Seven Courses of Beef at Phuong Trang is delightful

Neighborhood: Convoy Street, Kearny Mesa

Price: $$

Vibe: Mid-80s home kitchen vibes. As with a number of Asian restaurants in this area, you are not here for the atmosphere, you are here to eat! Closes at 8:30pm SHARP so plan accordingly.

Phuong Trang is a staple of the Convoy Street food scene, and has been around since the early 90s, serving up authentic, fresh Vietnamese cuisine. It’s been around for so long that it doesn’t quite get the kudos it should as one of the best options for Vietnamese in the area. The ingredients are fresh and the quality just can’t be beat.

During one of my last visits to Phuong Trang, I was introduced to a lovely meal called Seven Courses of Beef. Meant to be shared, so it’s perfect for 2 or 3 people. This lovely coursing of beef involves a variety of different cooking techniques - each meant to be served in a “make-your-own-spring-roll” fashion, which is a little messy, but delicious and loads of fun! I love a good interactive meal!

Before I start in on the Seven Courses of Beef, I also must share a couple of fantastic appetizers we tried. There really isn’t a bad option on the menu, but I do hope to share with you some suggestions for things you may not have tried before.

Garlic Wings with Butter

I could come here just for the wings. Let’s be honest, I have done this! The deep-fried Garlic and Butter wings are out of this world! Perfectly crispy on the outside, while still perfectly juicy on the inside, yum! You can order either a half or a full dozen of these wings - go ahead and order the dozen because the leftovers are worth it.

Vietnamese Crepe

We also tried the Vietnamese Crepe, which is a crispy rice flour crepe filled with shrimp, pork, bean sprouts, sliced onions and mung beans. Wow. I absolutely love the flavors here, and the crunch of the bean sprouts inside this very light and fluffy crepe was really unique. The crepe was a lot larger than we anticipated, so keep that in mind when choosing your apps, as they are substantial!

On to the star of our meal - the Seven Courses of Beef, or Beef Seven Ways. I absolutely love fresh spring rolls. In fact, if we didn’t order this meal of beef coursings, I would have ordered the fried tofu fresh spring rolls (another time).

The Seven Courses of Beef represents 7 different preparations of beef — each to be eaten in your own spring roll concoction, with the exception of the Beef Porridge. Though during our visit, we missed out on the “Ground Beef in Caul Sheet” and were supplied with another helping of the “Ground Beef in Grape Leaves” (I was not mad about this! The Ground Beef in Caul Sheet is actually beef wrapped in caul fat, a membrane that encases the digestive organs of some animals).

They start the meal by bringing out all of the goodies to make your spring rolls. This includes the rice paper wraps, a small bowl of warm water and a plate of delicious accoutrement including lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, jicama and pineapple. I also suggest you order the vermicelli noodles to include in your spring roll inventions, this is an extra $3 but totally worth it.

Rice paper wraps are served with a bowl of warm water to make your fresh spring rolls.

Fresh lettuce, cucumbers, jicama, carrot and pineapple to adorn your spring rolls.

The first two preparations they serve are “cook-it-yourself” fondue-style courses. We started with the Vinegar Fondue with Beef. A small pot of vinegar is prepared on a warming plate, and you are each served a few thin slices of raw beef topped with thin sliced onions and scallions. Once that vinegar starts to bubble, grab your chopsticks and drop a slice or two of the beef in, it will cook instantly, so you won’t wait long.

While your beef starts cooking, I suggest you dip one of the rice papers in the water. It only needs to be submerged for a second and it will immediately soften. Place it on your plate and start making your spring rolls. You can add the meat first, or start with veggies, I just recommend that you start small so that you can actually wrap everything into the paper. I say this as advice to myself in particular, because I habitually overstuffed my rolls. It made them a little messy, but still delicious! Don’t forget to try the vinegar/fish sauce dipping sauce. It really ties the whole roll together. My dining partner and I each requested our own, so that we could dunk our sloppy rolls into our individual dipping sauces and didn’t have to worry about double dipping (or sharing).

