American Voodoo

Stopped by American Voodoo on a Saturday afternoon for a bite for lunch.
Things I liked:
–Neat décor, awesome mural going on in the bathroom, fun location
Aspects that brought this place down to 2 stars:
–The burger I got was ho-​hum and forgettable.
–It managed to take over 10 minutes for the waitress to run our credit card when there was only 1 other party in the entire restaurant… and 2 non-​kitchen staff working.
–There seemed to be some confusion/​disorganization between the 2 non-​kitchen staff members that were working. It just seemed that the restaurant didn’t have their ducks in a row yet.
–Both our table and the other group were served sour coffee creamer. At first I thought it was some weird buttermilk creamer, but realized it was probably just bad milk when the woman at the other table proceeded to go back to the kitchen to inform the cook it was sour.
Might give them another try in a year or so once things are sorted out a bit more.

Awesome food!
Cozy charming well decorated little spot.
Cool mellow music playing. Perfect volume.
Good service.
Chef brought our food to the table.
Owner was very friendly and appreciated our business.
Check out the cool mural in the bathroom.
Will definitely come back!!!
Short ribs!!! And mac and cheese!
With a couple cold stone ipa’s
Great little spot!
Menu needs expanding.

This place is pretty good, but there were few areas I felt that either needs to be changed or improved. I came in for brunch and ordered the Crab Cake Benedict’s which came with a side of breakfast potatoes. The price on line says $ 10, but they charged me $ 13. I was not happy with that, and obviously they need to update their website. That’s the first thing they need to improve.
The Benedict’s looked nice when they arrived, but they were crammed into a small bowl with the potatoes, which made them difficult to eat and hard to keep the eggs separated from the potatoes. (
) A larger bowl or better yet, a plate would suffice.
I asked for a medium poach on the eggs, and they delivered such a temp. (
) The crab cakes were okay and had a nice flavor, but what bothered me was their texture. The crab cake mix had apples in it, so when they crab cake was heated, the apples moisture released into the cake and made the interior very soggy and not firm. Like I said, the flavor was there, but the cakes were to mushy. I would rethink that. What I did like a lot was the biscuits underneath. (
) They had great flavor with a hint of sweetness and were moist. The were my favorite part of my meal, in addition to the bacon that they added right on top of the biscuits. Great bacon. (
) The Hollandaise had a slight kick to it which I liked and was well prepared.
The breakfast potatoes that came on the side were very good. They were well cooked and seasoned as well. (
) Service was a little apprehensive to me. It did not flow well and I did not feel at ease with the particular server I had. I felt rushed and and conversation was choppy and short, which was strange because another lady and my self were the only ones in the place.

This is totally a voodoo you shouldn’t be scared of! This year I got to pick what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day and my only requirement was «I just want good food!» As you can tell, food is the way to my heart and a way to keep me happy. I have been very eager to try American Voodoo after hearing so many good things about it.
For this special love holiday we received complimentary love potion sangria with fresh strawberries. Eating all the strawberries in my glass was like taking two shots! The alcohol was really soaked into them (this is not a complaint! Haha) Boyfriend ordered an IPA that he thought would pair great with his braised short ribs. His short ribs were tender and flavorful. I ordered the fried chicken that everyone and their mom took pictures of in Unilocal.I had to try it! It looks delicious! In my opinion the fried chicken was crispy, but a little too salty for me. The white meat inside was cooked perfectly. It was so tender!
As appetizers we orders the cajon tots and goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. Can I just describe them as «MMMMMMMMM!!!» It’s not hard to cook some great tots, but the cajon sauce on top made it hard for me to stop going after them! I was trying not to ruin my dinner and the test was hard! The dates!!! The dates were also topped with a maple syrup? It’s kinda weird at first bite. Is it sweet? Is it salty? My taste buds were confused, but as a whole all the elements of these goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon with maple syrup on top complimented each other very well! I’m also not certain this is a regular item on there menu because I didn’t see them in there website.
Lydia (sorry if that’s misspelled) and blonde girl that I’m not sure of your name were amazing!!! I watched them do figure 8s around the restaurant and made sure they were checking up on all their patrons. I had a great first experience and can’t wait to come back again. They’ve got me with their voodoo magic!

