Christmas in San Diego

This ‘extended business stay’ facility is centrally located on Hotel Circle, which runs alongside I-8 near both the I-5 and Rt. 193 interchanges, quite close to Old Town and the Presidio, with Balboa Park just minutes away. It’s also close to Fashion Valley Mall, a gargantuan and quintessentially California shopping complex. However, the immediate area surrounding the hotel is rather bland, consisting of just a long procession of hotels and motels facing the interstate. Thankfully, the soundproofing in our third-floor suite adequately masked the traffic noise; it also probably helped that our suite was near the elevator as it had an interior door rather than an exterior door on a long outside corridor.

The hotel’s suites have separate living room and bedroom sleeping areas, a kitchen, and complimentary breakfast. Perhaps because it was over the holidays and no doubt also because of the extremely reasonable rates, the majority of patrons were families with children. The best thing about this hotel was the size of the suites – they are very large, if somewhat sparsely decorated. The central living area contains the kitchen, a long bar counter perfect for use as a work area, and a separate table. The kitchen contained a dishwasher, microwave, stove, refrigerator, and small coffee maker. Dishwasher detergent, dish soap, paper towels, dishrags, and coffee packets were provided.

Our son commandeered the sofa bed, my husband set up his computer on the counter bar by the kitchen (free wireless internet access was provided), and I stretched out onto the comfortable king bed with my book. Everyone was happy.

This is not to say that everything was perfect. As mentioned above, the décor was a bit on the sterile side. The bathroom had minimal toiletries, and there was a $1 per night fee for the in-room safe – which could be removed at check out, but only by requesting the clerk to do so. Signs in the breakfast room instructed guests that they were not to remove food from the dining room, while a laminated card by the bed advised guests that they would be charged for any items taken from the suite. This struck me as a tad on the inhospitable side, though if it is such economizing measures that allow this hotel to keep its rates so low, then I’m all for it.

A decent complimentary breakfast featured scrambled eggs, toast, muffins, biscuits, gravy, cereals, a variety of juices, and good coffee. I especially enjoyed the savory sausage links and herbed potato wedges. Two rather idiosyncratic items offered were dark-looking chili and salsa. I would have preferred fresh fruit, but this is a mere quibble. There’s a pleasant enclosed outdoor patio, where it wasn’t too cool to enjoy an al fresco breakfast under tables shaded by large green umbrellas.

All in all, this hotel offers good value for money. Although not much in terms of ambience, as a handy base for touring it’s a reasonable option.

Finding a congenial place for lunch with my brother, his wife, and their three small children was something of a balancing act: we wanted to meet halfway between San Diego and their house, we needed someplace suitable for small children yet sophisticated enough for adults, and we preferred nearby sights of interest. The Cedar Creek Inn, just next to the mission at San Juan Capistrano, met all these criteria and seemed to be an excellent choice.

The inn was bustling the day after Christmas, but since we arrived before my brother’s family, I had time to cue the hostess that we’d need a table for eight. She was a tad harried and had to be reminded that we were still waiting for a table after my brother’s family arrived later. However, soon we were seated in the lovely outdoor patio, which has a festive but relaxed ambience.

While waiting to place our order, I admired several impressive-looking salads I saw going past. However, one sandwich on the menu caught my eye: grilled eggplant with watercress, fontina cheese, grilled onion, and red pepper aoli on grilled focaccia. I ordered a glass of locally brewed Hefeweizen to accompany this zesty meal. My husband ordered a shrimp stir-fry with orange-ginger sauce, while my son plumped for his perennial favorite, a traditional hamburger. My brother ordered an ahi sandwich, while my sister-in-law requested grilled chicken strips instead of goat cheese over angel-hair pasta. The children ordered burgers and chicken nuggets from the children’s menu, which they busily colored with the crayons thoughtfully provided.

