Bird Rock Oyster and Sushi Bar

Superb service, incredible food. If you get the chance you should come here.
The Japanese and Mexican fusion really works.
Relaxed atmosphere and fast friendly staff.

We went here on a Sunday night in early October. It was post-​summer, so no problem finding parking. The restaurant is located on La Jolla Blvd. and it has some outside seating. No view of the beach — you might as well be in La Mesa, but if you are in the area it is a decent place for food and beer, or a glass of wine.
I got a sampling of tacos. The «surf and turf taco» was small and greasy due to the carne asada meat and over-​priced $ 6.00. The battered fish tacos were simply OK and half that price. The staff was friendly, but too laid back. We had no silverware by the time our food came, and half our order came out 10 mins after my tacos arrived. Again, the staff was friendly, but did not seem like professional wait staff — yet. Maybe it is due to recent opening — I don’t know. It just lacked something to make it seem like you were in a special seafood restaurant.
The décor is casual and beachy, and the menu is diverse — - fish tacos and oysters and sushi and ceviche. They offer a complimentary small cup of fish soup which is nice!
It seems like a decent place for a quick snack on the way to someplace else.

I love this restaurant! Everything I order is so delicious! It’s not your typical Mexican food, it has a delectable taste that you have to keep coming back for more. They have a lot to choose from, so if you’re either Vegan, Gluten free, Pescatarian, a carnivore or on a low calorie diet this place will make your mouth water!!!
They serve alcohol as well so that’s a plus in my book!
And yes, I consider myself a foodie :)
This review better make it on Unilocal because I’ve noticed my outstanding reviews have been censored!

The food here is ALWAYS fantastic. The lemon roll is my favorite, with a thinly sliced lemon wedge on the top of each piece for a citrus twist. The staff is really nice, and very laid back. We had a large group wanting to sake bomb, and they allowed us to make noise, and have our fun. Other nights I’ve come with small groups for a more relaxing, quiet dinner and the experience was just as pleasant. They also offer a great happy hour for food and drinks!

Solid place. Once you sit you are welcomed with excellent house made chips and salsa, plus a nice little cup of consume.
I find the sushi pretty solid. Not Sushi Ota by any stretch but really good. The only knock (my personal preference) is too many rolls are tempura based. I don’t like mayonnaise of tempura in my rolls. YMMV.
The seafood soups are a must try. Freaking excellent soup base, loaded with tons of fish. A+++++
Tacos and burritos. Not up to The Taco Stand standards but again very good.
The beer selection is where Bird Rock Oyster and Sushi really needs to step it up. I am 99% sure if they offer 8+ local micro brews on tap their business will pick up substantially.

Open air mellow sushi place. Echo and the Bunnymen playing. Dont ask if you never heard of them. We were immediately given CHIPS AND SALSA?!? The menu is all over the place, sushi, shrimp made 10 diffrrent ways, sake, quesadillas, hamburgers. You name it, they got it! Service was quick and friendly. Prices reflect the Bird Rock area: expensive. The nine piece sashimi was fresh. Tuna, salmon, and albacore. Not the best ever but good. The shrimp yempura rolls were way too large– roughly 2 – 3 inches wide. However, they tasted fantastic, and mostly did not fall apart when you took a partial bite. The chipotle shrimp came with lettuce /​ranch, and a type of saffron rice with peas and lima beans. Making your own taco with the corn tortillas was define. The children’s Fish fingers were not greasy and had a panko type crust, and came with beefy fries (I prefer the thin cut).
Overall they did a wonderful meal with an eclectic menu– something that is difficult to pull off.

I love the dish that came in the molcajete… that sauce !!! So delicious! Hope I can come out and visit this place again for that and maybe a chef’s choice. Yummo!

I had the chef’s special which had octopus, cubed steak, shrimp and jalapeños cooked in a cheese sauce. It came out in a lava rock bowl for effect. I thought it was tasty yet the beef was a little tough and had a strange flavor. My wife had the Philly roll which was a little heavy on the cream cheese yet good. Overall, a good experience with good service but the fusion between Mexican and Sushi was a little confusing.

This is a really nice place! I like sitting at their outside tables, having Stella with their tasty meals. I’ve been here twice so far, I love their Chef’s Special. Their Paradise Roll is excellent as well. The service is great, everything is quick and on point!

