Notes from Downtown

Well, it's been a few days now, and I still haven't had a chance to complete the post on the Valle de Guadalupe. It looks like I will not get to that until the weekend - but in the meantime I wanted to share a little bit about my adventures this week in downtown San Diego.

I started a new job this week with a government agency. I won't say which one or what branch, because I am keeping it on the downlow for now and don't want to risk blowing my cover just yet. At least not until someone stumbles across the blog and says "Hey, I saw your blog this weekend!" It's bound to happen sooner or later, I'm sure.

The whole experience has been quite a culture shock. Until this week, I was working at home, in my sweats with my two dogs lounging at my side. Nobody monitored my email or internet usage, nobody reviewed my work, and nobody said boo to me about what to do or when. This is a whole new world - but I think that overall it will be a good experience.

I had planned to start bringing my lunch both as a way to save money and eat better - but to my surprise there is no refrigerator at our office, which makes it difficult to take anything fresh that needs to be kept cold. I have an insulated lunch bag - but that just doesn't quite cut it. I may get my own for the office, but for now I'm pretty much relegated to eating out.

The downtown branch of Extraordinary Desserts is close to my office, so I went over there on Monday to treat myself to lunch as compensation for having to sit in a windowless beige padded box all day. (I'm not kidding - it really is padded and beige.) I ordered the turkey and smoked mozzarella sandwich, which came on levain bread (I think it was Bread & Cie) with butter lettuce and cranberry relish. There was a strange cucumber citrus salad on the side with pepper on it - which I did not eat. I also picked up a cookie and some coffee for after lunch - and one of those Barcelona chocolate bars to keep in my desk. (It has come in quite handy.) The sandwich was very good and fairly large, but it cost 10 dollars. That's not so bad if you sit down to eat, but for takeout it's a bit much. Still, it's nice to have it close by. They have nice cards and gifts if I ever need to pick something up for someone in a pinch. I dashed over there for a double espresso this afternoon - I have a feeling I'll be ducking in quite often for that. The chain deli in the lobby of our building also sells Seattle's Best coffee which isn't too bad.

This morning I stopped at Influx coffee house in Golden Hill on my way to work for a coffee and pastry. It's just a hop and skip from the 94, and they have good coffee and house-made pastries. There was no wait and it has a cool atmosphere, like a little slice of San Francisco in San Diego. (T,he whole neighborhood is very Bay Area, actually). I hardly dare order an espresso, lest they disappoint, but I'll have to give it a try at some point. I will definitely be stopping by there in the future, though I will have to limit my pastry consumption to a couple of times a week. I am really excited about this discovery though.

I have also lunched at Sushi Deli Too in the Spreckles building downtown - which has decent cheap sushi. I'd advise staying away from the California Roll based rolls - they just stick the surimi in the roll without even bothering to flake it up. Their spicy tuna roll is very good though, and they have some good bento box specials. It's hugely popular and they had a long line for takeout when we left at about 12:30. It's about a four block walk from my office - as are most things down in the Gaslamp/Horton Plaza area. I plan to go down and check out the 24 Hour Fitness down there sometime soon.

Today the office also took me and another new person to lunch at Buon Appetito in Little Italy. It was packed at noon, but they were able to accommodate our party of eight. Everyone seemed to like what they ordered - I had the pasta with mushrooms and peas in a brandy sauce and it was fine. I was coveting one of the other attorney's salads though - with avocado, shrimp and salmon.

That's all we have time for right now - but I will be back to complete the Adobe Guadalupe post this weekend. Sorry to be so sparse with the posting, but it's hard to work and blog at the same time!