San Diego: The Hopping Pig

After attending the Speed Rack San Diego competition at Voyeur, we went across the street to The Hopping Pig for a quick dinner. A friend had to go to the airport so we were hoping it’d be a quick meal. We did let them know but they must have been slammed from all the others coming in from after the competition.

We got some basics like fries (not shown), mussels and fries, Brussels sprouts, mac and cheese, salad (not shown) and bangers and mash.

 

The salad actually took the longest to arrive which was not great for our friend rushing off to the airport. It was fine but nothing to write home about.

Then we got the mussels and the mac and cheese. The mussels weren’t bad but the sauce was flavorless. There were no clamors for bread to soak up the sauce.

And what can we say about the mac and cheese? Well, look at it. It was essentially soup. I didn’t realized I ordered macaroni and cheese soup. It was one of the poorest examples of mac and cheese I ever had. Our server who was a sweetheart and wanted to help us out with expediting the food quickly couldn’t even look at us in the eyes when the mac and cheese came out. She candidly told us she had rushed the kitchen and I am wondering if they were getting back at her and by extension, us.

Or is this mac and cheese always this soupy and non-committal to being mac and cheese? Philosophically, I should have let this go but damnit, we paid for this dish and we were unhappy.

 

Speeding along, the Brussels sprouts tasted boiled then looked pan fried to get a char. I could taste how soggy these things were. Flavors were okay but the texture was terrible.

 

Silly me, I thought the bangers and mash also wouldn’t take very long. Turns out the bangers (sausages) were overcooked and had developed a thick crust. The mashed potatoes were laced with mustard. It was not ideal.

I wished we had gone back to our hotel and had a meal at Imig’s or waited to go to Soda & Swine. The previous night, we had eaten at Bice and it was terribly overpriced so I had gotten a salad. It was obscenely small. I suppose the whole Gaslamp/ Little Italy/ Downtown area is a tourist trap. Still, give me something to work with here, San Diego.

 

The Hopping Pig

748 5th Ave., San Diego, CA 92101  —  (619) 546-6424

© The Minty 2013