Restaurant: Living Room Location: 1417 University Ave. San Diego, CA Phone: (619) 295-7911 Price Range: $4.50-$6.45

Number of visits: many
Last visit before review: May 7, 2001

Randy has had: Chicken, grapes & pecan salad, Greek salad (chicken added), hot green tea, mocha freeze, iced banana cappuccino.

Jeff has had: Chicken, grapes & pecan salad, mocha freeze.

Rating 9 (of 12) Good

Randy says: The chicken, grapes & pecan salad is pretty good. It's a little sweet and too mayonnaisey. I prefer the Greek salad with chicken added. It has a nice mix of lettuces and the dressing is nice.

Jeff says: My favorite is the chicken, grapes & pecan salad. I like that it's moist and creamy, and the grapes and the pecans make for great flavor and texture. The salads come with several slices of delicious whole grain bread and chopped fruit. It's so good but rich and sometimes I can't eat it all.

Randy says: One time, seduced by the thought of sweet juicy watermelon I ordered an extra side of watermelon with my salad. An enormous watermelon wedge was served, but it was mushy and flavorless. The hot green tea came in a huge cup with water that was much too hot, and too much for the amount of tea provided which leads to oversteaping, both resulting in a bitter cup of tea.

Jeff says: My favorite beverage at the Living Room is the mocha freeze. The equivalent of Starbucks Frappuccino, it's cool, rich, flavorful, and slightly sweet. I can't resist the option of topping it with whipped cream. The consistency of the beverage varies. Sometimes it's icy like a 7-11 Slurpee, and other times it's blended more smoothly.

Randy says: I like the mocha freeze well enough, but wanting to try something different I once opted for the iced banana cappuccino, and it was pretty good.

Jeff says: The iced banana cappuccino wasn't bad, but I'm sticking with the mocha freeze.

The Living Room looks like just that — a large living room with a collection of mismatched dining tables and chairs, couches, and coffee tables. It is a popular local hangout in Hillcrest (there are other locations as well), and it seems people coming in often meet up with friends inside. As its logo accurately portrays, the place attracts a wide variety of types. On Friday and Saturday nights, the dressed to kill Hillcrest pre-bar crowd swarms and it can be impossible to find an available table or free couch. Sometimes on these nights there is an artist providing amplified musical entertainment, but it's too much for the size of the room and we prefer to go at quieter times. On Saturday and Sunday mornings students with books and laptops study and write papers while they fuel up on caffein to get through it.

Mostly a coffee house with nearly every coffee drink imaginable, the Living Room also has a wide selection of hot food, sandwiches, salads and desserts. So far we have managed to be good and avoid the desserts but it's only a matter of time until we weaken and try one. The quality of the food is surprisingly good, especially considering the focus of the place is coffee. We like to stop by on weekends and bring newspapers or magazines to read while we eat lunch and sip on our iced coffee drinks, and then maybe walk around Hillcrest or see a film nearby.