We all know they exist.  They impact many of our consumption decisions and even though in some sense they are as theoretical as the space-time continuum in Back-2-the-Future, they are as real as the Eggs Benedict I had at Alchemy the other day.  This is a post about applying our most basic neighborhood decisions in a way that makes sense.  Hopefully we’ll be able to share reviews in a meaningful way.

What are the taste-cost principles?

The taste-cost principles are a simple way to evaluate our decision to eat somewhere and/or the food we just ate.  The principles are: goodness, mulligan-ism and ingredient factor.  Goodness is the sheer, unbridled joy the food creates upon reaching your mouth.  If you eat for sustenance alone this factor won’t matter to you.  But for the rest of us, this one is key.  Mulligan-ism is a borrowed golf term that is basically the degree to which we should give a place a “do-over” if the food is bunk.  Mulligan-ism varies inversely with cost of the food. The more expensive the place, the less room for error.  Ingredient Factor is a priority bump for the use of fresh/local/ethically acquired components of your food.  It’s a way to factor in seemingly high food costs and give credit for ingredients that are good for you, our local economy and the planet.  At the end of this post I’ll put these principles to use.  They are hopefully a tool we can use to talk to each other when recommending stuff in the ‘hood.

Let’s take an easy example.  It’s a Thursday.  You have identified that cooking at home is not an option because nothing in your house “looks good” and somehow the day is already gone.  And besides you live in a neighborhood with an endless supply of good options…and a ton of other rationalizations bring you to the decision to go out to eat.  Now the remaining questions are “where” and “what”?  Assume you want pizza, to make it easy (given how much pizza we eat, this is something most can relate to).  Now comes the crunch.  Your options include, in no particular order, Luigi’s, Pizza Gourmet Express, Pizzeria Bruno, Lefty’s, Blind Lady, Zia’s, DeMille’s, DeLuca’s, that place on University west of West Coast that I heard is good but haven’t tried, Mazara, Sicilian Thing, Il Postino and Alexander’s.  You could technically also throw in the flatbreads at Linkery, Mosaic, Splash, and West Coast.  Well, I guess that doesn’t make it as easy as I thought, but let’s roll with it.  By the way, with one or two exceptions that I’ll only mention if asked in person, none of the places I mentioned are bad at pizza, so I don’t mean to suggest that.

Back to the point.  All these options I mentioned to choose from and now you have to decide where to go.  If cost were no issue–which is at least sometimes the case in the pizza market–you have one set of options.  But then there’s the rest of the times when you have to actually weigh that choice. (quick aside: I just realized I left out Pizza Hut, Dominos and Little Caesar’s, which if you want to be a stickler, are technically pizza places in the area, too). So, what to do?  How does one decide whether to have the top shelf goodness that is on one end of the spectrum versus the utility of an old-reliable and still tasty staple on the other?   Here are my taste-cost principles as applied to pizza:

1. Goodness: If it costs more than $15, it has to be among the 2-3 best-tasting pizzas you’ve had when not on vacation. (A trip to Little Italy in New York or Naples–yes that Naples–shouldn’t count)
2. Mulligan-ism: If the slice is $3 or less, it is okay to be middle-of-the-road and even, occasionally, not as hot and fresh as the more expensive cousins.
3. Ingredient Factor: This is like a bonus point category. If you make the sauce, for example, that’s fresh and you deserve extra props for it (as long as you don’t violate the Goodness principle by making bad sauce).

So, for example, I might give Pizzeria Bruno a high G score (8 out of 10), a low M (4 out of 10), and a moderate I.F. score (3 out of 5 bonus points).  That puts it at a composite 15 out of possible 20.  Good pizza, but not much room for error because of the cost.  The extreme example of having a high G but no room for error is Blind Lady.  I can’t rate the ingredients, but it is kind of pricey and well.worth.it.  Another place that really does it well is Lefty’s.  It’s more a utilitarian pizza, and I’m not sure if this is possible, but I think it tastes better because they are the quintessential neighborhood spot.  David has moved over to Mission Hills, but still with Shawn and Vitta and crew, the North Park original is like home.  Lefty’s oozes North Park, doesn’t it?  From the sponsoring little league teams and free pizza for volunteers at various events to people who know you–and remember you–even if your just walking your dog by the shop, this place is kind of an institution.  Anyway, enough of the Lefty’s love-fest.  It’s like thinking of Whistle and South Park, they just seem to go together.

