1 S.D. Chef Nominated for James Beard Award

[Bob Foster]

The 2008 nominations for the James Beard award for Southern California chefs has been announced. The sole San Diego nominee is Karl Schroeder, the amazing chef at Market Restaurant and Bar on Via De La Valle, east of I-5 in Del Mar.

http://media.nymag.com/docs/08/02/jbe...

We have eaten there a number of times since they opened and consider it, by far, the best restaurant in San Diego, bar none. The last time there we had a first course that was a goat cheese ommlet with caviar. Superb, utterly superb. If you are a San Diego chowhound and haven't eaten there, turn in your password to this site.

[hakuisuke]

Is anyone planning on going to the award ceremony in New York? I'm thinking of going as a representative of Gourmates. Anyone know anything about this?

[ibstatguy]

had another excellent dinner there tonight

[P Macias]

If you haven't eaten at LAJA turn in YOUR password.
Yes, I love Carl too.

[Josh]

Agreed on Laja. ;-)

[ibstatguy]

Josh - how can you talk about Laja but deride Market on cost consideration?

[Josh]

I thought the winky face made it clear I was being tongue-in-cheek. How I hate the flatness of electronic communication.

[ibstatguy]

my bad then! sorry 'bout that.

[CarlinCarlsbad]

I have not - is LaJa in Mexico? Tell me about it

[MrKrispy]

if it is what I am thinking of it is French/Mex in Baja. They don't have a website that is operational yet. I have been wanting to go but the.... nervousness (to put it lightly) of heading down to Baja lately has prevented us from checking it out.

[foodiechick]

Laja has had a working website for quite a while, unfortunately, they are updating this week and it is only available at the moment in spanish. I imagine it will be fully functional in english within the next few days. In the meantime, please check out this recent thread from several chowhounders that happened to dine there on the same day last week - most of them (myself not included) are frequent visitors and experts on mexican restaurants and Laja. I (and I think they) will tell you that Laja is not a mexican restaurant, nor french. It is fresh, sustainable farm and sea to table cuisine. We spent last Wed-Friday in Baja and had no problems at all. They have instituted new tourist police help centers and have been very aggressive on criminal activities along the highways (which is typical of any new governor/police/mayoral regime, as they just experienced). The drive is beautiful, peaceful and most of all safe.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/517771

[Josh]

"If you are a San Diego chowhound and haven't eaten there, turn in your password to this site."

We're not all made of money.

[Bob Foster]

Josh, get real. You can dine at Market for under $50 a person if you order carefully. Give up a few trips to Starbucks. It's worth it.

[daimyo]

That's true...you just can't have any cocktails!

[Bob Foster]

Never drink them anyway. Wine is as strong as I like it.

[Bob Foster]

Of course, it's Carl not Karl. Pardon my typo.

[cstr]

Hope is wins it, we need more of this type of restaurants in SD. Who knows, it may even lead to our own site for SD, OK I'm awake now.

[jaysurf12]

Awesome ! He absolutely deserves it too... I hope that he gets nominated....