Will eventually get there, but definitely not there yet. It’s really about 2.5 stars.
Starving walking around the area and try this out of curiosity. Cool interior and the menu is limited but interesting. Sit down to find out they have no liquor license. Well, sitting down they have older industrial style chairs and I get stuck with the one that’s very tall and my knees are bumping the table. We were about to leave and said lets try it.
Order the tater appetizer, burger and catfish. Taters come out and we dive in. Just about ever tater tot would fall apart when you try to pick it up with a fork. Never experienced this ever and they’d just turn in to mush and hard to pick up and eat. The sauces the came with were good though. I get an iced tea and it’s extremely cloudy and a color I’ve never seen. It was on the sour side and a little odd. I get the catfish and I’m a little disappointed. I’m a huge catfish fan that loves southern and creole cooking, but this one was OK. Vegetables and red beans and rice were OK. The catfish tasted OK but would break apart every time you cut it and slide out of the cornmeal breading.
Date got the burger and it was almost a joke. So big and just falling apart. 2″ thick top bun and a tiny bottom that was already soaked and falling apart. She tried so hard to be nice and eat it but it looked too hard to eat. They put way too much sauce on it and the largest piece of lettuce you will ever see. Just trying to hold it together was the most painful thing to watch. You’d have to prep it, get an angle planned just to try to pick it up. She was getting self conscious and kept laughing it off because neither one of us have ever seen anything like it before.
This place has a lot of potential but needs to figure out how to keep their food together and give a few of these items a little more kick. I’ll probably stop in a few months to see if they’ve made any progress.

Really really wanted to like this place. Ive been seeing them work hard on the construction since rosie lees shut down. To the owners, im sorry for the medicore review. I know you guys are just starting out and I really want you to succeed. I hope youll take this as constructive feedback.
My bf and I arrived on a friday night. After seeing the guy ahead of us get to pick his own seat, I proceeded to walk over to a table at the wall behind another couple but then I hear the waitress say, «no pick one of these» and she pointed to the two tables by the kitchen that were clearly the least desirable. The bright lights from the kitchen were shining on them, they were closest to the kitchen noise and where most of the foot traffic was. Um really, the place was more than half empty and with all the open seats we are only allowed to choose from the worst ones? Well not gonna argue, I didnt want «spontaneous ingredients» added to my dish. Besides the weird seating thing, the service was good. The waitress was fast, friendly and could explain the food.
We started with the Hush puppies. Fried well and pretty tasty. Not too greasy, not too dry. Pretty good sauce. I would order this again if I decide to ever come back. (See photo)
My bf ordered the Redneck hot dog out of curiosity.
Its a bacon wrapped sausage fried, in a bun with a special sauce. The sausage was ok but that sauce killed the dish. Not sure what it was, just something greasy, salty and sour. Maybe i got a «spontaneous ingredient» afterall. (See photo)
So here comes the disappointing part. We ordered the fried chicken but we were served fried boneless skinless cutlets instead. Thats the reason we came, for this famous fried chicken. They didnt even tell us theyd swapped it. What they did tell us is that theyd run out of fried chicken and we had the last order. No lady, the tables next to us having delicious fried chicken had the last order. To comment on the cutlet, it was not flavorful. Chicken was dry and the breading was flat. what made it enjoyable for me was dipping it in gravy that was actually intended for the side of mashed potatoes.
I cant say I can recommend this place for its food. If you decide to give this place a shot, i urge you to call ahead to make sure theyre not low on fried chicken. Also, consider getting your entrees with sauce on the side to be safe.
Mahlzeit!