And what was the verdict for this proverbial feast? Decidedly mixed, I’m afraid. First, the good news: my husband, son, and sister-in-law all proclaimed their dishes were good (not fabulous, mind you, but "good"), and all the children save one cleaned their plates, which was impressive given the amount of food they’d received. My brother was too polite to say it, but I suspect he was less than thrilled his ahi had been seared rather than grilled. Apparently, serving sushi-grade fish "seared" in sandwiches is the latest California fad (one I sincerely hope stays in California). Equally dismaying was my eggplant: it was downright bitter, a sure sign of age. A knowledgeable chef should know to salt eggplant slices to draw out the bitter alkaloids, but apparently he’d missed that day in chef school. Had I been less distracted with conversation, I would probably have sent my sandwich back. As it was, I merely ate around the offending vegetable, contenting myself with focaccia, grilled onion, cheese, and watercress.

Service was similarly "good news/bad news." Our drinks and meals came quickly enough, but a box that my sister-in-law requested for her leftovers never did. Finally, my brother flagged down another waiter, who brought one. Overall, I’d say that the Cedar Creek Inn is a lovely spot, but I’d avoid busy times (or times when the main chef may be off) and hedge my bets by ordering one of those lovely looking salads.

Deciding where to have Christmas dinner while traveling over the holidays always presents something of a dilemma. Truth to tell, we tend to leave this more to chance than planning, with mixed results. Our low point came one year when, unable to find anything open, we had a perfectly ghastly meal at Denny’s in Florida. Our high point was a five-star seafood dinner at sunset overlooking Hanalei Bay.

This year, we were in luck again, though not quite so spectacularly. I’d given up phoning various recommended restaurants San Diego – no one answering at one, another not open, and a third completely booked. Then we spotted the Boathouse as we were driving by Harbor Island. Although it was early in the day for dinner, we liked the look of the place. Jack went in to take a look, bringing back a promising report: plenty of seafood, festive atmosphere, and a table immediately if we wanted it. Anxious to put the ‘where shall we eat?’ question to rest, we voted unanimously in favor of an early dinner.

The Boathouse boasts splendid views over the boat slips of Harbor Island – that is, if you are seated near the immense picture windows that run the length of the main dining room. Unfortunately, we were seated in a separate small back section, but the view wasn’t unattractive, just not as compelling. Instead, we enjoyed the lovely holiday decorations: trees and wreaths aglitter with gold and red ornaments and twinkling white lights. An especially nice touch were the holiday carolers circulating through the restaurant, two women in fur-trimmed capes and two men in top hats and tailcoats, doing harmonized versions of holiday standards.

There was a truncated holiday menu with about eight entrees and an equal number of appetizers. Greg opted for the prime rib, with a half Caesar salad for starters. Jack and I choose the stuffed wild salmon – topped with crabmeat, chopped shrimp, spinach, and cheese, with a sun-dried tomato and red pepper buerre blanc. It was accompanied by rice pilaf and a vegetable medley of carrot medallions, broccoli, and zucchini. They brought us a basket of warm sourdough bread that we promptly demolished (twice!).

Greg’s prime rib was the star of the show. I had a bite and it was absolutely delicious – wonderfully juicy and with a savory aftertaste guaranteed to induce nods of appreciation from steak lovers. His entrée came with mashed red potatoes (with skins left on) and the aforementioned vegetable medley. Our salmon was not quite the standout that the prime rib was, but it was quite good, which is to say that there was nary a bite left on our plates.

Service was pleasant and efficient. As we left, large groups of diners were just arriving – it seemed that we’d timed our dinner just before the evening rush. There was time just before sunset to stroll along the docks, pointing to this or that yacht as we laid claim, if only in our fantasies.

Café Pacifica is a chic, intimate restaurant set in an attractive stucco building on San Diego Avenue in Old Town. Parking is something of an issue in Old Town, and this restaurant provides valet parking for $5, but we parked up a few blocks away, later thankful for the little constitutional our walk back to the car provided after the meal.

The décor of the restaurant can be described as hip beach casual, with romantic low lighting (actually, it was so dim I had a little trouble reading the menu), and an interesting choice of blues music playing discretely in the background, something like early Muddy Waters.

