A new guidebook geared towards San Diego visitors includes a refreshingly strong addition of GLBT-friendly restaurants and attractions, as well as a healthy odds and sods collection of sights, tastes and sounds scattered throughout San Diego County.

This should come as no surprise as the just published Secret San Diego: The Unique Guidebook to San Diego’s Hidden Sites, Sounds, & Tastes was penned by none other than Gay and Lesbian Times restaurant critic and San Diego Pride Media Coordinator Frank Sabatini.

While Secret San Diego makes a great gift for friends or family members planning a visit (an easily arranged and fun read, they can highlight their favorites in mid-flight) the book also serves as an interesting, historical refresher for San Diegans.

For example, though we all dread Aunt Nelly’s request for her requisite day at Sea World, how many actually know that salvation can be found at the park in the Budweiser Beer School (read free beer samples). And though many drive down El Cajon Blvd. on a daily basis, how many remember that the aforementioned aunt (or camp-loving, queer guest) can have a cheap, retro dining experience at the Chicken Pie Shop (naturally, the only entry under the “Secret Chicken Pie” section). Kudos to Sabatini on the apt description:

“Nuns, seniors, gays, military types and families of all ethnic backgrounds turn out” to see the “anything but chic” dining room and “cart-pushing waitresses. The pies are a steal. They come with fake mashed potatoes, vegetable, roll and dessert for $4.75.”

The book also includes other interesting historical facts you many not have known or have long-forgotten, such as the scrawl of a former dishwasher turned comedian at the Big Kitchen in Golden Hill: “Don’t paint over this, goddamnit, Whoopi [Goldberg].”

Sabatini also gives the scoop on where to find San Diego’s only remaining Chinese Launderer (in operation since 1948), the bar with San Diego’s oldest operating liquor license and a memorial to the victims of the 1978 crash of Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, which went down in a residential North Park neighborhood, killing all aboard.

Of course, some of the most entertaining entries are the ones describing GLBT favorites to the mixed audience of straight and gay visitors whom the book is geared towards, such as Kickers, “a very different land where cowboys and cowgirls can comfortably slow dance in a same-sex arrangement,” and bingo at Bourbon Street, “The games are emceed by drag queens” (as if specific names were left out to accommodate any changes in lineup prior to the book’s publication date).

Other entries include “Secret Hauntings” “Secret Gondolas” and “Secret Retro Novelties,” while not neglecting to mention such favorite gay male haunts as Wolfs and Ringgold Alley (though you may have to tactfully cross those off Aunt Nelly’s to-do list).