The Bistro At the Strand

The majority of the employees in this establishment are students who display both efficiency and courtesy. Even during peak hours, when nearby college students dine in for lunch, there is ample seating available.I opted for a bowl of brown rice topped with flank steak marinated in teriyaki sauce, over-medium egg and sautéed with red peppers and onions.The service was swift, with a wait time of merely 5 minutes. The dish itself was both delicious and reasonably priced considering its generous portion size, although the rice could have been slightly softer.All in all, it's a decent spot to grab a meal.

For being a place for students, it's the most expensive place I've been so far. You would think for the price you would get some quality, but the raw fish was room temperature and the seaweed was chewy. May update if I go back.

Pleasantly surprised at this establishment. Had good service, food came out quick, and the decor was clean, simple,+pretty.Order the lettuce wraps, pork buns, crunchy roll.All were decent, but nothing spectacular.The pork buns were the best, had a little bits of pieces that were a little over cooked, but the rest was creamy and tender.For a "dining commons" it was really good, comparatively to a restaurant though the food was mediocre. I can definitely see why students come here for a change in food.

The BBQ pork is not very tender, the mash potato was pretty good, the sauce had a weird sour and sweet kinda taste.. just not very Asian overall. The creme brûlée is oily, had some salt over it, and the temperature was mostly cold. Overall this meal was just.. pretty meh, as expected of a campus food though

Really long wait times but this place is definitely worth trying! The have a lot of different roll options and the size of each bite is a bit larger than usual, but tastes great! Their noodles are also pretty delicious. The only small con is that the rice in their entree bowls can be hard and slightly undercooked.

This is pretty good for a dining hall on the campus of UCSD. It's great that you can use your dining dollars for a restaurant experience without leaving campus. They start with a free appetizer of fried wonton skins in a seaweed cone. Two kinds of dipping sauces - savory and sweet. We had to use the rest of the dining dollars since it's "use it or lose it". Had the rainbow roll $11, spring rolls with chicken $8, pulled pork sliders $13, bistro stack with ahi tuna poke $9. Everything was quite tasty. Note: they do not accept tips. Just use your dining dollars or pay with .

Came here for the Sushi, and not much else! I came here three separate times to try The Bistro at brunch, lunch, and dinner. Overall, I rate the entire experience at 3.4/5.Brunch: The menu items are limited, but that isn't considered in the rating. Contrary, I expect more of the food this way. But the pricing of the food does not reflect the sizing and quality. I got the udon noodles and seared tuna and it was decent! I needed some soy sauce for flavour, however. And the serving size had much more bland udon than fish. Lunch/Dinner: I had a much better experience for lunch and dinner! Going for the Sushi, both times, I prefer The Tower more than The Rainbow. The quality of the sushi is the best on campus--hands down--but the price of the plates were between $11-$13. I believe the inflation of campus foods really affected the pricing of The Bistro, however it should not be the case for commuters and non-students that are visiting and would like a quality plate of sushi at UCSD.

TL;DR: Only brunch and desserts are good. The rest is pretty shit. In details:Good:Brunch:Their brunch is from 10AM - 4PM on Sunday. Most of the selection of the brunch is good. The egg Benedict is flavorful. You can get it with salmon or pork belly; both are good. Sometime though the taro cake will be soggy, but when it's not it's delicious. The Acai bowl is also good. Large portion for only $9. The pork belly thing is not worth it. Pork belly itself is good but you only get 2 pieces. The rest of the bowl is pretty bad and doesn't go with the pork belly. Dessert:Most of their desserts here are good. The green tea ice cream, creme brûlée, fried banana with ice cream are pretty good. Their take on the Thai mango with sticky is pretty shit; sticky rice doesn't taste good and it's drenched in coconut sauce and the mango wasn't sweet eitherBad:Oh boy there's a lot to list. For some reason this place tries to serve a bunch of Japanese food but doesn't seem to excel in any of them. The ramen is super bland (had to ask for salt, and even then it was still bad) and the noodles were subpar. The salmon's seasoning wasn't too bad but it was a little fishy, and that's coming from someone who eats raw fish. The chicken thing was also very dry. And then, the sushi/rolls..According to most sushi chef, what makes a good sushi is 90% rice and 10% fish. The rice is bad; pretty dry and hard. The seaweed is soggy. And the fish is eh. My friend got a stomach ache from here twice. So yeah, I only go here for Sunday brunch.

My friend waited 1 hour and 50 minutes for her order!! which was crazy because we ordered the food at the same time. I know they are probably busy but my order was ready one hour before her order was ready. I just want to highlight how much time they spend on one order that should have been done a long time ago. This place I would not recommend this because theirs a likely chance you might starve. P.S. I have had not-so-pleasant experiences when attending this place so I just wanted to let y'all know.

Unbelievable wait times for food over an hour and a half. Friendly but powerless student staff members. Food is decent but often cold and dry from waiting for sushi to be prepared.Sincerely,Extremely disappointed.