ilusione cruzado, great smoke nice draw, big smoke tight dark ash.
Goes great with pipeline porter.

Watching the game at Hoffers hanging with my buds Jeff and Dillon
Today Im enjoying a Savinelli R y R, with a High Tide IPA.

I wanted to thank my friend Jake for letting me know about the Rocky
Patel cigar event at Churchills last night. It was a great night, and
now I have some new little ones to take care of.

Looking for a good burger?

You know, every where you go you see signs on places that say " best this and best that." Well I'm going to find out who has the best this and best that. So lets start with best burger, I have had quite a few good ones in the past year but I think one of the best ones was at the Waterfront.

Located in Little Italy you will find the Waterfront, I guess you could classify it as a dive bar with a loyal following. Sometimes you can catch live music, one night I had gone and there was two guys one on a drum and the other playing acoustic guitar and singing. It was perfect, good music, good beer, and good times.

For lunch one afternoon I was in the shop with Jeff and Trent and well it was lunch time so what to do. That's right, burger time. On this glorious day I decided to go with the Blue cheese, grilled onion burger, and bacon and it did not disappoint. I'm not always a fan of blue cheese on a burger, now don't get me wrong, I love blue cheese. I'm just saying, sometimes it's over powering. Not this day it was delicious, the burger was medium and juicy and the fries hot and crisp. Added bonus, the waitresses are hot, I can see your chonies ( the good kind).

Check it out, they have a great lunch menu and Id love to know what burger you choose.

Lets continue the hunt for the "best burger".

Until next time ............... Eat Drink and be Rudy

Falkner Winery in Temecula.

This should be quick and easy..........

The Temecula valley wine region has just a few wineries that have a restaurant attached to the winery. A couple of them at least for me are easy to rule out. Why is that? Glad you didn't ask. It's because the wineries they are at tend to attract a crowd that I don't care for. So with that it was off to Falkner winery right off of Rancho California Rd to enjoy lunch at The Pinnacle. The Pinnacle is situated high up above the vineyard on the edge of the hill with sweeping views of the valley adjacent to the main winery.

The restaurant is a large room with a wine bar, and large windows looking out to the vineyard. There was a large group that was in the process of being seated and low and behold our server was waiting on them. That always means I get assed out. Surprisingly service was ok but with any big group everyone else has to wait a little longer. I decided to go with the Ahi burger and wish I would have been given a choice on temperature. The Ahi wasn't dry but I would have liked it to be a little less done. It was served with a wasabi sauce on top which was on the light side with just a hint of spice. On the side I had sweet potato fries which I found to be cooked just right although it to be an odd pairing. We had bought a bottle of Sauvigion Blanc, which I didn't really care for, then again I haven't really ever been a huge fan of their wines.

The food was decent on this day and the service mediocre, I do of course understand since there was a large group. I really enjoyed the view and the company, for the most part the rest of my party enjoyed their food. Well I guess Ill have to try it again sometime.

Until next time............. Eat Drink and be Rudy.

This is our version of the Laphroaig Project, a winning cocktail from
San Francisco Whiskyfest 2009.

We call our's Peat Project, get it. Haha, I'm sure mist of you don't.
Since we don't have Laphroaig, we used Compass Box Peat monster.

Found this cocktail courtesy of Imbibe magazine. Holiday issue 2008.

Jasmine Smiles, gin Campari cointreau fresh lemon juice shaken till
ice cold. Served in a champagne flute topped off with champagne.

Try one, it's delicious. Plus it goes good with goat cheese.

Riviera Supper Club......

I'm going to go about this a little differently this time around, well at least try to.

My buddy Brandon had told me about the Riviera Supper Club in La Mesa. Since finding out about this place I have been there a lot, its a fun place to go and have a good cocktail and a nice meal. What makes this steakhouse different from others is that you grill your own steak. In the center of the restaurant there is a large grill with all the utensils, sauces and spices that you might need. San Diego does have a couple other places that do the same thing, and I have only been to one of those and that's the Gas Lamp Strip club in downtown. The other is the Turf club which its fair to say was the original.

