BEST SURPRISINGLY HEARTY COFFEE SHOP MEAL Mujer Divina Bedecked with bright murals and faux flowers, Mujer Divina is a beacon of coffee and community in National City. You can order online to grab a café de olla and slim chorizo burrito on the fly. But if you can nab a table, it’s worth lingering over a big plate of green chilaquiles, a veritable feast in comparison to other quick-service cafés’ dainty pastries and toasts. Add machaca or birria to power a full afternoon of errands. –AR instagram.com/mujerdivinacoffee BEST SYMPHONIC SALAD Little Frenchie Little Frenchie’s roasted beet salad is a microcosm of the Coronado bistro’s knack for balance. The petrichor sweetness of the beets and subtle salt of goat cheese cut the bitterness of the dish’s radicchio base and temper its bright citrus. Also melodic: its entreés, including two takes on mussels, the sexy
BEST CAKE THAT’S NOT A CAKE Sandpiper
BEST FORM OF CHOKING Amalfi Cucina Italiana
F O O D
Sandpiper is the offshoot of George’s at the Cove, which means one of the most respected chefs in the country (Trey Foshee) is on the QC. If you blink when driving into La Jolla Shores (by the beach we all go to, not up top at the Cove with the fancy galleries), you’ll miss it. Stop missing it. There are oysters and good beer and oak-smoked, fire-charred dishes (the Niman Ranch pork chop is life), but that blue-corn cake with spicy macha agave steals all shows. –TJ sandpipersd.com
It’s no surprise that Amalfi is a runaway hit in San Marcos, since chef-partner Marcello Avitabile is a six-time World Pizza Champion. The tiles on his woodfired cauldron are gold because that’s what his oven makes. However, the best menu item comes crust-free: The pan- fried Roman artichokes with arugula and Grana Padano Parmesan prove why they import most of their ingredients directly from Italy. –TJ amalficucinaitaliana.com
butter of the sea. –AR littlefrenchiesd.com
BEST REASON TO WEAR A BIB Crab Hut
Crab Hut is owned by the local family behind the breakout restaurant Kingfisher. Tidiness and polite, methodical eating happen at some other, more boring place. Here, they hand you a bib and gloves and bring your seafood feast in a giant bag. Just put your whole you into the experience. In that bag—as long as you did this right and ordered the “full house sauce”—is one of the best seafood-boil sauces in the city, plus snow-crab clusters, lobster, crawfish, sausage, corn, and potatoes. Regulars beat the crowd at their four-hour happy hour (3 to 7 p.m.). Also, they have pretty
fantastic cocktails. –TJ crabhutrestaurant.com
118 AUGUST 2023
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