If you stroll through downtown La Jolla long enough, you are liable to see an older gentleman motor by in an insanely expensive automobile. (The McLaren shop is, after all, just down the road.) It’s …
October 17, 2024
Articles by Ambrose Martin
A bespoke suit will make you chick magnet
Mercy Hospital dumped two bags of saline in me
Like many young men in their bachelor days, there was an evening — long ago, but not quite long enough, if you take my meaning — when I found myself stumbling, staggering, lurching, reeling, and …
October 17, 2024
Gonzo Report: Relishing The Mountain Goats’ relatable content at The Belly Up
The Mountain Goats are an intensely personal band. Last year, I had the chance to spend a couple of days in Palm Desert with my wife. We set out in the evening at the end …
November 2, 2023
The Lion’s Share’s Dark Therapy: Ms. Bobyr’s variation on a Boulevardier
Alina Bobyr“Guam is a whiskey desert,” says Joe, the guy next to me at this, his favorite bar in San Diego ever since he was first stationed here in 2014. The feel of the place …
October 12, 2023
Gonzo Report: They Might Be Giants’ Flood not quite rained out at Humphreys
“What’s this,” marveled the lady approaching the rest rooms at Humphreys before the show on the evening of April 14, “no line for the women’s rest room? And a line for the men’s?” “It is …
April 27, 2023
I-Que BBQ: flavors that sing “Yabba dabba do, bite and chew”
When I was a younger man, I wrote up the Chevy Chase apartments, situated on the border between La Mesa and Spring Valley, as ideal bachelor digs. Unfancy, freeway close, but more importantly, bumping up …
April 20, 2023
Casa Gabriela looks to lift the Boulevard
When I arrived in La Mesa nearly 25 years ago, the odd, triangular lot at the end of the main drag was occupied by a sleepy restaurant with a sleepy name: Village Garden Restaurant & …
April 2, 2023
Christmas is never not coming
Somewhere well into the wee hours of a Christmas in the not-nearly-distant-enough past, as the adults in my family labored to finish with the wrapping of presents, the curling of ribbon, the printing of tags, …
November 14, 2018
Shrimpquest 2018
For pure evocative force, it’s hard to beat the Germanic. “Shrimp” — taken from schrimpfen, “to contract” — works well in this way: the thing is basically a shrunken lobster. But for culinary loveliness, it’s …
May 16, 2018