San Diego Restaurant Week: Spotlight on JRDN in Pacific Beach

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San Diego Restaurant Week enables local fine food enthusiasts to finally try the top San Diego restaurants they've been dreaming of.

Twice a year, every year, San Diego Restaurant Week features 130 of the city's best restaurants and invites guests to enjoy a three-course dinner for either $30 or $40 per person, depending on the restaurant. Now in its fourth year, 2008 San Diego Restaurant Week is the largest and most successful dining event in San Diego. Restaurant Week runs from January 27 - February 1, 2008 - and no event tickets are required.

Discover JRDN in Pacific Beach - a top participating restaurant in San Diego Restaurant Week.

The cement floor and pillars are seemingly weathered, stark grey rough to the touch and mottled with stains. Above, lamps hollowed by cut outs project a shiny kaleidoscope against the ceiling to soften the severity of the skeletal structure. Neon lights flicker a myriad of colors: blue, purple, and red against a wall of white plaster jutting out the soft curl of ocean waves. Lining the entrance and partitioning several booths, black and white photographs of elated surfers and women in bikinis smile on. Gritty and edgy, yet elegant, refined and sophisticated, JRDN is the trademark restaurant of beachside resort Tower 23 in Pacific Beach.

The airy outdoor patio, only several feet of pavement away from the beach, is surrounded by rectangular sheets of glass, the long panes reaching above the metal umbrellas of the heaters. Covering the ground floor of the hotel, JRDN is comprised of patio, bar and dining area. There is even a mini sushi bar, where slabs of fresh, cold sashimi nestle contently behind the curvature of the display window.

The crowd is young and casual. Although hardly boisterous, chatter is audible tonight, buzzing with excitement for a taste of JRDN's highly anticipated Restaurant Week dinner special. A three-course meal consisting of one out of three choices for an appetizer, entrée and dessert can be enjoyed for a promotional price of $40.

Simplicity is the driving concept behind each dish at JRDN. A clean, deep flavor achieved by only the quality of the ingredients and the extraordinary intuition to pair them is the objective of Executive Chef David Warner.

As a starter, the appetizers featured in the Restaurant Week menu include basic dishes such as the seared scallop or Dungeness crab cakes. While the seared scallop is a plate of only one sole scallop, it is of a rather hefty size of about two inches in diameter. To draw a full and wholesome taste from the giant mollusk, it is served with bits of salted country ham swimming in an emerald pool of sweet pea puree.

With the palate sufficiently teased and whetted by the fanciful but insubstantial creations in the appetizer round, the entrée stage is reached with even greater eagerness. All three choices fail to disappoint, but the sea bass in particular surpasses expectations. Sitting in a stew of white beans and caramelized onions, the tender white meat of the fish, juicy and slippery, is encased in a flavorful crust hinting of lemon, and topped with a spool of boiled spinach. Also notable is the grilled flat-iron steak, a cut of twin slices of lean steak smothered in bordelaise sauce and served over a bed of creamy mashed potatoes and thinly sliced onions. A side of seasoned brussel sprouts drenched with bordelaise line the outskirts of the dish.

Polishing off the night is a final choice between either the chocolate or peanut dessert. The JRDN napoleon is a sumptuous concoction of crunchy peanut brittle and peanut butter topped with fresh cream. On the other hand, a velvety rich chocolate truffle occupies the center of the Tower 23 chocolate tart, protected by a thick cookie shell. The tart is further accompanied by a mild, nutty praline ice cream, and decorated with a stick of chocolate covered wafer.

Oceanfront dining is reinvented at JRDN. The grain and grit of the beach air is not just part of the scenery behind a glass window, but an element of the restaurant itself. Equally dedicated to the spirit of Pacific Beach seaside simplicity in the kitchen, JRDN offers a contemporary fusion of steaks and seafood of the freshest quality to provide outstanding Californian cuisine.

Still hungry? Discover the San Diego Restaurant Week specials at Blanca in Solana Beach.

Visit San Diego Restaurant Week for more event and menu details.