Searsucker Restaurant - San Diego

Celebrity chef Brian Malarkey of Top Chef fame, dishes out tasty bites and drinks from this hip, loud and jammed packed bar and restaurant.  There aren't many times when there is a roped off line to enter a restaurant, but here it is the place to see and be seen.

The music is almost deafening loud in the bar area, and conversation must take place at an almost shouting match level.  Despite that, finding room to maneuver around the bar can be quite a task.

Cheddar Puffers

The Cheddar Puffers are a cross between a savory cream puff and cheese bread found in Brazilian BBQ places like Fogo De Chao.  Unfortunately, they were slightly underdone and the real cheese essence wasn't emanating to the forefront.

Crab Cake

The Crab Cake Jumbo Lump "Carb Free" & Tabasco, is filled with large pieces of jumbo lump crab meat.  There is no bread crumb filler, but has way too much mayo for my taste.  Topped with salmon roe for a briny little burst of flavor and to add some textural contrast, this dish just wasn't to my liking.

Pork Belly

The Egg & Bacon "Pork Belly" is purely porkaliciously good.  The pork belly is super tender and falls apart with the slightest nudge.  Topped with a perfectly poached egg, whose yolk adds to the richness of the sauce is just over the top heaven.  There is a hint of citrus to the dish to help cut down on the richness of the dish, but it was just a little too strong which seemed to just slightly detract from the dish.

Duck Fat Fries

The Duck Fat Fries & Tomato Jam are a pure winner.  What could be wrong with crunchy confit potatoes?  The fries are cooked to a perfect golden brown with a great crunch.  The taste of the duck fat does shine through.  Topped with bread crumbs and aged hard cheese, this is a definite winner.  The tomato jam is on the slightly sweet side, and wasn't to my liking.  I don't think the tomato jam was necessary as the fries are already bursting with flavor.

Hanger Steak

The Hanger "Butcher Steak" was very tender but somehow lacking in that real beefy taste.  The watercress and arugula salad with bleu cheese adds a nice salty, pungent kick to the dish.

Culotte Steak

The Culotte "Top Sirloin Cap Steak" is just the opposite of the hanger steak and bursting with a strong juicy and beef flavor. Topped with tired looking arugula and french fried onions, the dish is a winner.

Jalapeno Chorizo Corn

The Jalapeno-Chorizo "Corn Off the Cobb" unfortunately sounds much better than it tastes.  One would expect a lot of flavor and heat from this dish, but both were lacking.  The corn was fresh, but seemed to be lacking any real flavor.

Buttermilk Panna Cotta

The Buttermilk Panna Cotta has a great subtly sweet, tangy flavor and is somewhat refreshing.  It comes with an apple compote, mango compote and pistachio sauce.  The apple compote was reminiscent of apple pie filling, while the mango compote was slightly lacking in that strong topical taste one would expect.  The pistachio sauce just seemed to subtle and got lost among the other components of the dish.  The dessert came with an odd cookie type things that sort of tasted like frozen raw pie dough.  It was shockingly salty and tasted of raw flour.  A definite deterrent to the dish.

King Sundae

The "King" Sundae is an apparent homage to Elvis Presley.  Consisting of peanut butter ice cream, honey bacon caramel, bruleed bananas, chocolate covered peanuts and whipped cream this is new school thinking on an old school favorite.  Although the components on their own sound great, somehow they didn't seem to come together into a cohesive dish.  There was another component to the dish which I couldn't put my finger on, but it had peanuts in it as well.

The menu seems to have more winners than losers, but after a small sample, it appears that sticking to the smaller plates is the better option.  The food is better executed and has more flavor.