Bite San Diego North Park Tour

Sometimes the best way to experience your own city is to act like a tourist.  Todd and I do this quite a bit in San Diego.  A great way to experience some of these tours and attractions is with a Groupon.  This is exactly what we did when we went on the Bite San Diego food tour of North Park.  We love learning about the history of our city, and we also love to eat.  This tour is the perfect combination of both!  So on Saturday, 3/30, we headed down to North Park for our 3-hour food tour.

The tour started at Splash Wine Lounge. 

This place was voted as San Diego’s Best Wine Bar in 2011.  The unique thing about this wine bar is the machines that dispense a 1-oz tasting of wine.  You purchase a card with a set amount on it.  Then you just insert your tasting card into the machine and press the button on a particular wine you would like to try.  The wines are priced differently and you just go around the store until your card runs out of money.

The wine tasting was not part of the tour, so Todd and I didn’t participate this time around.  We were there for the food!  They served us flat-bread pizzas.  Each person got a couple of pieces of the pizza. 
This was actually Todd’s favorite stop out of the 6-stop tour.  The flatbread pizza was very good!

The atmosphere inside Splash was very warm and friendly.  It is definitely a fun place to hang-out with some wine-loving friends!


The Bite San Diego food tours are walking tours.  So when we walk from one place to the next, we got to hear the history of the neighborhood, and see the sights.


Our tour guide Dana and our group gathered on the sidewalk to hear about some neighborhood tidbits.


Our 2nd stop on the tour was Redwing Bar & Grill.  It is owned by a mother-daughter team.  It is also one of the last few gay bars in North Park.

We hung out on the back patio.  It was really nice!

We were served buffalo and teriyaki wings, along with a few french fries.

I thought both wings were delicious.  They definitely hit the spot.  I can imagine that if I liked beer, this place would be great!

I love the neighborhood of North Park.  It is one of our favorites for walking around and eating.


Our 3rd stop on the tour was Marie’s Café. 

It has a 50’s diner vibe, with vibrant pink walls!

Marie’s served us maple smoked bacon and french toast.  They were both delicious.

Our tour guide Dana told us that since Marie’s is open until 3am (or something like that), you get all the best customers past midnight, after they’ve frequented the bars. Marie herself works the night shift just so she can chat with the most interesting customers!

The iconic North Park neon sign.  In many neighborhoods in San Diego, you will see a neon sign telling you what neighborhood you’re in, in the middle of the street. 


The iconic Birch North Park Theater, fully renovated in 2005.


Now I am reminded of the Northstar Session rock band photo shoot that took place in 2004 while this Birth Theater was under renovation.

Do you recognize anyone you know?  Oh yea, that was during his rockstar days.  The rockstar days were prior to this blog being active, so one of these days I will go back and tell the untold stories.  :)

The 4th stop on the tour was Subterranean Coffee.

It is a really cute coffee boutique with lots of dessert and sandwiches/soups.  Lots of items on the menu are vegetarian or vegan too.  We were served the vegan Tomato Chorizo Bisque. 

It was tomato-y and spicy and actually very good.  Couldn’t tell it was vegan at all, ha ha!  They had a large chalk board with lots of their sandwich choices.

And lots of muffins and desserts.


The 5th stop on the tour was Sea Rocket Bistro.  It is known for its fresh farm-to-table local food.

I’ve actually been to Sea Rocket Bistro once before with Sally, back in 2009. 

Their ceiling is decorated with cardboard & duct tape fish and tiny tiffany lamps.

We were served sea bass taco at Sea Rocket Bistro.  It was rather good, but the chargrilled fish had sort of a bitter taste to it.


Todd insisted on taking a photo of me.


The 6th and final stop on the tour was Zensei Sushi.  By this time, we were getting pretty full.  The place was decorated with art, and had a bar.  I liked the artsy vibe.

We were served spicy tuna roll and a salmon sashimi on seaweed and cucumber.  Both were good.


The Bite San Diego North Park Food Tour was quite enjoyable.  We picked a really awesome sunny day to spend the afternoon in North Park, one of our favorite neighborhoods in San Diego.  If you’re looking for a unique food tour, I would recommend Bite San Diego. They have food tours of other neighborhoods too!