I would actually give this place 2.5 stars.
This is a fairly new restaurant of only about 2 months or so. I have heard that on a Friday and Saturday night this place can be packed but this was not the case on Sunday.
We had a group of 5 people on Sunday at 5:00 and the restaurant was empty. Even when we left around 6:30 no one else had come into eat.
Food: Apparently there was some power issue and so they didn’t have certain menu items that they normally had. We decided on the fried okra– $ 7.00, cajun catfish– $ 16, and the habenero mac and cheese for $ 11.00
Fried okra– pretty standard. A bit steep for the amount that you get and their dipping sauce I believe is just mayo with some thousand island mixed in .
Cajun catfish– I actually enjoyed this dish. The catfish was fried in a cornmeal batter and did not have any fishy taste at all. The fish was flakely and not dry. Came with a side of steamed veggies and red beans and rice. Nothing spectacular about the sides.
Mac and cheese– $ 11.00. Again was a bit steep for the amount that you get. At least throw in some bacon or some meat. It was probably about a medium spicy level. The sauce wasn’t too thick and the cheese sauce was made well so it did not have a mealy texture.
My friends ordered the fried chicken for $ 16.00 and said that it was fried well and the chicken was juicy inside but there was not enough food on the plate. It came with 1 drumstick and 1 thigh? My friend complained that his thigh piece was so small and was mostly batter.
The french quarter burger sounded good but then our waitress said «it’s just a regular burger»…Why not just call it a burger then?
Service: It was decent considering there was no one else in the restaurant.
Also if you pay with cash you get a 10% off discount. We had to wait a while for our change since our waitress had to go to another store to get change, can we say not prepared?
Come back again? Probably not. Their food is decent but not worth the money

The food was middling, the experience was not as good as I hoped for. We weren’t really inspired by anything on the menu, so ordered a handful of appetizers: the fried okra, tater tots, mac and cheese, and caesar salad. The mac and cheese was good, but all of the other dishes were somewhat uninspired, okay at best.
We went Friday night around 7pm. There was only one server, so service was a bit slow, but the guy was working hard and very friendly. The service was great.

And I thought my collection of innocent voodoo dolls was big… I was mesmerized by the ugly dolls and random collection of items that characterize the sweet black magic:). Only for that I give this place a 5. So dark yet so clean cut, with the re-​purposed woods creating an interesting atmosphere. From the moment I entered the door to this place I liked everything I saw and I ate.
First of all, we were greeted by a fellow Spaniard with sense of humor (of course!). We were checking that pig on display and she mentioned that in Spain are bigger. I replied something like” are you going to tell me? I eat pork like a pig” and we all had a good laugh. The name of this server is Tara (means defect in your cloths, just fyi, in Spanish) and she makes this place shine. Beautiful and cheerful, she recommended a very juicy burger (to share with my partner in foodie tasks) and was perfectly cooked and totally shareable (I am doing this to save some money and some pounds in my pursuit of culinary nirvana). IPA was great companion for our night burger and the whole scenery was very good.
I like to be able to talk to people when having lunch or dinner and in here it was possible (I went at dinner time). Not too big, not too crowd and in one of my favorite streets in San Diego. And hey, you get to play with dolls! Next time, bring a pin or two to play even better!

Their «fried chicken» is boneless, skinless, chicken breast.
If you’re going to serve boneless, skinless chicken breast and call it fried chicken it had better be fucking good.
It isn’t. One piece was so dry that my knife could barely cut through it.
The side dishes weren’t good either.
The 4-​star average this restaurant has on Unilocal represents everything I don’t like about San Diego.

I was super excited to go here and try the seitan sliders! So so pumped. But, when we got there, they weren’t on the menu. I asked about them, and found out the chef wasn’t happy with the recipe yet, so they took them off. Nooooo! I’m glad the chef wants to serve only the best, but… nooooo!
Dreams crushed, I went with sharing the red beans & rice, mac & cheese, and a salad. Turns out, the red beans & rice had big ol’ chunks of ham (or some meat) in them. I had asked if they were vegetarian before ordering, and had a conversation with the server about the seitan sliders and how we are vegetarian. Whoops. Sent ‘em back.
The salad and the mac & cheese were tasty, but the mac & cheese was a bit small. Not good for sharing, unless it is just an app. Or, it probably would have been perfect if we were able to eat the red beans & rice.
The bread and honey butter they bring to the table is delicious — I should’ve had more instead of saving myself for my meal!
I look forward to trying it again, when they have more vegetarian options. Small, make reservations.

