Yoshinoya Pico & San Vicente — Restaurant in Los Angeles

This place...exists? It's in a building alongside Courtyard Café, underneath a UCSB parking lot past the Engineering building, oceanside. It's quite hard to find if you don't come regularly.

Anyways when I ordered my beef a la carte (I'm on low carb), the cashier lady who didn't understand English very well tried to get my name for the order and it was a struggle. I had to spell out G-E-O-R-G-E three times before she just gave up and just spelt it as "Georte," which was quite amusing in my opinion. At least after I waited for my name to be called, she stopped the cook from swindling me by switching the kiddie sized petri dish and hooking me up with a big takeout-sized platter of beef. Props for making up for the spelling mistake with lots of food.

Back to the actual review. Most people don't know that this place even exists on campus, but all the engineering students like me, do. Even then, expect long lines of engineering peeps and the seats being mostly taken. However, the order was finished fairly quickly.

Most of their items cost more than the Panda Express in the Hub, while portions are smaller. For example, the takeout plates that I saw were about half the size of what you'd get for a 2 entree 1 side Panda express, where you'd pay $7 to $9 for most entrees, or $5 for the a la carte that I got.

Beef was pretty standard like other Yoshinoyas, it's kind of oily without the rice and noodles, but I like it greasy and tender as a Keto person. Comes with grilled onions.

Decent place. Filled me enough, and the service was good in that one instance. I didn't like how the backroom chefs could be so...

3 stars for lunch rush staff and 1 star for anytime after 6pm.

Go during lunchtime not dinner.

Tonight's meal was the nail in the coffin. I thought I found a better local Yoshinoya after 2 visits but realized those visits were midday. Tonight was an absolute disgrace and utter disappointment.

Our family decided to use the combo feast coupon. It comes with egg rolls, wings, and your choice of meats.

Strike 1: the wings were overcooked to the point of crunching and drenched in sauce. You can't cover up the taste or texture of burnt wings with sauce. That's foul.

Strike 2: the veggies were predominantly blanched cabbage. Not one broccoli, cauliflower, or carrot in site. The cabbage was so crunchy it was like biting into an apple. It was cabbage spine/stalk. That's just wrong.

Strike 3: the orange chicken bowl was greasy fried puff pastry dough with little to no orange sauce. It doesn't need to be poured on but there seemed to be no effort to toss it around for a nice saucy coat. There's no flavor in puffy fried chicken pieces without sauce.

From reading other reviews today, it seems as if this location has a tendency to run out of food late night. I found this to be true because they only had white rice left and maybe that's why the veggies were lacking. It still sucks.

Just say no to Yoshinoya for dinner. Go to Panda Express down the street. I know it's different cuisine but trust...

Yoshinoya is one of the staples in Japanese early morning fast food. I know we have some branches in USA, so I have been curious how it taste like in USA.

Food wise- it is definitely a different flavor.

The gyudon tastes a bit more bland than the ones I had in Tokyo. We don’t serve egg raw in USA but in Japan it is a standard thing to add a raw egg on your gyudon. It is not even an option.

The chicken rice - is actually cooked like chicken karaage. Difference from American chicken is we use wheat flour , karaage use potato starch. This one was not bad.

Tempura - this one was good. Though wished they give a bit of wasabi.

Boba - new to the chain are bubble drinks. I had the milk tea. It was spot on. $4+ for a medium one and $6+ for a large cup.

Price - bowl is $8+ (1 protein, rice, vegs) + 3.50 to make it a meal with a drink and a sides. I selected the tempura.

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The location I went to a server named Sara or Sarita was very kind to the customers. She goes beyond taking orders, she engages customers with small convo’s. There was a little girl who had a doll. She told her the order was put on her doll’s name. It is not often you have employees who comes to work with such energy and shows how much they like their job. Good work...