My Top 11. #3 and #2

My Top 11.

Characteristics of an Awesome City
(continued)

#3:  GREAT Food

If you haven't noticed by now, I love food. 

Restaurants are the third most important thing to me when it comes to judging cities.  Or towns.  Or anywhere. :)  When I go to a new place I want to find some really unique restaurants with amazing food.  Here were our favorites:

Pelly's Fish Market & Cafe.  One day we were craving seafood and we found this place.  It was in a strip mall so we weren't sure how it would turn out, but it was amazing.  A little place...not too fancy, not too expensive.  Perfect for lunch.  I had salmon and Josh had red snapper...both with a salad and rice.  YUM.  We wanted to go back for their fish tacos but had too many other places to try. :)

Karl Strauss Brewing Company.  We visited it the first time because it was the closest restaurant to our hotel.  And then we had to go back a second time because it was SO GOOD!  It's hard to make a burger and salad joint unique but this place pulled it off.  Everything was PRETTY and tasted AMAZING.  Chili lime sweet potato fries...need I say more? 

I will anyway. 

They had FIVE choices of mac & cheese!  We skipped the bacon, ham and sausage and bbq chicken versions and went with the "Tree Hugger" Mac which was loaded with broccoli, spinach and red peppers.  Wow.  Crunchy BBQ Chicken Salad?  Winner.  And the Cojita Avocado Turkey Burger?  Polar opposite of bland old turkey burger.  We SO wanted to try one of their desserts but couldn't either time.  Stuffed.

Our other favorite find was Taco Express.  A dive.  Downtown.  That had really good tacos and sopes and everything Mexican.  Loved it.

We hardly had time in a week to scratch the surface of all the fun looking restaurants in San Diego.  We didn't even make it to Little Italy, or any of the restaurants in the Gas Lamp Quarter!!  Next time. :)

On a scale of 1 to 10 San Diego gets a perfect 10 for its restaurants.


#2:  Waterfront

This is even more important to me than good food.  I LOVE the water.  

Awesome cities have awesome waterfronts.  

That's just the way it is.

San Diego?  On a scale of 1 to 10 it gets a 55 for its waterfront! :)


Check back tomorrow for my #1, most important, and FINAL characteristic of an awesome city.