Lestat’s is just a few blocks down the road from our place. I’ve been there a few times, and it’s fine, but it’s really not a place i would go out of my way to visit if i were on vacation in a new city. But i guess if you have some time to kill, and want some decent food in a laid back atmosphere, it would be fine.
For Mexican in this area, i quite like El Zarape, on Park Avenue in University Heights. While i only eat the vegetarian stuff, their fish tacos and their scallop tacos have an excellent reputation among the seafood-eating set. And fish tacos are 99c each; you really can’t beat that. They’ve just opened a second location on Adams Avenue, near 32nd, but it’s more of a proper sit-down place, and the menu is more expensive and much more limited.
I also like Ranchos Mexican in North Park, on 30th near University, although again that’s partly because it has such a good vegetarian selection. As a vegetarian, i like it when Mexican restaurants go out of their way to offer proper vegetarian cuisine, because in some of the smaller places, it can be hard to tell what is really vegetarian (for example, sometimes the beans are cooked with meat or lard, and sometimes they’re not).
I’m not sure whether you’re into kitsch/retro drinking establishments or not, but if you want a relaxing drink in a somewhat different type of place, try the Red Fox Steak House on El Cajon in North Park. I’ve never eaten there, but it’s a fun place to have a few drinks; the awesome vinyl seating and the 70s-style piano bar atmosphere are great. And they actually have a guy on piano singing the oldies on a lot of evenings. Quite a lot of the Yelp reviews of the place warn that it’s in a seedy/dangerous area, but i’ve never had any trouble at all around there. I’ve actually seen quite a lot of this sort of paranoia on the San Diego Yelp pages; it’s clear that the folks in this town have never tried walking around a city like Baltimore or parts of Philadelphia after dark. Then they might really know what seedy and dangerous looks like.
By the way, dalej42, when are you coming to town? I’m going to be away for the first couple of weeks in July, but i’ll be back by about the 13th or 14th. I know you’re a big baseball fan, and the Padres have a week-long home stand from July 16-22. If you wanted to go to a game, i’d be up for a baseball mini-Dopefest.