So away in a tiny hamlet in beautiful Rancho Bernardo in our gorgeous hometown of San Diego where the weather is always great and everyone else in every other city wishes they were here — meaning we’re always inundated with tourists, taking our parking spaces and cloggin up our freeways — is an itty bitty tucked away place: The Urge Gastropub. A look into the word gastropub here- we all know what a pub is, but by adding the very unappetizing and even embarrassing word ‘gastro’, we introduce a whole new way for food people to make themselves seem better than they are… it’s a pub… that also has some food.

That’s the whole thing. That’s what the ‘movement’ is all about. But is this a new concept? No it’s not. Here’s why… When you eat while drinking, you need to drink more to get a good buzz.  The bars make a lot more profit off the booze than the food, so they keep the food comin’.  Simple? Yes it is. Also it’s easier to get a liquor license when you have an actual kitchen so you might as well use it, right? So pubs have been serving food right along with their alcohol since… I don’t know, the first cavemen bar where weary hunter/gatherers would come for a much needed respite from their nagging cave wenches. They could come to a nice man cave and have some fermented juice and grunt about everything,  they got some hunks of meat too… Yup, first gastropub. Has to be, cuz what goes better with booze than food? Some kinds of drinks really bring out the flavors of food, hence the invention of the snobby sommelier. Oooh, I don’t like those guys – but that’s a subject for a segment on next weeks show: “Why wine tastes like feet.”

Gastropub- silly new name, really old concept.

The Urge is all about the food and beer pairings, and they have more different kinds of beer than food. They give you a beer menu first, as though the entrees are a bit secondary- here you get a recommendation on what food goes with your beer, not the other way around. Half the tables are outside at the Urge, since the weather here is so nice no need to sit inside. We started with the Julian Cider, and got the Duck Poutine fries to go with it. Poutine fries are really really popular… in Canada. Here they’re a brand new thing. It’s French fries, or Freedom Fries if you will, covered in Gravy and Cheese Curds. And we all know how much I love the farm to table stuff that has three names? Well, most of the items on their menu have at least two. Squeaky Beechers cheese curds. Sounds weird? Kind of is… but I have to admit- they went well with my cider. We also had the aptly named Garbage Burger, topped with a whole crazy list of stuff, tasty, well cooked with just the right doneness,  a bit messy as you would assume. And we had the Fried Chicken and Waffles, which in my opinion never ever gets old. Came with real maple syrup of course, another very Canadian thing. Turns out one of these guys is, in fact, from Canada, which explains everything. All the cute little Canadian flourishes are nice. We had some Cherry Beer to go with our Chocolate Strawberry Mouse cake for dessert, and thought about ordering some wine but decided not to.

If I had to sum up this gastropub in one word, it would be ‘hoppy’.  It’s a lively place where everything is made with and influenced by hops.  Its hip hop happenin’. Need another reason? You can dis the French by ordering Duck Poutine Freedom Fries… and here in America we have another name for a gastropub — sports bar. See how we dumb everything down?