Mabel's Gone Fishing — Restaurant in San Diego

Best bites during my 4 day trip to SD. I am a seafood fiend and this place was recommended by a coworker who works raw bar if anyone knew seafood at work, it’s that guy. I opted for the 4 course tasting menu on my solo trip and it was worth every penny (85$ without drink pairing).

First course starts with an array of “snacks”- a bowl of green (presumably castelverano) olives, smoked salmon rilettes, mussels escabeche with aioli and grilled sourdough, and last but not least a Serrano ham wrapped date. The date was my favorite bite - who knew a piece of ham and almond would catapult a humble dried date into the stratosphere of most memorable bites? This lone bite leaves any charcuterie board in the dust with how perfectly balanced the textures and flavors are. The saltiness of the ham is counteracted with the sweetness of the date, and an almond stuffed inside complements the date beautifully, balancing out the date’s sweetness and chewiness. If I knew I was going to love that date as much as I had, I wouldn’t have eaten it in one bite. In fact, I was tempted to order the dates a la carte on top of my tasting menu but I resisted because I know I’ll have to save room for the rest of my dishes.

Course 2 was followed by a big eye tuna crudo with pickled rhubarb and favas as well as a gem salad. The crudo was delicious but would fall in line with any other decent crudo. That salad however was exceptionally delicious and beautiful- the chopped pistachios worked so beautifully bun this salad alongside nasturtium pedals and leaves with the perfect amount of dressing, also laced with pistachios. Despite being obviously basque focused, Mabel’s manages to weave in California not only in their vibes (surf punk tunes and that mission-style tile bathroom and outrageous royal blue toilet … hello!) but also food and drink whether it’s the pistachios in the salad or the house made Palo Alto bitters in their fino-sherry Negroni variant, “forget me not”.

The main (3rd) course consisted of baked halibut with heirloom carrot ribbons, snap peas, and a light citrusy sauce accompanied by a side of their patatas bravas y romanesco. The halibut was good but my least favorite - it was super fresh, and I particularly enjoyed the snap peas, but i thought it paled in comparison to the aforementioned salad and date. I don’t really care for baked mild white fish across the board because its comparatively bland to other preparations especially in a city like San Diego where there is no shortage of delicious, fresh fish in the form of poke and sushi. The romesco sauce was delicious and the potatoes were beautifully seasoned and plated. I wished they used a large, starchier potato over the whole yellow fingerlings in the patatas; despite being deep-fried it didn’t have that nice crunch and soft interior one comes to expect from papas bravas. I usually destroy potatoes but I managed to pack this up for leftovers. The Albariño arinto wine paired beautifully with the fish, nevertheless.

The final (dessert) course consisted of basque cheesecake with a touch of caramel. This cheesecake was beautifully executed and the caramel had the perfect texture and sweetness.

Overall, fantastic time, highly...

I have not had a service experience as bad as this was tonight. We made a reservation for 2 at 6pm. We were seating in the middle of the restaurant, and ordered four items from the menu in addition to some cocktails. All the food was covered in olive oil, and was greasy.

The best item we had was smoked potatoes, which is saying alot when this is supposed to be a seafood spot. We had to get another waiter to get us some water, since our waitress seemed to be too busy to check in with us.

The cocktails were delicious, but when I ordered a second one, the waitress forgot to follow up on it, or put the order in, so I waited 45 minutes for it. She didn't apologize, or offer to comp it, or even ask if I still wanted it, after I had reminded her about it.

Our water glasses were empty again at this point, so we had to ask another server for assistance with more water. We then decided to order dessert, since our meal was already complete at this point, but I had an entire cocktail now at the table.

We sat at the table for another 15 minutes or so, chatting after our dessert was finished, and I was still working on my 45 minute late cocktail. Once I had finished my cocktail, the waitress grabbed the glass, without asking, and whisked it away, to clear the table. She then came back and said "If there won't be anything else, I'll leave the check for you" and walked away. We had planned on ordering coffee, but apparently that wasn't an option anymore.

We paid the bill, including a very decent tip, though at this point was not deserved, but we didn't want to be rude.

Not even 10 minutes later, she comes back to our table and says "Would you both move next door (into their empty event space), since there is a large party seated next to you, and they need these chairs", before we can even answer, she's already grabbed our water glasses and is walking us through the doorway. We were comfortable where we were, and had no intention of leaving yet since we had planned to order coffee, but clearly our money wasn't as important as the group of new people who were recently seated, even though we made reservations, and had only been seated for 1.5 hours for a 4 course meal, with desert and cocktails, on a Tuesday night.

Let me also clarify, this "large group" could have VERY comfortably fit next door in the event space, but for some reason, 2 patrons who were already seated at a table, was an inconvenience to this staff.

We had originally talked about how we were excited to try the menu, since we heard it was good, but after the lack-luster food experience and the ridiculously unprofessional customer service, we will not be returning. There are many better spots for great seafood in town, and MUCH better customer service who won't try to push you out the door, halfway through...

I felt the food was generally pretty good, though I think the ambitious pairing of flavors led to a couple of misses for me personally. In fact the prices and menu seemed like an attempt to be fully fine dining without entirely getting to the place, service or taste-wise, where I want to pay that much for their food. As a party of three we were advised to order 6-8 tapas. Of those I very much enjoyed the halibut and liked the bread found in various dishes. I also had the custard for dessert which tasted lovely minus the sorbet on top which I thought clashed with flavor of the custard. I was very thankful to sit outside as it was rather loud inside. The pacing of the service felt rather odd to me. It was obvious that they were pretty busy so I don’t mind that it took awhile to get our food, but it did kind of bother me that it felt like we were seated, given menus then left alone for awhile (my guess is about a half hour?). After ordering we were again left alone for some time. That wait didn’t particularly bother me, but because we were off to the side it didn’t feel as if we had an opportunity to ask for more water once we ran out. As a side note, because different people brought out all the food I could see people searching around outside trying to find the table dishes belonged to, which seems like an inefficient system that might have allowed a table like ours to be forgotten. As for the price, some of the dishes felt fair but some felt like it was rather pricy for the amount/quality received. I think some of that is our fault as we chose the mussels with bread and the stuffed peppers, both of which contained seafood, but presumably not the hallmark that is their oysters or other fresh catches. In particular, I didn’t find the stuffed peppers with eggplant mint and a fish whose name I forgot fully to my taste. I appreciate the exploration of flavors but I wanted to switch from flavor to flavor and texture to texture rather than experience them as a whole together as it was a bit much. Finally I do add a compliment to Andrew who remembered my friend calling for the reservation and was kind in giving suggestions for eating the bread and mussels when dropping the plate off, as that extra care was the highlight of my...