Sushi Deli One

09/30/08

don't believe the hype- long lines, rude & slow service, below average sushi

by sopho at Citysearch

The food is below average, the prices are affordable, and the service is consistently poor. I've been here twice, once for lunch and once for dinner. NEVER AGAIN. Lunch- long long lines (we were there at 11:30am). The service was sloooooooooow - we ended having to help ourselves to the sauces, dishes, napkins, etc. They got two of our four orders wrong. Dinner- the place was much more reasonable at night (no long lines; we were there at 7:30pm). Despite having a couple of open spaces, my family and I had to wait for a table. The food came out much quicker than when I was there for lunch. After dropping off our food, we didn't see the waitress again until we stopped her to ask for a box and the check. The guys who work here are cool, but the girls I ran into there were all rude and bitchy.

• Pros: affordable, downtown location
• Cons: below average tasting food, bad service, long lines

05/08/07

I have banned Sushi Deli for life (sad to say)

by sdgirl27 at Citysearch

Okay, I'm not one of those people to ever bash a restaurant and this pains me because when I first moved to San Diego, I was all about Sushi Deli. Good sushi at moderate prices - what's more to love? I worked in Hillcrest and we'd order take-out from Sushi Deli 2 every week.

Then they started messing up our orders, pretty much every time we ordered. My friend and I started dining in after work for Happy Hour and the sushi would be less-than-fresh. We were looking at each other going, 'what's going on?'

To make a long story short, the moment where I decided to ban Sushi Deli for life is when I visited the downtown location (sushi deli 1). First bad sign was the stank of the menus, which smelled like stale beer and old food. I didn't even want to touch them. We should have gotten up right then and there. Instead, the waitress came over and we ordered the special roll. I went up to go to the bathroom and came back and my food was on the table already. NOT a good sign when your sushi comes that quick.

We were halfway through our meal - which wasn't that great - when my friend screamed and threw her hands up, shouting an obscenity. I looked (though I didn't want to) at what had happened and I kid you not, a HUGE clump of hair was sticking out from her roll. She looked at me and said, "Oh my god. I almost put that in my mouth. I can't believe this. It's ruined."

Well, the waitress pretty much ignored us for about ten minutes of trying to get her attention. The manager still tried to charge us for our other rolls and was completely oblivious. Not to mention she looked like she was 21 and obviously had no customer relationship skills. I will never go back there.

Yeah, it may be cheap, but you get what you pay for. Just go a few more times and you'll see what I mean.

• Pros: price, good happy hour specials, two locations
• Cons: service, sushi quality, cleanliness

04/01/07

Busy, great prices, not great sushi

by bellahead at Citysearch

On a recent Friday the wait was already 20 minutes at 6pm, so we thought we were onto something good. I have to admit that at first, we were blown away by the prices (great value!) and the variety of creative rolls. Miso soup for 85 cents? sign me up. But the delicious steamy miso with tiny bits of tempura floating in it was where the yummy ended... The rice under our nigiri was terribly undercooked; crunchy, actually. The hand rolls and regular rolls had chilled soggy nori around them, leading us to believe that due to volume, everything must be cut, rolled or prepared in advance. If you are a true sushi lover, you will be disappointed. If some fun rolls, lower quality, and cheap prices will suffice, this is the spot. We are just REALLY REALLY PICKY about FRESH when it comes to raw fish.