Stone Brewing Bistro & Gardens Liberty Station - San Diego, CA

The Stone Brewery at Liberty Station next to the San Diego airport is just a great upscale bier garden.  The Stone Brewery is famous in the craft beer community as a really great brewery that is well on its way to going big-time nationally and internationally mostly because of a couple of its high-dollar ales that you find in most grocery stores on the top shelf of the beer cooler.  Their "Arrogant Bastard" is a favorite of mine as is their IPA.  I'd say that it is one of the best breweries in the US.

The beer garden is pretty big.  It is probably an acre and a half outdoors and probably 4,000 s.f. indoors.  It is really beautiful inside and out.  The outdoors area is what I consider to be desert landscaping with crushed stone walkways, lots of desert grasses, waterfalls and koi ponds.  One waterfall is build into a bar.  The tables are all covered by umbrellas to protect people from the SoCal sun. 

The indoors area had a huge beer selection on tap.  Some of the beer is produced on-site and some is brewed at their Point Loma and Escondido locations.  When you first walk in there is a seating area with big glass windows that look in on the brew house.  They were not brewing while I was there.  Unfortunately, they only do brewery tours at their Escondido location.

As far has the beer goes, I had tried two.  You can read my Untappd.com beer reviews on the Sacred Druid here and my review of the Ron Pattinson/ChuckAlek/Stone Liberty Station Colonel Sykes East India Porter here.

The food was every bit as good as beer even if it is not necessarily the focus of this establishment.  I had the chicken schnitzel with spaetzle.  It was as good or better than you would get at any good German restaurant.

The service was really excellent.  The greeter dude actually gave me the big tour of their location before before I had to make the decision of where to sit.  My waiter was equally attentive and knowledgeable about the beer and food.

As awesome as the Stone Brewery is, it is not a triple-D location.  It is also not a diner, drive-in or dive in any way, shape or form.  So, huge points for location, food and drinks.  Points off just for not fitting the triple-D criteria, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  I would rate the Stone Brewery a 9.0.

2816 Historic Decatur Rd #116‎
San Diego, CA 92106
(619) 269-2100 ext. 2000
http://www.stonelibertystation.com

Sammy's Food Service and Deli - New Orleans, LA

Sammy's was a neighborhood restaurant that served their food cafeteria style. It was a pretty nice place but definitely fit the category somewhere between diner and dive.

Service was good if not a bit slow.  They must not make your meal until you order.  I'm not sure if that is not just a laid back NOLA thing because the patrons didn't seem to be in any big rush either.  People were hanging out at their tables forever.

I saw what looked like a Flintstones brontosaurus rib being carried by my table.  I asked one of the people working there.  She said it was a short rib order and seemed to get excited about how good it was.  I believe her.  I'm going to try that next time if they still have it.

They seemed to have a lot of specials.  I ordered the ultimate roast beef po' boy special with  a side of cornbread dressing.  The roast beef was more like roast beef and gravy plus some kind of creamy onion sauce.  No sense in over-thinking it.  It was a really good, calorie intensive sandwich.  I'm writing this as I'm skipping dinner to try and keep my daily caloric intake for the day to a four-digit number.  I got it "dressed" which means with lettuce, tomato and pickle.  Only I ordered it without pickles.  You can see from the photo that someone was clearly messing with me because they put the Godzilla of pickles on my plate anyway.  The po' boy bread was average.

The cornbread dressing was what you would expect if you grew up in the south.  (I didn't) It was kind of like Thanksgiving dressing only with the cornbread base instead of a bread base.  There were some trace cajun flavors in there as well but, I couldn't quite put my finger on them.  It was nice and moist, too.  The Texas cornbread salad they call it is usually pretty dry.  I like the moist version much better.

I'm guessing that they're known for their fried chicken. I'd say 80% of the other patrons including the skinny people were eating the fried chicken.

Overall, I'd say that Sammy's was good.  I'd rate it an 8.3.

Sammy's Food Service and Deli
3000 Elysian Fields Ave
New Orleans, LA 70122
504 947-0675