Valentines Day – Herringbone, La Jolla

This was a weird day. This was the first Valentines day I had to work at night in years. With that, Andy and I decided a few days before that we should go do lunch that day and we decided on Herringbone in La Jolla. Now, full disclosure time – a friend of mine works there. Also, going in we had a bit of a bias in that we are usually not great fans of Brian Malarkey’s restaurants. We’ve been to Green Acres, Burlap (which used to be in Del Mar) and Seersucker and weren’t impressed with the food. On top of that, the places lacked ambiance and the service was consistently poor. That said, I went in with some low expectations to Herringbone.

It’s a very non-assuming building in La Jolla just off the main drag. When you walk in, it has a very cool cantina vibe. There was even an acoustic guitar player there, who I must say was just amazing. They took us to our table and I was taken with the four mature olive trees planted in the dining room. The manager said they had been brought in especially for the, and that the facility was designed to support their care and nurturing.

It did take a while for someone to come over and take our drink order after we were seated and perused our menus, even though the restaurant was not busy at all. Come to find out later, the server forgot about us and he was mortified. But that time was well spent looking over the menu and deciding what we wanted. We ended up with an order of Kumamoto oysters and an oyster sampler (Hood Canal, Kumiai, and more Kumamoto). They were Heavenly!!! Each of the oysters had their own unique characteristics — some were sweet, some were more briny, but all were delicious.

We then landed on the Breakfast Pizza flatbread and the Funghi flatbread. The breakfast pizza was amazing! The fried egg was done perfectly, with just enough yolk left over for us to dip our slices in and the hollandaise was so tangy, which was just divine. The Funghi one was not as great. It included a chiffonade of sage that, when mixed with the mushrooms, gave a very soapy taste. Definitely a miss!

You know what wasn’t a miss? The dessert, which was a huge, warm pecan sticky bun! That was sex on a plate. I wanted to climb into a bubble bath with it while candles burned and Barry White played in the background. We were not thinking about dessert, until one of these beauties was sauntered by our table on its way to another guest. It was like it had a big butt pushed into some tiny shorts., you just couldn’t help but stare. So we had to have one, and we did and it was ridiculous how good it was. The cream cheese icing was just the right spreadable consistency and the sticky glaze was tooth achingly sweet.

Both of us were really pleased with the atmosphere of the restaurant and the bar. The bar area has an arched canvas roof that can be retracted to enjoy the sunshine. The art, the fixtures and the indoor trees all combine to make this a delightful place to eat. Between the atmosphere and the food quality, we may have to rethink our opinion about Chef Malarkey’s establishments.