TastePro - Self Guided Walking Food Tours in San Diego
TastePro’s self guided food tours let you try San Diego’s most iconic restaurants, all in one day. Our North Park Deluxe Tour took us to four of the area's best restaurants and bars, where we got to try the top-selling items at each place.
One of the hardest things for any foodie to do is decide on a place to eat. Especially if you’re travelling or driving across town, hours of research and planning are often involved. Wouldn’t it be great to get a taste of everywhere? Well, now you can, and it’s taking dining to a new level!
TastePro provides a structured and easy way to try San Diego’s best restaurants. Feasting on exclusive tasting menus of signature dishes, walking from place to place on your own schedule, and paying less than you would for a typical meal out (tax and tip included!) are just the beginning. It’s like creating your own personal food festival with the touch of a button.
How it Works
TastePro is a service for locals and travelers to book self guided walking food tours, where you can visit 3 - 4 restaurants and try “tasting menus” of signature dishes at each place, all in one day. TastePro currently has food tours in San Diego’s top foodie neighborhoods, such as North Park, Pacific Beach and the Gaslamp Quarter, with more to come. It’s the perfect way to try new places and support local businesses in a fun and easy fashion.
Booking a TastePro tour is simple, and they really take all the work out of finding a place to eat, since now you can just try all the best places at once. First, choose a tour from the tour page, with 4-stop tours being great for larger appetites and 3-stop tours good for smaller appetites. Next, select your tour date and party size, and add drinks for up to 60% off regular menu prices. You’ll receive a booking confirmation once finished, as well as an email with lots of helpful info for your upcoming tour.
We decided on the North Park Deluxe Tour, which features 4 restaurants: Encontro, Crazee Burger, 619 Spirits and Figaro Dessert Cafe. We were really excited to try these places because they offer a wide variety of cuisines all within a few blocks of each other! And one of the best parts is that everything revolves around your schedule. You can visit each stop in any order, pretty much anytime throughout the day, which made the whole experience easy and care-free.
Now you're probably thinking that you’re going to overeat! I definitely thought I would, but TastePro has a curated tasting menu for each restaurant that allows you to sample their best items without overindulging. You’ll definitely be full by the time you’re finished, but not so full that you won’t enjoy each stop.
The TastePro customer experience is as simple and seamless as the booking process. When you get to each restaurant, just pull up your confirmation on your phone and tell your server that you’re with TastePro. They’ll verify the confirmation, and then you order and enjoy! What’s really nice about this process is that you’re all paid for and tax and tip is already included! So after enjoying, you are free to go to your next stop. Leaving a restaurant without seeing a bill is an amazing feeling, and maybe something we can get used to!
First Stop: Crazee Burger
Crazee Burger features more than 30 handcrafted burgers, including beef, buffalo, venison, alligator, salmon and more! Crazee Burger is North Park’s hippest burger joint for sure and was even featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
Beer lovers will be happy here with a huge selection of Craft Beers from all over San Diego. Adding drinks during booking at Crazee Burger was a major bonus since they offer a HUGE discount for TastePro guests. Just remember to add them while you’re purchasing your tour and get ready to enjoy!
We enjoyed the Texas Slider - Angus beef patty, cheddar, hardwood smoked bacon, secret hickory BBQ sauce
It was SOO good! A juicy patty covered in cheese, bacon, and smothered in their housemade BBQ sauce. You really can’t go wrong with this.
We also got a side with our TastePro Tour so we decided on the Onion Rings and WOW! These were excellent. Definitely a great pairing!
Second Stop: 619 Spirits
Our next stop was 619 Spirits, right next door to Crazee Burger. Winning USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Award for Best Craft Vodka Distillery, 619 Spirits specializes in crafting unique vodkas here in San Diego as well as operates a delicious tasting room, bar and craft kitchen.
We were so excited to try their craft vodka, where the cocktail flights made the experience even better. Given how rare cocktail flights are in the restaurant world, this was a pretty special experience.
