My name is Joshua and I am a 31 year old male (single) born and raised in Madison, WI but transplanted out in spring 2010. I have been in SoCal for 3 years this past March and love it! I reside in Point Loma near Liberty Station (lucky me!) In these 3 years I have found SD (San Diego) a hotbed of culinary offerings, food options, authenticity and diversity. If you want it you can find it in San Diego without question. I have lived in 4 states from 2010 to present. In that time I have had LOTS of food from LOTS of places and most it very good to outstanding. But San Diego holds a special place in my heart (and stomach) right now compared to all other places. This blog will show you why that is in visual and descriptive fashion!
I am a full time fitness professional for the US Navy as a civilian employee currently assigned to the USS Essex command (ship) stationed at Naval Base San Diego. I will be here for at least a year or more while out ship get work done so this gives me lots of time to fully explore, seek and savor the many "bites" that await me. That said I want to make a few things very clear about my blog.
- I normally eat very clean and strict 90% of the time during the week similar to a New Nordic diet combined with parts of Paleo
- I will feature my better bite reviews once a week when I am typically having my weekly Saturday or Sunday "splurge meal"
- I rarely ever eat wheat or flour as it jacks up my blood sugar real bad, real quick even in small amounts. (nothing against gluten however....just saying...)
- I am lactose intolerant for the most part. Plain Greek yogurt and low fat cottage cheese I can handle OK but that's about it. Sad really bring a born and raised cheese-head from WI.
- I teach 2-3 fitness classes a day for my job. 30-60 minutes each. 5-6 days a week. I train as a powerlifter myself 6 days a week for 90 minutes or so. I hike almost every weekend for 2-4 hours pending hike. That said I am very active and like it that way. I don't sit still well.
- I eat about 4000 or more calories a day every day even on my rest days. Anything less and I lose weight which I DO NOT want to do. At 6'2'' with a metabolism showing no signs of aging.....I don't look, feel or perform well at under 200lbs.
So now that you have some of my life principles, dietary reasoning, food philosophies and lifestyle factors known, you can hopefully better follow where I come from and how my food reviews are part of my otherwise healthy, balanced and active lifestyle
This blog will function in a different way. I will not simply feature 1 food item or 1 food venue by itself. I do that quite often and have for 6 years on my Yelp.com review page. I have been a Yelp Elite member for 5 years as a matter of fact. Please check my reviews there as well for that kind of 1 place, 1 dish type of review. But here I will be doing more of a head-to-head taste-off review of 3-5 venues that all offer up 1 kind of popular food item. Be it carrot cake, BBQ, pancakes, fish tacos, cali burritos, poutine fries, sushi, burgers etc......I will find the top 3-5 venues (no less, no more) in the San Diego County limits as found on Yelp.com and TripAdvisor. Those that hold the most reviews with higher scores will make my cut to be in that weeks head to head review for "a better bite".
All head to head food reviews will be scored 1-5 on a scale as follows:
- appearance
- taste
- texture
- aroma(if it applies to that food)
1 being the low end and 5 being the high end. Food items sampled with the highest overall score then take the top spot at "the better bite winner".
So......my last notes to all of you is to please leave comments with local area food venues and food themes you want to see me put in head to head taste off review and feature it here. I am open to ideas. Right now I can say that I have a Tri-Tip BBQ review on its way which will be my first official posting from just this weekend! Stay tuned!
Happy eating San Diego and remember..... always look for "a better bite."