Riviera does it right as far as I'm concerned. You have the Turquoise room where the bar is and then the main dinning room. Both rooms are a perfect mix of modern and retro. The drinks are excellent and their is something for everyone. My favorite is the Art Snob, nice mix of Knob Creek, ginger ale, bitters and a nice thick orange twist. When it comes to the food, come hungry. The steaks are great and are at a reasonable price. The sides are huge so you just need a couple and there is plenty to share. Dessert is worth mentioning, from the Chocolate Bacon cake to the S'mores Casserole, you wont leave hungry or unhappy.

The staff is young, helpful and very friendly. Riviera Club is a nice place to go with friends and socialize, might be a little tough on a date but then again hanging out around a grill chatting could be fun. Check it out and let me know what you think.


Until next time............Eat Drink and be Rudy.

Let me sum it all up....

So last night was a lot of fun. Everywhere was packed and I'm sure that being a Saturday night and beer week added to it. Let me see how short I can make this.........

Blind Lady Ale House : The pizza was good the beer was good. I didn't care for the cafeteria style ordering and community tables. Trying to pay was a pain in the ass, you had to wait in line again. Id go again but most likely not at a busy time.

Small Bar : Small bar was a lot of fun, great style wide variety of craft beers and quality spirits. It was a fun vibe and the food looked good, come on how can you go wrong with corn dogs. I enjoyed it and would go back for sure. Plus they get extra points for the Absinthe.

Hamilton's Tavern: I have been waiting to go to Hamilton's for a long time, this was a bad night to. The bar was ass deep in Juice boxes. The featured brewery was Pizza Port brewing and I haven't had anything that was bad from them. All the tap handles hanging from the ceiling was cool, and I want to check it out on a slower night, minus the juice boxes.

Well I don't think that was short at all, oh well.


Until next time..........Eat Drink and be Rudy

At hamiltons now in southpark. It's cool, alot of bro's and really a
bunch of douche bags. Ill need to come back again.

They have Absinthe, and they do the whole drip system. Hell yeah.

Small Bar in University Heights. Again great beer list they do serve
food, that will be next time. Bar is cool has a hip vibe, check out
the next photo. Well it will show up before this one.

Ok the pizza is delicious. Butternut squash with portabello nutmeg and
a bechemel sauce with tagillio cheese.

I'm at Blind lady Ale House, so far not really impressed. Not a big
fan of community tables. Beer list is great. I'm drinking the Dog Fish
Head 90 min IPA. I really like it, for 9% abv it really smooth hops
are nice with a sweet finish. We will see how the pizza is......

Spiced Pear Martini

Great fall drink, the sweetness of the pear blends perfectly with the
spice of the clove. The clove isn't overpowering, lingers a bit as the
cool libation slides down your throat.

Manfashion = tasty, and refreshing.

Come by and check us out, Best cocktails in San Diego. Ok so maybe I'm
just playing favorites, but I know you'll love your drink.

Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina

This is a test to see if this works.

Up and coming....

Well I've finally gotten off my ass and started making the posts again. Funny thing is I'm still on my ass. Any way, I have a lot more stuff to blog about. I just cant do it all in one day, some of the the stuff that's coming up are..........

Jaynes Gastro Pub
Imperial House
Starlite
Riviera Club
Round two at Alexanders
My Trip to San Francisco
Perdomo event at Hoffers
My Night with Eric, Angie, and Paul.
The Restaurant at Faulkner winery
Meritage at Callaway winery
Beerfest at Pechanga
My new Favorite local winery Hawk Watch
Summer Road Trip through Montana and Oregon
And my weekend in Hollywood for the U2 concert


Lots of stuff coming up, please be patient with me its my first time.
I'm really having a good time posting all of this and I hope you are enjoying reading it.

OK night all.

Until next time........ Eat Drink and be Rudy

A trip to Napa, with a long drive home.

For the most part these post have been in order. Somewhere in between I had done a work road trip to Northern California and when I was done with my work I took some time to myself. Here's a little of what I did........


I drank and ate what else do you think I did? You do know how is writing this stuff right.

OK, so my little adventure started on a Friday, I think it was June but I cant really remember, all though I could find out if I really cared. So any way. What else am I going to do when I'm done with work and and I'm an Hour from Napa. Time to wine taste!!!!!!!