The waiters are suave pros. Dressed in white shirts, black pants, and ties, two waiters seamlessly handled the room we were seated in. Thankfully, they gave us lots of time to peruse the tantalizing menu.

After much deliberation, I ordered the special of the evening: escolar (a type of firm white fish I was unfamiliar with) encrusted with poppy seeds and a subtle curry sauce. It came with fingerling potatoes, baby arugula, and crispy won-ton "wraps"of beet, carrots, and cabbage cut into artistic wedges.

The first bite of the fish was one of those "WOW"moments. What a marriage of flavors! The escolar was very buttery tasting, firm, and flaky. The slight crunch of the poppy seeds and light curry seasoning were the perfect foil to the fish’s texture and flavor. I had ordered the recommended wine to go with this dish, a Viognier, and that, too, was a good marriage of flavors.

Jack didn’t order an entrée. Instead, he opted for a cup of freshly made clam chowder, an appetizer of crab croquets in a savory sauce, and a corn and blue crab salad served in a wonton bowl. The latter was a little too sesame tasting, we thought, overwhelming the delicate flavor of crab. Greg had a Caesar salad followed by bouillabaisse. A very generous portion of sourdough bread was served with our food, excellent for sopping up whatever sauce remained on our plates.

My entrée so impressed and intrigued me that I looked up "escolar" on the Internet after we returned to our hotel that evening. Much to my dismay, I found one of the top entries that popped up was a warning by the Food Standards Agency that escolar "if not prepared properly or if eaten in large quantities has a laxative effect causing stomach cramps and diarrhoea." Alarmed, I researched further and found that escolar had been dubbed the "Ex-Lax fish" by some critics. Whether I’m not sensitive to escolar’s "indigestible" oils or whether, as some maintain, the fish causes no distress if properly prepared, I’ll never know, but I experienced no aftereffects. Chances are, though, if I ate at Café Pacifica again, I’d make a more pointed inquiry about any dish I was unfamiliar with.

With so many museums in Balboa Park, it was a daunting task to choose. However, when I saw a beautiful pamphlet for the Mingei Museum in the lobby of our hotel, it leapt to the top of the list. Plus, the Mingei was "just enough" museum to enjoy on a sunny day.

The museum is something of a focal point in Plaza de Panama by virtue of two extravagant sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle near its entrance. The "Nikigator" was thronged by children, perching on its head, climbing through its chambered limbs, and scaling its long spine. This piece, some fifteen or twenty feet in length, is a tactile treat, with mirrors, beads, tiles, and smooth stones making up the "hide" of the whimsical alligator-like beast.

The Mingei usually stages several exhibits, selecting items from its vast collection to explore various themes and cultures. On our visit, the first floor was devoted to "The Elemental Art of the Indonesian Archipelago." Highlights included intricate shadow puppets from Java, colorful dance masks from Bali, craggy wooden Dayak carvings, visually rhythmic batik fabrics, and elaborately beaded hats.

FACTOID: It is said that the Mingei holds the world’s largest collection of monumental ancestor shrines from Borneo. All you Borneo fans out there, take note.

Since the Indonesian archipelago is an extremely rich area, spanning some 17,000 islands and 300 ethnic groups, this was a very diverse exhibit. Especially impressive were three giant bark cloth Baining dance masks from New Guinea, one representing a giant 14-foot mosquito. These huge masks looked more like modern art than ritual items and were displayed to great effect in the rotunda.

OBSERVATION: Come to think of it, quite a lot of modern art has been inspired by rituals and ‘primitive’ cultures.

The second floor housed several more exhibits. One featured Norwegian arts & crafts: painted chests, furniture, household items, and ceramics. There was also an extensive exhibit on Japanese dolls, mostly from the Edo period. Detailed samurai and geisha figures were posed with great verve; other dolls were entirely cutesy for my taste, including a series of baby sumo wrestlers. It was interesting to note, however, that the Japanese fetish for "cute" has not been confined to modern times.

There was also a large exhibit of two potters, Otto and Vivika Heino, with some 90 items. These interested me less than two small cases featuring the pottery of Laura Andreson, who taught at UCLA for many years. Her delicate work glowed with luminous colors and had a fragility that I found very appealing.

