“I’m going to leave
them a great review.”

Twenty years is a hell of a long time to keep someone interested in dinner. Chef Davin Waite has managed it. We have been following his cooking since the Fish Joint, and the thing that caught our attention then is still there: curiosity, conviction, and an instinct for finding possibility where somebody else might stop looking.

At The Plot in Oceanside, that instinct has a garden and a kitchen to work with. This is plant-based cooking with something to say. The ingredients get attention. The food has a point of view. You can feel the care in the work without needing a lecture before you pick up your fork.

Our meal began with the seared “scallops” and the cräb cake. My wife and I shared a Caesar, and I had the Fried Chickën + Cornbread. As usual, everything was impeccable and full of flavor. The Plot is still our favorite restaurant to date. That is the experience behind this thank-you.

Give that main course its own moment: Fried Chickën + Cornbread. The restaurant’s current dinner menu brings together fried tofu chickën, freshly baked citrus cornbread made with heirloom corn, and pear-scrap honey. Familiar comfort food, approached with a cook’s imagination. Even that last ingredient tells you something about the kitchen’s willingness to find another use for what it has. This is the dish I want people to notice—not as a substitute for somebody else’s dinner, but as a reason to sit down to this one.

The larger idea is just as interesting. The Plot describes a restaurant built around locally sourced ingredients, scratch cooking, and urban gardens. A garden should mean more than something pretty to look at through the window. Here, growing food and figuring out how to use it belong in the same conversation. Plant to table to health: that is how I think about the connection. It is an appreciation of the care behind the meal.

The recognition deserves its proper credit. Davin received CalTravel’s Sustainability Advocate Award in 2022. The Plot was named Senate District 38’s Small Business of the Year in 2023, and its own team history records San Diego Magazine’s 2020 Best New Restaurant recognition. Surfrider’s September 2026 Ocean Friendly Restaurants spotlight adds another piece of published attention to the work. Those honors are worth mentioning because they point back to effort, people, and decisions made day after day.

Jessica Waite deserves her flowers here, too. As cofounder, and through her work with the garden project, she helps carry that food philosophy into growing, learning, and community. A restaurant is never one person standing under a light. The cooks, the people looking after the room, and the growers behind the ingredients all belong in the credits.

Davin, Jessica, and The Plot team: thank you. Nearly two decades after the Fish Joint, we are still finding reasons to pay attention. The food. The imagination. The feeling that somebody gave a damn. Chef Davin Waite, this BOOM’s for you.

— Danny

There is a particular pleasure in finding a restaurant that has the confidence to be entirely itself. Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub in Oceanside is that sort of place: curious, spirited, and serious about the work behind the food. It deserves more than a hurried recommendation, and Chef Loren Waite deserves to be named properly.

Chef Loren is Wrench & Rodent’s chef de cuisine and partner. His work belongs here, at Seabasstropub. The plate is his canvas. Every dish he presents is a work of art—a masterpiece. That is my appreciation of his artistry: the care that makes you stop, look, and think about the person who made what is in front of you.

I have followed this cooking story since the Fish Joint. Remembering that beginning and looking at Wrench & Rodent today, what stays with me is the imagination. There is something rather lovely about seeing a kitchen continue to develop its own language. Chef Loren brings his own craft and point of view to that story. He deserves his own spotlight within it.

The restaurant’s description of its kitchen helps explain the possibilities. Alongside a set sushi menu, it offers omakase and specials that change daily. That gives a chef room to respond to what is available, to consider a different preparation, and to let an ingredient lead the conversation. The seafood is central, while plant-forward preparations and a vegan omakase also have a place. Curiosity runs through the whole idea.

There is substance beneath the presentation. Wrench & Rodent describes a commitment to local and responsibly sourced fish and produce, to making more of each ingredient, and to giving less familiar species attention. That philosophy asks something of a kitchen. It means thinking carefully about what arrives, how it is handled, and what else it might become. It gives the artistry a foundation beyond appearance.

The restaurant has earned recognition of its own. OpenTable lists Wrench & Rodent as an Icon for both 2024 and 2025. Surfrider’s September 2026 Ocean Friendly Restaurants spotlight also recognizes its efforts and identifies Chef Loren as a partner and chef de cuisine. Those are restaurant and program credits, given to their proper recipients. They add context to the care and imagination I want to celebrate here.

Davin and Jessica Waite founded Wrench & Rodent in 2013. Their contribution deserves acknowledgment, as does the work of the cooks, the service team, the fishermen, and the growers who help make the restaurant what it is. A beautiful plate arrives through many hands. Chef Loren’s artistry sits within that human effort, and naming those people makes the appreciation more meaningful.

Cutting-edge grit and art. That is how I think of Wrench & Rodent. Chef Loren, thank you for bringing your own imagination and care to its kitchen. For giving a plate the attention an artist gives a canvas. And for making people pause long enough to appreciate the human being behind the work. This BOOM’s for you.

— Danny