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 Travel & Outdoors | February 2008 
Hip Hub of Tacos and Tiki
 Phil Tripp - Queensland Newspapers
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| | San Diego's harbour is a haven for yachts, deep-sea fishing charters and whale watching vessels, and it's also lined with restaurants and resorts. | | |
While most people think first of Los Angeles or San Francisco as destination cities in California, the jewel of southern California has to be San Diego, perched on the Mexican border across from gaudy Tijuana.
It was also the site of a famous America's Cup yachting clash in 1995 in which the oneAustralia skippered by John Bertrand sank during the semi-finals.
San Diego also shares a surf culture with Australia. It's lined with beaches such as Swami's in Encinitas, Wind-N-Sea in La Jolla and Mission Beach at the edge of the harbour. All have their surfie hangout bars but the cuisine centres not on fish and chips but the ubiquitous fish taco.
Hard shell or soft, flour or corn tortilla, whitefish or dark flesh varieties, beer battered or grilled, salsa or mayonnaise-based sauces – these are topics of debate among fish taco fans who devour them from surfside bars, takeaway windows or mobile taco stands on the strands.
Though San Diego was the first city in California settled by Europeans, it has a diverse culture from Latin American to Asian. Among the city's attractions are a mild climate free of temperature extremes and storms coming in from the Pacific Ocean.
It's a young city, vibrant without being snooty, and affluent without being ostentatious.
Unlike LA, San Diego is not choked by freeways and has far more accessible attractions, including one of the top zoos in North America, an aquatic wonderland with performing killer whales and seals, the bizarre Legoland and the Wild Animal Park in the hills.
San Diego is also a hub for side trips into the Temecula wine district an hour away, as well as the golf and spa resorts in North County seaside havens of La Jolla, Encinitas or the horse country of Rancho Santa Fe.
There's no shortage of family activities, yet San Diego does not seem like a tourist town. Yet it is
the entry point to Mexico for those with a hankering to drive the dusty Baja Peninsula or venture to southwest US destinations such as Phoenix, Sedona, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.
San Diego is an easy two-hour highway drive from LA but the train, departing 10 times a day, offers more spectacular viewing. The three-hour ride in the big-two-level cars of the Pacific Surfliner takes you along the coastal hills.
It's only an hour by plane and the beauty of the harbour reveals itself as you glide into the airport, less than 2km from the CBD.
Everything seems central in San Diego, which combines the historic and the hip without being tacky.
From adobe structures in Old Town San Diego Historic Park to the beautifully preserved Mission San Luis Rey in nearby Oceanside, the Spanish influence of the 1800s is prominent. The point where explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed in 1542 is a 60ha reserve perched on a bluff with views along the harbour to downtown.
The Gaslamp Quarter Historic District is an entertainment and shopping quadrant of the city housing 16 blocks of Victorian architecture from the late 1800s. It was saved from bulldozing and redeveloped with art galleries and trendy shops occupying former mercantile structures.
At night, the gas lamps light up the area as it morphs into a nightclub, and restaurants lure you with incredibly diverse cuisines.
San Diego is a shopping mecca, with megamalls dotting the suburbs and shopping plazas devoted to outlet and discount stores.
Horton Plaza next to the Gaslamp Quarter is the city's centrepiece mall occupying six city blocks and has every top brand imaginable. A few blocks away, the Seaport Village spans three shopping complexes that snake along the harbour with a 400m long boardwalk fronting the bay.
San Diego's harbour is a haven for yachts, deep-sea fishing charters and whale watching vessels, and it's also lined with restaurants and resorts. The long lawns and sheltered beaches have extensive picnic and barbecue facilities and fishing from the beach is common.
Heading seaward past the San Diego Yacht Club, the 20m bluffs of Sunset Cliffs lure crowds for vivid displays of sea and setting sun at Point Loma. Children frolic in small coves and beaches while surfers catch waves as the sun sets.
There's no shortage of nightlife in such a youthful city and one trend that has survived is the culture of Tiki, a Polynesian craze introduced in the 1950s.
The Bali Hai Restaurant was the first temple of Tiki, a big round hut erected in 1953 that is lined with carved faces and Pacific memorabilia.
Set on the tip of Shelter Island, it looks a bit like a retro spaceship. Across from it is Humphrey's Half Moon Inn, an early Tiki-filled hotel that has gone upmarket lately. It hosts a summer concert series in a 1300-seat outdoor venue. Artists to have trod its boards of late include Stevie Wonder, the Beach Boys and the Doobie Brothers. The latter two are regulars at Humphrey's Concerts by the Sea.
The Tiki influence extends to the Gaslamp Quarter, where the hip and happening revival bar is Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge. It is like being transported to Tahiti with exotic cocktails, lurid carvings, illuminated inflated blowfish, fishing net glass balls and a sushi bar with Pacific Island cuisine.
Six blocks away for those who need to cure the hangover or have a non-alcoholic Tiki Punch before being massaged, is Spa Tiki, which offers treatments from pedicures to a broad range of massages in private bungalows.
They're open every day to chase away the spirits from too many Tiki cocktails or too much sun. |
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