Kinda underwhelmed on my first visit.
I like the vibe of this place and it seemed cool, but I didn’t get anything that was all that great. I was dying to get the chicken fried seitan sliders but they hadn’t gotten the recipe down yet so they weren’t serving them. Too bad, because those sound like a dream.
They gotta pick up the pace a little and figure out the menu.
I’m looking forward to going back when those sliders are on the menu and updating my review.

American Voodoo
SD: University Heights
9pm Friday 8^th November 2013
Four Stars
Open for about 1.5 months, we finally went to check this place out. There was 30 minute wait but we left our number and went to have a drink at the Lamplighter. After about 35 minutes, we went back to check on our reservation but it felt that they forgot about us. The manager was nice and made sure we got the next table. We then sat and read the daily chalk board menu. [The problem with not having tangible menus is that the wait staff to know if you need order something. We sat for a while watching the chefs in the open kitchen. We ordered the Mac n Cheese, Shrimp Scampi, and the Duck Confit. The housemade biscuits were warm and delicious. The Mac n Cheese ($ 10) was unmistakable comfort food. The Shrimp Scampi ($ 16) was good but seemed more Californian and less Creole. The duck confit Cassoulet ($ 18) was not exactly a French Cassoulet since it was not served in cassole or similar device. It was served in a standard dish with the Duck Confit on top (instead of inside the white beans). Both components were good but the duck was kind of dry for a confit. The pumpkin pie with maple ice cream was excellent form first to last bite.
Even though American Voodoo has some kinks to work out, the experience was enjoyable. The food has a lot of potential and the service was friendly but frantic.
*I hope you fixed the leak*

Visited from out of town. The owner is super friendly and nice. They lost our reservation for a bit and then to make up for it gave us two desserts on the house. Because this place is relatively new, everyone seemed a bit frantic. Their menu is a daily one so changes constantly depending on the availability of the food. We got the last of the fried chicken (which I didn’t get to taste because the people who ordered it ate it all before I could. which means… it was probably delicious.)
I ordered the pork lion. Yes, lion. I think they spelled it wrong and then found that it was funny so kept it. Anyway, that was succulent and well-​sauced. Well-​seasoned. Good. We also ordered the Brie something something appetizer which was stuffed mushrooms. Those were really tasty and I wish I didn’t have to share it with 7 people. The pork belly salad was little dry but it may be because I have high expectations on pork belly. Desserts were okay. Nothing super amazing.
The bathroom is great. Graffiti mural and everything. They also had a light at the top that showed you whether or not someone was in there. I’m not sure if it’s because we were drinking and just found this highly amusing or what.
Speaking of which, they don’t serve alcohol yet, but will soon. (April, I think he said).
Overall, good experience, good food, interesting/​eclectic decorations, fun bathroom.

Someone is going to have to make this corny statement so I will: American Voodoo has worked its magic on me. I am hooked.
The warm bread and, in particular, the honey butter brought to the table was unbelievably good. I really appreciate a nice, crusty bread with a pillowy center. And the honey butter! After dinner, I dreamt (same night) that I was hanging out with Yan Can Cook (no clue where that came from) and we bonded over how much we were both lovin’ the butter. I may have woken up to a little drool on my pillow. I think that speaks (volumes) for itself.
We started off with the fig salad, which tasted fantastic! Warm fig, toasted pistachio, ahh. I am drooling again.
The sea bass featured a great crispy exterior. It was accompanied by delicious mustard greens and swoon-​worthy potatoes and fennel.
The star of the show was the fried chicken. Just do it. The crunchy, almost vinegar-​y exterior is the stuff dreams are made of. I have eaten my fair share of fried chicken and this one is up there, one of The Best. It was so juicy and, strangely, not greasy or salty. The sweet potato mash left me cross-​eyed. I think there was a little marshmallow in it? I am almost sad that Yan Can Cook didn’t have a chance to try this dish but maybe that just means more for me!

