Taste of Gaslamp

Today was the Taste of Gaslamp in downtown San Diego. For $25 per ticket, you get to sample food from 32 different participating restaurants. You get a map of the restaurants, and you walk around downtown and eat good food. Sounds good, right? Sally & Brian went with us on this foodie adventure. We had gone with Sally a couple of times previous years, but not last year. I had invited Sally last weekend, when I realized that it was coming up this weekend. But after inviting her, I felt a little bad. I always tend to over-eat at these food events, and I just didn't want to feel like a glutton with lots of guilt afterwards. I am trying to change my relationship with food, which I will examine in a separate post in the near future. Anyways, I told Todd that I felt really gluttonous about going, so he proposed that we buy one ticket and just share. He'll eat the foods that he likes, I can eat the foods that I like, and if we both like some foods, we'll just share with smaller bites. That was amenable to me. But really, I just wanted to hang out with Sally & Brian and didn't want to renig on that. The weather today was blue skies and sunny, none of that June Gloom stuff today. We walked around downtown in search of the restaurants. Sally enjoying the shrimps at Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina. Todd enjoying the awesome steak wrap at Donovan's Steak House. They also had a stuffed mushroom, but I got to eat that because Todd doesn't eat mushrooms. Because Brian is vegetarian, I also got to eat meat stuff that he wouldn't eat, if I wanted them. So I got to partake of the awesome steak wrap too. Here we were at Fred's Mexican Cafe. Their little chicken and veggie fried cake was very delicious. I don't know why I decided to make such a face. The boys leading the way to Nobu, where we had king crab gazpacho. The display case at Heavenly Cupcake. Todd showing off his little chocolate cupcake. Todd found a froggy friend on the sidewalk. Sally getting a good bite at a rib at the Hard Rock Cafe. I thought the roof in the rotunda at the Hard Rock Cafe was super-cool. At Yogotango Frozen Yogurt, we got a taste of a flavor of our choice, plus some fruit, and some mochi. More food. Clockwise from top left:

• Shrimp and garlic toast @ Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina
• Stuffed mushroom and steak wrap @ Donovan's Steakhouse
• Little beef slider and tater tots @ Whiskey Girl
• Chicken & veggie cake with sauce @ Fred's Mexican Cafe

All in all, we went to 21 restaurants. We ate at most of them, but not all. We got more choosy toward the end, when we were getting full. Brian was the official note-taker of the afternoon. He took notes of what we ate where, and how we felt about it. He will be emailing me the list and I will add to this blog post later. Of course, we didn't really eat dinner after this food-fest. I'm glad I went, but I'm glad we shared, because I was plenty full, but I didn't over-eat like all the previous food events.