Before venturing forth to San Diego, I canvassed many Bay Area friends for food recommendations. Be it restaurants, cafes, farmers markets, or drive-thrus, I wanted to be armed with lots of places to eat.
At the top of the list was Saffron Noodles and Saté, which came highly recommended by a designer friend who knows and likes her food. Not only did she give me the name and address of the place but she was even ready with specific dish advice. Also, her art background compelled her to tell me that the owner, Su-Mei Yu, is friends with Dale Chihuly and that the place is packed full of his stunning glass creations.
Last night, a group of us descended on the unassuming and tucked away Saffron and not one person left unhappy or hungry. Acting on the given advice, I ordered the Vegetarian Drunken Noodles (which had five chili peppers next to its listing on the menu, so Mark was quite happily sweating as he ate), the Pad Thai (because I can't resist it in any restaurant that offers it), and two ginormous chicken satés.
Our patient friends -- who had arrived well ahead of us due to our getting completely lost thanks to some TOTALLY erroneous directions from Mapquest via the restaurant's website that had us down by the WATERFRONT instead of in the Mission Hills neighborhood -- were nice enough to order us a plate of vegetarian egg rolls to keep us conscious until our order was up. The menu at Saffron calls these "Fantastic Egg Rolls" and they were. There was something stuffed deep down in there that made them taste unlike any other egg roll I've ever had. It was very subtle and unexpected -- a spice of some sort, like cinnamon or cloves. Damn tasty.