Dipping sauce for the Spring Rolls

The second “cook-it-yourself” course is the Hot Grill with Beef, which is basically replacing the vinegar with a skillet of melted butter, you can drop in your beef and onions and cook to your liking. The raw steak that they serve are meant to be cooked one of these two ways,. My favorite was definitely the Hot Grill beef, so I chose to save the two of my three pieces of beef for this option.

Ground Beef in Grape Leaves, Char-Grilled Beef and Steamed Beef Meatloaf

I thought the first two preparations were fun, but then came out this amazing platter with our remaining courses. This included Ground Beef in Grape Leaves, which were fabulous! In fact, this was one I didn’t eat in a spring roll, I just took a bite, and it was a wonderful depth of flavor. The Char-Grilled beef had a delicious flavor profile, with that fresh off the grill char and smokiness. The Steamed Beef Meatball was also a surprising delight, and probably one of my favorite spring rolls of the evening.

Steamed Beef Meatball had loads of flavor and was one of my favorite of the seven courses.

Beef Porridge

Last but not least was the Beef Porridge course which was really unique and delicious. The Vietnamese certainly know how to make some delicious soups and the porridge was unexpected and would be my ideal “go-to” comfort meal on a cold day.

The entire meal was delicious at Phuong Trang and the Seven Courses is something I can wait to try again. I’ll work on honing my spring-roll-making skills and will try, try to remember that less is more, but let’s be real, you know I’ll overdo it again,

If you haven’t been ever or even lately, make your next night out an authentic Vietnamese adventure. Try something new! But get there by 7:30pm latest if you want to be seated, doors close at 8:30pm sharp!

Phuong Trang

4170 Convoy Street, San Diego, California 92111

Le Smoking Goat est incroyable (f*-ing fantastic)!

Neighborhood: North Park

Price: $$$

Vibe: The rustic decor of this neighborhood bistro offers a cozy and inviting atmosphere inside, and for those warmer days the outdoor patio is an incredibly charming place to enjoy a meal.

The Smoking Goat is one of the best restaurants in San Diego. It’s been around for a bit (2010 to be exact), so it doesn’t get the spotlight as much as some of these newcomers on the restaurant scene, but it should be talked about in every “best of” or “top restaurants” list in the city.

Chef Fred Piehl amazes with his perfection of some of the more challenging proteins to cook, and he does so with such ease that you can tell this is what he’s always meant to be doing — putting out some of the best modern, California-style French dishes that one has ever tasted.

The menu is small, which means that everything is thoughtful and delicious! We sampled some small plates and entrees and its honestly hard to choose a favorite. This is one of those meals that I can’t wait to eat all over again — is anyone free for dinner tonight?

We started with the Duck Liver Pate, something that I absolutely LOVE that doesn’t appear on many menus in San Diego. Pourquoi pas? This was one of our favorite dishes, in fact, I couldn’t even get a picture before one of our party dug into that luscious pate. The accoutrement was just perfect for this rich and savory pate, served with Pt. Reyes blue cheese, fig jam, fresh pear, blackberries and a perfectly toasted baguette.

Duck Liver Pate (at least what I could finagle a picture of once this landed at our excited table)

To continue the amazing vibe de Francais, we also ordered the
Escargots à la Bourguignonne - which translates to garlic, buttery goodness. Just a divine start to our meal, can it get any better? Yes, yes it can.

After demolishing our appetizers, we went on to try Chef Piehl’s famous Duroc Pork Chop. I must emphasize this here — this is a dish that Smoking Goat has been known for since they opened over a decade ago. I don’t care if you don’t like pork chops, it’s because you haven’t had THIS pork chop. Get it. The pork is cooked to perfection! Our party was fighting over every last morsel of this chop. Served with a red pepper and ham (I’ll call it relish) that just bursted with flavor, potatoes and broccolini. YUM.

Duroc Pork Chop is a must order at Smoking Goat!

We rounded out our meal with a gorgeous bowl of Wild Mushroom Linguini. It was creamy, savory and loaded with beautiful morels and other wild mushrooms I probably don’t know the name of.

Wild Mushroom Linguini

I can’t believe that after these dishes we had room for dessert, but we somehow found room. We decided to try something new and different, so we ordered the Goat Cheese Cheesecake. I’m not usually a cheesecake fan, but this was different. The goat cheese added a different texture, and the fruit whip served on top was light and airy and balanced each bite.

