Animae — Restaurant in San Diego

I'm sorry to have to make such a negative review, but unfortunately the reality is that I had a really bad dinner in this restaurant, the food not only disgusted me in terms of taste, heaviness and greasiness, but it also gave me nausea and food poisoning for the whole night. None of the dishes magnify the flavor of the main ingredient, everything was heavily cooked and dipped in fat. Low quality cuisine, unsuccessful “creativity”, non-existent delicacy of the dishes. In short, not just a huge disappointment, but a huge disappointment having paid $250 with just one beer and tap water. In reality it would have been a disappointment even if we had paid 80$, given the disgust that accompanied us during and after dinner. Bad experience. It was the first time that, having dined in a high-end/medium-high-end restaurant, I ate really badly. Sure NOT RECOMMENDED. The "A5 wagyu tartare" could have had a discreet taste, a little spicy and a little acidic, but it navigated in fat and oil and was served with slices of pan brioche fried in poor quality oil, which had not been dried from the frying oil and therefore were very greasy and completely soaked in oil inside, causing disgust, even though they were crunchy on the outside. Overall it was a dish of extreme heaviness. The “caviar shrimp toast” was the same repetition of the fried pan brioche soaked in oil, a sort of French toast, with tasteless shrimps inside and salmon caviar on top (nothing special). No fish taste at all, but only the taste of heavy frying, full of oil that had killed every taste. Taste of sea: not received. After eating a quarter of the toast I was already disgusted and lost my appetite. We should have asked to cancel the rest of the dishes ordered, but stupidly, in order not to appear rude, we continued with the dinner, in the hope that once the "fat-soaked and fried bread" effect had passed, we could hope for at least a decent combination of flavors. Unforgivable mistake! "Short rib Kare kare" was an abundant portion of meat sailing in fat, peanuts oil, meat fat... the whole was not pleasant but cloying. “Chili octopus” was a portion of 2 large (fried and crunchy) octopus tentacles. In itself the taste was not bad, especially if they were accompanied only by the eggplant puree. But the addition of the strong sour taste of the pickles covered the other flavors, making it impossible to amalgamate the components of the dish, otherwise its taste would deteriorate. The roti bread would have been good if it wasn't also soaked in grease. Unfortunately we had ordered desserts from the beginning too, and although we said we would like one of the two we had ordered, they brought us both. Here too we made a mistake in not having it brought back, but it seemed rude to us. “Ube profiteroles”: a useless, meaningless dessert. It tastes of nothing, lots of ube cream and zero flavor. Again heavy and tasteless. “Chocolate cremeux”: how to kill the taste of chocolate (what quality of chocolate??!!). Bad taste, which did not add anything special to the chocolate but rather took away its flavor making it unpleasant. Good chocolate crumble, but you had to discard the korean cashew (flavor that does not bind with anything) to be able to eat it. In short, a dessert with an ugly taste and whose elements did not amalgamate with each other. The environment is pretty nice, except for the carpet which is a bit kitsch in my opinion, the tables are large and the seats comfortable. The staff are friendly, kind and in some...

Last night, we went to the much-acclaimed restaurant called Animae, which is the new venture by the Puffer Malarkey Collective. Brian Malarkey is known for his restaurants, such as Searsucker, Herringbone, and Gingham.

We were there to celebrate our 4 year anniversary (yes, again!); this place was a special treat for ourselves. Definitely make reservations, though there is a bar in the front area, with the picture of a robot floating in the ocean with koi.

The restaurant is on the ground floor in the ultra high-end condominiums Pacific Gate by Bosa, which we think formerly was the SDG&E headquarters. We loved the transformation of the area, with the beautiful Intercontinental hotel next door. Parking in that area can be tough but we got there around 6pm, which is probably still early before the dinner crowd.

Once you walk in, you can see the plush decor, with the bronze olive colored drapes. Right off the bat, we were greeted with smiles and immediately seated at our table, with spectacular service by our waitress Emily, who asked if we wanted champagne, with a wink suggesting she knew we were there for our anniversary. I did note it in the reservation, so it impressed me that she was mindful of it. The staff refilled our water without asking. There's a giant piece of charcoal in the water pitcher, supposedly filtering it, but I'm not sure how much of that works or is for show.

