45% cooler than josepharmour.com

558 4th Ave.
San Diego, CA 92101
Tel: (619) 232-4483
Fax: (619) 232-4489
Email: kengrill@earthlink.com
Open at 5:00pm daily
American Express, Cash,
Discover, Gift Certificates,
MasterCard, Traveler Checks, Visa

Opening Arguments

First off they spell it CH1V3 (imagine the 3 backwards).  That alone means I'm going to love this place (NB: intense sarcasm).

If there was a gigantic earthquake and part of LA ended up in San Diego, this restaurant would have a logical reason for existence.   It's very metal (not in that long hair, "Slayer" kind of way, more in that "you could conduct electricity with most of this restaurant's features" kind of way).

The furniture is even kind of neat.  Sadly some of the chairs are cooler than others, leaving you with chair envy.

Restaurant art, like hotel art is usually something you make fun of or ignore.  I ignored their art which means that it was better than most places

The Scene

Prime for expansion.  It was quite dead the night we went.  I was impressed with it's shopping potential, definitely pants or better.  The entire place was designed for you to be seen, so it's prime for opening ceremonies.

Bulimic Factors

The food is impressive.  Great presentation (I like pretty food, it gives me the chance to destroy something beautiful).  We split a baby green salad.  I felt a little bad that the salad had to be cut down so early in its life, but it was quite good and the guilt subsided.  I had the escolar.  Their fish was excellent.  They did a great job with the sauce.  It came with something called "crisp artichoke hearts" (they rocked better than "Live, from the Budokan").  The whole dish was rather innovative and very Californian.  Jen had the filet.  Great cut of beef for California, so their buyers are talented or they are paying exorbitant prices to ship Texas beef here.  The dish came with killer mash potatoes.

The Important Part

Dessert was this chocolate molten cake with vanilla bean gelato and some type of rhubarb fruit compote.  This was when the whole "chive" thing hit me.  "Everything has a chive on it" I exclaimed triumphantly at the table (I would have stood on the table and shouted but artsy tables rarely support my weight).  Jen had picked that up around the salad, so she was not as impressed with my detective skills as I was.  Oh yeah, back to the dessert.  This is one of those complicated deserts where you have to use your fork to collect all three elements from separate locations and navigate it to your mouth.  I'm confused easy so it took a few tries.  However, it was so good we were fighting for the last bite of the chocolate thing.

Deadly Sins

6 of 7