San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Japanese hair wax = sexy
Now that Halloween has come and gone and Thanksgiving is but mere weeks away, it’s time to start thinking about gift-giving season. I’ve made my lists, I’ve checked them twice. I’ve downloaded the latest apps to keep myself on top of all the many glorious things I will buy my friends and family—so, now, shopping must commence.
Randomness from foreign countries is always a good gift category. Our tour of outer lands will start with one close to home: Mexico. I know of two terrific places to get the goods without ever having to drive south of the 94. Back from Tomboctou in Normal Heights (3564 Adams Ave., backfromtomboctou.com) has been around forever. It’s a little shack of a store, but the gentleman behind the counter, in his fisherman’s cap and Hemingway beard, is a hoot—and very knowledgeable. The stock is chock full of little skeleton scenes, cempazuchitl flowers, oilcloth and more. I love it for its paper and plastic cutouts, which can make any backyard feel like a fiesta. BFT has classes for kids and adults on Mexican crafts, too. And the prices are cheap.
Across town in Little Italy, Casa Artelexia (2419 Kettner Blvd., artelexia.com) has set up shop in a little house with a big backyard. In the summer, you can watch movies on the wall of the neighboring building. On Wednesdays at lunchtime, it’s out back where you’ll find MIHO Gastrotruck serving up grub. Inside the store, the impossibly small rooms (did people really once live in 5-by-5-foot spaces?) are thematically filled with milagros and hand-painted wooden trunks and boxes and drawers, plus jewelry—much of it bearing the uni-browed face of Frida Kahlo—plus papier-mché skeletons and mesh bags galore.
There’s a new Brit shop in University Heights called Rosie Lee’s British Foods (4657 Park Blvd., 619-501- 8360). It’s got all the pantry foods—the Marmite (and its Australian cousin, Vegemite), Robinson’s Barley Water, Heinz Baked Beans (for the Who fans in your life), Angel Delight and more crisps than you can munch in a lifetime. It also has a few small non-edible gifts like little salt pigs and dishtowels bearing the phrase “Keep Calm and Carry On.” If you hit it at lunchtime, you can sit at the one floral-adorned table and snack on meat pies or sausage rolls, scones or any number of Rosie Lee’s selection of English cheeses. Oh, and it has clotted cream, which sounds gross but is very yummy. A sweet new addition to the neighborhood.
For Japanese goods and other more colorful junk, we’ve previously touted the virtues of Kearny Mesa’s
Marukai (also formerly known as Daiso), but just one block south is Mitsuwa Marketplace (4240 Kearny Mesa Road, mitsuwa.com/English). The majority of its footprint is groceries, but on the outer perimeter of the big hall are alcoves big and small, mini departments to the larger food center:
Going counter-clockwise, you start at the Sanseido Bookstore, which stocks the most beautiful books; the covers are graphically pleasing, the cookbooks impossibly cute. Mind you, they’re all in Japanese, but that’s not stopped me before. And who needs to be able to read a book on the 1960s? The Blythe doll’s influences on Manga? All I need to do is look into those big doe eyes and I’m ready to drop a 50 on the coffee-table tome.
Next up? Trendy, the Hello Kitty and other “cute”stuff boutique. I always find better trinkets here than at the mall’s Sanrio store because the latter seems to be made for the American market. Not so here. The sake selection used to have its own alcove, but they took it away. The back corner is now where it resides—you can go on urbansake.com for guidance on which brands are best, or you can buy based on the awesome-looking bottles.
The next mini shop is filled with beauty supplies, and I have two words: Dolly Wink. They’re a line of false eyelashes, and they are awesome. Also found here: the thickest liquid eyeliner pen I’ve ever seen, cute soaps in the shape of Japanese-Russian matryoshka dolls, a nail-polish line simply called “pa” and hair wax for men with impossibly gorgeous gray-haired Japanese boys on it. Why are they gray-haired? I want— no, need—to know.
The next mini store is filled with tea and accoutrements. It’s not only terrific tea, but, also, the packaging is really gift-worthy and the selection is large.
Pickles occupy the last little side store. I don’t really understand how the pickles get their own alcove while the sakes have been stripped of theirs, but OK. I actually do know and love someone who loves pickles so—.
Write to clea@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.