We ordered two drinks, the Sukiyaki Western, which was whisky with passion fruit and ginger, which was delicious. Mike had Thai Tai, which tasted like a creamsicle and was slightly disappointing.

We started with three appetizers, including their butter dumplings, corn elote, and Tom Yum mushrooms. The butter dumplings were definitely very different than typical xiaolongbao, in that they have a lot of butter and the filling is escargot, and was quite delicious. It is served on a bed of wagyu capaccio, which I would recommend that one. Mike thought the corn elote was okay, but he enjoyed the mushroom appetizer more, which I thought that was somewhat too salty. Emily did bring all over a bowl of rice to help mellow the saltiness.

We chose two entrees: the cod, and the pork belly and egg noodles - both were good and I would recommend.

Our friend Michael also recommended the Korean Fried Chicken, but we did not try that one.

For our final part of the meal, we had dessert. We couldn't decide between the Pavlova and the malasadas, so Emily accommodated us with a flight of both! The malasada is a cinnamon donut with coconut cream, served on pureed passion fruit, and topped with Thai green curry ice cream. They were both good, but I would say the malasadas was outstanding. I would go back alone for the malasadas!

Along with the dessert, Emily brought us 2 glasses of champagne, and again congratulated us on our anniversary.

From start to end, we had a fantastic time, though the noise level was higher than expected, especially given the amount of soft decor to absorb the sound. Not sure if I would say every dish was spectacular, but it was definitely a different take on Asian fusion cuisine, and I did not hate the Wagyu. Also, the prices are not unreasonable, and this is a place where I would take out of town guests as well as friends and family for...

I discovered this restaurant because I saw chef Tara Monsod on Beat Bobby Flay. When they introduced her and mentioned she had a restaurant in San Diego, I had to check it out and give support to a fellow Filipino

In downtown near the Sante Fe station, Animae resides. First impression is that this place is upscale with its dark ambience and modern furnishings. I do appreciate the different Asian decorations. From the little anime figures to the framed pictures of Godzilla and the waves off Kanagawa, the restaurant name is present

The restaurant is definitely high end. The server explains the drunk menu and they have different whiskeys from Japan and bottles of wine from around the world. We look at the menu and it is a fusion of Filipino food and western dishes. We ended up ordering a bunch of smaller plates to share so we can try it all

We ordered the wontons, Taiwanese chicken, tuna crispy rice, crab fried rice and mushroom sisig. The wontons were not outstanding. Can barely notice the wagyu. Def pass on it. The soy vinaigrette is tasty though. Great balance of acid. The tuna crispy rice was really a surprise. It is a deconstructed crispy rice and every bite had a great crunch. And a huge dollop of spicy aioli. Very much like a spicy tuna crispy rice piece. The Taiwanese chicken is crispy and flavorful. Lots of flavor there. Couldn’t really pin point the exact spices. Tasted some sweet but also five spice as well.

Crab fried rice was the most flavorful crab fried rice I ever had. It was light and tasted like real crab. I did appreciate the food not being overly greasy and salty. Filipino food can be really greasy and salty. But the food did not leave oil on my face like Filipino food normally does. The mushroom sisig had a lot of umami and acid to it. Traditional sisig is crispy, fatty and oily with lots of acid. The mushroom sisig is a great concept that captured the traditional sisig. That umami with the acid really pleased my palate. It made up for the fatty part of traditional sisig

For desert, we got the Buko pandan and ube profiteroles. The buko pandan is very tasty and not too sweet. The coconut flavor is strong. The ube profiteroles are so so good. You take a bite and the ube filling oozes out. Puff is soft and delicate. What I did was put the ube cream that fell into the buko pandan. Boom. Ube buko pandan has been created.

If I could make a suggestion, I would ask chef to start the dinner with some fresh made pan de sal with butter. That would go well to start the experience

Animae has a great concept. Reinventing Filipino food. Modernizing classics. Without that greasy feeling that you get like in the originals. I wouldn’t feel as guilty or bad eating the mushroom sisig vs pork sisig lol. There are more dishes that I want to try. Like the lobster palabok and the pork tomahawk tocino. Def have to come back...