Harney Sushi — Restaurant in San Diego

My last visit to Harney was one of the worst experiences I've ever had at any restaurant! After waiting for 30 minutes for our names to be called, the 3 of us were seated at a table. So far, not a problem, the long wait is usually normal here if you don't have a reservation. But here is where everything goes wrong.... it took someone (I believe the manager) a good 15 minutes to come to us to get our orders for our drinks. We ordered water, soda, and a hot tea plus 2 appetizers. The drinks took about 10 minutes to show up (yes, 10 minutes for water, soda and tea). The drinks were delivered by our actual waiter who introduced herself to us. We get our appetizers and about 20 minutes later we are almost done eating them, yet no one has came by to check on us. We finally had to flag down our waiter to order some rolls and to get some refills on our drinks! After taking our order, she disappeared for a good 15 minutes before we get some refills on our drinks from a different waiter. The food shows up, our table is filled with empty appetizer dishes and empty drink cups again! Finally someone else took the empty dishes and still no refill! We started eating and no one comes to check on us for another 25 minutes, finally our waiter walks by and I had to flag her down for some hot water for my tea and refills on the sodas. 10 minutes later she refills my hot water and disappears again. I take a sip of my tea and it's cold! The "hot" water she poured for me, wasn't even warm! It was cold! So by now, we have all the empty cups that they failed to take with them every time we got a refill, and some empty roll dishes all over our tiny table. I finally start putting all the empty cups and dishes on the bar next to our table so we have some decent room to eat. Keep in mind, still no sign of our waiter! She finally came by to check on us and ASK if we need a refill, and once again, pours what is supposed to be hot water in my tea cup. I sip again, and there we go, COLD tea! And puff...she's gone once again! At this point we've been sitting at our table for a good 1 hour and half with the worst service possible! We are eager to leave this place and our waiter is nowhere to be found for us to get our check! We waited another 15 minutes surrounded with empty dishes and cups, and there is absolutely no sign of her. I finally flagged down someone and ask them to bring up the check. 10 minutes later, yes 10 minutes later our waiter shows up with a credit card machine to charge us. We simply needed our check to be split into half and on 2 different credit cards, which took her a good 5 minute to figure out. We ran out of this place as fast as we could. We were in there for a good 2 and a half hours!! In between all this waiting, after we finished our food, someone from our table went outside for a smoke, and when he came back he said he saw our waiter sitting in the patio, chatting with someone else! For some who comes here often, I'm not sure if I ever go back. Simply because I really don't want to sit in a sushi place for 3 hours and get terrible service and...

Small little spot in Old Town, but the food here was delicious. We went for a friend's birthday and they were able to accommodate a large party of us and the service for our group was very rapid as well.At first I was a little disappointed that they didn't offer an all you can eat option, but I quickly learned why. The flavors of the food here were so outstanding that I actually didn't need an all you can eat option to keep me full.

I started my meal off with the blistered Shishito peppers, which had flaked, dried bonito on top of them. They were perfectly blistered, no burnt spots on the peppers. They were topped with, I want to say, a soy sauce based sauce - if you like spicy food or peppers I would recommend these as a starter.

For my main course I ordered the associated shashimi, which comes in a chef's variety of nine pieces of fish. My waiter wasn't 100% sure what the opaque colored fish in my assortment was, but said that it was most likely sea bass but it was so delicious - it melted in my mouth like butter. I could have ate a plate full of just that alone. My assortment also had salmon and tuna as well. I also ordered two pieces of the sea bass truffle nigiri, also delicious as well. I finished my meal off with a Rolls Royce roll, which has "shrimp tempura, asparagus, topped with tuna sashimi, jalapeno, money sauce, hand seared garlic, ponzu, faux-nagi sauce." That was straight for their menu on their website.

Notice that they use "faux-nagi," a replacement for unagi or freshwater eel. One of the other highlights about Harney Sushi is not just the food, but their responsibility towards sustainability and responsible farming of their food. I believe recalling the first page of their menu talking about how their dedication to sustainable sushi and they actually cite their sources of their various proteins on their website.

The only downfall, at least for me, was the lack of a full liquor license so they were limited to just select beers, soju and sake for their alcoholic choices - it would have been nice to have an aperitif and a digestif just to add the extra flourish to my meal. However, the mixed drinks that they do offer that are made with soju are crafted quite well. For this place, it's all about the sushi, not about the drinks.

If you're ever going to be visiting San Diego, I would recommend making reservations for Harney Sushi - it's about 10-15 minutes from downtown, but I think it's well...

I went here tonight to get some sushi. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I walked in and told the two hostesses that I was alone. All the tables were full, so I asked to sit at the sushi bar. The one hostess said "I'm sorry, you can't sit there because we don't have any more menus. You can sit at the bar, and when we get a menu, you can move to the sushi bar." The sushi bar was completely empty, and they wouldn't let me sit there! I said, I don't understand the rule... why can't I just sit at the sushi bar, and whenever you get a menu, go ahead and bring it to me. They said no. What a joke, the hostesses are clueless. There is no excuse for not having any menus, how much money would it cost to print up a couple more menus?

Anyway, I went to sit at the bar, and the hostess told me that she would come get me when they got a menu. I sit down at the bar, and order a drink. And wait. And wait. The bartender ended up getting me a menu, which I couldn't read because it was too dark. The lighting is really questionable here, the seat I was in was somehow completely in the dark, even though the person to my right and left had plenty of light. Both hostesses completely forgot about me, and then seated other people with menus at the sushi bar. I waited maybe a half hour, then I left.

I am rating the restaurant as three star, because the sushi did look really good, but I don't want to give them my money for treating me terribly. And the bartender was really cool, and nice, and they have Sapporo beer on tap for only about three dollars. I'm not going to judge the quality of the sushi without trying it. Minus two stars for the two clueless hostesses! Harney Sushi, step your...