the sandwich, its the state of mind, environment, sights, smells, etc... Giorginos, however, provides a tasty west coast altrnative to the original. Would definitely go there again.

12/13/2019, Pho Hoa, San Diego, CA

 Need Pho? By the way, its pronounced "Fa" sort of, with a little "ur" mixed in. Dont worry I dont say it right anyways. Danny looked up this place in the Vietnamese section of San Diego, and by that I mean if you dont speak Vietnamese, you arent going to get very far. Carol and I showed up to Pho Hoa earlier than Danny, and when we walked in the waiter looked at us and raised an eyebrow. I said "three" and got a blank stare. Uh oh. Where is Danny when you need him?? I held up three fingers and the waiter nodded and showed us a table.

Danny arrived and ordered for us. As one might expect, it was some pretty fantastic Pho. And HOT. In the pic above you can see a plate covered in red stuff. Thats the steak, thinly sliced, and its raw. You cook it in your boiling soup. We also wont go into "Spicy" here because here at Pho Hoa they dont give a single fuck about "How spicy 1-5?" or "How many stars?" No, if you want spicy you get your face melted off. Just the way we like it! In addition, we got three bowls of Pho and one huge community plate of extra beef and veggies.  All if it was fantastic and you also got a little bit of Vietnamese culture while there.

Danny showed us the proper way to eat Pho, with the various sauces and additives while explaining how it was made and what the waiter was saying to us. I think we were one of a very few groups in the place speaking english, but it was OK since Danny is a native Vietnamese speaker. We were good to go.

The only issue is finding parking (as with all places in San Diego, practically). Once that hurdle is complete, youre not going to find better Pho in San Diego. If we do, I will write it here!

11/20/2019, The Regal Beagle, San Diego, CA

The beers list

 The Regal Beagle. Located in the shadow of I-5, kind of on a feeder road, its a great place to go for bar food and beer. We took the crowd out to Trivia Night, so it was probably Wednesday. As you can see on the board, there is a wide selection of beer and beer-like substances, and on the other wall is the food menu. Now, that being said, youre really not coming to the Beagle for the food. Its good food, dont get me wrong, but the real reason is that list to the right. Nothing on that list is bad. Also, you can go thru the entire list in one night unless you have your own ambulance. Seriously.

  

The food

Heres the food. We got wings, tots, a sausage plate. Actually that sausage plate was pretty good as far as bar food is concerned. Got some sauerkraut in there, and the sausage was the coarse grind you would expect from an artisan or homemade sausage. Also there were various beers and ciders available, in the pic you can see a light ale and a blackberry cider, which was pretty fantastic. THis time it was Myself, Adam, Dave, Mike and Brett. Mike was trying to grow a mustache so that he looked even more like a guy that drives a windowless van around as a daily driver. Probably says "Free Hugs" in spray paint on the side, too.

Mike, Wyatt Earp wannabe

We did not win trivia night, although before he left, Adam pretty much ran the table on the "movies" section. I think he has watched all the movies. All of them. Even the bad ones and the pornos.

The Beagle is not a big place, but its a big deal. Do yourself a favor and Uber/Lyft yourself there, or go with a non drinking friend. You will thank yourself later when you dont wake up in jail.

Brett

11/18/2019, Slaters 50/50, San Diego, CA

Dave. He loves food, and has good hair.

"What we really need around here is a place that serves hamburgers made of 50% beef and 50% bacon, and lets you create your own burger"

                            - Someone, probably

So here we have Slater's 50/50, so named because they do exactly what is described above. Want a pound of meat? Sure they can do that. No bun? Absolutely. Habanero peppers? OK, but you have to sign this waiver. Anything you want (as long as its on the extensive list). Plus beer. Lots of it. There are about 50 taps behind the bar and many more in the bottle.

So Dave, Adam, Jeremy and I went to Slater's in the area that used to be San Diego's Naval Training Center (NTC) and the location of the now closed Navy boot camp. Most of the original Navy buildings were retained as were the naval gun emplacements (non functional. Maybe) and the monuments to the submarines lost in World War Two. Each lost sub has a monument. There are a LOT of monuments along that walkway. Very sobering.

My Salad with Ghost pepper cheese.

I'd point out that I made two trips to Slater's, one with Dave and Adam, and another with Jeremy, but i didn't see the point of writing two separate things about the same place. It happens sometimes but not this time, OK?

The service at Slater's, to be frank, is not great. However this is no fault of the servers, as they are understaffed and always very busy. Adding to that, we have all had that server who doesn't write anything down and still gets everything right. On the flip side of that, we have also had the server that doesn't write anything down, and forgets to bring half your order. We had the latter. I will not name the person because, hey, everyone has a shitty day sometimes and we don't need to be all up in their business about it.

Jeremy. He will eat anything made of meat.

The food, however, is a different story. I mean, look at it. if you can get whatever you want on a burger, its pretty much your own fault if you don't like it. As you can see on Jeremy's burger he got an egg, and them proceeded to make a mess of himself up to his elbows. This is not an exaggeration. Also, look at Dave. Hes smiling like he just won the prize for "Best Hair in the Restaurant". Did he really? No. He was smiling because he has 4 pounds of beef and bacon on his plate, and about 4000 carbs (Dave works out). Even Adam has a smile even though he literally hates all food that doesn't fall within a very specific set of parameters. To be fair to Adam however, he IS trying new things, and going new places, and we are very proud of him.

Slater's overall is one of those places that you HAVE to go to when you go to San Diego. There are a few locations, but the NTC location is the best in my opinion. To qualify that, we have been to a couple other locations and they were not as impressive.

When you go, take a walk after you eat, there's plenty of space (rare in San Diego city) and take in the views. I didn't take any pics of the views, so you're going to have to go there for yourself. Stop being lazy. Besides, you're going to have to get a head start on burning off the 3000 calories you just ate.