Yesterday I wrote about all of the foods we ate, places we visited, and reunions my dad and I shared on our first two days in San Diego, and day three was filled with just as much eating and exploring as the previous two! We didn’t have an agenda for day three as it was our last day before I had to attend my first work conference, so our main priorities were eating delicious food and wandering around areas we hadn’t already hit! We didn’t eat breakfast at the hotel like we did on the first full day so we could try a different eatery for brunch. We woke up a bit later than usual and started the day with a trip to Fashion Valley for some light browsing and shopping. Unfortunately (and fortunately for my wallet) most of the shopping center was being renovated, so lots of the stores were closed. We walked through the entirety of the mall in around 30 minutes and decided to head out and get some brunch. My parents went to Great Maple with our cousin Stephanie and her partner Danny (I wrote about them in yesterday’s post!) when they were last in California and they loved the food, so we had to try it! We shared an order of the portobello mushroom fries that dad previously raved about and they were spectacular! The mushrooms were sliced into wedges and deep fried to a golden crisp. Each bite was seasoned perfectly, so they weren’t only vessels for the pesto aioli. I ordered the market seasonal zucchini eggs, which came with thinly sliced zucchini, sun-dried tomatoes, and a slab of goat cheese paired with the crispiest roasted potatoes and a huge slice of bread. I loved these eggs on day three of our San Diego trip more than anything I’d eaten so far! Dad picked the smoked salmon toast that wasn’t a typical lox one, but instead had chive mascarpone, smoked salmon pieces, capers, and watercress alongside a dressed salad. The chive mascarpone was sweet and creamy and paired perfectly with the slightly salty capers and salmon! Because we didn’t eat enough at brunch, we immediately had to pick up five donuts from Krispy Kreme (my favorite donuts in the whole world)—chocolate creme pie and a plain glazed for me and key lime pie, banana creme pie, and old fashioned for dad!
We drove around to another shopping area that had Nordstrom Rack, Marshall’s, and Ross, and browsed for a while to kill time. One of the weirdest parts of San Diego to me was that no matter where we were coming from or drove to, we almost always ended up near or at the same places we had already been! Luckily we had a fantastic breakfast and chose Mexican food for dinner from Los Panchos, which was some of the best food I’ve had in a while! We split an order of chips and guacamole and were given small cups of bean soup that had onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, beans, and bacon. For our dinners we shared shrimp ceviche (my new favorite food!) that was packed with large shrimps, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers, and I had a luscious, crispy fish taco and a juicy carnitas taco while dad ate the Los Panchos rolled tacos with rice and beans! After the extremely affordable and fantastic dinner, we drove to Point Loma Nazarene University to watch the sunset from a cliffside parking lot and ate some Insomnia Cookies at our hotel! Stay tuned for a review of my first work conference tomorrow!
