Mar 29 2024
Written By: J.Couch
We made a quick trip to San Diego for a job-related event. We were going to stay a few days and make a weekend out of it. However, once we got there, the news was talking about the monsoon rain storm that was coming to the area. Potential flooding and mudslides, as much as we enjoy a delicious mudslide, I am not sure this is what they were talking about. We decided that maybe this weekend was not a great weekend to explore the San Diego area and vegan restaurants that we had marked. In fact, with a little prior research, Heather had a list of about 10 different all plant-based venues to try. We had good intentions to get to a few of them, but in the end, we made it to zero of the ones that we had planned. After an issue with the rental car, we finally got one but a couple hours later than planned. Travel tip: making last minute car rentals reservations is not a good idea. If you can do it a day in advance that is probably the best. Most reward points (like your credit card points) rentals do not allow you to rent the day of. Renting day of, through one of the discount companies like Booking.com or Travelocity is not instantaneous and can be a little dicey. The car company said that they have 24 hours to respond to the rental agreement even though the initial company sends you an email that it is all ready to go. It doesn’t mean that they actually have a car available for you when you think that they do. Well, that was part of the snafu that we ran into this trip. Lesson learned, some of the many issues with flying standby and making last minute plans. We got a car, which cost way more than we planned to pay for the day, and headed out to explore.
First stop we wanted to go to was Old Town San Diego. We have been here before, years ago but wanted to run by there again to check it out. At this point, running a couple hours later than planned we were getting hungry and just wanted to get something to eat. A good friend of ours recommended a couple Mexican food places around there. One was the Old Town Mexican Cafe that has been there since 1977. We were right there so decided to try this place. We didn’t even know if they offered any vegan or plant-based options. That can always be a challenge when eating at places you don’t know or haven’t reviewed the menu beforehand. We were able to get a seat within a few minutes, giving us enough time to watch the ladies that were at the front, making the handmade tortillas. Not sure what all is in them but they smell and look delicious. Per their website, their tortillas have been called “the best in the world” by many, many people. Kind of reminded me of something that Trump would say, “Everyone is talking about how good these tortillas are”!
We got our table and menus. I didn’t notice anything that said vegan or plant based so I asked if they had any other menus with these options. They do not, but they do offer a “Healthy Options” section of their regular menu and you can modify things if you would like. My first thought with this is, does this mean that the rest of the menu is not healthy? How did we get to this point in society of acceptance for unhealthy food? I am not sure that any of this is all plant based or vegan, maybe more vegetarian and the waiter didn’t seem to have any idea either. But since we were there, we had our drinks, we had to try to make the best choice we could with what they had. We didn’t want to leave to try to find something else, we were on the verge of hangry. Ask about the cost of modifications before ordering. We asked about swapping sour cream with guacamole, which they were more than happy to do but at a cost of 6 dollars! I think not. That seemed a little much, but guacamole can be expensive. We ended up ordering the Potato Rolled Taquitos, which came with 3 rolled Taquitos on a bed of cabbage and red sauce and a side of black beans. And a Vegetable Burrito minus the sour cream and no guacamole. We sat and shoveled chips and salsa into our faces as we sipped on drinks and waited for our food. Heather ordered one of their Signature Old Town Mex Margaritas, and me with the typical ice water. I hate to complain about the price of drinks, but I’m not sure that the margarita was worth $14, maybe that’s just me since I stopped drinking alcohol?
The order came out very quickly. The 3 rolled Taquitos looked delicious but for the price it would have been nice to have 4 or 5 Taquitos. There was a good helping of the cabbage and red sauce which had good flavor and a pretty good kick to it. The side order of black beans looked good too but we ended up just dumping them on the cabbage and mixed it up. It was delicious. The burrito came out looking pretty uneventful. When you take off all the unhealthy stuff that seems to be what happens. I cut it in half and the inside looked pretty good. Lots of beans and rice with some lettuce, tomato and onion. However, when I took my first bite the inside was cold. The outside of the burrito was hot but the inside, not. We asked the waiter to send it back to get it warmed up some more. The manager came out and said that they were putting it back in the oven for a few minutes. He tried to explain that the lettuce and the sour cream made it colder. We let him know there was no sour cream to do that, maybe the lettuce? He offered to make a new one, but we didn’t want to waste this one when all it needed was to be warmed. It came back out a warmer than it was but still not steaming hot. But we made it work. Inside the burrito, the onions were raw and not cooked, it was a little sharp on the onion taste but the rest tasted pretty good. Cooked onions can still be healthy onions. It also could have used some other kind of sauce but the flavor was good. Overall, the atmosphere is great, it does have that Old Town Mexican feel, the food, while having some issues, was pretty good.
I am not sure that we would go back there again when there are so many other places to try out there. Maybe next time we are in San Diego we will focus more on the all plant based, vegan places we initially wanted to try.
Thanks for wandering with us,
The Wandering Couchs
