The Ultimate Comic Con Anti-Starvation Guide

Comic-Con is the mecca of all things pop culture – Tens of thousands of people flood the streets of San Diego each year for one weekend in hopes to meet a celebrity, get a glimpse of the newest movies or to buy comics (yes believe it or not – this was the original purpose of SDCC haha)

The one thing that joins all these people together is food – We all need to eat, so why not eat good food? I was recently contacted by Skyler (follow her @skylerranger) with an EXCELLENT post on great local San Diego food.

I hope some of you can go to these places – Let me know which is your favorite!

Comic Con, the annual Mecca of geeky goodness, is back in San Diego this weekend, and as self-proclaimed comic book junkies ourselves, we over at what’s GOOD are excited to get our nerd on. The four-day long event is enough to challenge the limits of even our favorite superheroes, and between screenings, Q&A’s, and trying to flirt with that cute girl dressed up like Daenerys Targaryen, we know a solid happy hour or a late-night carb-fest is key to rallying for another day.

We took on the challenge of figuring out your food, so all you have to focus on is making it to every panel on time (and that cute girl…see above). We scoured our database of 417,000 restaurants and filtered through 31,000,000 dishes to round up the best grub in the Downtown San Diego worth checking out.

Best Happy Hour: La Puerta on 4th Ave 
•        Tacos, Tunes, Tequila. If that sounds like your kind of party, you’ve gotta hit up La Puerta. You can’t venture a mere fifteen minutes from the border without sampling some of the best Mexican food America has to offer. Happy hour means half-off drinks and appetizers from 3-7pm are almost enough to make you skip the Dexter panel. Even if you don’t make it by then, they’re open til 2am so it’s a great post-Con watering hole. Don’t miss the carne asada fries and street tacos.
o        Carne Asada Fries
o        Street Tacos

Best Place to Spot a Celeb- Nobu on 5th Ave
•        If you want a shot at catching a glimpse of Bryan Cranston or Jennifer Lawrence, splurge on a meal at Nobu, the swanky sushi restaurant inside the Hard Rock Hotel. The black cod with miso and yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno are like celebrity magnets, and the dark, trendy vibe is the ideal location to see and be seen. Not to mention you’ll eat some seriously good sushi.
o        Black Cod with Miso
o        Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno

Best Hangover Breakfast- The Mission on J Street
•        If you’re like us and you like to follow a day at Comic Con with a night out at downtown bars like Prohibition and Noble Experiment, then you’ll need a pick-me-up breakfast the next morning before you start your day. The Mission is your go-to for a filling and reliable brunch, with popular dishes like rosemary potatoes or chicken and apple sausage, or if you wanna go sweet, a stack of banana blackberry pancakes. Oh yeah.
o        Rosemary Potatoes
o        Chicken and Apple Sausage
o        Banana Blackberry Pancakes

Best Cure for the Late Night Munchies- Basic Pizza and Lounge on 10th Ave
•        We know the sheer adrenaline of being within 500 feet of Joss Whedon is the equivalent to like, three Red Bulls, so you might be up late reminiscing about your day or anticipating tomorrow. Basic Pizza and Lounge is here to help. Some mashed potatoes or a white pizza pie will surely lull you into enough of a carb-coma to put you to sleep by closing time at 2am.
o        Mashed Potatoes
o        White Pizza Pie

Best for Beer Lovers- Heroes Brew Fest – Embarcadero Park North, Saturday July 20
•        Picture this: It’s Saturday, you just got out of the Twilight Fan Fiction Panel (it’s ok, we won’t tell anyone), and the swarm of middle-school girls fighting about Edward and Jacob is just driving you to drink. Lucky for you, there’s a beer festival in town (a superhero-themed beer festival at that) where you can reclaim your manhood and escape the masses for a few hours. At Heroes Brew in Embarcadero Park, a $40 ticket will get you tastes of some of our favorite local beers, including Lost Abbey, Ballast Point, and Stone, food trucks galore, solar-powered live music, and a superhero costume contest (because its Comic Con weekend of course!).  And you can be an honorary superhero too, because it’s all for a good cause—the event will help support keeping San Diego’s waters clean.
o        Ballast Point Sculpin IPA
o        Lost Abbey Deliverance
o        Stone IPA

Cheat Sheet

Best Happy Hour: La Puerta on 4th Ave 
•        Carne Asada Fries
•        Street Tacos

Best Place to Spot a Celeb- Nobu on 5th Ave
•        Black Cod with Miso
•        Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno

Best Hangover Breakfast- The Mission on J Street
•        Rosemary Potatoes
•        Chicken and Apple Sausage
•        Banana Blackberry Pancakes

Best Cure for the Late Night Munchies- Basic Pizza and Lounge on 10th Ave
•        Mashed Potatoes
•        White Pizza Pie

Beer Lovers – Heroes Brew Fest – Embarcadero Park North, Saturday July 20
•        Ballast Point Sculpin IPA
•        Lost Abbey Deliverance
•        Stone IPA