Red Marlin — Restaurant in San Diego

Update: well we stay at the Hyatt quite often, and still come here for breakfast. Honestly the quality comes and goes. Sometimes breakfast is good, sometimes not so good. For the price they charge ($36 + 6%), it really isn't a good deal as there really isn't that much outstanding at the buffet.

On a side note, I really detest the now often seen "we've added a surcharge to your bill to pay employees". I ranted about it below, but now it is up to 6%!!! I hate gimmicks like this, and it doesn't speak well of the restaurant.

-- older review --

Worst experience I've ever had at a restaurant.. We went there twice on a recent trip, first was for breakfast which wasn't bad, the second time was for dinner which turned out to be an awful mistake. We arrived on a Saturday night around 7:30 pm, and immediately noticed it was quite loud in the restaurant. Once we sat down we noticed there were three large parties at tables in our part of the restaurant. All were very loud and basically trying to outshout each other so that they could have conversations at their tables. We had to repeat our order to our waiter 3 times before he heard it. We should have left then, but it was the last night of our trip and we just wanted to have an "easy" meal at the hotel.

My wife tried their clam chowder which had jalepeno in it. Turns out it tasted just as awkward as it sounds.

About this time one man at one of the tables grew even louder and started to tell an extremely vulgar "tale" to his table. It was the raunchiest thing I have ever heard in a restaurant. This guy was probably a good 30 feet away from our table, the entire place could hear it, even the kids at another table. I looked around and saw at least one additional table who looked quite unhappy. None of the staff said a thing to this creep, we eventually had to signal our waiter and tell him to get this guy under control.

The waiter did go over and say something to the table, the quiet lasted maybe 15 seconds and then the guy went right back to yelling his crude tale at the top of his lungs.

We had to leave. If the restaurant staff takes no ownership for the safety and comfort of their guests, there is no reason to ever trust it. If we hadn't complained, nobody that worked at the restaurant would have said a thing. They completely lost control of their business at that point and turned it in to a raunchy bar interested if a nice place to eat.

Oh, and one last bizarre item from the menu, they stated that " a 4% surcharge will be added to all Guest checks in support of the cost of city and state minimum wage increases". Huh? If you have to pay your workers more, shouldn't you just raise your prices 4%, rather than hide the increase as a surcharge?

It was a horrible last night to our vacation. We stayed at the hotel, which was actually quite nice, but I would never step foot in this...

Expensive, strange dinner menu. I should have guessed that this was not going to be a good place to eat when we arrived at 5:30 pm and there were only a few guests (middle of the summer season) when we arrived. We were staying at the Hyatt for our annual board meeting and thought this would be a good place to meet with our CEO over dinner. I played it safe and ordered the half chicken with potatoes. It was good. My associates ordered the lamb meatballs. They took one bite and almost choked due to the hot seasoning. They were served with a squirt of mint yogurt that was pretty much only for looks. They both sent it back and ordered something else. One ordered the scallop (1) on risotto. It was good but appetizer size. The other ordered the beet salad. It arrived consisting of 4 small slices of beet over a small layer of lettuce. The cheese was a round thing sitting on the side with basalmic beads on top. For dessert, I had the cheesecake topped with bananas foster and cookie crumble. It was delicious. Needless to say, 2 out of 3 left hungry with a hefty bill. HOWEVER, the following Sunday morning, the entire board with their spouses and kids came for the breakfast buffet. The food was ok - nothing different than any other average breakfast buffet. It wasn't what I was expecting for a "Hyatt" resort. The problem was that the omelet line was extremely slow - I stood in line for 10 minutes waiting for the 6 people ahead of me to be served. I gave up and served myself from the scrambled eggs, bacon and such from the hot bar. Nothing special. The rest of the people at the table ordered from the menu. I had already gone through the buffet and finished before they were even served. Obviously staffing was inadequate to handle the number of people who were there. Bottom line: Only go there if you must because there are lots of much better places close by if you don't mind driving and prefer getting the value...

Well the reviews are pretty much spot on. The service: Frank is just incredible. There are waiters that wait on the customers and then there are waiters that are proactive and are thinking about the customers. That’s Frank. He is just on the money with his impeccable service. He brought over an extra heater for my daughters since they were a tad chilled outside. He saw that my daughters were torn on which dessert to have, so he brought out both and comp’d one on the house. The Arancini for the starter was delicious but I personally would have preferred a bolder flavor. Still not bad and would cater to all people. Dinners: I had the ribeye, oldest had the scampi and youngest the quesadilla. The ribeye temp was a perfect midrare and nicely seasoned. Definitely not how people were saying overly salted. Helpful hint, taste your foods before hitting it with seasoning to see if it’s even needed. My daughters scampi was loaded with shrimp and lobster claws, so much so that she had trouble finishing it all. The quesadilla…well it’s a tortilla with cheese. Let’s face it, any kid will like it. I also had the jalapeño pineapple Margarita. Though it’s very tasty and not overpowering, I would have preferred a touch more tequila in there. You’ll go broke before you catch any kind of buzz. All in all a great place to catch a sunset dinner, just make sure you ask for Frank and let him know how much you appreciate...