The Local

I hope you all enjoyed my last post. I mean who doesn't love food, so there is really no reason why you wouldn't want to hear about the best places in San Diego and I guess the not so great :) As I mentioned in my last post, having a food allergy can be daunting, especially when it comes to going out to eat. I am pretty pro skilled at it these days, and so are most restaurants but I still come across a few places that I am not satisfied with. Most of the time, I don't think people truly understand the severity of my allergy. 

The Local Eatery and Drinking Hole , which is located in Downtown San Diego on Fourth Avenue, is a bar/restaurant that my boyfriend and I pass every time we are downtown. We kept talking about how we should try it because he is a total beer snob, and they looked to have a pretty great food/beer menu. I have really tried to step outside my comfort zone when it comes to trying new places so I was willing to give it a try. I am going to say it now, the food was good, I will give it a 6-7, but the service was a 4. Let me explain...

The first thing that I always do is to scan the menu, most people are looking for what they want to eat within the first few seconds, but for me I am looking for that red flag... PEANUTS. I noticed immediately that they had a thai styled salad, which of course concerned me because this usually includes peanuts. When our server FINALLY came over to our table, I told her about my allergy, and she just stared at me not saying a single thing. Most definitely awkward...I asked her about the salad and she just kept saying no no no no, so I asked her about the oil they used for their french fries (peanut oil can be weird, it is usually safe for me to eat, i'll explain this weirdness in another post), she again just looked at me and instead of answering, she walked over to another couple that walked in to seat them... strange. When she came back she asked if we were ready to order and I asked again about the oil and if I was safe to eat. She said no peanuts. Honestly, I am not 100% sure if English was her first language, so she may not have understood ... As I am sitting here typing this story out, I wonder why I thought it was ok to stay and eat, but I did and luckily it worked out... but I would NEVER go here again. Whether I had an allergy or not, the service was awful. I was not impressed. The food wasn't horrible but I may as well be eating at the YardHouse or BJ's. At least they have onion rings. 

When it comes to having an allergy I am pretty understanding, not every restaurant is going to be able to accommodate me, but peanut allergies and other food allergies are very common these days and these places need to understand that if they don't recognize food allergies or at least train their staff to know what to say when a customer comes in, then their business will suffer... because not only have I told all my friends & family about the lack of customer service at this restaurant but I have now told all of you.  

The plus side of our adventure downtown was that my boyfriend wanted to show me a condo he was looking at, so I had him take some photos of me in front of these super cute brick row houses. I have major heart eyes for anything brick and anything that looks like it should be on the east coast.

Of course, he was being silly and not wanting to carry my camera around because he felt like a tourist, but he snapped some pretty great photos, plus I got to give him a quick lesson on shooting in manual. 

ootd// skirt: Forever 21, Shirt: Boston University, Jacket: Forever 21, Shoes: Converse