Tappi Diner — Restaurant in San Diego

I used to go to the original Sushi Diner often, and have been here before, too, but the situation with one of the servers on Tuesday was beyond horrible service. If you scope the other reviews here and other places you'll see that there's a server who keeps being mentioned (older Caucasian woman). I don't know her name because she tried so hard to avoid us so I couldn't see if she had a name tag. Anyway, let's break it down:

Situation: Tuesday night. No line, no one left on the waiting list. Great. We pop into doorway to let the servers know we're there since it's nighttime and I wasn't sure they could see us through the door. The server mentioned above proceeds to tell us to "WAIT OUTSIDE." Wow, ok. I get the message but didn't need the raised voice. We wait outside, seeing the restaurant empty out, tables cleared to the point there there are so many available tables to sit down. Cool! But somehow this lady keeps coming to these tables to clean them, even the ones right by the door, and avoids letting us in. Even as she chatted with some people who were leaving and walking out the door I tried to ask her about the wait and she quickly scurried away. Like she was right by me as I was next to her in the doorway...

She kept going to the back and chatting and doing anything else. I went back outside and then, later, inside again to get someone's attention. Made eye contact with a chef who mouthed if I'm still waiting and they went to talk to someone to check on us. Waited some more and the person taking phone orders eventually checked outside after his calls. He asked if we were waiting and we said yeah. So almost 20 minutes later at a place that had no wait and had plenty of clean, empty tables we were allowed inside. The scurrying server silently slid the menus on our table from behind me and scurried away again--said absolutely nothing. Huh?

Luckily the person who served us during the rest of the time was nice. One part of our order was missed even though they mentioned it was coming and even though we mentioned we were still waiting for it when we got the check. Had to ask about it like 3 times to get the roll after I was done eating.

Food: food was ok. I liked my rolls as they have been ones I've ordered since forever. But for a sushi place that is just ok, not even as fresh as I remember it at the original location, it doesn't have much to offer. For what I paid here I could have gotten better quality fish and way better service for sure.

Overall: That server is going to run this place to the ground. It's already happening. It's a shame because there are some OGs from the original location that I really like and do a good job, and I saw some other staff step up when the rude server lady didn't. I feel bad for the other staff working alongside this server and I wonder if this server is the owner or something because with that kind of behavior I have no idea how she's still working there. The food is just ok and for the price with such awful treatment from that server who was avoiding us it's like... Why...

EDIT: After reading the other negative reviews from at least 6+ months ago. It seems this is not "a bad day" for this waitress, she is always like this. And based on the managements lack of addressing this issue. I am forced to change my 3 Star, to 1 Star. Her attitude is unacceptable and given no changes made. She must be owner so I will not recommend or return.

We came to have a birthday lunch at what was supposed to be a good vibes ragea sushi place, but instead, we got a very bad vibes waitress who completely soiled our dining experience.

She was very visibly under duress and would come by asking us if the food was good every couple minutes, then go duck around the kitchen and loudly complain about the guests.

I guess she thought she was being discreet, I don't know if she just needed to hit a joint or what, but she was the worst wait staff dining experience I've had in YEARS.

The islander woman was great. She was friendly, but the blonde woman with glasses was a total karen and honestly a bad fit for the kind of lax atmosphere they were trying to go for.

Otherwise, the rolls were good. I wish there was a little more diversity in the rolls instead of 2/3rds being the same base cream cheese, crab and eel sauce and crunch. Poke Roll was probably the best roll we ordered.

I was extremely disappointed with the 4:20 Crunch Roll as it's completely inedible as a single bite, it's the size of a hockey puck. They just fell apart, tasty on their own but I had to dump most of the crab just to enjoy the individual parts and overall was a bad experience and a huge waste of ingredients.

Gordon Ramsy would probably do a whole new episode of Kitchen nightmare if he saw these rolls and the waste of crab (imitation or not) The tempura avocado roll was unfortunately the same.

It might have been an off day for the waitress but she honestly seems like she hated all the customers based on how she was loudly badmouthing our table and the two take out orders and the young couple who walked in after us.

Hope she lightens up and, maybe she was out of 4:20? Either way, hard pass...

The first time we came here was two years ago for dinner and absolutely loved their rolls. This place is small and gets really really busy. (Photos posted from ore-pandemic).

We decided to visit this place again during lunch. I was disappointed to see that dine-in will start June 1st so we had no choice but to order take out.

I ordered the lunch special. You get to pick one item from section A and one from section B. It comes with rice and salad, no soup. I picked chicken katsu and a spicy jawaiian roll ($11.95). Lunch special prices varies depending on what item you get. My bf got the spam fried rice ($5.95), spicy garlic edamame ($4.95) and mixed tempura ($6.95).

My salad was plain, no dressing. Good thing I had some at home. The sushi roll was not good. Inside was spicy tuna, outside was seared smoke salmon, avocado, spicy Mayo, eel sauce and cheese. I said no to cheese. The avocado was missing. Maybe the cheese would have made it better? It left a gasoline flavor in my mouth from the seared salmon. I don’t think the salmon was fresh either and the pieces was way too thick. I only had 2 out of the 8 pieces and had to stop.

The chicken katsu was like over cooked. The breading was a bit crispy but inside was like chewy mush. Kind of like they over pounded the meat. No flavor. I had to dip in the sushi soy sauce.

Same thing with mixed tempura. I usually love sweet potatoes and pumpkin. Maybe it wasn’t in season but it wasn’t sweet. The batter had no seasoning to it.

The only items that tasted decent was the spicy garlic edamame and spam fried rice. I like how they used plastic wrap to wrap the entire box to prevent the garlic sauce from spilling.

Plenty of parking in this plaza but this restaurant is tiny so get here early when you decide to dine in.

I’ve also been to Sushi Diner 1 in Linda Vista and absolutely enjoyed the food. Something was...