This seemed like the best spot to throw in a few words:<br /><br />1. Beer. No one has mentioned beer. Let's not debate about who has better beer, let's just enjoy the fact that there are ton of quality breweries here and one fantastic street/area of bars and restaurants that have tons of great beer (from everywhere). 30th Street, North Park. <a href="<a href="<a href="<a href="<a href="
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http://30thstreet.org/</a></a></a></a></a></a> And "The Linkery" is owned by a Cal alum. I favor Blind Lady (not quite 30th). The entire area is a short cab ride from downtown, though you should note that Hamiltons (great) and Toronado (yes, from SF) are not walkable.<br /><br />2. Along those lines, if you are up in the Escondido area visiting the Wild Animal Park, stop by Stone Brewery. Nice place, great restaurant, not "cheap" pub food, meals run $15 to $20 at lunch, $20 and up for dinner. Solid brewery tour, if you haven't done one before, but you might need advanced reservations. <a href="<a href="<a href="<a href="<a href="
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http://www.stonebrew.com/</a></a><br</a></a></a></a> /><br />3. Gaslamp - of course. I have kids, don't go out much these days, but I'm sure there's something for everyone there.<br /><br />4. Little Italy - the area is really up and coming with some great eats. There was always decent Italian food, but great variety now that more people live there, 5 min north of downtown, basically east of the airport. Bencotto is a lively new place I really like. Craft and Commerce gets raves, haven't been there. Yelp it to get other ideas (Bottlecraft also is supposed to be great). <br /><br />5. Fish tacos? South Beach in Ocean Beach on Newport Avenue, grilled fish tacos of all varieties (Rubios sucks, but you are free to disagree). Ocean Beach is like Berkeley on the beach. This area combines well with a trip to the Cabrillo Monument in Point Loma, which in my opinion is a quick visit (for historical purposes), but has the best views of the city. If the tides are super low, you can check out the tidepools (ask the ranger, $5 to enter or something like that).<br /><br />6. Other places I might take tourists: downtown La Jolla, La Jolla Shores for a stroll on the beach in December, or downtown Del Mar for something similar. The younger crowd might enjoy Pacific Beach more, tons of bars, but with school out, not sure how busy December is down there. Julian is a nice mountain town about an hour east of San Diego. Gamblers can swing by at least 2 or 3 casinos on the way out there.<br /><br />As for the HB, as I've posted in past years, don't complain about the traffic on Friars if you plan to arrive 1 hour before the game. <b>4 hours</b> before the game is when you need to drive in, if you plan to do that. Then, you can tailgate or do the Cal tailgate. I agree with other posters, the trolley is a pain on egress from the game. It's just a bottleneck, but I've never had it take more than 30 minutes, personally. Pick your poison, it's a pain to drive out of the parking lot with 15,000 cars, as well. <br /><br />2 cents over...have fun in SD.