Cheap Eats

By Thomas K. Arnold, Tom Blair & Judi Strada

(page 2 of 5)

DiMille’s Italian Restaurant

3492 Adams Avenue, Normal Heights, 619-283-3153
Spaghetti/Ravioli Combo with Large
Caesar Salad, $14.20 for Two

Mamma and Papa DiMille have long since retired, but the recipe for authentic Italian family cooking is safe in the hands of their sons, Mike and Jim. The menu’s fairly extensive for family-style, but you only need to know a few basics, really: spaghetti, lasagne, ravioli, linguine with clam sauce, chicken and eggplant. The atmosphere is pure Italian-American: cozy Naugahyde seats, booths trimmed with lattice, red-and-white color scheme. (Only the Chianti bottles and plastic grapes are missing, mercifully.) The best deal is the spaghetti/ravioli combo, $8.95. Split the generous entrée, and wige Caesar salad (enough for four, really, at $5.25) and a basket of Italian rolls, the two of you could be out the door for under $15 (plus tax and tip).
Abbondanza.

Hideaway Café

150 South Acacia Avenue, Solana Beach, 858-755-3388
Polish Sausage and Eggs, $5.75

Home of the best breakfasts—and breakfast bargains—in North County. Egg dishes come with delectable potato pancakes, a zesty Hideaway signature. The homemade fruit breads are tantalizing, particularly the pumpkin bread, heated up and served with a slab of butter. But for sweet tooths, the cinnamon rolls are well worth the $1 upgrade. True to its name, the Hideaway Café is tucked away in a little cul-de-sac off Lomas Santa Fe, where the main road meets the ocean, in a tiny, ramshackle wooden cottage covered with vines.

Yen’s Wok on Pearl

915 Pearl Street, La Jolla, 858-456-1414
Sang Chu Sam, $8.95
Yen’s sits squarely in the heart of La Jolla and has captured the heart of locals for its tasty Korean, Japanese and Chinese food served at fair prices—and for owner Audrey Yen’s attentive presence. A whole Peking duck for two, with crisp mahogany-color skin and moist dark meat, comes with 12 pancakes, scallion fans, cucumber slivers and hoisin sauce, $19.85, a fair price. But an even better deal, packed with just as much flavor, is Sang Chu Sam ($8.95). It’s a Korean dish of hot minced barbecued beef that you place in red leaf lettuce, add a little steamed rice and a touch of Audrey’s fermented sweet-hot chile paste, kochu jang, then wrap up and eat with your fingers. It delivers a sweet (but not too sweet), spicy (but not too hot) taste.

The Gathering

902 West Washington Street, Mission Hills, 619-260-0400
Lamb Chops with Mint Jelly,
Potatoes and Fresh Veggies, $14.99

The menu at this well-entrenched Mission Hills neighborhood restaurant doesn’t list all the specials. In fact, it blatantly ignores the free floor show. We’re talking about proprietor Dan Thomas’s impromptu magic act, which goes down equally well with steak, fish or fowl. Thomas has been perfecting his culinary and prestidigitation skills here since 1986, and both acts are boffo.
Two bargains from the kitchen and bar are worth noting. The chef’s nightly specials, $14.99 to $16.50, range from steak to scallops to calamari relleno to lamb chops (our favorite). And then there’s the Every Night Fireman’s Special: Drinks are half-price for two minutes when a fire truck from the station up the block goes by with its siren on. It happens a lot.

Wynola Pizza Express

4355 Highway 78/79, Wynola, 760-765-1004
Caramelized Pizza-Crust Salad, $8.95

Tom’s Chicken Shack is remembered by longtime San Diegans as the place to stop for fried chicken while on the road to Julian (the pint-size town of Wynola is 3 miles outside of Julian, on the Ramona side). Tom’s has closed, but the gustatory gap has been filled with terrific wood-fired pizza, lasagne and chicken dinners at this new restaurant in the mountains. Local architect and artist Jim Hubbell designed the pizza oven’s mosaic exterior, replete with cracked dishes and teapot spouts. Split white oak from local trees fires the oven.
Lasagne—vegetarian or meat sauce—is a real deal at $6.95. So are the 10-inch pizzas. A favorite with the salad set is the caramelized pizza-crust salad, $8.95. You get a hot, thin, crisp 10-inch crust, caramelized and get.

Casinos

Note: Children under 18 are allowed to eat in Barona and Viejas restaurants under adult supervision until 8 p.m. Must be 18 or older to enter Sycuan casino and restaurants.

Barona

1000 Wildcat Canyon Road, Lakeside
619-443-2300
Buffets, $9.99/$10.99,
and Ceviche Tostada, $3.50

Gambling can be hungry work. Barona kicks in at 6 a.m. with a delivery of warm Krispy Kreme doughnuts, 80 cents each, and revs up with shrimp specials in the afternoon served out of a shrimp kiosk.

A killer ceviche tostada, $3.50, is made with seven kinds of cooked seafood, including squid, octopus, shrimp and mussels. Dinner draws you in—like a winning poker hand—to a buffed-out buffet, $9.99 (except Tuesday’s prime rib night, $10.99).

Sycuan

5469 Casino Way, El Cajon, 619-445-6002
Dinner Buffet, $12.95

Big beefy ribs, covered with a smoky barbecue sauce, baked beans and a crisp, light coleslaw are just three down-South winners Sycuan offers at its full-scale dinner buffet, $12.95. Add the recently opened state-of-the-art Showcase Theatre, featuring the likes of the Doobie Brothers, to the mix, and you’ve got more reason than just gambling and good food to venture east.

Viejas

5000 Willows Road, Alpine, 800-847-6537
Blue Plate Specials, $5.99
Step into the ’50s at the Sunrise Diner, in the heart of Viejas Casino, and order breakfast 24 hours a day. Sit in a booth, or at the soda counter next to the pie case, and get ready for The Mega-6 ounces of top sirloin, two eggs (any style) and hash browns, $4.99. Or to go for dinner and check out the Blue Plate Specials, different every night, $5.99: Tuesday is beef liver and onions; Wednesday's is pork chops.