We were honored to hear the news that Restaurant Hospitality named Soda & Swine‘s “The Hog” as one of America’s Best Sandwiches. “The Hog” – comprised of chorizo, brisket, and pork butt with chipotle barbecue sauce and shredded mozzarella – took down the “Best Submarine” title, besting some serious contenders from Chicago and Los Angeles.
Hoppy National IPA Day. We’ve got great IPAs available all around town today and all weekend, so lets celebrate in style.
(re-posted from El Dorado Cocktail Lounge)
Tonight is our Spring Cocktail Menu Release Party at El Dorado! This will be our first new menu of 2013, as we take the opportunity at the dawn of each new season to construct cocktails that reflect both the senses of the current climate, as well as represent the classic cocktail families that have been a permanent institution at El Dorado. These are always some of our favorite parties to host, and tomorrow will be no different!
We’ll have all of our new cocktails available at just $5 for the entire evening, and our good friends from Soda & Swine will be in the house serving up appetizers. Harley Magsino will be entertaining the crowd with a selection tunes, and the one and only V-Rock will be spinning jams all night long. We’d like to share two cocktails that we’re really excited about on this menu… hopefully learning a little more will get you nearly as excited as us for tonight!
We are CH Projects.
We are a group of like-minded individuals united by the shared pursuit of improving the social landscape of San Diego. We set out to create not just restaurants and bars, but public gathering spaces that help cultivate our neighborhoods through the fostering of creativity and dialogue. More than houses for innovative menus and handcrafted drinks, our projects are meant to be incubators for meaningful interaction.
You’ll find this ethos and more in the “Who We Are” section of this site, where we’ve put forth a concerted effort to share who we are, why we are, and what we believe in as a company.
But why start a blog?
While the online landscape is cluttered with promotional contrivance and ego-inflating pontification, we know there exists a vast opportunity to curate and generate thoughtful dialogue. Never before has it been so easy to collaborate, discuss, debate, and share within our industry. Our hope is that this blog becomes a cultural reference collection for us as a group, and a vibrant salon for visitors to convene and converse. As we aspire to do with our properties, we’re hoping to rise above the noise and create a dynamic, locally relevant forum for the exchange of ideas, opinions and information.
It takes a certain type of personality to do what we do with such a high standard of execution, and we feel we’ve found some of the best talent out there. However, there is only so much room for expression in this industry. At the end of the day, we have guests to take care of, and their well-being is our first priority. We hope that this blog will serve as a creative outlet for our inspired compatriots.
The pressures of a 24-hour news cycle, a commitment to advertisers, and the rising popularity of social mediums as news outlets have diluted and monetized media, a once great institution. By avoiding the typical pressures and influences of modern news sites, we hope that we can promote an honest, fair, and interesting dialogue with our readers.
Like any project we undertake, this blog is not aiming to please everyone at every time. Just like in our bars and restaurants, we want to hear from you—we respect your unbiased feedback, your passionate voice, your thoughtfully formed opinion. We aren’t into monologues, bandwagons or ambivalence. No one—not us, you, San Diego, or the hospitality industry at large—gains anything from complacency, single-mindedness, or agreement for agreement’s sake.
We want to create another avenue to converse with our communities, to share ideas and products of quality, and to transparently chronicle our steps—our trials, tribulations, misfires, successes, and passions—as we strive to improve San Diego’s social landscape. Constructive discourse and collaborative conversation are what built this industry, and it’s what makes it great today. We hope you’ll join us in keeping the spirit of that conversation alive and thriving.
We’re glad you’re here.
[reposted from El Dorado]
At the beginning of June, our very own Ryan Koontz headed out to Wirtz Beverage Co in Las Vegas, NV to compete in the Southwest Regional Final for the USBG’s National Cocktail Contest. Competing against contenders from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, New Mexico, Phoenix, Tuscon, Las Vegas and Aspen, Ryan cranked out 4 of our own “Holy Roses” cocktails, using Beefeater 24, Cocchi Americano, Maraschino, Rose Water, Cucumber, and Cracked Salt – all in under 6 minutes.