The last small room, apropos of nothing else, really, featured three doll houses from different eras, including one I found vaguely disturbing, "Wednesday’s Palace" made entirely from leaves, twigs and other natural materials. ‘Wednesday’ is the fairy dancing on the doorstep of the gossamer structure, which features some sixty other sprites within its open-work chambers.

Lord, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s fairies. Lady Cottington had it right, I think.

Visiting historical sites in Old Town San Diego is as good a pretext as any for doing what most people who come to Old Town do: shop and eat. Interlarded among the city’s oldest houses (most now housing museums) are delightful shops, bazaars, and restaurants, most with a Mexican theme.

The nine square blocks of the State Historic Park do a good job of recreating the Mexican and early American periods circa 1821-1872. Included are such historic structures as California’s first schoolhouse, San Diego’s first Courthouse, the state’s first newspaper office, and five original adobe buildings.

If the truth be known, we gave short shrift to the museums and historical displays, drawn like moths to the flame of the mercantile aspects of the area, but we did enjoy visiting the largest and most famous of the Old Town adobes, Casa de Estudillo, which was the residence of the commander of the San Diego presidio. Arranged around a courtyard, the rambling building houses furniture and other artifacts from the appropriate period. It’s a pleasant place to enjoy the garden (perfumed by scented geraniums) while sitting by the fountain in the peaceful courtyard.

At El Centro Artesano, we hit our stride, entering a wonderland of kitsch: Mexican kitsch, NewAge kitsch, Far Eastern kitsch – our cup runneth over with kitsch. Specifically, this emporium specializes in garden statues, kinetic lawn sculptures, and wind chimes. This, we unanimously decide, will be the place we will each buy Something Completely Useless.

We spend a good half hour trying to outdo each other in buying something that we genuinely like but have no earthly use for. Jack is torn between a gaudily painted Dia de los Muertos skeleton and a large metal lizard with wonderfully nubby spines (the lizard wins; he already has a fairly large Dia de los Muertos collection). I contemplate wind chimes, spending entirely too long to find the ones with just the right timbre. Greg, after being dissuaded from buying a cactus (impractical to transport) or a kinetic sculpture of Uncle Sam milking a cow labeled "Taxpayer" (too Republican) inexplicably gloms on to a second set of wind chimes of inferior chimage to mine. (Yes, I realize "chimage" is not a word. But you know what I mean.)

At this point, although I personally felt we’d done our bit for the local tourist-based economy, Jack spotted a gem and fossil shop across the street. As he oogled trilobites, Greg, no doubt acutely aware of the inferiority of his wind chimes, successfully badgered us into buying him a polished stone ball made of tiger eye. Jack upped the ante at the next shop, "Shump Ko Hup," which means "Dream Come True" in the Yaqui Indian language of Southern California, by shopping for a woven horsehair hat band. (Frankly, I was relieved he wasn’t buying another bolo tie.) Our money. Their dream.

Laden with our possessions, we left historic Old Town, a lovely place if you have plenty of stamina and a charge card.

This was absolutely the perfect place for an outing with my brother, his wife, and their three small children. Originally, we’d planned to go to San Juan Capistrano Mission, but decided to go somewhere the kids could play. The petting zoo is in the historic Los Rios neighborhood, near the 0’Neill Museum, Amtrak Station, and Rios Adobe, said to be the oldest continuously occupied residence in California.

The entry fee is modest: $3 for adults and $2 for kids. Even with ‘extras’ such as $3 for a pony ride or $2 for a miniature train ride, it’s cheap thrills in comparison to Sea World or LegoLand, plus it has the advantage of being fairly quiet and contained, forestalling the toddler meltdowns often seen at large amusement parks.

The chief attraction is a large enclosure with rabbits, guinea pigs, and fancy chickens. Most of the rabbits and guinea pigs seemed ‘resigned to fate’ in terms of being picked up, but a few guinea pigs were escape artists. My nieces and nephew quickly figured out that gently offering carrot sticks was a more effective way of coaxing the animals than chasing or grabbing them. Each child soon found a ‘special friend’ to lavish attention on.