Goat Cheese Cheesecake

The Smoking Goat never fails to delight, and I implore you to visit if you haven’t been lately. I love the cozy nature of this neighborhood bistro, with such high-quality ingredients and care put into each dish, you really can’t go wrong with anything you order. Oh, and don’t forget about One Door North, his second restaurant located right next door. More to come on that!

The Smoking Goat

3408 30th Street San Diego, CA 92104

When you mix love with pasta, you get Cesarina

Neighborhood: Point Loma

Price: $$

Vibe: Charming and cozy, this adorable little location is tucked away off Voltaire Street, with seating both inside and out on the patio (p.s. if it’s cold, they have blankets and hot water bottles that make the colder temps a non-issue). The romantic lighting and ambience are perfect for a date night or an intimate dinner with friends.

I’m amazed by any restaurant that can obtain and hold a 5-star rating on Yelp. Even some of my favorite restaurants sit at 4 stars (usually because someone didn’t like their serving staff or the reservation wasn’t timely, anyway, I digress!), so Cesarina has been on my radar for some time. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know anything other than that regarding this little hidden gem, snuggled away off Voltaire Street in Point Loma, but I am so happy to finally dine here. I have been missing out — and you have too is you haven’t been here yet!

Charming Italian decor is bright, joyful and feels like a warm hug

Cesarina opened in 2019, by three Italy natives (Niccolò Angius, Cesarina Mezzoni and Giuseppe Capasso). The muse and chef is Cesarina (obvi), and the love and care she puts into these homemade dishes is unbeatable. Just try the pasta!

We were celebrating our anniversary, and immediately upon sitting down, the waiter brought us each a glass of prosecco and wished us Happy Anniversary. It was a great start to our celebration. The server also brought us a variety of homemade breads and crackers and the most delicious marinara sauce to dip it in. Yum!

The pasta options are plentiful, with a number of “choose your own” options and some rotating baked pasta specials that also looked divine. We perused that menu for some time as it was not easy to choose, but I don’t think there is a wrong answer here. If our sampling was any indication, everything on this menu is fabulous.

We started with the Caprese Invernale and added Proscuitto de Parma, (which they did not skimp on by the way) beware if sharing this you will fight over the last bite!

Caprese Invernale with Prosciutto de Parma

For our main courses, we chose two very different pasta dishes, which was fun to have a little variety, except we really only shared one bite with each other, we were each so enamored with our dishes! The portions were perfect - very Italian-style - where instead of getting a plate heaped with pasta for 2-3 people, it was the perfect amount of noodles for one. And yes, we both finished every last bite!

This is where Cesarina truly sets itself apart. We have a whole district of San Diego dedicated to Italian food (Little Italy, for those not familiar with the area) and it’s hard to find a restaurant there that compares to the authenticity of Cesarina. I am mentioning this again for anyone not paying attention to my earlier comment - you must get the pasta! They have their own open-air Pastificio (pasta factory) at the back of the restaurant where you can watch the creation of these gorgeous pastas being made with the utmost care.

Tonnarelli Cacio e Pepe

We got the Cacio e Pepe, which is a simple and beautiful pasta - the sauce basically consists of fresh ground pepper, parmesan cheese, butter and pasta water. When done right, this dish really highlights the homemade pasta. Simple and just delicious.

Tonnarelli pasta with Arrabbiatissima Sauce and meatballs

My love is a spice-fanatic and as soon as the waiter mentioned this spicy sauce, he was all in. He created his “own” pasta dish with Tonnarelli noodles in the Arrabbiatissima sauce, and it was spicy! He added the meatballs, which as you can imagine from everything else I’ve talked about, were wonderful bites of deliciousness.

We finished our meal with a beautiful scoop of chocolate gelato. The other desserts looked wonderful, but we at every little bite of our appetizer and pastas so there was not room to try to Tiramisu on this visit.

Chocolate gelato

Cesarina also offers brunch, which I am really excited to come back and try — though I can’t really imagine coming here and not having pasta again! Good thing pasta is really intended for every meal. :)

Cesarina

4161 Voltaire St, San Diego, CA 92107