J BOX — Restaurant in Carlsbad

JBox by most accounts and by their website sounds appealing and appetizing, but frankly it’s subpar and were it not for my need to warn you about it, forgettable.

Over the years I’ve come here a handful of times and it’s been mediocre, but being open minded when I started working nearby I decided to give them another chance. Since that happened I’ve come here 3 times and they’ve either made mistakes or errors on each of my orders.

The first time they placed my order as a Paradise roll at $9.95 instead of a Philly Role at $7.45. Correcting them and them correcting the chef in the back I assumed they would refund my money, nope. Just shrugged it off. Really bro? I normally tip 20%, but you lost that by being incompetent. Philly roll needs to be righter and not square.

Next visit. Teriyaki Chicken bento box. Salad is nothing like what it looks like, forget tomatoes, just shredded lettuce and carrot slivers with a creamy sauce with no identity. Shrimp tempura was soggy by the time I got to my office 1 mile away. Same with the egg roll. I like the chicken, but found the sauce to be bland for teriyaki. My California rolls had soy sauce on it already, what?

Poke is basic, and not even competitive with the poke craze that hit San Diego 4 years ago. It just seems lazy. The fish is ok and I’m glad they use avo and seaweed salad, but it’s not that much more difficult to bring some authenticity to the “fast casual fusion” they seem to be going for. This visit they did not give me an “all salmon” bowl.

The menu is too small to not do everything well. The prices aren’t amazing the food isn’t anything to write home about, the service is bunk because they won’t fix their mistakes or when you bring it up to them the next time it’s like, that wasn’t me or oh well.

They don’t even put the right sauces in their items. Sometimes I just want rice, so the bowl is the hardest for them to mess up. If they mess up my next order or two and don’t acknowledge it fix it it’s half...

Overall the experience was average and good enough for a quick lunch run. I ordered a miso soup and a California roll. The roll was average. One difference that I noticed from most other rolls is the crab was not the usual crab and mayo combination, but just the crab stick. I think this made the roll a little more bland compared to other rolls, but not bad. The miso soup was mostly the same as everywhere else, but it included fried tofu pieces instead of regular cubed tofu pieces. The roll did come with a small green salad which was a nice perk...

I usually get the Paradise Roll here and it's delicious! It has coconut shrimp and cream cheese rolled inside, topped with fresh salmon, avocados, and yum yum sauce! It also comes with a side salad that I usually finish because I love their poppyseed dressing. I've also had their cold ramen and it's definitely something to try! It's basically ramen noodles tossed with sesame dressing. The toppings: bulgolgi, green onions, soft boiled egg, pickled radish(?), and nori. It's soo perfect on a nice sunny day. I'd...