I’ve always had my eye on visiting San Diego, California one day and when the opportunity came, I couldn’t wait to touch down! From the weather and sun to the food and vibes, San Diego has always had a great reputation and I am so happy Erica and I got the opportunity to spend the weekend there. In this post, I am going to reveal the best places we went and share my thoughts on the city and whether or not it’s worth visiting.

This photo was taken at La Joya Cove

Where To Eat In San Diego (Breakfast, Tacos, and Fine Dining)

Chula Tacos 8.5/10

Now Erica and I spent a great deal of time eating in San Diego, almost as if we were on a mission to eat as much food as possible. Our very spot to eat was the viral Chula Tacos restaurant (1719 Palm Ave.) This Mexican restaurant serves up Tijuana style tacos, which are flame-grilled meat (usually al pastor/adobada or carne asada) cooked over mesquite charcoal served with an overwhelming amount of guacamole and fresh salsa. When I say overwhelming, I mean in a completely amazing and satisfying way. It’s usually served on hand made tortillas.

Now what really stood out here were there “Kekas” which they themselves claim is “world famous” . The Keka is this massive quesadilla on a corn hand made tortilla filled with either carne asada, chicken, al pastor, labio, tripa, or mixta (2 meats). Pricing for this massive baby is between $13.50 and $15.50, which in all honesty isn’t bad for what you’re going to get. This bad boy can feed an NFL team.

Overall, I think the the food here is an 8.5/10 and I can see why the place went viral based on the amount of food you get for the price. As heads up, there was a bit of wait, which to me is a good thing, meaning people actually want to eat there but there wasn’t much seating available. We did get lucky and find some seating inside.

Our order at Chula Tacos

Birrieria y Menuderia Guadajalara 8.5/10

The next place we ate while in San Diego was a place we didn’t even plan on checking out. While driving to get coffee at Ryan Bros Coffee, we saw this birria and menudo spot right across the street and since our last visit to Birrieria de Tapatia de Ocotlán in Chicago, Erica had been craving some Guadalajara style birria and this place just fell into our lap. Now this wasn’t better than the Guadalajara style birria spots in Chicago, but it was good enough to recommend should you ever go to San Diego and need a place to cure “la cruda”.

The food we ordered

Tacos El Corazón 8.7/10

The final taco spot on this brief San Diego taco tour is Tacos El Corazón which was a spot I found on TikTok. This one has a cool background story. Apparently the taquero named Diego pitched the business to the owner of this grocery/corner store owner and ever since then they were partners. Technically this taco spot is inside the grocery store but it’s outside the store, if that makes sense. In Chicago we actually have a few taco spots inside grocery stores like La Internacional and La Chaparrita but this one being outside was cool (lucky for them it doesn’t snow in San Diego). Overall the tacos were fire but to me they still don’t beat the ones at home. Great representation of the street tacos for San Diego though!

Carne asada, adobada/al pastor and birria tacos

Duke’s La Jolla 6/10

Erica and I ended up going to brunch on a Sunday in the popular area of La Joya Cove at this spot called Duke’s La Joya and our experience was very underwhelming. This place caught our eye because there is an ocean view at this restaurant and that is why we went, however when the hostess asked if we wanted to sit inside or outside, we said outside and they sat us in the corner outside with no view! They only have a few tables that is actually overlooking the ocean and all other seating is away and there is no view. Erica was incredibly disappointed and after waiting 20 minutes to get seated, we were not willing to wait another 45 minutes to get those seats. What we wish would have happened would have been that the hostess specified which seats we were getting as we are from out of town looking to enjoy an ocean view with our brunch. On top of that, Erica was not satisfied with her food, maybe because of the whole experience but if she is not happy then of course I can’t be happy. 6/10 for us.

Seneca 9/10

One of my personal favorite places of the entire trip was recommended to us by our friend Rachel, who is temporarily living there do to her job. This spot is a cozy date night grown and sexy type of place where the lights are dim, the vibe is intimate, and you have an outdoor patio and an indoor space overlooking parts of downtown San Diego. To add the cherry on top, the food here was excellent and the drinks were superb. We had a great time here and this place did not disappoint! This is definitely a place I would strongly recommend going.

Starlite 9/10

I try not to give many 10/10 but this speakeasy/bar was everything you would ever want minus the customer service. The aesthetics here speak for themselves. If the customer service matched up to the aesthetic, this would be the perfect bar. Let me explain. We had no issues get a table and getting a seat however the place was set to close at 2am and we got there at midnight. Our server came to us rather quickly but asked to keep a card on file for the tab. No issues there. The issue was that she ended up swiping my card and giving it back to me and I didn’t think anything of it until I realized about an hour later that she never came back to get another round of drinks. She disappeared into the wind and mind you, by this time the place was already pretty much empty. We ended up leaving around 1:30am with only 1 round of drinks between 4 of us because the waitress never came back. Mind you, this is a place that only serves drinks. I am only recommending this place because the aesthetics are immaculate. Other than that, I wish you the best of luck!

Best Things to Do in San Diego

Now I can’t lie to you and say that San Diego is this popping city with so much action and energy because that is not truly what I felt when I was there. You’re not going to get that sense of urgency and city speed that you get in cities like Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago. The weather is beautiful and the pace here is a lot slower. The streets have a lot of hills and to be honest, San Diego was very easy to navigate in the sense of time. The expressways and highways are a nightmare because it felt like every lane was turning into an exit lane. I will say that our hotel was about 15 minutes from the airport and everything that we did was relatively within 5-15 minutes away in a vehicle. We took 1 round trip Uber ride which was about 10 minutes away and it cost us about $11 each way. That’s definitely not too bad but given the distance, it could be.

La Jolla Cove 10/10

This is a MUST DO if you ever go to San Diego. This spot isn’t too hard to find parking and will offer the best sunset in my opinion that you are going to find in San Diego. The other main attraction here are the Pacific Harbor Seals and the California sea Lions, both whom are just posted up, enjoying the water and breeze, and full of sound. A lot of people come for this. Highly recommend catching a sunset here and in all honesty, theres a ton of restaurants and bars nearby for you to check out afterwards.

Catching the sunset at least once at La Jolla is a must

Seals and sea Lions at La Jolla Cove

Overall 8/10

Overall this weekend trip was a great reset and I loved the views, weather, and food but I definitely believe a weekend here is all that is needed to get a real feel for the city. I didn’t feel like I needed to stay longer to get a real feel for the city, maybe because I am a city guy through and through. Erica really enjoyed it and I think she wouldn’t mind coming back (maybe we can go to Tijuana) but I don’t think we will be intentionally going anytime soon. It was a very enjoyable trip and it truly is a beautiful city!