Cheap Restaurants in Downtown San Diego, California

Eating out in downtown San Diego is usually an expensive adventure, though even the famous Restaurant Rows of the Gaslamp Quarter here is being invaded by smaller and cheaper fast-food-ish places. Here are 5 eateries in downtown San Diego where you can fill up on a lot of carbohydrates with enough cash left over to afford a movie or a Broadway show (or even the symphony or the opera) afterward:

1. Sushi Deli 2: 135 Broadway (by Spreckels Theater), San Diego. Tel (619) 233-3072
Voted the Best Sushi Bar in San Diego by the readers of the San Diego Union-Tribune, this popular Japanese place is the best meal-to-go meal in town. It has the ideal location as the place to chow before going to shows in downtown area. Spreckels Theater is right next door, Balboa Theater and the Lyceum at Horton Plaza are just a stone throw away, and just a short walk north and east would get you to the opera, ballet, and symphony at the Civic Theater and at Copley Symphony Hall respectively.

Drop in to pick up a chicken teriyaki bowl to go for $2.50 or even a sushi combo for $4.50. Even if you dine in (must get there early, though, this is a first-come-first serve place whose line goes literally around the block), you still get the biggest bang for your buck here. A dinner of Karaake chicken with steamed rice, miso soup, and salad will only set you back for $5 (and they sell imported Japanese beer here for only $2.50 a bottle). I won't say that they make the best tasting sushi in town, but the sushi here is quite alright, especially for the price (California rolls for $2.75! My favorite pig out there, though, is the super dragon rolls for $8). Service is good, but with the place being so busy all the time you have to allow for some waiting time.

2. New Café:901 E St, San Diego. Tel (619) 595-1785.
This American diner & Chinese restaurant at the corner of E St and 9th Ave is just across the intersection from the Central Library and the Central Post Office in downtown. It's a friendly little mom and pop (and 3 sons) place where you can drop in to start the day with a stack of pancake with eggs and bacon for $4.75, drop back in for a cheese burger with fries lunch for $3.25, and then pick up a big plate of beef fried rice home for a $5.50 dinner. Good portion size and good price... though the Chinese dishes are a bit heavy on soy sauce.

3. Lee's Café: 738 5th Ave (between E & F Sts), San Diego. Tel (619) 239-1621
This oddity of finding this cheap hole-in-the-wall diner on a swanky block full of 4 and 5 stars restaurants in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter is one of the area's unintentionally best kept secret. Open daily from 7AM-7PM (closed on Tuesdays), this is chow shop is where you can get fillingly greasy meal for less than $8 (unless you go for the t-bone steak). It's a mom and pop shop with no table or customer restroom (you eat at the long counter). Good for the end of the month when you just need some calories to survive until the next pay check arrive.

4. Pokez Mexican Restaurant:947 E Street (at 10th Avenue), San Diego. Tel (619) 702-7160
This deliciously bad kid on the block Mexican restaurant with a large vegetarian-friendly menu at the southwest corner of E St at 10th Ave in East Village (just a block east of the Central Post Office & Library) looks scarier than it really is... Well, most of the time anyhow. The food is quite very good for a very reasonable price (lunch for one shouldn't exceed $10), though the neighborhood is a bit iffy after dark and the service can be pretty rough. The place got busted for selling alcohol to minors a while back and lost its license for a while. I think they've got it back now, though.

5. Great Wall Express Chinese Food:501 Broadway (at 5th Ave), San Diego. Tel (619) 238-8398
It's hard to miss this spacious cheap eatery at the southeast corner of Broadway at 5th Avenue when you drive through downtown San Diego. They serve Chinese fast food along with some really good Louisiana style fried chicken and cod fish. The food is sometimes good and sometimes yucky, but the price is always more than reasonable. 2 items combo with either steamed rice, fried rice, or chow mien would set you back only $5. The place is frequented by the local transients, so the servers are sometimes a bit sour, though they usually brighten up if you smile and be nice to them (might get extra large serving on the house that way!).