If I did the caloric math for every restaurant I ate at this past year, I’d be laying on the couch with a cold pack slung over my forehead. But since calories and couches strike a dire match, I’ve chosen instead to purge my brain for those meal experiences that incited grins and groans in 2004, while of course, raising the incline on the treadmill a notch steeper.

San Diego’s culinary scene continues to step up to the plate with the arrival of more seasoned chefs and restaurant owners paying closer attention to aesthetic details. Although by most accounts, the jury is still out on how San Diego eateries rate in terms of service, which gets iffy when you’re shelling out less than $20 per meal.

Below is my year-end roundup of gastronomic affairs that resulted in everything from true love to sudden divorce.

If you’re a sucker for period architecture, the restaurant located within the Lodge at Torrey Pines puts you smack in the middle of the Arts & Crafts movement with a replicated design that captures every straight angle of the time in stunning detail. Both food and atmosphere are decidedly upscale, so pack a heavy wallet and leave the Nike sweatshirt behind.

It still has all the old wooden trappings of a pastoral Irish pub, but earlier this year the kitchen reportedly changed food purveyors and the corned beef takes a serious beating. Either bring your own meat tenderizer or start with a dozen Harp lagers before tackling the stuff.

A whole lot of peanut butter gets injected into the menu. But don’t expect to be washed over with fuzzy-wuzzy childhood nostalgia. The irreverently designed restaurant produces dozens of savory nutty butters at an offsite facility and plops them into outstanding dishes such as spinach quesadilla, mole with grilled veggies, fruit sushi rolls and Thai-veggie pizza. Perch yourself in one of the hanging bubble chairs and the world of veganism seems like a pretty cool place.

It’s an assembly line of bargain cold cuts and low morale whenever I’ve succumbed to Subway. If only that faux-bakery smell wafting from the ovens when the rolls are baking could put a look of pleasure on the employees’ faces, I might come back every leap year. But then again, if I were listening to so-called healthy-eating customers recite all day, “extra veggies; hold the mayo, ” I’d probably start curling my lips and showing them my eyeteeth, too.

If there’s a sparkling gem to be found in sterile Rancho Bernardo, it’s this. The food is as well heeled as the customers are, and I’ve yet to see a dining room in San Diego County outdo El Bizcocho in terms of classic elegance. Chef Gavin Kaysen bangs out a litany of light, French-style fare, which mingles well with the restaurant’s highly cultivated 60-page wine list. A great place to dine after buying new formalwear.

Pity those first-time visitors to San Diego who get steered into eating these ordinary, slapdash meals that race through your intestinal tracks faster than you can say “burrito.” A front-window spectacle of low-wage employees making tortillas the old-fashioned way hardly compensates for abysmal service and the most vapid-tasting carnitas and carne asada in the city.

Now a year old, this recently expanded retail shop and wine bar manages to draw in a balanced ratio of GLBT and metrosexual straight folk who come for “the steals” that carry industry ratings of 88 points or higher. Pretentiousness is non-existent. The staff and owners are cool and friendly. And rarely will I be found staining my lips anywhere else on a Friday night than here. A newly added artisan cheese shop, called Taste, offers some rather incredible curds to go.

It’s where the nouveau riche flock for expensive caviar and other seafood goodies in the company of a three-story, climate-controlled wine tower.

Female “wine angels” flutter up and down the tower on bungee cords in pure Peter Pan style. Design team Marnell Corrao Associates of Bellagio fame have given the old First National Bank building a modern Manhattan feel that is delightfully un-San Diego.

I’m stumped as to how this massive, unkempt Jewish deli keeps roping in customers with food that is tasteless, greasy and poorly presented. The Matzo Ball soup is okay, but the Kasha Varnishkes, Beef Brisket, Potato Latkes and myriad desserts all taste dusty. Add to the sorrow a chaotic atmosphere strained by harsh florescent lighting, and you’ll find yourself on the next flight to New York for pickles and pastrami that put these to shame.