{"id":233403,"date":"2016-03-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/bar-hopping-within-a-single-address\/"},"modified":"2016-03-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T08:00:00","slug":"bar-hopping-within-a-single-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/bar-hopping-within-a-single-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Bar hopping within a single address"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Dr. Ink<\/p>\n

The saloon at the historic Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant in Old Town is always a big draw for me with its ornate, wooden bar shelves, striped wallpaper and 19th-century relics strewn throughout the room. It\u2019s a place where you can easily imagine regional travelers parking their stagecoaches outside and poking in for a whiskey when the hotel served as a crash pad for them.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The historic Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant in Old Town proves to be a great place for happy hour. (Photos by Dr. Ink)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The property is rife with history. What started out as a modest adobe home built in the early-1800s by pioneer Juan Lorenzo Bandini eventually expanded a few decades later under a different owner, at which point it came to include a billiards room, barbershop and the saloon, as well as a second level for guest rooms.<\/p>\n

\"Chips<\/a>
Chips and dip<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Margarita\"<\/a>
Margarita<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today especially, it\u2019s a fine place to drink and eat, thanks to an additional courtyard bar added some decades ago, and the subsequent renovations that were made throughout the structure.<\/p>\n

On a recent happy-hour visit, I started at the saloon with a glass of cabernet sauvignon by Sawbuck. It\u2019s the house wine discounted from $8 to $4. But as the saloon\u2019s lone bar customer that day, I was less interested in fiddling with my cell phone than I was in rubbing elbows with fellow drinkers. So I moved to the courtyard bar.<\/p>\n

There, a small gaggle of locals and tourists provided a social outlet as I switched to a margarita, which also usually sells for $8, but drops to $5 during happy hour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

The friendly bartender, clad in a black vest and dress slacks, concocted the cocktail in two fast steps by shooting up a shot of Milagro Tequila with margarita mix dispensed from a soda gun.<\/p>\n

Skeptical at first where the mix originates, he assured it\u2019s house-made, and that it isn\u2019t too sweet or overly tart. He was right. It didn\u2019t taste harsh like the lip-puckering commercial stuff used often in other places. And the smooth Milagro with its herbal notes made it all the better.<\/p>\n

On a previous visit, I soaked up a good deal of Stone IPA ($4 during happy hour) with a memorable burger and fries ($7). This time, the artichoke-mushroom dip with house-made chips called.<\/p>\n

Priced at $5, it was as rich as the burger with plenty of chips piled alongside a mini casserole of chunky artichoke hearts, mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes, all buried beneath a sturdy layer of baked cheese. Tasty, but perhaps too much of a buzz kill when you\u2019re drinking responsibly.<\/p>\n

Other food and drink deals include bacon-bourbon wontons, three-cheese quesadillas, and well drinks for $5 \u2014 not bad for a popular San Diego landmark that envelopes you with architectural details from a bygone era.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr. Ink The saloon at the historic Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant in Old Town is always a big draw for me with its ornate, wooden bar shelves, striped wallpaper and 19th-century relics strewn throughout the room. It\u2019s a place where you can easily imagine regional travelers parking their stagecoaches outside and poking in for […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":233404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11557","_seopress_titles_title":"Bar hopping within a single address","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11557,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-valley-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}