by teresa wu

Harney Sushi

Harney Sushi
3964 Harney St
San Diego, CA 92110
(619) 295-3272

We hit up Harney Sushi in Old Town for drinks and a late dinner tonight. I’m not sure I’m down with the whole text-when-your-table’s-ready system seeing as reception inside the restaurant was terrible, and we missed our table because of it. A round of Coronado orange ale made the hour-long wait a little less painful.

The restaurant is oddly placed among a neighborhood otherwise filled with Mexican restaurants. Love the place itself — kind of loungey but without the pretentiousness, despite a DJ. And a fishtank. I have this burning desire to call it hip,” but calling anything “hip” destroys any possibility of hipness.

Rolls are on the pricey side — easily $15+ each — but to their credit, they’re delicious and creative. If you hate on Asian fusion food this might not be the best place — it’s definitely… interpretive sushi, if you will. I’d recommend the pirate roll: spicy tuna topped with shrimp, avocado, rayu, eel sauce, jalapeno and spicy mayo. The Saturday night (10 p.m. to 12 a.m.) happy hour menu has some cheap ($3-5) basic rolls that’ll fill you up nicely.

Side note: I feel shooting pains every time I see cream cheese on a sushi menu, but I’ll cut them some slack since the rolls we did order were bomb.

Our dining experience can be summarized by the comment that our waitress made after walking by our table minutes after she serving our food: “You guys don’t mess around, do ya?” (Little people, big appetites.)

Resisting the urge to make a Miso Harney joke right now…