When I posted this picture on Facebook, the first comment arrived within minutes: “those look so bad…and so good!” College students on the prairie may soak up excess beer with chili fries and Montrealers may stay up all night over poutine (fries with gravy and cheese curds), but San Diego’s contribution to the tater cabal is this cross-cultural mashup of French fries, Mexican grilled beef and cheese and salsa: gooey, greasy, altogether wrong and very, very satisfying. Valentine’s, the restaurant, doesn’t look like much, but it’s a favorite in San Diego’s up-and-coming East Village neighborhood, just east of the busy nightspots of the Gaslamp Quarter.
