Happy Hour Bite: Trade Winds Tavern

Most gastropubs are, let's face it, a little drab. Stepping into one, you can generally muddled brownish-gray tones, a few kegs, maybe some industrial design touches—and that's on a good day. Trade Winds Tavern, though, has a certain artistic flair. Driving by on Balboa in Kearny Mesa, the colorful punk mural outside catches your eye instantly, drawing you in through raw curiosity. Inside the theme continues: a wall painted with cyclops jellyfish, a giant game table, and... okay, some industrial decor.

I come after work for their food happy hour with surprising frequency. The other day I got the elote and the salt and pepper chicken wings. The corn, though a bit on the puny side, was sweet and pleasingly charred, doused in mayo, cotija and a little citrus. The cheese made it satisfyingly salty and funky. Adding some chili powder, though, would've brought an authentic spicy edge.

The wings were thickly battered and crunchy, as any good salt and pepper wing should be. The main flavor I got was most definitely salt, though the red pepper flakes and scallions occasionally asserted themselves. So while the texture was on point, I was thankful for the accompanying hot sauce to add some heat and flavor variation.

To be frank, the food at Trade Winds isn't mind-blowing. In fact, they've taken a couple of my preferred items off the happy hour menu. Yet I still find myself stopping by. I think it comes down to a combination of convenience, some interesting comfort food, and an offbeat vibe. A little creativity goes a long way.

Score: 6.5 out of 10 (Good)

Happy Hour Bite: Dirty Birds

Chicken wings are the pinnacle of bar food: You can eat them with your hands, they're shareable and they're great with a beer. But there's one place in San Diego that has taken that pinnacle and airlifted some extra soil on top to create (*gasp*) an even higher pinnacle. That place is Dirty Birds.

Thirty-seven flavors. Take that in for a minute. Dirty Birds has thirty-seven discrete flavors of wings. I've been here many times, and I still haven't even tried half of them. (The ones I have tried, I've catalogued in a spreadsheet like the insufferable nerd that I am.) They're also half off during happy hour (weekdays 3–6pm), meaning you can get 10 wings for a very reasonable $7.50.

Dirty Blue and Seoul Wing, plus token veggies.

I paid a visit the other day and got two of my favorites. First was the Dirty Blue, a mix of a classic buffalo sauce and house-made blue cheese dressing. This is the most brilliant innovation in wing technology since the airfoil. Blue cheese already goes great with wings, so why not bake it in (literally) from the get-go? The result has both the spicy vinegar kick of the buffalo and the creamy pungency of the blue cheese. Every bite makes you crave the next.

I should note that they've also come up with a couple of other wonderfully balanced sauce blends. The Dirty Ranch uses ranch dressing for something a little less sharp and more creamy. The Flaming Honey Mustard's combination is a bit sweeter and also slightly spicier, probably due to a slight bite from the mustard.

My other choice, the Seoul Wing, is one of the more interesting flavors on the menu. It's a distinctly Asian-influenced sauce with notes of garlic, soy sauce, teriyaki and sesame, plus a firm but tempered dose of chile. It all comes together in an awesome amalgam of sweet, savory and spicy.

There aren't many restaurants that do one thing as thoroughly and as successfully as Dirty Birds does wings. While not every sauce is a winner, most of them are—and the absurd number of options ensures that just about anyone can find several that suit their taste.

Score: 9 out of 10 (Fantastic)

Happy Hour Bite: Nine-Ten

Nine-Ten is the kind of place that would have a Michelin star or two if those lazy bums would bother to make their way down to San Diego. It's seriously one of my favorite restaurants in the entire city, but today I'm going to talk about their happy hour.

Due to my work schedule, happy hour for me usually translates to "very late lunch," so while I may occasionally grab a drink, my focus is always on the food. During happy hour, Nine-Ten offers half off the bar food, putting their masterful small plates in the $6–8 range.

The hamachi sashimi is a great light dish. The freshness of the hamachi really comes through, enhanced with a touch of salt. The scallion vinaigrette adds a delicious vibrant acidity; I almost wished I had a spoon to scoop up every drop. My only real issue with this plate was that the marinated mushrooms soaked up a lot of the vinegar flavor, making them a bit more intense than I'd like.

While I'm at it, I'll mention another of my favorite bar plates that I didn't have on my last visit: the avocado shrimp toast. I know avocado toast is has attained memetic status at this point, but I don't care when it's this good. This dish looks and tastes like a spring garden on bread. The luxuriously creamy guacamole base is topped generously with cilantro, thinly sliced radish, and serrano for a nice prickle of heat. While the salty queso fresco crumbles are essential, the perfectly cooked shrimp are the star of the show, sweet and tender with just the lightest of chars. Even my wife, who usually hates the texture of shrimp, admitted they weren't bad. Truly, this must be a magical place.

Now, it says something about how much I trust head chef Jason Knibb and his team that, rather than being disappointed when I saw their fantastic mushroom agnolotti had been replaced with a different one, I was excited to try their latest creation. The roasted corn and ricotta agnolotti seamlessly blends Italian tradition, Mexican flavors and the comfort food richness into a plate that feels familiar yet totally unique. The sweet corn sauce is reminiscent of a hearty corn chowder, and it meshes well with the salty cotija, fresh cilantro, and lime-spicy Tajín. Biting into these pasta pillows lets the ricotta come gushing out. The agnolotti's al dente bite provides an important contrast in such a creamy dish. I would welcome a bit more heat to cut through the cream and round out the Mexican flavors, but that's just one quibble in an otherwise outstanding plate.

In addition to being one of the best special occasion restaurants in the city, Nine-Ten has become my go-to when I want to treat myself after a taxing work day. There just aren't many places here putting out creative plates at this level of refinement, at this price point. I only hope I'm not spoiling one of San Diego's best-kept food secrets!

Score: 10 out of 10 (Phenomenal)