Dr. Ink | Come On Get Happy!
Friends and I visit D Bar San Diego religiously for the desserts, specifically the toothsome chocolate cake with sour cream in the recipe. It wasn’t until recently that we decided to infuse on the booze instead of the sugar.
With a full cocktail list available, as well as wines, mimosas and a quartet of beer taps, we moseyed directly into the bar area to take advantage of a few price breaks offered during happy hour. Customers who perch on the sidewalk patio also qualify for the deals, which include $8 “concoctions” made with various key spirits and $3 well drinks and mimosas.
On this lazy Sunday afternoon, we imbibed on champagne-heavy mimosas and “blue stars” that combine Stoli Blueberry vodka with Blue Curaco and D Bar’s house-made vanilla lemonade. The latter ingredient balanced the potential sweetness of the cocktail with the right amount of zing.
The mimosas are made with Whitecliff champagne from the Hudson Valley and Tropicana orange juice. To our delight, the ratio of bubbly to citrus was at least two-to-one — basically a flute of champagne with a tint of soft orange. Bravo!
Draught beers are $3 off their regular prices. Four are available, which include Stone IPA, White Rascal and Duvel. In addition, wines by the glass are discounted by $1, should Kung Fu Girl Riesling from New Zealand or Sean Minor Cabernet from Napa Valley call.
And then there are the luscious D Bar dates priced at $6 from the “nibbles” menu. Served three to an order, they’re the dreamiest bacon-wrapped specimens I’ve ever encountered. 
Instead of the usual Gorgonzola cheese filling seen commonly at other places, these are stuffed with hints of manchego cheese and oil-rich Marcona almonds. All told, you taste sugar, salt and fat equally in every bite. It’s a recipe that meets its match when paired with strongly flavored cocktails.
Oddly, there isn’t a single discounted dessert during happy hour. What the heck?
Here we were sitting under a large, colorful replica of a multi-tiered cake while gazing to the opposite side of the room, where some of San Diego’s finest confections were in the making at the big, shiny dessert bar.
If this is a ploy to tempt tipsy customers into buying a dessert at full price, it worked. We simply couldn’t depart without diving into a fat slice of our go-to chocolate cake.