Delicious. An eclectic menu. I would best describe it as a mix of Mexican and sushi. I had the sushi and was very happy. The fish tasted fresh, the quality of the veggies was also strong. The aesthetics of the rolls themselves would not pass muster in Tokyo but for the USA they were very good.
The only thing keeping me from offering 5 stars was that the open-​air nature meant that there were a lot of flies inside. I spent a little too much time swatting flies away from my tuna roll. But I would definitely return.

Great place. Believe it or not, we drove from Otay mesa because we heard of this place. Well worth the drive. Our server Venessa was attentive and up beat. We started wit octopus & shrimps as apps. We had the owner Gabby greet us and also offered to make us homemade hangover fish soup~which was a bomb.
We’ll definitely be back and highly recommend this eatery.
*Good job guys*

Get the clamato it’s amazing! This paired with oysters on a half shell is a matched made in seafood paradise! The service is great and they will try and accommodate whatever you need if they can. Ask for a side of marinated onions to dress your oysters!
They still do not have a liquor license but you can bring your own. They do have beer and wine. Sit outside if it’s not too hot or humid out.

Honestly I’ve never written a bad review. However, I’m rooting for this place so hard I’m hoping this will only help.
This was my second time eating here, and I absolutely love the concept. My three favorite kinds of food in one place sounds like my new favorite restaurant. Unfortunately, I will not be returning.
To begin with, we waited for at least 5 minutes before we were greeted, even though there was only one other table and one person at the bar. When the server came by he apologized for the wait and completely had made up for the wait since he showed real concern about it. We were ready to start fresh at this point.
He asked if we’d like chips and salsa and got our drink orders. After he brought us our drinks he asked again if we wanted chips and salsa (mind you he had one other table– we told him yes. Again). Salsa is a spicy liquid ketchup, and I figured after the 12 minutes I waited for the chips they would at least be warm and fresh– complete cardboard.
Several minutes later he got our food order of a dozen oysters and three sushi rolls. After the longest wait of my entire life in a restaurant, we got our three sushi rolls with no sign of the oysters as we watched two employees eating in the kitchen. Ran out of drinks, never asked if we needed more. Brought us our check and never even got our oysters. Too bad since the restaurant sign had us craving oysters AND sushi. Such a great idea, but such bad restaurant management. Hope you guys step it up, it would be everyone’s favorite if done right! Good luck!

Great food. The ranchero shrimp burrito is really quite good. I think our server’s name was Henry, he was very friendly.
Discounted the star only because of the incredibly long wait time for just about everything. Doesn’t seem like there is a lot of help. But Henry was apologetic — I’m sure it’s not an out of the ordinary thing.

Ok I don’t usually like to write bad reviews but this place actually needs a wake up call. I can really only say disgusting. The timing if the food was awful. Waitress was clueless. And in the end I had tried tacos which took almost an hour to get and when they came I had to pour the liquid onto a plate and could not even taste them.
Sushi was not even mediocre for a mall food court.

Ok. I don’t know where to start with this place!!!
First I came across this lil gem in Bird Rock because my co-​worker is friends with the owner/​master chef Gabriel Uribe. Yes I referred to him as master. Because what ever he mastered in making that day was doing a little happy dance in my mouth!
Such a unique concept of cuisine. Sushi with a Mexican flair! Gabriel the chef happened to be there the day we visited along with his nephew, Daniel who is master of sushi. Both of them treated us like royalty! Such nice people.
Gabriel took the time to come over. Visit and personally was trying to make each dish unique to what we were craving. My girlfriend, who was actually visiting from New York, doesn’t even like seafood. And she ate every single dish that was prepared for us! One roll, Surf N Turf. They substituted chicken for lobster. Holy moly! Who’d think. a steak and chicken roll! Yum!
I can go on on about the other unique dishes they have but you should truly go in and try it for yourself! Try something different then usual sushi on the menu. Ask the wait staff what’s their specialty dish. And whatever you do make sure you save room for dessert. Because they have some unique dessert rolls made with fruit, cream cheese and tempura.
And for all the haters that gave this place bad reviews because it was new and maybe didn’t have all their ducks in a row with liquor license etc. Lighten up for pete sake! Maybe you should give it a second chance and be a bit more open minded!

