How do you pronounce croissant? Says the Parfait Paris team: with the soft “kuh” and the perfect “oh-wah.” But let’s get real—the pronunciation isn’t nearly as important as the craft that goes into one. And at Parfait Paris, the craft is a three-day love affair with dough, butter, and time.
It starts with the right ingredients: premium flour, Normandy butter (because nothing else comes close), and hands that know the art of lamination. There’s no rushing this process—each step is executed with precision and patience. The dough is made, folded with butter, and meticulously layered to define a true croissant.
Then comes the waiting: letting the dough rest, proofing to perfection, and finally, baking it to golden, flaky bliss. A proper croissant doesn’t need anything extra—it’s a masterpiece all on its own. Flaky, airy, buttery—it’s everything you want in one perfect bite.
National Croissant Day is January 30–mark your calendar and stay tuned to see how Parfait Paris is celebrating.
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Get TJ Oyster Bar’s battered fish taco, or the thin-sliced silky pulpo, or the smoked Mexican tuna taco (theirs is saltier, smokier—a great thing). This strip-mall taco shop was already a local favorite. But when the 2008 recession hit the neighborhood of Bonita hard, the family that runs it offered their fish taco for 99 cents. Word got out, lines spread past the nail salon, snaked around the little strip mall. Families were fed, neighbors communed and commiserated in the parking lot. People remember things like that. Twenty years later, TJ Oyster Bar is legend. This is SDM Guide to San Diego Food + Drink. Favorite dishes, drinks, places, things found across the city by food editor and longtime Food Network judge, Troy Johnson. The stories of the people who make the food + drink culture hum.
What a treat it is to live in a world with pug cafés. At Cuppapug, a British business that just opened its first U.S. outpost in Escondido, CA, there are pugs running amok in a clicky-clacky cacaphony, pugs jumping into ball pits, pugs panting like asthmatic marathoners... Pugs on pugs on pugs. Here’s how it works: Guests book a one-hour visit—$30 for adults, $20 for kids—which kicks off with a pug stampede. From there, you can sit on the floor and see if one’ll climb in your lap. (Odds are good.) Or you can gift a pug a pupccino. Or get a treat for yourself: cocktails, hot and cold drinks, toasties, cakes. Most of the dogs you’ll encounter belong to the cafe’s management–they’re longtime pug owners and lovers. Cuppapug also hosts events to spotlight local pugs that are adoptable or in need of foster homes, and the café’s charitable partner, @pugrescuesandiego, gets a portion of proceeds. Head to Cuppapug.com for all the details.
Ever stared at the stars and felt a pang of childhood wonder—that dizzying sense of how vast the universe is and how small you are? That’s the vibe at Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World, on view at The San Diego Museum of Art through January 5, 2025. Curator Dr. Ladan Akbarnia leads us straight to the exhibition’s soul: an illuminated 15th-century manuscript copy of The Wonders of Creation and Rarities of Existence, an awe-inspiring Islamic cosmography by Zakariyya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini. Written in the thirteenth century after the Mongol invasions, this text serves up a dazzling cosmic tour, from the stars to the tiniest creatures on Earth. Rich with golden illuminations, mythical beasts, and poetic inscriptions, the opening pages from this later copy are a masterpiece that doesn’t just describe the universe—it revels in it. “These pages aren’t just beautiful,” Akbarnia says. “They’re a reminder to approach the world with wonder.” With its fusion of art, science, and storytelling over 200 works spanning 13 centuries, the exhibition invites us to pause, reflect, and rediscover the extraordinary in the everyday.
First Look: Botanical Building in Balboa Park
First Look: the restored Botanical Building in Balboa Park.
After four years and a $28 million facelift, the building returns to its 1915 glory with added features like interior misters, state-of-the-art lighting, and a new lily pond.
Built as part of the Panama-California Exposition, it is one of only four structures designed to remain as permanent features in the park. It’s also one of the largest wood lath structures in the world. With more than a century of wear and tear on the all-wood structure, The City of San Diego and Forever Balboa Park teamed together to return the iconic building back to its original, 20th century shine.
