South Koreans blown away by San Diego's tacos and burritos
Our family visited San Diego for the first time, and I peeped around here to look for some places to eat. Your insights were invaluable. My father genuinely wanted to visit Chipotle, but I persuaded him against it. Here are most of the places we visited.
1 Kiko's place seafood in Mission Valley (fish taco/burrito):
At first my parents were very unimpressed with the truck, because they were expecting a proper brick-and-mortar restaurant. We ordered fish, spicy shrimp and garlic octopus taco with ceviche. Our minds were blown away with the first bite of fish tacos. We couldn't get enough of it, we visited this truck three times over five days and spent about $140 trying all the different menus. The OG fish burrito and garlic octopus burrito were incredible. The latter was great even when eaten cold a day later.
My only regret is that I only figured out what the hot soup thing in styrofoam cups were on our last visit. I was too shy to ask what it was and how to order it. Apparently they just put the cups out, and you just grab one! It was a vegetable soup thingy and it was also delicious.
2 The Taco Stand in La Jolla (burrito, taco, churros):
The line was very long, and the place was packed! We ordered among other things a california burrito and hot churros. The burritos were top notch, they were delicious, warm and just packed with food. The churros were awesome as well. Our verdict was that the tacos were great, but not as good as Kiko's. It was after this meal that my father remarked "mexican restaurants in Seoul were not like this. this is so good"
3 Pop Pie Co. (green hog and cheese pie):
Lovely pies, larger than they look. Out of several pies, the green hog and cheese was unanimously declared the best. The key lime pie was great too.
4 Honorable mentions:
tamales from Northgate Market(okay-ish. I think we visited too late in the evening), chocolate milk from Trader Joe's(so lovely), and Costco(just AWESOME)
5 Farmer's market in Little Italy:
fun to look around, but exorbitant prices. My mother saw a spam musubi selling for $8 and a single tamale selling for $7. It was a shame.
6 Other places we wanted to visit, but couldn't due to time constraints.
Mitch's seafood, Da Cabeza/El Unico, Valerio's City Bakery, Birrieria & Taqueria La Huasteca.
By god your city is incredible. We couldn't get enough of the food, the nice weather and the views. This subreddit was a treasure trove of useful tips, thank you.