La Jolla/San Diego

San Diego has many highpoints. In San Diego, they have the Gas Lamp Quarter, Old Town, Horton Plaza (shopping mall), and much more. Outside of San Diego, La Jolla is a chic suburb to the northwest of downtown San Diego, where I have stayed and had a great time. La Jolla is a mecca for art galleries, shopping, and restaurants. I hope to return many times.

Prospect Avenue in La Jolla is the main street that goes through a popular area of many points of interest. There is a lot of great restaurants, shopping, night spots, and a great beach.

Many of the restaurants and night spots on Prospect Avenue have views of the Pacific Ocean and La Jolla Cove.

Colorful tile mosaics are very popular in this area, whether on buildings, fountains, or statues, including the beauty that greets you at the airport of a lady holding a ball over her head while standing/riding on a dolphin.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

When visiting Horton Plaza or the Gas Lamp Quarter in downtown San Diego, park in the Horton Plaza parking garage. If you buy anything in Horton Plaza (even a candy bar), and produce a receipt, parking is free for up to 3 hours.

If you are not staying in the area around Prospect Avenue in La Jolla, parking can test your patience, but you should be able to find street parking within 2-3 blocks of Prospect.

This Embassy Suites is situated in the "Golden Triangle" of La Jolla, created by I-5 to the west, I-805 to the east, and Rt 52 to the south.

As the name implies, Embassy Suites is an all-suites hotel, which is always nicer than a normal hotel room, since it adds a living/dining room that is separate from sleeping quarters. They also provide a microwave and refrigerator, but who needs them with so many great restaurants in La Jolla? (see other journal entries)

Embassy Suites has a format I really like. They use the entire ground floor as common area, including the lobby and check-in, several meeting/conference facilties, a business center (with PCs, printer, fax, etc), a gift shop, indoor pool, fitness center, bar, restaurant, ATM, and most notably, an open atrium (all the noise is on the ground floor).

The atrium contains plants, ponds (with large fish), fountains, a huge Christmas tree, and seating for the complementary breakfast, and complementary evening reception (drinks).

Beyond the ground floor, there are 4 glass elevators facing the attractive atrium to take you to the other 12 floors.

Outside, parking ($9/day) is in a multi-level parking garage, that has narrow aisles and small spaces. However, I was pleased overall with my stay here. Several weeks following my stay, Embassy Suites sent me an extensive survey form, so they must care about repeat business.

This fantastic full-service hotel/resort/spa is situated on 18 acres on the beach at Mission Bay in San Diego, on the west side of I-5, south of La Jolla near Sea World.

The guest rooms and suites are in seven buildings, and the lobby, gift shop, and conference facilities are in a separate building, as are the spa, tennis club, restaurant and bar.

There are three putting greens across the grounds (one was right outside my room). There is a large pool, a small wading pool for kids, two jacuzzis, a full-service spa, tennis center/courts, and a wedding pavilion, all on beautiful and impeccibly maintained grounds, on the beach at Mission Bay. There are a few well-placed hammocks across the grounds that looked very inviting.

On the beach, they have a private pier, where you can rent boats or water sports, or go on small boat tours. The resort is situated on Mission Bay Beach across the bay from Sea World park. Each night on the beach you can watch the fireworks across the bay at Sea World. Although my travel was business-related, I noticed a place for kids activities by the pool.

My room was a large deluxe room with high/vaulted ceilings, king-sized bed, large cabinet for TV and clothes, two end tables, desk and chair, couch and coffee table, and nice balcony with table and chairs. Very nice.

The Cavatappi (Different Noodles?) Restaurant and Bar is the Hilton''s restaurant and bar. The restaurant is open for breakfast ($9-$11), lunch ($9-$20), and dinner (entrees $16-$26). During my stay, I had breakfast and dinner. For breakfast, I had "The Cavatappi," which included 2 eggs (scrambled for me) over corned beef hash, potatos, choice of meat (bacon), and choice of bread (white toast). It was great.

The night we arrived, we all ate in the bar''s cool outdoor patio. I had a wood oven pizza (from the $4-$10 dinner starters menu), that was very good. My friends had salads and sandwiches ($5-$11), which looked good, and I heard no complaints.

The bar has a huge wine list and selection of imported, local, and national beers. The bar has a fantastic outdoor patio with large gas fire and lava rock pits that are like bonfires. The camp-fire-like effect was wonderful on a cool night with a group of people.

This place is great. I wish I could have stayed longer. Forget room service and don''t even open the mini-bar. Go check out everything this place has to offer.

Hotel La Jolla is an 11 floor property, with 108 guest rooms and suites on floors 1-10, and the Elario's Bistro and Lounge on the 11th floor, with a bar and live jazz adjacent to it on the other side.

Our room was very comfortable, with coastal decor, using lots of tile and colors. The beds and all furniture were comfortable, soft, natural fabrics. We opted for an ocean view room on the 6th floor and were pleased.

We had a nice balcony with nice sliding wood shutters that let in as much or as little light as we wanted.

The hotels location is less than a mile to La Jolla village and all its shops and restaurants, and even closer to the beach. They offer complementary shuttle service, but we did not try it.

We counted on seeing live jazz one evening on the 11th floor in Elario's Bistro and Lounge, but since our young daughter was with us, we had to set in the restaurant. In it, we saw that they have a contemporary open kitchen, and friendly, helpful service.

Although we did not eat, Elario's is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and also provides room service.

