The Trails Eatery, 7389 Jackson Dr. San Diego, California 92119
By Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO — Tucked in the Keil’s shopping center in San Carlos is a little restaurant that has gathered itself a loyal local following. That restaurant is the Trails Eatery.
Walking in you might feel as though you’re in a diner from another era. That’s because the decor is intentionally “vintage” and the walls are adorned with black and white prints from the owner Stacy Poon-Kinney’s real family.
Though it’s only been there for 12 years it feels as though it’s been there forever. In fact, even though, as a high school student, I worked at the Baskin-Robbins that would have been its next-door neighbor had it been there 30 years ago, it nevertheless seems like it’s always been there.
Stacy grew up in the food industry, and though she briefly stepped out for a career in entertainment, the lure of the restaurant business called her back after an injury made her walk away from dancing. She wanted to build something that was homey and vintage with sauces, dressings and muffins (among other things) made from scratch the way they used to be.
I’ve been there several times, and have always found the food flavorful, but I have to admit that it’s been hit or miss with the service. Perhaps I caught the wrong person on the wrong day, but there have been a few occasions when I left feeling slightly unsettled that I wasn’t served with more warmth. I know some of the regulars will swear up and down that they’ve never gotten better service anywhere else though, so I’ve gone back in spite of the variances in the customer experience. The service was fine the last time I was there with my cousin for the meal that I’m reviewing, but I feel that I need to mention my other experiences as well. I will say that I found Stacy the owner an absolute delight.
This visit I had the pesto chicken sandwich. It was well cooked and had a good texture. Sometimes chicken can be hard to get right and comes out either undercooked and chewy or overcooked and dry. The cooks did a good job on it inasmuch as the texture was as it should be. The accompanying sweet potato fries were also well cooked – not too crispy and not too mushy. The server suggested that I try them with ranch dressing, something that I never would have thought of before, but it totally worked.
Now I need to clarify something here, for many Jews chicken and dairy are kept separate, but I have always found that to be a very strange thing as chickens don’t give milk and the original Torah injunction in Genesis 23:19 was “You shall not cook a kid in the milk f its mother.” [Art Scroll Tanach, Stone edition]. I understand that injunction was later generalized to a prohibition of mixing any meat with dairy, so as not to give the appearance of having goat in its mother’s milk. However, I’ve never been able to accept generalizing it to chickens or other fowl that are not mammals. It seems to me that chicken should be treated the same as fish. I don’t want to start a halachic debate, but I do want to explain why I’m reviewing a dish that some would consider downright traif.
My cousin Jessica had the raisin bread french toast. It was adorned with fresh bananas and judging by the lack of even a crumb leftover, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that she liked it.
The only other complaint that I have is that in a commendable effort to be environmentally conscious and “green” The Trails Eatery use paper straws and to-go boxes that fall apart very quickly. I don’t know what the answer to being both “green” and durable is, but I’m not sure that a straw that must be replaced with every refill is the way to go.
All in all, I give this restaurant a score of 8 out of 10, although now that I think about it, they are accommodating to substitutions in the dishes, so maybe that earns them an extra half-point, bringing them to an 8.5 .
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Masori is the restaurant and food reviewer for San Diego Jewish World. If you have a favorite restaurant you would like her to review, please contact her via sandi.masori@gmail.com