So for our last night in San Carlos we decided to try Refuge, which is only a block away from the house we were renting.
http://refugesc.com/home.html
We went with my old roommates and their friends who are visiting from Sweden. We sat outside for a table of 7. We all started with different beers. Refuge has "Belgian" style beers which, not ironically, are mostly from Belgium but a few US micro brews as well. The beers were all quite good. Good dark beers and smooth blonde's. Refuge is known for their pastrami sandwiches so I got a Reuben. The pastrami is house cured and cooked well. It's cut into nice thick slices and topped with sauerkraut among other things. The bread was lightly toasted and good at soaking up the sauce on the Reuben. It came with big tasty pickles and I added a side of garlic fries. The fries were really good, nice and crispy with punchy pieces of garlic all over them. They came with chipotle mayonnaise which is a nice change from ketchup. A friend got a cheese steak hoagie with avocado on it. He liked it very much and I tried it and was surprised to find the avocado worked on a cheese steak. Three other guys got burgers and they were two for three on liking them. Two others had pastrami sandwiches that hit the mark. It sounded noisy inside when I went to the restroom so I would recommend eating outside if you can.
There was no downer to this meal. Good beers, good food, and good friends. Normally I would say where do you get off charging $16 dollars for a Reuben but I guess I get it now. This place is a can't miss if you are ever in San Carlos.