When the tins were dry and the glasses were empty, one winner was named, and that winner was Ryan Koontz. He now goes on to compete in Chicago against 3 other regional finalists in the National Finals. The winner of this round gets shipped off to Prague to represent the US, and will also make a stop by the Beefeater distillery in London.
This competition was highly scrutinized, not just on the flavor and balance of the drink, but also on the technical proficiency of the bartender. Ryan said the competition was “completely nerve-wracking”, and this is the same guy that always looks comfortable, whether he’s 3 deep on a crazy Friday night at El D, or rocking the stage in one of his various music projects around the country. As you can check out in this video below, the rules are some of the most strict and intense you’ll find in the competition circuit. This isn’t Speed Rack or Fastest Hands; speed is important, but cleanliness will make or break you. 25% of the final score was based solely on technique.
Our good friend Dave Stolte (he’s the guy that built this site) is hosting the release party for the newest edition of his “Home Bar Basics and Not-So-Basics” cocktail book tonight at Polite Provisions. Dave will be pouring up cocktails from the book, and you can pick up your very own copy from the author himself. We hope to see you there, wish Dave a congrats when you see him.
This, is amazing. JBF has noted Polite as serving one of their favorite cocktails of 2013. Thank you.
Click Photo To Enlarge
Starting today, Polite Provisions will be open at Noon on weekdays. They will be featuring a Happy Hour from 12-6PM, Monday through Thursday. All of the cocktails on the rotating Happy Hour menus come from Erick Castro’s private cocktail literature collection. The menu will be changing monthly, as will the book chosen as the muse.
In other news, Soda & Swine is now open at 11:30AM Monday-Friday, while remaining open until 1:30 AM. Just that many more hours for you to swing by and grab a meatball or two. We’ll see you around the ‘hood.
(re-posted from El Dorado Cocktail Lounge)
Tonight is our Spring Cocktail Menu Release Party at El Dorado! This will be our first new menu of 2013, as we take the opportunity at the dawn of each new season to construct cocktails that reflect both the senses of the current climate, as well as represent the classic cocktail families that have been a permanent institution at El Dorado. These are always some of our favorite parties to host, and tomorrow will be no different!
We’ll have all of our new cocktails available at just $5 for the entire evening, and our good friends from Soda & Swine will be in the house serving up appetizers. Harley Magsino will be entertaining the crowd with a selection tunes, and the one and only V-Rock will be spinning jams all night long. We’d like to share two cocktails that we’re really excited about on this menu… hopefully learning a little more will get you nearly as excited as us for tonight!
On Monday June 17th, Executive Chef of Craft & Commerce, Mike Kessler, will be preparing five courses for Green Flash Brewing’s Supper Club series. A few tickets are still available, as are memberships to Green Flash’s Supper Club.
The crew over at Polite Provisions have decided to give away this pretty rad Fernet-Branca bicycle. They’re posting the rules and entry information on their instagram account: @PoliteSanDiego. So head over to Instagram and follow them, unless you hate free stuff.
An extremely large thank you goes out to every customer that has passed through our door.
Ham & Cheese Sandwich
Recently, Craft & Commerce updated both their lunch and cocktail menus. Here we get a little insight from Executive Chef Mike Kessler, and Bar Manager Ryan Fischer on what inspired them in this re-imagining of Craft & Commerce fare. (more…)
[re-posted from eldoradobar.com]
By this point, even your grandmother knows about Daft Punk’s new album “Random Access Memories” dropping on Tuesday, May 21st. Everyone here at El Dorado is so excited for the release that we’ve decided to throw a listening party for the new record, where we’ll be playing the album in its entirety. And to make the night even that much more special, we’re bringing in a special Funktion One sound system to provide the highest fidelity possible – this is Daft Punk, after all. Our good pals and fellow dance music lovers Adam Salter, Kanye Asada, and Steve McQueen will be on hand to provide a groovy soundtrack for the evening before getting to the main event, “Random Access Memories” played cover to cover.
New things happening around Little Italy these days…
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