Their breakfast menu ($6-$13) has many combinations of eggs, breads, meats, and waffles. A la carte items are also available. The brunch and lunch menus ($5-$13) contains breakfast and lunch items including fruit, soup, and sandwiches. The dinner menu ($15-$33) is ambitious with pastas, chicken entrees, lamb, steaks, and seafood including shrimp, tuna, and salmon.

Each morning and evening, complementary fresh fruit is available in the hotel lobby.

The only drawback for this property is that it is on a busy street and there is lots of traffic noise.

This 9 floor property is located on Harbor Island (which is actually a man-made peninsula) less than 2 miles from the San Diego airport (convenient when arriving to town late). From the rental car (Hertz) pick-up, turn right, then turn left on Harbor Island Drive, and a right turn once on the island will get you there.

The triangular shape of the building made it a little confusing to get around, but not too bad. They have lots of meeting rooms on the ground floor, and appear to have one on every floor.

The rooms in this property either face San Diego Bay or San Diego harbor and a nice marina. The hotel has direct access and walkways to the large adjacent marinas.

Our room was nice-sized and had a small balcony with a table and chairs facing the harbor and marina. The common areas had ornate tile work and were nicely decorated.

We visited the bar for drinks and light food. The bar and restaurant are nice. They are separated by large salt-water aquariums that were very nice and well-maintained.

Overall, this is a nice property; the service is okay; but attention to detail is lacking on little things you expect from Hilton, such as missing a newspaper one morning, missing sugar for the coffeemaker one morning, and no shampoo one morning.

Pictures attempt to show the very narrow Harbor Island peninsula, with harbor and marina to one side and San Diego Bay to the other.

PF Chang's is right in front of (and convenient to) the La Jolla Embassy Suites Hotel (see other journal entry).

As such, it is enormously popular. On a recent Tuesday night at 8pm, the place was packed. They have a large bar in the middle of the restaurant, but it was also packed, and I had my heart set on sitting at a table to eat. So, I was placed on a waiting list 40-45 minutes long.

After about 20 minutes of walking around the bar, I found an opening in the crowd, and managed to order a draft beer. I found an empty bench in the lobby to relax for the remainder of my wait, during which I started to appreciate the decor with Asian murals and sculptures, that have some deep meaning explained on the menu.

They have large, round, flat lights that provide the night-time light, in addition to lots of tract lighting. They use lots of stone on the floors and walls, and have a huge glass front door (very comtemporary and cool).

They have an open kitchen, and a separate small dining area that is probably available for private parties/dinners. They have an outdoor patio area with space heaters that had many takers on a cool December night.

When I finally got seated, there were several other empty tables, so I felt that they took longer than needed to seat me. However, I got over it quickly.

Their wine list has over 60 wines available by the glass ($5-15) and by the bottle ($19-60). Appetizers ($4-8) included spring rolls, dumplings, spare ribs, and other goodies. Soups ($3-5) offered were hot/sour and wonton. They also had a selection of 6 salads ($5-10). They also have over 40 entrees ($6-13) including beef, pork, chicken, seafood, and rice/noodle dishes. Sides of vegetables ($5-7) are also available.

After my long wait for a table, I was starving. I started with wonton soup (which was great) with pork wontons, chicken, shrimp, and mushrooms in a piping hot chicken broth.

Then, I ordered Chang's Spicy Chicken (served with steamed rice), and a side of Szechwan Asparagus. I thoroughly enjoyed the spicy asparagus dish. It was as large as an entree itself. The Chang's Spicy Chicken wasn't what I expected. It was chucks of chicken coated with spicy/szechwan sauce. I thought I was getting a stir-fried dish with other vegetables.

Go with a group, and share many different dishes.

This place is very cool. Italian seafood is the focus of the menu, but the theme (and translation) of Bollicine is "tiny bubbles." They have these neat "waterwalls" with water, colored lights and bubbles all over the place (Image tall lava lamps only with bubbles). If you look carefully in my picture, you will see several of the waterwalls.

Bollicine is in the heart of La Jolla's very cool shopping and entertainment area at Prospect and Girard Streets. They have an ocean view that is very nice.

Bollicine is upstairs from other shops. The friendly hostess waiting downstairs and outside made a good first impression, and the lights and bubbles a nice second impression.

Bollicine is on multiple levels of an old house/building. The first level is a bar/patio, but done nicely to eat in with nice tile floor, canopy, space heaters, and panoramic view of Prospect and Girard. It even has a window into an adjacent art gallery, that we enjoyed from our table. The second level has a bar with seating, a couple of small tables, and the kitchen. The third level is the main dining area, rest rooms, and more bubbles. The rest room was clean, no odor, and had soap and towels available.

Their menu varies widely, and includes Appetizers ($7-9); salads and soups ($3-9); Sandwiches and Pizza ($7-10); and Entrees ($9-24).

Sitting down, the NICE linen napkins were an unusual treat, even though I don't usually pay much attention to them. I was promptly brought warm bread and olive oil. I got started with a "local lager" which had a full crisp taste like other micro brews.

On each of my visits, I have ordered Spaghetti Bolognese (not very adventurous, but fantastic). Salads are very good with whole leafs of different types of greenery in a vinegarette, with a wedge of tomato and a slice of cumcumber large enough to cool the spice of the vinegarette.

The spaghetti was awesome. Meat sauce was definitely home made and seasoned just right, with lots of groung meat (not meatballs). My guest had Pasta Bollicine, which is a chicken and brocoli pasta.

Cool location, good service, good food, nice atmosphere. Very Nice.