blue pokē — Restaurant in National City

I don't know if it's because this place really hates doing Uber Eats orders or what, because ordering through the app, gives you an abysmally terrible quality of food everytime Ive ordered. The times I have gone to eat in person, the food was always fresh and delicious. Yesterday was not the case, and has nailed the final nail in the coffin for me on not eating from here again. I had ordered 2 Blue Poke bowls with the same proteins and items. Many of the items I ordered, were missing from the bowls, including items I paid extra for. Whenever I ordered through the Uber app, this would ALWAYS happen. Asked for several specific sauces, and none were mixed in or added into the poke bowl, making it dry. Again, this always happens when ordering through Uber. However, the third issue was the worst problem.

Right after our food was delivered, my coworker and I began eating our food. Throughout half way, my coworker would stop chewing and would spit into her napkin. She complained of a bad, bitter taste in the food. She smelled her bowl and noted that it smelled "different than usual" but thought it was her new meds affecting her taste buds. About 75% into my bowl, I began tasting something foul as well, and found I could not eat the rest of my food. We both had gotten the same proteins and items. I tried figuring out what was making the bowl taste so off, and chewed on individual pieces of the salmon. The salmon did not taste fresh at all, and had this old fridge taste to it. We threw our stuff away and head back to work. About an hour later, I get a text from my coworker asking if I was feeling ill or had a stomach ache. I had begun feeling unwell and became sick at work, along with my coworker. I have loved Blue Poke for as long as I had lived in the area. But it has become too apparent the quality difference between eating there in person, and ordering through food apps. This time it caused me illness, and so its time to...

It's really too bad. Blue Poke has been outstanding up until today. I have been ordering from the National City location for about a year, around twice a month. That's regular enough to get a sense of a business. Normally, I order Door Dash, and that has always been fine. Once recently, I stopped in and ordered in person, and it was one of the best to-go food experiences I've had. The staff was friendly, fast, responsive, and helpful. They were super cool. They recommended using their website in the future and I said I would give it a try. So today I did. I went to the site, ordered through a relatively simple system, checked out, and drove there. I'm about five miles away, so it takes a chunk of my lunch time to drive across town. 30 minutes later, I'm back in my office. The bag has my receipt stapled to it. The receipt is right. I take out the poke bowl and it seems smaller than normal. I ordered six proteins, and that usually crams these bowls to the extreme. I opened it, and found only two proteins, one that I do not eat. There were also about five other ingredients that I didn't order and almost none of what I did. The only way to contact the store is through texting. This time, it took nearly an hour to get a response. Now my lunch time is gone and I still don't have the right food. The person replying by text just stated that my order would be refunded and was there anything else they could do. Seriously? Not a single apology. No offer of how they could make it right. No concern whatsoever for the human being on this side of a text that's hungry and having to be back at their job. Rant over. I'm kind of hangry...so forgive me that. If even the slightest bit of conscientiousness came back from their side, this would have been resolved. Blue Poke, I spent just under $30 there today. Normally through Door Dash, I drop almost $50. I recommend you. I thought I was a regular. No more. I'll find somewhere else. Customer...

NEW REVIEW: After the owner had contacted me to assure me that the mistakes in my order were due to low stock of items at the store and a busy lunch rush, he had issued me a full refund of my original order as well as a $50 gift card to give them another try. After ordering again this weekend I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of my order. After seeing how the workers prepare an online order I would recommend going into the store to order. They have to read off of a small receipt for online orders and make space in the assembly line while other workers are working on other customers orders. Also ordering in person ensures that you have no missing items because you are telling them what you want as they are making your order. Overall my experience was much better than my last.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I had ordered 4 poke bowls online, thinking that ordering ahead of time might be more convenient. ALL of the 4 bowls that I ordered were made incorrectly with several items missing from each bowl. The crab salad, cucumbers, carrots, edamame, spicy tuna, cilantro, and masago were items that were missing from ALL of my bowls. I can even see the items listed on the receipt and yet they were no where to be found. This made the meal laughable and not satisfying. ON TOP OF THAT, after trying to get in contact with their customer service team I am met with radio silence. Maybe think twice before ordering here as there are many other poke places around San Diego that offer...