Sweetfin Poke Del Mar — Restaurant in San Diego

UPDATE: I have given them another shot, and I'm pleased to report that their portion sizes are back to the way they used to be. I ordered my usual salmon BYOB, and I was happy to see that they loaded the bowl. However, I would still give it 4 stars because their new base option, the sushi rice, is consistently clumped together. They probably used too much water while cooking the rice. I wish they prepared it in a better way as the taste is good.

I also wish that they still had the smaller bowl option. Now, they seem to only sell the large bowl, and it's a bit too much food for me. Overall, I'm happy to see that things are improving at Sweetfin. They are still my go-to place for poke :)

I have been a fan and frequent customer of this restaurant for many years since its opening. The food and service was great initially but recently I have encountered some problems. First off, in one order of seared albacore and salmon mix, the seared albacore tasted very fishy. However, the worker at the time mediated the issue by giving me a larger portion of salmon. I was very grateful for his help.

Today, however, did not go so well. Upon ordering a small bowl, the portion size was so minuscule that I had to ask about it. The workers simply stated that they did everything according to their “manual”. I understand that workers need to follow the rules; however, I have never had a portion this small. Even pictures on other Google reviews show a larger portion size for a small bowl. For instance, virtually all other photos have toppings covering the line under the rim. In the one I received, I could see the rims of my bowl and below up to half an inch. A coworker even told the one making my bowl that they were adding too much crispy onion and so I watched as they added even less into my bowl. After I received the food, the bowl was so dry and had barely any of the sauces (three total) that I had requested. I wish I had remembered to take a photo before I already started eating, but I was very upset to say the least.

I am giving two stars because I loved this restaurant so much before these recent incidents occurred. In the past, I used to eat here at least once a week and the workers would even remember my request to add soy sauce (not on the menu) to my orders. They used to be very considerate so I am very upset at the workers and how this...

I'm pretty impressed with Sweetfin so far. There's a large variety of options, including several vegetarian options. I tried two different bowls: the "Classic Tuna Bowl" with bamboo milled white rice and the "Yuzu Salmon Bowl" with black "forbidden rice". I enjoyed the classic tuna but felt like it had a little too much rice—I ended up not eating all of that. The Yuzu Salmon Bowl was fantastic—very flavorful and worked well even with the forbidden rice that I’d never had in a poke bowl before. I’ll have to bring my scale back to compare the amount of fish to the other location poke options.

I was surprised that the small bowl is pretty small. I was still hungry at the end of it, but that just means it’s probably good for those days where I’m watching my calories.

I also tried the taro chips, which I was surprised to find come already packaged in the bags by the register. I was expecting them to come fresh from the kitchen. Even prepacked though, they tasted really good. There’s a lot of seasoning on them and they were fresh enough that I’m guessing they were made fresh in the morning.

As a big fan of iced tea, I was happy to see they had 2 different options of freshly brewed tea alongside a lemonade, all of which have free refills.

My only complaint is that the short line took a really long time, though it didn’t seem to be the fault of the cashiers. You do have an option between a few house specialty creations or a make your own bowl, perhaps once people are used to what is available and how to order the line will go faster.

I’ll definitely return to try out some of their other creations and also bring my scale so I can do some...

Used to really enjoy ordering food and coming here. My partner placed an order for pickup and timed it just right so it would be ready when he arrived. He arrives and there are 4 workers, standing around doing nothing and the restaurant is empty, and the order that he placed 20 min ago was not ready. He waited to pickup food that he placed an order for in advance just to be told that they didn't realize that there was an order. He waited another 20 min for the food to be prepared, only to arrive home and see that the ingredients in our bowls were completely off (red onions when red onions weren't ordered, missing seaweed salad, missing sauce on the side, and the amount of fish totaled to about 5 small pieces of fish).

The portions of protein coming from Sweetfin, the attention to detail, along with overall quality of the business have gone downhill recently, and unfortunately we will no longer be ordering poke bowls from here anymore. This is not the first time that ingredients have been left out and the portions of protein have been an issue. We noticed this began some time ago, but decided to continue giving it a chance. Considering there are better options for poke bowls within a 5 min drive of this place, the benefits of being patrons of this business outweigh the inconvenience of never getting our orders right/on time and not getting value from the money we pay for our food... I would consider...