Manna BBQ — Restaurant in San Diego

Manna is and has been the king of SD KBBQ for years. I mean there is a reason they have 4 locations (Convoy, MM, SM, Chula) and perhaps why “manna” means bread of life.

Ok so it’s not quite LA KBBQ, but heck I’d put it against almost any major city. It’s consistent, imo affordable and despite some hiccups, worth it every time.

Unless you go to the Convoy location early and on a weekday it’s really not worth it because of parking, original or not, no way, not with 3 other places. I’d drive 10-15 miles more if given the chances to go to another location, like this one for instance.

Plenty of parking, parking abound, it looks huge, but it not that big inside, so don’t come looking for some crazy Chinese style banquet hall. Décor is standard manna faire, earth tone dark and light, marble, black chairs.

The standard water jugs on refill (not carafe’s, they are not glass). The service is pretty good, so long as it’s not busy. Don’t be afraid to hit that button people, you need what you need and not everyone is so good they can predict the needs of the customer. Some people are more experienced eaters and use more of one thing that others. It’s AYCE and an hour, so if you are waiting for them to see you and you are too scared to hit that button and your time runs out, that’s on you kid. Price is good, unless you want shrimp I suggest B menu. They have been out of a few items on the banchan recently (hiccups)

The “meat roll ups” or the sliced ribeye are great, always a top choice, the bulgogi and cubed version are also standard choice, pork belly is uncured and unsalted so thought they say it’s like bacon, it’s not. Be sure to change out the grate for less smoke, faster cooking and crank that, no one wants to wait 15 minutes for items to cook. Always get the egg, it’s included, save the rice for the later courses or you will fill up on 2nds and 3rds.

I live closer to the San Marcos location which is even bigger. Manna is always one of the best options for KBBQ in San Diego. KBBQ always makes me miss living in Orange County.

Protip:Because you take the smell everywhere with you after, you can’t lie about having had KBBQ unless you bring a...

Date of visit: 9/19/2016

Scotty and I came here for dinner at 5:30 on a Monday, so there were barely any other people in the restaurant. As many other reviewers have also stated, this location seems to be much bigger than other KBBQ places - there is a lot of open area and the ventilation is great, so you don't come out smelling like meat, which is definitely a bonus.

The waitstaff here was on top of everything - it definitely helped that there weren't many people in the restaurant, but it was nice to see that they were extremely efficient, which I can assume means service would be good when busier. They do have these large carts which can get in the way of walking around, but you should probably be seated the entire time.

We decided on the A2 all you can eat menu. With tea, tax, and tip, it came out to $30 per person, which wasn't bad for the quality of meats, side dishes, and service. My absolute favorite cut of meat was the marinated thin beef - the meat was still a little thick and perfectly seasoned. However, my least favorite was the bulgogi - it tasted like cheap pieces of beef and was super fatty.

We also got the thinly sliced brisket twice, and pork galbi. Both of these were good and definitely cuts I would get again. We ordered the marinated short rib, but were too full to get to it. Since we didn't touch the meat, they took it back, which was nice of them to do since a lot of places would have charged us for that mistake.

My favorite side dishes were the glass noodles, potato salad, cold spinach, and kimchi. We skipped the radish and bean sprouts. Our server also kept offering us rice, but we were good with just one bowl. We didn't order any of the other side dishes other than the rice papers for Scotty.

Overall, this is definitely my new favorite place for KBBQ. However, I would definitely recommend going with a group of at least 4 people so you can get through more dishes without being ridiculously full. I was shocked that Scotty and I got through 5 selections...

Food: the quality of their meats was nothing great, but it wasn’t bad either. My partner and I got the premium AYCE option which we believed to be better than the regular since items 1-11 on the premium menu weren’t available on the regular one, so we primarily ordered those, which was a mistake. 20mins into eating and our jaws had already become sore from nonstop chewing. The thicker meats were way too tough, regardless of whether we cooked it rare to medium. We should’ve just stuck to the thin meats like brisket. We’re no strangers to KBBQ by any means, but this was the first time we had our grill get full on smoky after putting on just one plate of meat (and yes, we DID turn down the heat, but that didn’t help).

Service: We came closer to closing (about 9pm), so I didn’t expect them to be super attentive, but I was extremely disappointed by their service. Several times we tried to ring our call buttons to get the servers’ attention, but at some point, it felt like they were straight up just ignoring us. We needed to have our grill changed because the smoke was starting to make me cough, but it took about 10 minutes after calling for someone to finally come over (the store was nearly empty at this point). We also called for refills on the hot green tea we ordered (which was $2, so I assumed it’d be refillable), but when someone finally came, he got confused and told us he’d ask the manager if it was allowed. He never came back :/ I wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t refillable, but no one had even bothered to come by and tell us that. No one ever came to refill our waters, and we eventually just gave up on trying to call out for someone since it wasn’t even worth it at that point.

Atmosphere: it was nice and clean inside. My only complaint was the terrible rave music, but maybe I’m just old lol. My partner and I thought it sounded like we were in a dystopian...