RoundAbout San Diego

A couple of Fridays ago we had our happy hour at The Linkery in North Park. A farm to table restaurant, you are pretty much guaranteed the freshest of produce.

The menu is changed daily, focusing on the fresh produce they have on hand. Our Friday night menu offered a wonderful selection of beers, wines, fresh salads, homemade sausages, flatbreads, etc. We had a great time sitting and reading the long list of farmers and artisans that provide all the produce that go into the menu while we drank and ate.

We had the bacon and a pepperoni flatbread, with an andouille sausage on the side. The pepperoni flatbread had a little bit too much jalapeno for my liking so Alex ate the whole thing. The bacon flatbread with the goat cheese and caramelized onions was delish. They messed up our order just a bit so offered us carrot cake for dessert for free - we were happy to accept. Very moist, very sweet.

All in all we liked this place. Casual atmosphere, very friendly staff, fabulous menu, and a really great idea for a neighborhood restaurant. We will definitely go back.

West Coast Tavern is located in the lobby of The Birch North Park Theatre. The theatre, originally built as The North Park Theatre in 1928, has been a movie house, vaudeville venue, and church. In 2004 it was renovated and is once again a movie theatre as well as opera house

The Tavern offers a fabulous section of small plates. Alex and I arrived early as usual and pretty much had the place to ourselves. We started out with west coast fries, and the bacon, blue cheese flatbread with arugula and carmelized onions - a great combination of toppings. A Cupcake Sauvignon Blanc (me) and a Guinness (Alex) rounded out the first course nicely. Up until this night I had always favored the fries at The Prado, but I thought the west cost fries were much better - thin, crispy, with just the right amount of salt and herbs.

We continued with ground lamb sliders and charred green beans. The sliders had a topping of feta cheese, rosemary aioli, and caramelized onions, while the green beans had a sprinkling of chopped wild mushrooms and a roasted garlic vinaigrette. All of it was mouth-watering good.

By this time others had started trickling in and we were definitely beginning to get the "Hey, it's Friday" feeling - don't you just love that?