Little Italy Staycation!
July 13, 14 and 15
In what is becoming a tradition, Lorri and I spent a couple nights downtown to celebrate our wedding anniversary, which is July 13.
Little Italy! We arrived at Le Pensione, our hotel, in late afternoon, checked in, and headed out.
This is our room, #204, second floor, front corner facing Date Street with a view out the side window toward the Bay.
This is our Bay view. Does that make it a bay window?
We had Dinner reservations at this place, one of the better known and highly rated San Diego Restaurants.
Before dinner we sat in the piazza and had an attitude adjustment. It wasn't very crowded.
Here is the menu. Notice the date and Happy Anniversary!
This was our first course - excellent oysters with hot sauce pearls!
At $5, this was the cheapest thing on the menu and worth every penny!
Next up: Carne cruda asada tatare, also excellent and we ate half of it before I remembered to photo it. Raw meat and quail eggs!
Then we tried the heirloom tomatoes which were very good but we should have ordered another plate of the Carne Cruda
They sat us in a cozy corner toward the back
Looking out from our table toward the bar with the kitchen on the right.
My lovely bride of 38 years!
Next time we may sit here and watch the kitchen action or maybe at the bar and watch the bar action.
Kitchen action!
Dessert! I think they called it a Tiramisu Yodel. It was decadent, but more yodel than tiramisu.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable dinner. We would go back.
This is our other dessert - martinis at the bar at Born and Raised!
A nod to our Thursday Happy Hour group, the Encinitas Yacht Club!
Cheers to a Happy Anniversary!
Friday, July 14, 2023
Another beautiful day in San Diego!
Another photo out of our Bay window!
Looking south on India Street you can see the back of our hotel on the right
Back on the Piazza, this is the line to get on the waiting list for breakfast at Morning Glory.
We decided to walk along the Bay and then visit the Gaslamp District for lunch. Here we are approaching the Bay and the sailing ship Star of India.
Broadway Pier and Coast Guard boats
Retired aircraft carrier, USS Midway, butt end.
The famous statue based on the famous photo. WWII is over!
On down to Seaport Village.
The Big Bay and the Coronado Bridge
The Encinitas Yacht Club. Not really, although I think one of our members has a yacht similar to that yellow one in the foreground.
The new and highly acclaimed Rady Shell performing arts venue where we will see Nickel Creek in October.
Heading into the Gaslamp, many of the buildings were already "wrapped" with Comic Con propaganda.
The signs were everywhere!
The venerable Dublin Square Irish Pub on Fourth St is being converted to a Mexican Pub! Should be interesting.
So we went to The Field on Fifth instead.
And had some Guinness and a Black and Tan
After lunch we decided to check out the trolley and catch a ride back to Little Italy
It was great once we figured out how to get a ticket.
Another view of our hotel.
Starting our Friday night bar crawl at Davanti for one of those burgers we've heard about.
Here it is! Very good but not life-changing. I'm trying to remember my last life-changing burger.
Back at the Piazza for a cocktail and some people watching.
Then it was off to this highly recommended pizza place.
We had a glass of wine and ordered a pizza which we sent back. It was not good in a number of ways. We'll probably go back sometime and give it another shot.
They had a serious looking pizza oven and the other pizzas we saw looked pretty good so I think we just had a bad luck pizza.
Our final stop was Vino Carta where we sat outside and had a little more vino.
It was a nice end to another great day!
Cheers!
...and good night Little Italy! See you next year!