SOLANA BEACH KITCHEN
ADDRESS: 437 Highway 101 #301, Solana Beach, CA 92075
WEBSITE: https://www.solanabeachkitchen.com/
Earlier this month, I went down to the San Diego area as a belated birthday trip for myself. I got into the area a little before midday, and after taking a stop over in La Jolla, I began looking around for a place to pick up some lunch. I wanted to keep it on the healthier side with something like a salad, and one of the places that cropped up on Yelp was Solana Beach Kitchen. The menu and the food photos looked pretty good, so I drove over to give the place a shot.
Located in a shopping center that contained an assortment of other types of businesses, Solana Beach Kitchen occupied a relatively large dining space on the first floor of one of the buildings. I really liked the open air concept of the dining area, with garage doors that opened to the outdoor patio and helped provide a lot of fresh air coming inside. The overall color scheme centered around the neutral colors of black / white / gray, with the wooden tabletops providing a nice visual contrast when you looked across the dining area.
Their lunch menu featured a good array of different appetizers, salads, sandwiches, and other entrées. The only real thing that I had consumed for the day were the coffees I drank on the drive down to the area, so I had already worked myself up an appetite. Almost all of their appetizer options sounded really good just from the descriptions on the menu, so I was contemplating whether to pair one of them with a salad that I was going to order. But then I remembered just how big the salad plates looked from some of the food photos I had seen on Yelp, so I decided to just stick with the salad alone. The Sesame Tofu Salad sounded pretty good, with the Asian flavor profiles being something I felt in the mood for. I decided to tack on an order of salmon to the salad as well.
With Friday still being a work day for most, I suppose that could contribute to why the restaurant crowd was relatively light. There were some tables out on the patio that were occupied, along with people sitting at the bar. A few other parties came in after I did to occupy some of the other tables, but it still felt on the quieter side by the time I was leaving. Before long, my salad plate came out from the kitchen, and it really was a heaping plate of food, just like the photos I had seen.
Presentation-wise, this salad aced the test. Bright, vibrant colors amongst all of the different components that made up the salad. The aroma from the grilled salmon was inviting, with the sear marks looking really spot-on for the two pieces. The slices of tofu looked like they had crisp edges around them, while still maintaining a softer texture in the middle. Since the tofu was the star of the salad, I started by taking a bite, and it had those textures that I was thinking. There was also a really nice soy and sesame flavor to the tofu itself, likely soaking in from the marinade they used.
For the other main components of the salad, cabbage and mixed greens were tossed with a sesame vinaigrette, topped with chopped red bell peppers, cashews, edamame, avocado, cucumber, and wonton crisps. I found out after cutting into it that the salmon pieces had the skin on there as well, which provided additional flavor. Sweet, savory, and umami were all of the flavors I got from the salad, and the textures of both soft and crunchy played as a nice contrast to each other, depending on which ingredients from the salad you got with each bite. It’s definitely one of the more delicious salads that I’ve had in a while, and also ended up keeping me really full for a good rest of the day. I’m really glad that I ended up with just the salad only, as the appetizer on top of this would have really been too much food to pack in.
If my salad was any indication of how good the rest of the food at this restaurant is, that definitely makes me interested to try to come back here at some point to try other things as well. Despite the parking situation being a little bit crowded, the restaurant space is really nice and open, and the vibe is nice and relaxed. The menu itself has a really good variety of items to choose from, where you’re bound to find something you might enjoy. If you find yourself in the Solana Beach area and you’re looking for some delicious food with fresh ingredients in a relaxed atmosphere, take a stop into Solana Beach Kitchen.
Let’s now take a look at the Solana Beach Kitchen Dish Spotlight. Asterisks (*) below mark my recommended dishes.
** Sesame Tofu Salad **
Cabbage and mixed greens tossed in a sesame vinaigrette, topped with chopped red bell peppers, cashews, edamame, avocado, cucumber, wonton crisps, and marinated tofu slices. Pictured with grilled salmon.
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And finally, here are my rankings for Solana Beach Kitchen:
Food: 5 / 5
My salad plate tasted just as good as it looked. It was packed with fresh ingredients and full of flavor. The menu also features a number of other items that also sounded real delicious.
Atmosphere: 4.75 / 5
I really liked the open atmosphere arrangement of the dining area, along with the bar setup and the outdoor patio. The neutral color scheme used in the décor also seemed to fit the space very well.
Service: 4 / 5
My waitress, Audrey, did a good job with welcoming me and checking back in with me throughout the meal to see if I had everything I needed.
Price: 4.25 / 5
It was definitely pretty pricey for a salad, breaking over $30 with the salmon add-on. To an extent, I feel like you’re paying for the atmosphere as well as the location too. But the portions were hefty, along with high quality ingredients, so I thought that the price was worth it.
Overall:
18 / 20
(90%)
Categories: California, Restaurants
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