My first stop of course always is Domaine Chandon, I really like this place. The tasting room has an amazing view looking out on the garden and out to the valley and mountains. Of course I was flying solo so my wine tasting Indian name was "tastes alone", no offense. Normally the service is great but this day i must have looked like a leper cause it took forever for service, but I was thirsty so I would wait, the sparkling wine is good, and their still wine is nice as well. It was just an off day so I said screw it did my tastings and booked it over to Girard.

Girard has a tasting room in Yountville which I would love to live in. The tasting room is medium size but the wine is great. I really enjoy their Old Vine Zinfindel (lots of black fruit on the nose)and Petite Syrah (nice and dark looks like ink, heavy on the tongue super mellow) which goes great with dark chocolate. One of my favorites is one they call Mixed Blacks, it got its name from the vineyard where it grows. That is because it is a century old vineyard with mixed varietals. Some of the tasting notes are dark plum with soft tannins and warm spices on the palate.

From here I headed over to Silverado trail where I discovered Silverado Vineyards High atop a hill looking down on the valley. The first time I had come here I was at the tasting bar and the wine maker came up with a bottle from the cellar that had their first Sangiovese Rose and they gave me some to try. That really makes an impression on me and will keep me coming back just because of that. On this day I took my wine out to the patio with me and just enjoyed the view.

Next stop was a reserve tasting at Stags Leap wine Cellars, not to be mistaken as Stags leap winery, two different places. So I decided to splurge and I paid for the Estate tasting and it was amazing, big delicious cabs that made my mouth water and want a nice med rare steak. I also lucked out this day because the assistant wine maker was pouring for me so I was able to ask him all about the wine and get answers from someone who is hands on. Needless to say after this is was lunch time, so I headed back over to Yountville.

I had lunch at Hurleys, which had a great patio area and of course wines from the area, but lunch called for an Ice tea and a burger I know boring but it was so good. Nice think patty with thick bacon and blue cheese, yummmy. I ended the afternoon at Mumm another one of my favorite places, their sparkling wine is very good and they view from the patio is so nice.

Now I had intended to stay the night in napa but couldn't find a good hotel rate so I just got on the freeway and started driving south. Now I keep saying oh the next town will have cheaper room no the next one. Well this lasted till I had to go to the bathroom and I ended up in Paso Robles. Now Ive never been wine tasting in Paso and wish I would have stayed but I miss understood what my boss had needed for me to do so I had decided that the next morning I would drive through Santa Barbra area and wine taste there on my way home .

The Santa Barbara area has some great wineries in its region. I love the Estate Chardonnay from Riverbench, and the Grenach from Beckman. After Sideways had come out it unfortunately changed the whole area. Prices went up and people became juice boxes, Hollywood will do that to you I guess. I had lunch at a place called Roblars, I'm not a real big fan of their wine but the restaurant they have has great food. I again went with a burger but no ordinary burger.

This Burger was ground pork and apple burger with romaine lettuce, caramelized onions smoked mozzarella with apples sauteed in brandy. I drank this with Their 2007 Sauvigon Blanc, it was dry but not sweet, low acid and overall just kinda mediocre. The water was nice though, it was infused with cucumber. So after lunch I started the long drive back to San Diego, oh the joys of LA traffic.

It was a fun trip, nice to get out and just go . Oh and I looked it up, this was from May, damn I'm lazy

Id love to hear about some of your wine tasting adventures!

Until next time.............Eat Drink and be Rudy.

Cucina Urbana

Good Food, good price, good drinks, those are just a few of the things I like. We wont get into the others, at least not tonight.

Ahhh Cucina Urbana, it was formerly Laurel a swanky french restaurant in bankers hill. In a matter of 45 days they totally remodeled it and created a new restaurant. The restaurant has two levels one when you first come in that has some small tables and then as you go down the stairs you have the bar, pizza bar a couple community tables and the rest of the dining area. The perimeter is long booth with two top tables.

Drinks, or should I say cocktails. You know I love them, the tails part at least. CU ( cucina urbana) has a great cocktail list, from the use of fresh ingredients and juices to their own house infused spirits. Your drinks take a little time to get to you but that's because they are made with tender love and care. This evening I had started with a Basil Lillet, it had great flavor with muddled rosemary served over crushed ice, it wasn't to tart and you only really caught the gin on the tail end, not the cock end. I followed this delicious libation up with yet another of course and this one was to be the Basil Gimlet, I love gin and when its Hendricks Gin its even better ( Hendricks is infused with rose petal and cucumber), fresh squeezed lime and muddled basil equal yummy. The drink was very refreshing and very limey (is that even a word).