Build Your Own Cocktail Flight (Pick Three)
Spicy Berry
Scorpion vodka, mixed berries, lemon, scorpion vodka
Smoked Palomule
Scorpion vodka, mezcal, ginger beer, grapefruit, lime, bitters
Cucumber Lemonade
Cucumber vodka, cranberry, lemon
Kefir Sour
Lemon, lime, rhubarb, rose petal
Berry Pina Colada
619 vodka, Coco Lopez coconut cream, blueberry, raspberry, lime
We enjoyed the Cucumber Lemonade, Kefir Sour, and Smoked Palomule. We really loved this flight because we were able to try different versions of their award-winning vodka’s, yet still not be overwhelmed!
Mural on the Patio of 619 Spirits
My personal favorite was the Smoked Palomule. With their house made scorpion vodka as the base, this cocktail was mixed with mezcal (one of my favorite spirits) and then topped off with ginger beer and grapefruit. The result was a spicy, subtly sweet, and complex drink!
The Staff at 619 Spirits was awesome and as soon as I mentioned that I was here for a TastePro tour they were excited to discuss where I was going and where I had come from and seemed to really know a lot about the tour. Definitely a nice touch seeing how excited they were about promoting their stop on the tour.
Third Stop - Encontro
Located on the corner of 30th St, and University, Encontro is smack dab in the center of North Park, literally steps away from the North Park sign. Encontro is an upscale gastropub focusing on comfort food as well as craft beer. Their Executive Chef, Jason Hotchkiss, opened the famous Bottega Louie in Los Angeles and worked with Cohn Restaurant Group prior to starting Encontro. Needless to say, the food here is nothing short of incredible and Encontro itself is a classic SD spot!
After checking in with the staff and discussing the tasting menu options, the waitress strongly suggested I order the cheddar brat corndog. Wow oh wow was she was right! This gourmet corndog was freshly battered and had the classic flavors one can expect, but with an elevated quality that put it far above anything you’d ever associate with the word ‘corndog.’ The fun and unique flavors from the sriracha aioli and sweetness in the brat made this dish a 10/10.
The next dish was another one of my favorites for the day. I loved the comfort food aspect of a fried chicken sandwich, but this one was a great spiced up version of that classic. I loved how there was just a few bites, as I was definitely getting full, but I still had no problem eating all of it since it was SOO good!
I definitely made a note to add a drink at Encontro on my TastePro food tour, because they had a great craft beer and wine selection.
Stop Four - Figaro Dessert Cafe
Time for DESSERT! I was ready for something sweet to round out my TastePro tour, so I was definitely excited to head two doors over from Encontro and try some amazing desserts from Figaro Dessert Cafe. Even with the tasting menu narrowing things down to the top-selling items, there were so many great desserts to choose from. After mentioning to the staff I was here for the TastePro tour, they recommended the Oreo Cheesecake.
This cheesecake ROCKED! What I really enjoyed about this dessert was how it was not overwhelmingly sweet. I’m not a total sweets person, so getting a dessert that was well balanced with the tanginess from the cream cheese was a great way to end my TastePro tour. Something to note about Figaro Dessert Cafe was that you can also add on a signature coffee or tea, and I definitely would recommend trying one of their gourmet lattes. It would have made that Oreo cheesecake even better! Oh, and if you do like sweet, their giant crepes looked amazing!
Oreo Cheesecake
Summary
Overall Review: 9.8/10
TastePro makes it fun, easy, and affordable to try new restaurants in some of the best foodie neighborhoods in San Diego.
Food Review: 10/10
Everything on the tour was INCREDIBLE! The portions were big enough to get a good taste and amount to a full meal (actually much more than a full meal!), but small enough that I could eat everything that I ordered without getting too stuffed!
Drink Review: 9.9/10
The drinks at 619 Spirits were amazing! Strong but very drinkable and awesome to try new flavors! The craft beer selection at Crazee Burger was excellent as well. I just wish I’d added drinks at more stops!
Atmosphere 9.7/10
North Park is incredibly walkable and the whole tour covers just a few blocks. North Park has a great vibe and it’s a fun neighborhood to enjoy!