Teralta East, San Diego, CA

The Little Saigon district on El Cajon Boulevard forms the northern edge of Teralta East, a City Heights neighborhood in San Diego that runs south to University Avenue between Fairmount and Euclid avenues. The city designated the six-block Vietnamese district between Euclid and Highland, and a good share of it sits on this side of the boulevard. Food is the reason most visitors come. Saigon Restaurant has been feeding the boulevard for about three decades, and Thanh Tinh Chay cooks an all-vegan Vietnamese menu from scratch and sets down a chilled, lightly sweet lychee and mint water for every guest. Pho shops, a Chinese bakery and Asian markets line the same stretch. On a side street, Cafeina Cafe on 46th Street roasts its own espresso blend with direct-trade Central American beans, and it doubles as a gathering spot with art on the walls and DJs playing vinyl. Little Saigon also throws a free Lunar New Year festival that runs three days. Homes in Teralta East are mostly apartment buildings and small multi-unit properties, with older single-family houses mixed in along the residential streets between the two boulevards. Density is high and most lots are small. Getting around is simple. Rapid 215 runs El Cajon Boulevard between downtown and SDSU, local buses work University, and the freeway-level Centerline station at El Cajon and State Route 15 is a few blocks west. Supermercado Murphy on University covers basic groceries, and El Super sits across the avenue at Fairmount. Green space is the weak spot. The neighborhood has no real park of its own, so people head south across University to Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park and the canyon trail in Olivia Canyon, or west to Teralta Park on the freeway lid. Living in Teralta East means trading lawns for a front-row seat on Little Saigon, where a bowl of pho, a vegan lunch and a house-roasted espresso are all a few minutes away on foot.