We started a little dialogue on pizza over on the Facebook page, and I’m wondering now how I’d rate the places everyone mentioned when you factor in taste vs cost.  Now I’m wondering about the reverse of recommendations.  What places can I skip?  Please, let me know.

Kind of like a monument...with hasbrowns

We live in North Park.  We love it here.  I used to live on Grim and our post office is at the corner of Grim and NP Way (for now).  I actually “cheated” on my barber at a barber shop that is right next to the Post Office (always trying to keep it local).  Here’s the point.  In the six years since we moved back to San Diego, I have passed Lucky’s restaurant a gazillion times at least, and never stopped in for a meal.  There’s really no good excuse, it just happened that way.  So I was surfing the internets working the other day and came across a review of Lucky’s.  I’ve posted that review and a nod to its author at the bottom of this post.  But let me give you the run down on the food, the service, the legend that is Lucky, himself, and anything else I can think of.  Here goes…

First thing worth noting is the collection of folks that dropped in for breakfast on the morning we went.  If there were any reason to question the diverse hodge podge that makes up our ‘hood, let this be a big ol’ raspberry to the doubters.  There was everything from freshly outta college friends showing the little brother from out of town a local haunt to more “seasoned” locals who had posted up in what I have to imagine is the counter for locals.  Wait, quick aside.  You walk through the door and there are two big u-shaped counters.  No tables, sparse menus, no real frills to speak of.  This helps frame the experience right off the bat.  Anyway, so we plop down at a couple counter spots at the rookie’s counter and grab a menu from in front of us.  We notice the owner buzzing around as owners are wont to do in these parts, and he is busily taking orders and regulating people’s caloric intake. Scrreeeeeech!!  Yes, you read that right.  This was the first moment of hilarity I experienced, when the owner/server/host shoots back at a guest in a very thick Chinese accent “that’s too much food for you.” HAHAHAHAHA.  (aside: clearly when I ordered he realized I needed no such admonition, alas the P90X isn’t taking)  I’d actually read about Lucky’s warnings in the review, but I kinda thought he was making it up for literary flare–nope.

The menu is super basic. Egg options, “hotcake” options, french toast, a few omelets, and so on.  There is no “powdered sugar this” or “egg-dipped and rolled” that.  The menu is like that date where the other person has one-word, non-descript answers for everything.  But what it lacks in depth it makes up for in, well, ridiculously.cheap.prices.  Nothing on the menu over $4.75 I think.  And it’s not like the ‘Bertos or Saguaros where the prices say one thing but it’s really just ‘cuz folks are too cheap to update the menu (hate that!).  These prices are legit.  One last thing before I give the real important detail, please calibrate your reading and taste buds appropriately.  Lucky’s is good and charming, but it is not Urban Solace or Alchemy or Farmhouse Cafe (and it is not trying to be).  Point is, if I say the Belly Benny at Urban Solace or the Spinach and Feta at Alchemy or the Onion Tart at Farmhouse are “tasty” it is a different use of the word than may appear below. So, now onto a quick list of the most important points:

1. The hasbrowns are tasty and worth making sure you include them.  Especially if you get a batch that is good and crispy on the outside.  The pancake is plenty big enough to share. Not Big Kitchen big, but really large enough for most normal appetites.
2. The coffee was passable.  I am not a coffee snob, so the purists among us may disagree, but I found it to serve its purpose quite well (aside: do NOT file a claim about getting burned by the coffee, be forewarned, it is HOT.)
3. Lucky is like Rain Man, in that he never wrote anything down the whole time we were there, but remembered all 15 orders and the exact amount of each (rounded to the whole dollar), without skipping a beat.  It was really worth the price of admission all by itself.
4. Not-so-hot:  Lucky was also the host and server and chef.  This means you cannot expect anything resembling “fast” service or “timely” refills of coffee.  Yes, I continue to randomly abuse the use of quotation marks, it is the only way I have to convey that all-important sarcasm.
5. Not-so-hot, part deux: the sausage was ungood, which was magnified by the fake-out.  It looked like it was going to be good on my neighbor’s plate, and it had that dark brown appearance of goodness…but it just wasn’t.
6. Other than that, I liked the place, and I really think it’s worth a visit either in a pinch or just for a VERY cheap change of pace.

One last thing, we met a grandfather in from Oklahoma visiting his new twin baby granddaughters and some North Park newbies who just moved in up by AC Lounge.  Point is, the other cool thing about Lucky’s is you are so close to your neighbors that you can meet fun people.  Which, as you might imagine, was something we really liked.  Okay, here’s a link to that review I mentioned.  Thank you Reader for the heads up on a place I so should have found on my own.  Cheers.

Okay, it’s not that Central Park, but awhile ago I was talking to a guy named Sam who said he and his fellow 30th/Upas friends wanted to push for a new neighborhood in the area…Central Park.  Seems catchy, if not super original given the big one.  But the idea seems pretty cool.  They could get together some cool shirts, take ownership of cleaning up some of the problem spots and vandalism, and brand themselves a little piece of heaven.  I like Sam’s Central Park because it feels relaxed.  So, tonight, on the advice of our friends over at SD Urban, I set out to try a burger at one of the newer restaurants in the 30th and Upas area…The Smoking Goat. (Runners may appreciate another “smoking” goat, this one is an ultra-running friend in northern California).

I know, Fred’s had the place open for awhile.  Thanks to a few protesters (they were protesting liquor licenses in general, not The Smoking Goat specifically), when we did our first “research” there they didn’t have beer or wine.  Tonight that problem had been rectified and I was able to enjoy a proper American Ale with my meal.  I’m not big on the Ales, but I had to take one for the team and pick from their two-beer selection so I could get to the important stuff.  Speaking of important stuff…

Hungry?

So I guess the question is, how was it?  I was bummed about the slanting patio, but that’s not their fault.  Even though I don’t love Pat’s across the street, there is something kind of North Park about it, right?  And I didn’t mind the mildly loud bargoers next door, they kind of added to the experience.  But this is about the food.  Here’s what my research revealed:  The brioche bun was better than several others around, much lighter which is a plus.  No fun having a burger that feel like your chewing through a loaf of bread.  The burger was a blend from Hamilton Meats (aside: I mean to check on this company to see what type of meat it was, anyone know about this company?).  It was not bad, not as good as the braised beef short ribs I had last time I went, but not bad.  Better than average, I’d say.  I had high expectations, perhaps unfairly so.  After all, thanks to Edgar’s recommendation of the Jayne’s burger, I now assume everything will be outstanding.  Please allow me to let my inner nerd loose for a moment.  I think it important that you be able to normalize my comments.  So let me tell you a few other test subjects against which you can gauge my review.  I really like burgers at The Linkery, Alchemy, and Jayne’s and the veggie burger at Station.  And I think Crazee Burger gets way more pub than the three burgers sampled there earned.  Back to the review.  The truffle fries were pretty tasty, though kind of too big.  This is a strange critique, I know, but that’s what I thought.  Oh, the homemade dijon aioli was really quite tasty.

All in all, I highly recommend The Smoking Goat for food food, but if you are craving a burger there are probably a few others locally to indulge in first.  I probably should mention something about the cost-deliciousness ratio, and its impact on my assessment, but its late.  The short version is that I think a $10 meal should come with different tastiness requirements than a $20 or $30 meal.  I hear I need to visit Rocky’s in Crown Point, but really unless they open a satellite location east of Park and south of the 8 its probably not gonna happen in the immediate future.  One more aside, does anyone know when the Gelato spot next to Alexander’s is going to finally open?