Now that the first phase of renovations are complete, the building is ready to welcome back visitors. (Phase two will further enhance the gardens, including new exterior landscaping, and add more visitor amenities. So, more plants to come.)
Your favorite place for mindful strolls and casual botany opens again to the public on December 6th.
Video by Jeremy Sazon and Liv Shaw
History is alive at the newly refreshed Botanical Building in Balboa Park, San Diego. After four years and a $28 million facelift, the building returns to its 1915 glory with added features like interior misters, state-of-the-art lighting, and a new lily pond. Built as part of the Panama-California Exposition, it is one of only four structures designed to remain as permanent features in the park. It’s also one of the largest wood lath structures in the world. With more than a century of wear and tear on the all-wood structure, The City of San Diego and Forever Balboa Park teamed together to return the iconic building back to its original, 20th century shine. Now that the first phase of renovations are complete, the building is ready for its close-up. Your favorite place for mindful strolls and casual botany opens again to the public on December 6th.
First Look: Communion at The Sasan. A restaurant in the clouds, from the family who brought us Pacifica Del Mar. Communion debuts this Thursday on the top floor of The Sasan, that tall, curvy, millennial-pink new building on Washington and Goldfinch in Mission Hills. It’s one of two new concepts at The Sasan; Paradis, an indoor-outdoor café on the ground floor that becomes a European-style pintxo bar at night, opened its doors a few weeks ago. Communion’s on the rooftop, and it’ll offer a 360-degree view of the city and a seafood-forward menu (think toro, crudo, and poke) with a complementary cocktail program.
Get the full story on both Communion and Paradis, as written by food reporter Beth Demmon, here: https://sandiegomagazine.com/food-drink/first-look-communion-paradis-mission-hills/
North Park’s new era starts now. On Wednesday, Drew Deckman–the man responsible for one-third of Mexico’s Michelin stars for sustainability–is finally opening his first restaurant in San Diego. @bajafishingchef has spent years helming @deckmansenelmogor, cooking under pine trees in the dry, open wild of Baja, goggles blocking billowing smoke, giant tongs in hand. This week, he’s moving that free-range magic inside. All produce and greens at @31thirtyonebydeckmans
are from San Diego farms. Oysters from Baja. Food of its place.
@heytroyjohnson caught up with Drew inside 3THIRTYONE ahead of its opening–two friends talking dreams and shamans and the dismantling of ego. Link in bio for the full story.
Welcome to Fox Point Farms. A bucolic new agrihood in Encinitas filled with leafy greens and reclaimed wood and kids who eat their vegetables. Homes border regenerative fields; residents know farmers by name. And at the just-debuted Haven Farm + Table, led by chefs Alex Carballo and Kelston Moore, the menu is driven by the current harvest. (Think carrots al pastor, radish carpaccio, or tomato jam on a bison burger.) Also on property: a brewery. Marketplace. Apothecary. Chickens. More vitamins and minerals than a GNC. Link in bio for the full story on Haven and Fox Point Farms.
First Look: Ponyboy at The Pearl Hotel. Retro-inspired dishes and drinks, a badass team of big-name culinary and cocktail people (Addison alums among them), a velvety mid-mod aesthetic, a fetching little pool in the heart of it all. Soft opens tomorrow in Point Loma. Link in bio for the whole story. @theponyboysd
This week on our Happy Half Hour podcast: we catch up with Lia and Spencer Hunter, the mother-and-son duo behind @liaslumpia.
In Chef Spencer Hunter’s family, the adage could be, “like mother, like son.” When competing in Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race, his mom, Lia, was the only teammate he had in mind. After coming in at second place, Lia’s Lumpia, a San Diego-based Filipino food truck and restaurant, was born.
Restaurants are in Spencer’s blood: his grandmother opened the first Filipino restaurant in National City, San-Loy’s Lumpia and Food To Go. And though his family taught him to roll the thumb-sized, fried-and-stuffed rolls, Spencer also worked in Brian Malarkey’s kitchens and studied sustainable tourism in the rainforests of Panama.
Spencer and Lia talk through the journey from Grandma’s National City restaurant to food truck glory in a come-up that blends family tradition, cultural preservation, and innovative culinary fusion.
Link in bio to tune in.
