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UCSD Hillcrest Cafeteria
the outside of the hospital, winding, well-kept greens and all, valet parking available during the day
I know, you're going to be like "whatever, this guy is trying to be funny, eating at a damn hospital, what a loser," and frankly you'd be right, but I have my reasons and you know what, I've never had a bad burger here, so zip it up funny pants and sit back and hold on.
This hospital is amazing. The kind of amazing you see when armed policemen are drawing weapons holding the door to the men's room open and screaming at someone inside: "I said take off your pants, do it NOW!" The kind of amazing with scabbed out heroin addicts in their hospital gowns picking through the salad bar while their ass hangs in the breeze. The amazing of the 9000 year old 10 lbs. wheelchair dude with the WWI baseball hat smoking unfiltered cigarettes outside in their gowns, with their portable oxygen tanks and IV stands.
Yes!
i had to watch what i was taking pictures of as patients might get upset
You too can experience these real life adventures and more when you visit for a bite to eat at their cafeteria. And may I suggest the burgers? They make them fresh for you and usually have a burger special (today's was Monterey cheese and guacamole, which I avoided). You know, once I was there for Hawaii day (WTF???), and they had this luau band and some pulled pork. I got the raw Ahi salad, which was cut into too big of chunks and it's not really the right place for raw ahi somehow.
But I really enjoy their burgers. The meat is good and they cook it well (you prolly don't want it any other way), including a nice slice of melted cheese. The buns are soft and you can slap some raw onions on there to make it all good. They also have bottles of hot sauce littered around (used to be Tapatio but it seems today they switched to Red Hot), so look out for one, preferably a new one as the old ones tend to build up weird looking stains on the outside, and I saw a woman putting some ranch dressing from the salad bar onto hers.
lunch for a king, salad, zucchini chips, cheeseburger, water, redhot
I like seeing the medical students piling up on fries and burgers and the older doctors hitting the salad bar. Their salad bar is ok, but I usually avoid it because of the ambiance, the jeus-neus-ces-quos, the what have yous. They have a pretty good chili, and some good soup sometimes (recommend the chicken tortilla), and if you get chili put on some of the shredded cheese at the salad bar.
Today they got busy with it and busted out some sweet zucchini chips. I think the menu posted said "fried in herbed batter" or something to that effect. They were good, well fried and still a little healthy on the inside, ok not healthy at all but what can I do.
zucchini chips close up and personal
There is a secret room marked "Physician Dining" that is open during the day. It has a TV and some doctors in there eating. If you pretend like you are a doctor you can fake it out and just go in there and eat and watch CNN or whatever the f--- doctors watch on TV while they are eating. Just nod to people and then look away, back at the TV, talk about the weather if anyone asks. You can say you are a visiting doctor, specializing in bowels or something, you get it.
Otherwise you'll eat with the general populace, the hospital workers, the nurses, the visiting families, and, the best, the long-term patients with their gowns on.
You should try their burgers at least once. The cafeteria has crazy hours too (see below) so you can go in the middle of the night if you really need to, nobody's there, I was there once when my kid was born and nobody was in the cafeteria except for some med students who looked tired.
Sometimes they have vendors selling leather wallets and purses and gifts from Peru, I'm not joking, bring some cash man.
salad bar, cost by weight so get your dressing afterwards in a separate container
They have parking in the garage if you just keep going straight past the hospital. It's only $1 an hour and you have to prepay (remember your spot number! A frantic Vietnamese man thought I was a parking lot attendant or something because he came to explain that he had bought a ticket and then showed me a parking ticket he got ($40) even though his meter wasn't run out, I pointed out to him that he entered the wrong space on his meter and then he went off to tell someone else. WTF.
Good Burgers, Good Times, alas no beer, unless you are willing to share a pint of vodka with one of the patients loitering in the bushes outside.
beautiful san diego architecture
UCSD Medical Center, Hillcrest Cafeteria
Breakfast: 6:30 a.m. - 10 a.m.
Lunch: 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Dinner: 4:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Late Meal: 11 p.m. - 2 a.m.
located at:
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, CA 92103
Phone: (619) 543-6222
http://health.ucsd.edu/locations/Hillcrest.htm
some more pictures I took while driving around:
it's fun to take pictures and drive, though i don't recommend it for safety, especially with small children
outside the hospital
dumbass in a jacked up 4x4 san diego truck (none of these guys are ever hauling anything)
our local "laundramat" with "tripble load"
thanks,
george caye
info @ sandiegofoodblog.com
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