Madi — Restaurant in San Diego

Honestly, the atmosphere and decor of this place is insane in a good way. The first time I went it was a weekday and I went maybe 10-15 minutes after they opened so I got a table immediately. The place started to fill up quickly about a half hour later.

I ordered the blueberry pancakes with a side of eggs and sausage, along with a pistachio matcha. Didn't take too long to get my food. Blueberry pancakes were absolutely delicious. Sausage was fine. My eggs had eggshell in them (picture included). The pistachio matcha was absolutely not worth the price. Its basically just matcha with pistachio milk but its not really strong enough of a pistachio taste honestly and even when I asked for more milk to add to it, it was just bland and not worth the like $7 it cost when its not even hand whisked. After a few sips I asked to just swap it out with their coconut cold brew but for some reason like an hour after opening they had no cold brew? Sooo they just refunded me which is nice I guess. Server was nice. The person who actually delivered the food wasn't really able to answer my initial questions about the matcha as he didn't speak English. That's fine, more of a me problem for not being multi-lingual. But still slightly frustrating and unsafe from an allergy stance for your employee to not be able to communicate/ get another employee instead to answer the questions.

Despite the drinks being sad and underwhelming the food itself was not bad so I returned but this time with my partner. This time we arrived about 30-45 minutes after open and had our food about an hour after open. The place was PACKED to the brim to the point our only option was outside seating which is SIGNIFICANTLY lacking compared to the inside. They didn't even try outside with the decor honestly. So if you want to be seated you need to be there within the first 30 minutes. This second time around I ordered the same thing as the first time with the coconut cold brew this time (instead of the matcha). The cold brew was... interesting. Whatever you imagine in your mind when you think of COLD foam on a COLD brew... think again. It was closer to dairy-free foam where it was just extremely liquidy falling straight to the bottom. Disgusting honestly. My partner got a drink as well, can't remember what. It was also nasty. Basically this place does food just fine, drinks-- forget about it. My partners breakfast burrito was served with black beans. Weird but ok. The server on this trip barely acknowledged us and gave me the strangest looks for being questionable about the cold brew and attempted to explain to me "gently" why it looked the way it did. I'm a barista.

As I stated. The food itself was actually not bad. So yesterday on memorial day I figured we'd go and get some brunch (and get drinks elsewhere lol). The place closes at 2pm. We live 5 minutes away and left to go there about 1:05-1:10pm. Got in the door around 1:15pm-1:20pm and waited to be served. Tables were open. Once the server got to the podium she was extremely short with us, in that maliciously compliant kind of way, and just basically told us in strained words and facial expressions to f*ck off and that we might as well turn right around and leave because "we close in 30 minutes so were not taking in any more customers and we are also fully reserved for the day". Cool. Left awkwardly and went back to our car and pulled off. Checked the time, 1:23pm. So not only was that a blatant lie regarding the 30 minutes thing but in hindsight they didn't even offer to allow us take-out either which like, rude but ok lol. We were definitely edging on late but when we left out house we still had close to a full hour of dining time so we thought we'd be okay. Guess not.

Pancakes truly were delicious. Food was plated beautifully. Wont be back. Not worth the headache for service that's kind of uppity, wait times that are insane unless you get there the second they open, drinks that are bland, and crunchy eggs....

Let’s start with the positive. The vibes were cute and quaint and chill, which I love. Music wasn’t too loud, so we could have a conversation. I also love the Normal Heights area, super cute vibes with shops in walking distance.

Food: churro waffles-such a yummy shareable item. You have to try the jam (umm umm good). We also ordered the biscuits and gravy, which comes with a fluffy biscuit with a generous amount of sausage in the gravy, eggs, and crispy potatoes. My son had the French toast with jumbo breakfast sausage links and beautiful yellow eggs, and my sister had the peach ricotta pancakes which were visually appealing, but not as tasty. She definitely enjoyed the eggs and bacon 🥓 more than the pancakes.

Service: A HUGE miss here. Upon entry we were greeted and seated immediately. We sat for a while before our waitress introduced herself. Before I get into it, our sweet waitress was the ONLY positive about this service. She took our drink order, which I noticed drinks are made by ONE PERSON in order received instead of in order of need. Our poor waitress was clearly overwhelmed as she seemed to be taking care of most of the customers by herself. At one point, the hostess who wasn’t busy walked around and brought napkins to one table she could’ve been a lot more attentive with her FREE time. Our drinks were empty mid meal, and the waitress was busy, so I asked a lady bussing tables if we could get refills. She said yes and proceeded to buss another table (what a JOKE!). I flag down our waitress and ask for refills which don’t return until we are finished with our meals (again not her fault). When she returns I ask for the bill because who knows when we will see her again. The bill had the two additional Arnold palmers that came when we were done so I asked her to remove it. She gladly did and she apologized. I explained how it was absolutely not her fault. I really hate to see people being overworked and overwhelmed when there clearly were other people who could’ve helped her make the patrons experience more pleasant. I tipped her very well because I seen the frustration on her face and she was really sweet and helpful. However, this alone means I won’t return and I wouldn’t recommend it. Team work makes the dream work and the team is not...

Saw posts on socials on this place. Decided to try it out. This is review may be harsh as I am a chef so im going to dive a little deeper than your average patron, but it was quite the dissapointment. We tried the breakfast burrito and the fish sandwich. First, the burrito at $17. Nothing in the burrito was seasoned, so it was lacking, the green salsa was a decent salsa verde with heavy cilantro (which i love), which helped, but the red salsa tasted like a can of herbed tomatoes was blended with a single jalapeno added. Second the fish sandwich at $17. This sandwich needs major help, why the server recommended it was beyond me. American cheese.... with fish... what in the McDonald's is that? And the breading was weird, texture wise, it was like it had been prebreaded and fried, then frozen, and brought back in a microwave to order, the edge were stale and it simply looks and eats like something youd find in the freezer section of a grocery store. The funniest part to me, you're in San Diego, why are you using North Atlantic Cod?! The waters not even 15 minutes away carry beautiful rockfish, yellow fin tuna, halibut, and Ling cod, and you can find them year around in the waters, why would you not source locally?! I would happily pay $20+ if you sourced locally and passed the cost on to me. I'm giving 2 stars because the juices and coffee were actually really good. As a chef, I cannot in good faith recommend this spot for food. Service was also very slow, 10 minutes to get waters, another 10 or so for a server to greet our table, I'll give a pass on food as it was somewhat busy, we were waited on by like 3 different servers, which was very confusing, once finished and we got our tab, we waited about 15-20 minutes and finally decided to just get up and go pay at the host stand. Seemed very unorganized, like FOH Manager didn't set up sections in a rather...