The hotel I'm in, The Omni, is next to a brand-spanking-new ballpark where the Padres played tonight. Across the street is a new Hard Rock Hotel with a pool bar on top that's much too cool and trendy for a soccer dad to frequent. I looked around enough to know that I probably shouldn't be there and moved on.
Fifth Street goes through the heart of the Gas Lamp District and it has some of the tourist traps I remember from years ago, such as Dick's Last Resort, and places advertising authentic seafood that offer a wide variety of things deep fried beyond recognition as any particular type of seafood. What's new though is a host of new small restaurant patios offering some pretty unique dining options. Some even label themselves as gastropubs. What's also changed for the better is that there is live music everywhere. It's on the street. It's in restaurants. There are blues bars, bars featuring girls impersonating 80s girl bands and of course the soulful single guitar player in the dive bar singing his battered heart out. How could someone 23-years-old have suffered so much pain at the hands of love?
All in all, San Diego now reminds me of Austin, Texas. Looking for good music, interesting conversation with friendly people and some out of the ordinary dining options? They're all here. Walking down Fifth Street and hearing the blues, I swear I was walking through Austin, Texas.
I did find a great place to eat, The Escape Fish Bar, which is really more of a patio where you can view the goings on of the street, listen to music from neighboring bars and eat things like chipotle curry seafood chowder with fresh pollack on top. No dairy, just lots of flavor and a lot of fresh vegetables. It really wasn't a chowder, but it was darn good. It was here where I witnessed a first impression gone bad.
The only other people on the patio were two girls probably in their early to mid 20s. Who can tell? I just know they were much younger than me and probably were surprised I was eating later than 4:30 p.m. when they arrived. Anyhow, they were both in some very nice cocktail dresses. Clearly, they either were going to meet dates or they were going to go to the kind of place that had a dress code.
About halfway through my chowder, I noticed a group of young men walk up and one of them struck up a conversation with one of the young ladies. He of course picked the one that was really, really dressed up. He was trying to make headway by asking about the food, music preferences, stuff like that. Had he planned ahead a little, he might have made a new friend. Who knows?!
Unfortunately, when he got dressed up for his night out with the guys, he chose a t-shirt with a Mountain Dew logo on it. While not as dressy as the girls in their cocktail dresses, this could have possibly still worked if they guy was charming enough. Unfortunately, his shirt was a special shirt where the wording on the Mountain Dew logo had been changed to "Mount And Do Me." So, picture this, he's trying to chat up this young lady and appear interested in her culinary and music preferences while sporting the message "Mount And Do Me."
From my angle, I could see her eyes darting back and forth between his face and the shirt. Her mind was probably a little conflicted. "He seems nice, but I've only known him for five minutes and I can't stop staring at 'Mount And Do Me' on his shirt. If I seem interested, will he think I've agreed to the shirt contract?"
So, alas, love was not meant to be. The conversation eventually stalled and the floundering guy's friends led him away down the street. They are probably at Dick's Last Resort right now trying to figure out just what went wrong in their friend's quest for love. No worries, though. By the looks of the crowd gathering there when I walked by on the way back to the hotel, my guess is Miss Right might be somewhere there for our Casanova. And, in all likelihood, she'll be wearing the same t-shirt, so they'll know it's truly love at first sight.
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