Tried this place for the first time last night and it was amazing. The meal started out with sime great warm bread and honey butter. I had the pan seared sea bass with creole mustard sauce. The fish was cooked perfectly and the mustard sauce was incredible. The spicy greens that came with it were perfectly flavorful with a kick and the mashed potatoes finished off a perfect dish.
My wife had the fried chicken. It was equally amazing, but different from normal fried chicken. It was lighter than most batter and cooked to perfection inside. Nice and juicy. The sweet potatoes mashed were equally good.
The only bad thing is they do not have their liquor license yet, but the server said they should have it in a few weeks. Will definitely be back.

This place is off to a great start! The fried chicken is amazing! So are the sides of sweet potato mash, coke slaw and meat gravy that come with it. Chicken was cooked perfectly and was SO tasty.
The layout of the place is a little weird. I think some booths would be nice in there.
My wife didn’t like her soup and they happily exchanged it for some red beans and rice! Very nice of them. The rice and beans were to spicy and we did ask if they were spicy but my wife didn’t want to complain a second time. She’s didn’t even want to say anything the first time. I had too.
Great staff too.

5 stars for a great experience — though seemingly they have a few kinks to still work out. We came for breakfast and were 1 of 4 other tables being served. Our waitress (Tracie I believe) was so attentive, kind and overall just genuinely nice. It was a great start to our morning.
Our food took awhile to come out and though we weren’t bothered by it because we realized they were a new restaurant, they knew it and kept apologizing about the wait.
We loved that they were sincere and were concerned about the wait themselves. They even gave us two free biscuits and the coffee ended up being on the house.
That’s how you do business guys/​gals. It pays to care about your customers.
Anyway, the food. It was fantastic. My boyfriend had the caliquiles — he liked the simplicity in flavors as it can sometimes be too many flavors in one dish. I had the crab cake benedict. So glad they don’t skimp on the crab. My flavors were so good. From the buttermilk biscuit they served it on, to the hollandaise sauce, to the andouille sausage they added and then finished with a perfectly poached egg — it was near perfect. The sausage and crab was a good combo and didn’t leave me wanting more protein.
Will definitely be back for dinner. Going to have to try their fried chicken!

This place is really a 2.5, but I’m rounding up because they just opened. Overall it was pretty disappointing, but there were some good parts.
Starters:
–Mac n cheese: 1 star. This was terrible. Flavorless, and pretty bad.
–Fried okra: 3 stars. This could have been much better, but we watched it sit in the window for a good 5 minutes, which wasn’t ideal.
Entrees:
–Grouper: 3 stars. The fish itself was awesome, but the potatoes and greens that came with it were pretty bad. The potatoes were bland, and the greens were so spicy that they also had no other flavor.
–Louisiana Bouillabaisse: OMG 5 stars. This was by far the best thing we ordered. So great. flavorful, full of great seafood. It was the highlight of our meal.
Sides:
–Biscuits and gravy: 1 – 2 stars. This was pretty bad. The «gravy» used italian sausage and what tasted like bbq sauce. Not thick, not creamy, and just odd. The biscuits themselves were fine, but the sauce ruined them.
–Cornbread: 1 star. Pretty bad. Too thick, not cooked in the middle, tiny portion, just bad.
Service: 2 – 3 stars. Our waitress was nice, but really didn’t seem to know what she was doing. Let our food sit for 5 min in the window, forgot sodas, etc.

I just ate at the new restaurant in university heights, American Voodoo, and was absolutely amazed at what a wonderful experience I had. The atmosphere was what a warm home should feel like, with the nick knack display of eclectic collectibles from around the US. Awesome décor!
Now for the reason that I went, the food. Holy moly was it wonderful. My friend and I dined with the owners Joshua and Genoa (that’s not really her name but I misheard when I was introduced so I think it’ll stick). They were warm and engaging. But I digress. My friend and I split fried chicken and Mac and cheese. Not their fanciest entrees but wow. It really was super. I’ve already made plans to return. Can’t wait to try much more or the muni which also includes vegetarian cuisine