This is an interesting place in that is serves traditional Mexican American seafood cuisine and full service sushi bar, not to mention an oyster bar to boot. I stopped in on the later half of lunch and the place was pretty quiet, so service was quite attentive and smooth.
For lunch, I had them make me a grilled sea bass fish taco and smoked marlin taco, but before they arrived, I was presented with a basket of tortilla chips, some spicy house hot sauce, and a small cup of piping hot consommé of fish (
). The chips and hot sauce were great, and after one sip of the consommé, it just kept beckoning for me to have some more (
). It was quite delicious with mild seafood flavor and good seasoning.
The sea bass taco was very good. The bass was quite good and came topped well with all the ingredients that went along with this taco (
). The bass had a very mild flavor, was very moist and flaky, and came with a good exterior color and seasoning (
). At $ 3.95, perhaps a little steep, but the quality was there. The smoked Marlin came in on a slightly crispy corn tortilla, not deep fried, but definitely pressed on a hot griddle (
). The marlin had a richness about it with a very mild smoky flavor (
). It was good, but I would of liked to have seen more marlin in it.
The place has plenty of seating inside and some outside on the patio. Service by Malen was very nice and polite. She made some good suggestion for my next visit and provided very good service. Smiles all around…

First sushi/​oyster bar I’ve been to that serves nachos and chips as appetizers. But this girl ain’t complaining coz the salsa they serve is muy riquisima!
Weren’t too hungry so we opted to order their weekday lunch special (which varies) on a weekly basis. This week, fish tacos were going for 99 cents each — great deal. The breading on the fish wasn’t too overwhelming and you do get an actual fish filet with a special sauce, cabbage and pico de gallo.
Spicy tuna and spicy salmon sushi were half off. Portions were small and I was told they didn’t taste bad or great… you get what you pay for yah?
Oysters seemed a bit pricey… I think they specialty sushi rolls would be better. Will be back for an updated review.
Believe it or not. the salsa won me over… that’s what the 4^th star was for. ;)

New sushi restaurant in Bird Rock. Still undergoing their soft opening and not yet serving alcohol. Though, full food menu is in effect.
Upon sitting down they brought us chips and salsa. A little weird for a sushi restaurant, but I love tortilla chips and salsa, so thanks!
They brought us a sample of their fish broth, super salty, but then again, it is broth!
The first roll we ordered was The Cabo, spicy tuna with seared albacore and avocado on top. It was fabulous! Had we stopped there, this place would have definitely gotten 4 stars as only service was lacking at this point.
We had 4 different people helping us and it was getting rather confusing for everyone.
Next we ordered The Paz without cream cheese. This roll was terrible. It tasted really smoky which I guess I should’ve expected being it comes with chipotle sauce. However, my mom didn’t like it either and she likes smoked foods. We each had one piece and couldn’t bare to eat the rest.
The server did ask how everything was and my mother commented that we couldn’t eat it because it was so terrible. The server said he’d let the chef know, but I think he should’ve removed the roll from the bill. Especially being a new restaurant.
Because this place is within walking distance, I may try it again, but I wasn’t too pleased. I would not recommend this place. Maybe my next experience will be better.

My husband and I (and dog) recently dined at Bird Rock Oyster and Sushi Bar during their soft opening. They currently do not sell alcohol (waiting for their license) and they do not take American Express.
We arrived before 6:30PM on a Saturday and didn’t have any problem getting a table on the patio (they only have 3). Chips and really spicy salsa were brought out along with waters for everyone (including our dog). After we ordered, a complimentary consommé was brought out in a small cup and our server, Matt, suggested to crumble the chips into it and eat it as a soup. It was really good, wish I had more!
The menu has many different options including Mexican style dishes (tacos, tostadas, burritos, quesadillas, chimichangas, etc.), oysters (grilled, rockefeller, etc.), sashimi, sushi rolls, chicken, shrimp, and more. They have daily specials and also offer a lunch and happy hour special. We were there for dinner, so didn’t get a chance to try out those. We ordered the San Ignacio roll, mango roll, and mixed sashimi. The rolls were very good and beautifully prepared. The rolls were about $ 13−14/each and the 9 piece sashimi was ~$ 16. The rolls were a decent size and the fish was good and fresh. We also had the option to select how many we wanted of each fish in our sashimi. I’m so used to having it decided by the chef, so I thought that was nice. I think pricing is fair considering the area and the food was pretty good.
Service was very good for the majority of the night, with our drinks being refilled frequently and food brought out fairly quickly after we ordered. Our server Matt was very friendly and when he wasn’t sure of a menu item, he made sure to double check for us what was in the dish. Near the end of our meal, we were ready to go, however, it was busier with many more patrons. It took 30 minutes just to get our bill and we had to ask for it a couple of times. I think they just need to work out the kinks and make sure that they have enough coverage during peak dinner hours. Other than that, we enjoyed our dinner and we’ll definitely be back to try the oysters, chimichangas, burritos, tacos, and more.