When all the carrot sticks were gone, we moved on to the pony rides. Several saddled ponies and one small horse waited patiently in a small corral, and each child eagerly selected a mount. The ranch hands leading the ponies obligingly stopped for photos, and the grins on the children’s faces were, as the credit card commercial says, "priceless."

Near the pony rides were two pens with goats, sheep, and emus. I’ve never seen such comic beggars as the goats, whose antics kept us amused for a good quarter hour. Next, it was time for a miniature train ride, with my niece Ann as "engineer" in the first car. The fellow operating the train obligingly sounded the train whistle at the kid’s repeated requests. Toot toot!

Next, we moved to the birdcages. Cockatiels, finches, lovebirds, parakeets, cockatoos, and macaws chirped, trilled, and screeched from their various perches. My sister-in-law made friends with a cockatiel who ‘shook hands’ through the bars of his cage. Near the birds, yet another pen held quizzical llamas, a friendly donkey, and a few rotund sheep. But what got the kids’ attention were a couple of fat ponies ranging freely a large paddock. Of course, they wanted above all things to pet those ponies – never mind that there were several tethered a few yards away. The ponies, however, had other ideas. One little boy chased them around the paddock, but of course the nimble ponies outmaneuvered him. My niece Sarah offered them hay, but no dice: carrots were the only bribe they’d accept.

We finished our relaxing two-plus hours at the petting zoo by feeding the llamas pellets of alfalfa taken gently from our flattened palms.

Zoomars is guaranteed fun for families with small children or, heck, grown children for that matter.

On Christmas Day, we drive to Point Loma to Cabrillo National Monument, famous for its views of San Diego harbor. The park commemorates Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the Spanish explorer who first discovered the harbor at San Diego in 1542. Historians believe Cabrillo anchored his flagship, the San Salvador, on the eastern shore of Point Loma near Cabrillo National Monument. Although Cabrillo died later during the expedition, his crew continued to explore, possibly reaching as far north as Oregon.
The visitor center at the monument has films and exhibits on the expedition, as well as a heroic statue commemorating Cabrillo overlooking the bay.

Our main focus, however, is on the west side of the point, where a gently sloping walk leads down to tidal pools. Unfortunately, it is high tide, so our exploration of the tidal pools is confined to the rocky shore, where we poke about in heaps of flotsam and jetsam.

Jack stretches out on a conveniently slab-shaped rock and naps in the sunshine, while Greg pokes at kelp bladders, the boyish impulse to pop anything resembling a balloon ever present. I scan the horizon futilely for the migrating gray whales that pass Point Loma from late December through mid February each year, but lacking binoculars I see little other than whitecaps and sea birds. Simple pastimes are the order of the day. Nearby a family amuses themselves making a precariously balanced stone cairn, while others walk dogs and stroll about chatting, generally taking in the fine day and perhaps working up an appetite for Christmas dinners to come.

After spending time by the tidal pool, we make out way over to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. Restored to an almost frighteningly pristine condition, this white sentinel stood watch over the entrance to San Diego bay from 1855 to 1891. Today, a boisterous group of Korean teenagers is taking turns photographing each other before the lighthouse’s front gate, while an amateur photographer fusses with his tripod nearby, no doubt waiting impatiently for a clear shot. I’m more intrigued by a footpath marking the start of a coastal hiking path, but I’m not wearing suitable shoes, so I content myself with the small loop that leads past the display of coastal defenses from WWI and II and across the narrow point to the views of San Diego bay.

From here, it’s easy to see why San Diego’s natural harbor is considered one of the finest in the world. Looking down into the harbor, I spot sailboats, Coast Guard cruisers, naval aircraft carriers, commercial ships, and the usual array of tourist craft, all testimony to the city’s rich nautical heritage. Even the fact that my camera battery chooses this time to inconveniently give up the ghost doesn’t spoil the heady sensation of standing high above the harbor, taking in the view that has captivated hundreds of thousands before me.