If you’ve got cash, have we got a deal for you: Invest in a Beltran restaurant. According to information sent to their mailing list, owners Philippe Beltran and Jacqueline Delaney are offering investment opportunities for their neighborhood restaurant concepts. He owns Blue Boheme in Kensington and Papa Nanou in Mission Hills, due to open late this year. For information: 619-823-6510.

We hear that Maria Hunt, ex food critic for the UT is freelancing for north county magazines including Riviera where she’s authoring a piece on Roseville in Point Loma.

Maureen Clancy who spent many years writing about food at the UT, now has her own blog,

Chef Jason Seibert has landed in Los Angeles. His time in San Diego included Cafe Cerise (chef/owner) and when it closed he consulted for the opening of downtown’s Jade Theater. He recently spent eight months catering with Wolfgang Puck for LA’s mayor, Billy Crystal and others.

A wonderful new restaurant named Roseville opened last week in the Point Loma community known as Roseville–one of the first areas settled by Louis Rose in the mid 1800’s. It’s the first restaurant for George Riffle, long known in this town from his stints managing the original Laurel Restaurant & Bar to opening Blanca in Solana Beach and Ivy Hotel in the Gaslamp.

He and his wife Wendy took the space next to the Point Loma-Shelter Island Drug store at Rosecrans and Canon that, in the 1960’s, was the gourmet market called Jurgensens. After the market closed, Italian restaurants came and vacated. Now Roseville brings to the area French-Mediterranean brasserie food and an eclectic wine list. The transformed space features booths, banquettes, a beer and wine bar and open kitchen–a lively room with a comfortable decibel level.

Executive chef Amy DiBiase, a graduate in culinary arts and food service management at Rhode Island’s Johnson & Wales University, gives a talented hand to the kitchen. She worked with Riffle and under then executive chef Jason Shaeffer at Laurel to eventually become top toque. When Laurel sold, she moved to Baleen at Paradise Point resort and now Roseville. Pastry chef Heather Fangon rounds out the original Laurel team with desserts that wow, now at Roseville.

And the food? It’s terrific. The Buzz disclaimer: I know the Riffles, DiBiase and Fangon, and have followed them since their days at Laurel many years ago.

Of the recent meals I have eaten with friends (and yes, I paid), the classic duck confit with shell beans (currently cranberry beans) comes with crisp skin and well-seasoned beans cooked with smoky bacon. Or, try the lighter flat iron steak, sliced and served on bed of cherry tomatoes with French feta cheese and light vinaigrette. Start with Carlsbad mussels steamed with flavorful fresh fennel and finished with a fresh herb salsa…and use a piece of Con Pane’s bread to sop up the juices. A deliciously zippy spring salad brings all fresh fava beans, corn kernels and blanched artichoke hearts mixed with an addictive grainy mustard dressing. Lamb, scallops, halibut, veal cheeks, daily specials and sides of frites, asparagus and other seasonal vegetables round out the menu. Ethereal desserts include a lemon chiffon parfait, a dark chocolate pot au crème and more. Service still has a few minor bumps, but the polish is nearly there-small things to be expected in a restaurant open not even a week. Prices range from $6 to $30. Roseville, (website soon) 1125 Rosecrans in the Village of Point Loma, 619-450-6800 for reservations. Dinner from 5:30pm, Closed Sunday

If you’re traveling the I-5/405 corridor to Irvine and Los Angeles and get a craving for a really good pastrami on rye, find your way to Tommy Pastrami New York Delicatessen, just off Bake Parkway near the El Toro merge. This new franchise with three stores and more on the way serves overstuffed, high quality sandwiches of the type you’d find at top New York or Los Angeles delis that were noted last September in Los Angeles magazine. Unfortunately, there isn’t a deli in San Diego (DZ Akins and others pale by comparison) that holds a corned beef sandwich to those LA institutions. The new comer, Tommy Pastrami, even though their outlets don’t have table service, could certainly be added to the magazine’s list.

Fat sandwiches at Tommy Pastrami come in three sizes: 4-ounce ($4.95) 6-ounce ($6.95) a nd 8-ounce ($8.95). Whether it’s melt-in-your- mouth pastrami or thinly sliced, slightly marbled and tender corned beef or tuna with finely chopped celery and just enough mayo not to intrude on the tuna, or chopped liver with bits of hardboiled egg that is light not heavy, the top quality shows in the food. The half- inch plus slices of crunchy-crusted corn rye bread, an integral part of a great deli sandwich, make the trip worthwhile. Thick fries, a zippy homemade chili, salads, chicken soup, even matzo balls, cheesecake and rugala are among other treats on the menu.

Tommy Pastrami knows the business and they’ve hired some seasoned deli guys. In chatting with Howard, who took my order, I learned his dad started Marv’s (long since sold), one of the top ten listed in LA magazine. Yes, it’s worth the trouble to detour off the freeway for a pastrami (or any sandwich) on rye.  At the Commons, 8685 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine, (949)753-7445, Closed Sunday.