Folks, sometimes we feel the need to act like real San Diegans and eat outdoors, in the sunshine, on a hot day. The Barefoot Bar and Grill is one of two restaurants on a tiny tropical island here in San Diego where the captive audience can choose to either dine here or right next door and pay 5 times as much. That’s how they get you. There’s one road in and one road out. I suppose you could swim, but the water here is colder than people think.

The entrance to the Barefoot Bar & Grill is accessible from the water side. Meaning the only way you’d really see this place is if you arrived by boat or if you were a fish. It’s under a hill, very much like a hobbit hole, and just as cozy and welcoming with all its nice lush dark wood. There’s more seating outside than inside and it’s flanked by a lovely water fall that dumps salt water and its accompanying parts per million of sewage back into the bay right at tableside. Actually the view and glittering off of the bay are so beautiful that this place would have to really go out of its way to screw it up, so we sat down right at the edge of the water, hovering over the giant tide pool upon which the entire restaurant is perched. Huge fish swim back and forth under the patio and you can toss them any parts of the meal that you don’t like.

We had several warm up martinis and the steamed clams in tomato saffron broth, of course the only way to screw up a clam is to serve them still closed, and these were tasty enough to soak up with extra bread.

We passed on the grilled cheese soup, which I am fundamentally against, and the calamari proved to taste exactly as one would assume.  It was not the 7 martinis that were to blame for my failure to follow my own rule of never ordering the steak at a seafood restaurant, it was the fact that they had horribly overcooked my yellowtail, rendering it unfit even for a homeless feline. Marcus had better luck with the grilled pork chop, and our producer’s medium cheeseburger arrived predictably well-done. I guess a burger mistakenly well done is service done well for these laid back beach grill types, who when they shuttled my dried out fish back into the kitchen the server said “awww, dude..that always happens”. They brought me a cookie to make me feel better. It was the size of my face and made me feel like a kid who has been told to eat what they’ve been given. We may not have cleaned all our plates, but we drained all our glasses, gazing out over the sparkling bay and appreciating what we were really paying for. The expectation of fresh coastal seafood may lure you in, but it’s the reality of the amazing rippling bay only a few feet away, the singing gulls and the salty breeze that keeps you seated just long enough to rack up a giant bar tab.

So Yoshino is a little brick restaurant in a bland looking building that you’d never spot if you weren’t looking for it.  And they’ve had a dirty banner up for years advertising their sushi so at first glance it’s a bit scary- that is if you’re easily scared by food.  Read more »