Hard to believe what’s going on right now. We loved BG for HH.
And if that weren’t bad enough, just today we found out that one of our favorite places for a hot sandwich and wine in LI, Roma Urban Market, has also closed.
wow i was just there last week. Bummer
Sorry you guys lost some of your favorites. Hope good new places replace them.
Me too.
Brooklyn Girl had been for sale since 2016. That’s an awful long time for a restaurant to be on the market. Makes me kind of wonder what the issues were.
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Speaking of biting the dust, is there anyone home here?
Happy to hear from you.
Yes
still here, check in about once a week with the crickets. I wish there was an alternative besides the Eating Drinking in SD facebook group!
Yes, agree.
I agree! Wish we were sharing our latest favorites. I’ll start a thread of current favorites, if you’ll join me.
Claudette is leaving El jardin which is getting rebooted into yet-another casual Mexican cantina.
El Jardin is history - SanDiegoVille: Highly-Hyped El Jardin Closes In San Diego's Liberty Station For Concept Revamp Without Founding Chef
Shuttered today for a quickie revamp into a more traditional Mexican menu resto. Chef Claudia will be gone too.
In spite of a high profile chef and a curious nod in the James Beard semis, when your bar menu and service is more interesting and better executed than your food, it’s a problem. Even in high traffic Liberty station. Sad to see it fail, but not particularly surprised.
This is pretty startling news, frankly. And it says something, although I’m not exactly sure what. Your explanation is probably (at least) as good as any, I suppose.
Bummer! Why can this type of place do well 1 hour south in the Valle but not make it in SD? I guess back to carne Asada fries.
When was the last time you ate at El Jardin? Frankly, aside from the ocassional good dish here and there, the food was not particular well executed. The last time I was there service was lacking. There was 1 waiter for the entire room. The hostess and manager were running and busing plates. The James Beard nom was a surprise and I couldn’t see how it was warrented based on the experiences I had there.
What was served at El Jardin is not what is served in the Valle, Baja or mainland Mexico. It’s also a lot easier to open a restaurant and make it successful in Mexico than it is in San Diego. Fewer rules and regs, a lot less costly.
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Been awhile since I’ve been, but when I went I liked it, and didn’t think it was that far off from the Valle places I’ve been except for the price. Mostly though I liked their menu and that it seemed like she was trying to do something different from the same old stuff we always get in SD. Oh well, you never liked it from the get go, and to be fair, I think you (@DiningDiva) as well as @DoctorChow and others who regularly post here are much more knowledgeable than me.
Frankly, I was not pleased with my only visit, with either the service or the food. Currently I’m looking for a traditional family run Mexican place to replace several we used to go to regularly. I love Tony’s Jacal in Solana Beach, but it’s too far for a casual dinner, especially battling traffic. The best I’ve found so far is Brother’s for chile rellenos.
I wasn’t a regular at El Jardin, but the few times I was there I enjoyed both the food and the service. I’m startled not just because of my own experiences, which are no more than that, but because the place got so many good reviews.
I was looking forward to the menu evolving, but not this drastically. I know what you mean by “family run”, and there’s definitely something to be said for that. There’s a place like that near me: Maritza’s. On the other hand, when people talk about “authentic” or “real” Mexican food, it’s a little confusing, because there are so many “typical” Mexican dishes. Mostly, people are thinking about northern Mexican fare. But there’s much more that we never see here. Here’s a good link to show what I mean by that.
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