San Diego Uptown News news and information about the heart of San Diego

If you’re searching for a charming, full-service restaurant to slurp margaritas and nosh on familiar Mexican fare — sans the mariachis and guacamole-crazed travelers intrinsic to Old Town — look no further than Huapangos in Hillcrest.

The national chain, founded in 1972 by the late Rocky Aoki, sizzled its way into San Diego 24 years ago.

It’s home to one of my favorite margaritas in San Diego, a blood orange concoction that sneaks in about a shot and a half of tequila.

Due to some weird allergy in which I’m hit with flu-like symptoms for a couple of hours after taking several sips of coffee, I can count on one hand the times I’ve ever set foot inside a coffeehouse.

By Dr. Ink If you’ve never been to Southern Germany, a visit to Kaiserhof German-American Restaurant in Ocean Beach provides some Bavarian moments without setting foot outside of town. The visit also puts in your mouth some of Germany’s best-tasting beers made under strict purity laws dating back hundreds of years.

By Dr. Ink It’s a boxy structure that sits unassumingly on the border of Hillcrest and Mission Hills. For at least the past 35 years, dive-bar aficionados have known it as CJ’s, although the address has been a watering hole since the early ’60s, when it was called The 222 Club. Before that it was supposedly a candy store.

The long-established and family-owned King’s Fish House taps into nearly every hedonistic pleasure the oceans have to offer. Except during happy hour.