Chef JUN - Bay Ho — Restaurant in San Diego

Chef JUN was great! My coworkers and I went here for lunch. It doesn't look like much from the outside but everything tasted wonderful. Would definitely go back again!

Food: Everyone loved what they chose. We all ordered off the lunch menu. It was a great price for what we got. 3/4 of us got ramen. It came with a salad and some type of sushi roll (all for just $14). I got the tonkatsu with the side salad and 4 pieces of California roll. The dressing in the salad was very unique. It also came with some seaweed salad in it. Absolutely delicious! One of my coworkers got a poke bowl and he said it was also really good. We all got the hot green tea. It's much stronger than we anticipated, but had great flavor. All the ingredients were so fresh!

Atmosphere: I really liked the vibe and aesthetics inside. It's very modern/classy and the booths are really cute. The walls and chairs are black, but there were pretty cherry bosoms painted on the walls. There is also the option of patio seating if you just want to enjoy the weather.

Service: We got there a quarter to noon and there was no one there. However, people started flowing in after we sat down. The server was very attentive and we got our drinks and food quickly. We we got our check right upon request.

Misc: Each of us also got 2 of those thick, good quality napkins each! - I hate it when restaurants...

I hate leaving negative reviews about local restaurants, but the food is just really bad, no way around it. I'm really surprised this place is rated anywhere near as high as it is. The Poke bowl was mostly spring mix with luke-warm salmon cubes and a few spoons of brown rice. The spicy tonkatsu ramen was inedible. The noodles were instant, straight from a package of Hongshim. I'm not a tonkatsu expert, but I've had enough to know roughly what to expect, and this was staggeringly far from the real thing. As close as I can tell, this seemed to be barbecue sauce diluted with a bit of beef broth, plus a large amount of paprika(?), topped with a hand full of canned corn and a large amount of canola oil, a few drops of sesame oil, and some black sesame seeds. The tonkatsu pork and soy sauce egg were good, though both extremely cold, seemingly taken straight from the refrigerator and put on top of the bowl. The mushrooms were fully rehydrated, though tasteless. The seaweed salad is 100% what you buy in a large ziplock bag at Costco down the street. Not gross, but certainly not good. The service was good, the waiter was polite and quick. There is so, so, much solid Japanese food in the area, I STRONGLY recommend going...

We tried Chef Jun for takeout and got the Fire Fire, Hawaiian, and Mango Passion rolls to split between my wife and I. Visually everything looked amazing and the takeout packaging was honestly next level. I’ve never seen sushi boxed like this before. The branding and presentation were super professional and had us hyped from the moment we picked it up. But to be totally honest, the flavor didn’t really match the excitement. The descriptions of the rolls sounded incredible, but when we actually tasted them, the flavors felt kind of off or unexpected. Not bad, just not what we were anticipating based on what we ordered. The sauces they came with definitely helped and made the overall experience better, but I have to say the fish didn’t taste as fresh or clean as we hoped for. Maybe it was just an off day or maybe takeout doesn't do them justice. Some toppings like the sprouts or what I think was a seaweed crunch just didn’t do it for me either. They kind of threw the balance off and weren’t super appetizing in my opinion. Still, we gave it a fair shot and appreciated the unique flavor profiles. Might try it again fresh and dine in next time to give it a...