Cheap Eats

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Come On In!

1030-B Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, 858-551-1063
700 Prospect Street (at the Museum of Contemporary Art,
San Diego), La Jolla, 858-456-6427
10184 Telesis Court, Sorrento Valley, 858-558-8964
Soup of the Day, $3

Super-simple, super-good food makes this a favorite hangout for hungry La Jollans. They flock to this spiffy little restaurant, tucked into a tree-shaded complex, for the town’s best scones, cookies and coffee cakes. They sit down to enjoy homemade gnocchi with a choice of four-cheese sauce or tomato, garlic, basil and mozzarella, or maybe one of the colorful salads. Most of all, they come in for the soup, different each day and all nondairy. Rich chicken noodle, chunky tomato basil with Stilton cheese, creamy butternut squash and icy cold gazpacho are favorites. More than enough at $3 a generous cup, but if you’re really hungry, order a bowl at $3.85.

EZ Take Out Burger

4277 Genesee Avenue, Clairemont
Double-Meat, Double-Cheese Burger, $2.70

You can see, hear, smell and almost taste the grease when you sidle into this tiny 7-by-10-foot walk-up, hard by the Home Depot in Clairemont. No antiseptic, cookie-cutter, fast-food chain here. This is serious burgerland. The single cheeseburger is $1.70. The fresh beef patty comes with fresh lettuce, fresh tomato, fresh onion and hearth-baked bread—fresh daily, of course. The double cheeseburger has double everything (except the bun), and it’s an EZ meal without the fries (although we recommend them, at $1.09 for about a ton). Two patties of beef not enough on your burger? How about three ($3.70) or four ($4.65) or five ($5.60)? Then you can forget about the boysenberry shake, made with real ice cream, for $1.49. The breakfast burrito is a heckuva deal, too: two eggs and cheese, $1.26; four eggs and cheese, $2.19.

Café Picasso

7420 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, Suite 116,
Clairemont Mesa, 858-874-0007
Tuna Melt, $5.25

The phone rings off the hook around noon each day at this health food–oriented café as repeat customers call in their lunchtime favorites. Tuna lovers go straight for the tuna melt sandwich, loaded with fish, lettuce, tomato and melted Cheddar cheese on whole-wheat bread, served with fresh fruit or a green salad, $5.25. Picasso’s juice bar cranks out generous 16-ounce fresh-squeezed juices and 24-ounce smoothies. A favorite is the “blueberry blues,” made with blueberries, strawberries, bananas, nonfat yogurt, wheat germ and vanilla, $3.45. Order the luncheon special and get one-half of any sandwich, plus a choice of any full-size smoothie or fresh juice, for $5.95.

101 Café

631 South Coast Highway, Oceanside, 760-722-5220
Hot Roast Beef and Gravy, $6.50

A fabulous Happy Days–style diner, the 101 Café opened in 1928 just as San Diego’s famed coastal route achieved highway designation. It went through various incarnations until current owner John Daley and a partner brought back the original name, look and feel nine years ago. It’s not retro, it’s just old—an authentic relic from the days when Highway 101 was the Pacific Coast’s main north-south highway. Outside, the 101 Café is art deco meets roadhouse; inside, there are worn leatherette booths, jukebox menus in every booth and vintage photos of Old Highway 101 on the walls. Open 6:30 a.m. to midnight, the 101 Café serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. Daley prides himself on using real turkey breast to make sandwiches and says locals swear by his home fries. Breakfast specials change depending on the owners’ appetites; one recent Sunday morning, the special was bagels with smoked-salmon cream cheese, $2.50, which Daley happened to be craving when he got in. For dinner, try the hot roast beef and gravy $6.50, or pork chops, $6.50. Meat loaf is served “in season,” and for real traditionalists, there’s even beef liver and onions, $6.50.

La Vache

420 Robinson Avenue, Hillcrest, 619-295-0214
Special Three-Course Prix Fixe Menu, $16.50

A bargain is a bargain, even when it costs $16.50. And an appetizer of tartine de Brie (toasted bread with baked Brie cheese), with salade paysane (country salad), boeuf Bourguignon and chocolate mousse is a bargain in any language. A surprisingly good restaurant in a Hillcrest strip mall (adjacent to a bagel shop), La Vache is a pretty fair deal when you order from the regular menu. But from 5 to 6 p.m. every evening, and all night on Tuesdays, the prix fixe menu kicks in. The appetizer and salad are always the same; the main course is a choice of beef, chicken or fisherman’s casserole; besides the chocolate mousse, desserts include crème caramel or white chocolate ice cream.

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