Sea Rocket Bistro -- North Park

So I finally found my camera battery, which has been missing, for a couple weeks now resulting in a lack of food blogs, because what's a blog without pictures? Alas, when I went to Sea Rocket yesterday, I still forgot it charging at work. So I have pictures from my new Droid, but the camera on it sucks, so the pictures aren't great either, but they'll do.

I went to Sea Rocket yesterday because it was part of the Green Flash 30th Street Progressive Dinner, which is part of San Diego Beer Week. There was a shuttle sponsored by Green Flash taking you up and down 30th street to the bars/restaurants that were offering beer pairings with different courses of food. Pretty sweet stuff! Anyway, I went to Sea Rocket in South Park, which is a pretty snazzy place. It wasn't really what I expected it to look like for a place called Sea Rocket Bistro, but it was a nice setup nonetheless.

The menus (sort of):

Here's what we got (sorry again for the sucky quality pictures):

Alan got a Cask Beer & 2 Tapas and since it was happy hour, one of the tapa was free! Yay for free things. 

Green Flash Hop-less Ancient Gruit & Le Freak: Alan loved the cask beer! I wasn't as big of a fan because it comes at a warmer temperature, but the flavor was pretty good. I liked it more than I thought I would when I saw the dark color. The Le Freak was really hoppy, so not my favorite, but better by itself than in the tomato sauce (see below).

Mini Pork Sloppy Joe with house-made pickle: This was just adorable! And also thoroughly enjoyed by the bf.

 

 Winchester Gouda Cheese & Honey on bread: Great choice for cheese lovers or gouda lovers. Really full with flavor, and the drizzle of honey was a great counterpart.

 

Mexican Wild Shrimp and seasonal vegetables simmered in a Le Freak tomato sauce: I must say, this was prettty disappointing. The beer's flavor after it had been cooked into the sauce was extremely intense, and pretty difficult to eat. It didn't even really taste like the beer; it just tasted like pure alcohol masked with a tomato soup, kinda like what it smells like when you're part way through making jello shots and the alcohol is just boiling out, but you're tasting it instead. Know what I mean? In any case, the shrimp were nice and plump and tasty - a little lacking in flavor, but fresh and yummy nonetheless.

All in all, planning on coming back, at least for happy hour. We got out of there for $18 -- pretty solid. They have some really interesting dishes that I'd like to try too. The lady sitting next to us ordered sea urchin bisque, and it came in the sea urchin shell, which looked kinda like this:

Some crazy lookin stuff. Fun little place. Sea Rocket happy hour + Zensei happy hour (next door) + Luigi's At The Beach = one pretty awesome Thursday night out.

Date of consumption: 11/13/2009
What it'll cost ya: $10 for a beer and a couple tapas during happy hour. $10-20/person for a normal dinner visit, I'd say. 
Where to find it:

   Sea Rocket Bistro

   3382 30th St
   San Diego, CA 92104

   Yelp it!
 

Good to be back on fattyChat!

--fatty monkey out