Table for Due.

Dinner, oh yeah time to eat, well at least sit ( make a reservation). So my friend and I go down to the table and take our seats, its nice very dimly lit, table is kind of wide so you almost have to yell for the other person to hear you. So we decide on a few items for dinner and think we need to decide on a wine. OK so here's the deal with their wine list. Its all at retail, its like your buying it in the store, you just pay a corkage fee. I know lame, I'm buying your wine and your charging me a corkage fee. Think about, a $30 bottle of wine is easily 60 to 70 at a restaurant and all your going to pay is 30 plus 8 to 10 for them to open it. Its a no brainer. Uno bottle Pio Cesare 2006 please, lots of berry, dry, with soft tannins, I want to be back in Italy.

So we order a couple items to start the Bruchetta 3 ways.......

Uno : roasted tomato with balsamic vinaigrette and basil
Due: Humboldt fog goat cheese with micro greens and balsamic vinaigrette
Tre: Radicchio ricotta chives eggplant and of course balsamic vinaigrette.

Speaks for it self, they where awesome.


Now this was the fun one, Chorizo stuffed squid with a vegetable rague on top of cibatta. This was so good, i was nervous about the squid part but it was so good and it actually reminded me a bit of Haggis.




For dinner we opted to share a pizza and if your going to have an Italian restaurant you better have a great lasagna. Lasagna didn't fail, a nice bechemel sauce with sausage and a veal ragu. The pizza was just as good, pear and Gorgonzola with caramelized onions, candied pecans and an aged balsamic.







The restaurant was great, the food was good, the service was good and best of all the price was nice. 4 cocktails, 1 bottle of wine, 2 apps, and two dinners, with tip like $160. That's not bad at all.

Check it out, tell me what you think. (make a reservation)

Until next time......... Eat Drink and be Rudy

Alexanders on 30th, a sesame kinda night.

Ello ello, back again I am.

On the same cool evening in July that I had gone to Sea Rocket in North Park, I had wandered across the street to Alexanders for dinner. If I remember correctly Alexanders use to be a pizzeria, and what it has transformed into is something else.

The building is white and Alexanders has two large windows looking out onto 30th street. A white awning is above the door and windows with Alexanders written across the front, shrubs adorn the front of the building with white lights weaved in and out. The inside is pristine and white with soft lighting and candles burning through out. On this night it was slow and there where only a few people in the restaurant. I opted to sit at the bar instead of taking up a table, the bar was a thick white marble with a large flower arrangement. The kitchen is semi open and you can watch as the food is prepared.

I started this dinner out like I always try to do, with a nice glass of Prosecco. I guess a lot of people think that when you start with champagne or a sparkling wine that you are celebrating something. Well I guess I kind of was, I was at a nice restaurant in San Diego and not in hot ass lame Phoenix. So Prosecco how I love thee, the staff was very friendly and helpful. They brought to me a warm loaf of sesame crusted garlic bread which I enjoyed with my house salad.

My salad was mixed greens with red onion goat cheese and cherry tomatoes with a sesame sherry vinaigrette, very tasty



For Dinner I went with the Special, Sesame crusted sea bass over mashed potatoes with sauteed spinach and a vanilla lemon balsamic vinaigrette. Freaking awesome, that was the best sea bass Ive ever had. The sauce was amazing, almost had like a chocolate flavor on the finish. Oh yeah and I had a nice chardonnay to drink with it.For dessert I just had a banana cream cheesecake, I'm not usually a fan of banana cheesecake but this was tasty.

The food was great, the price was right, the people are great and I'll defiantly go back. VIVA SESAME!!!!!!!

Until next time............. Eat Drink and be Rudy..

Im back at it!!!

Ok so I just finished a post from July, really Rudy WTF. So I am going to be having a bunch of post coming up, some on the same day but they span from places I went to from July to now. I'm going to do my best to stay on top of this and stop screwing around.