Adobe El Restaurante

Came here for brunch today. Waited about 15 min after getting seated and still no one had come to take drink orders. We had to flag down the manager to get some service. The food took about 30 min to come out. The eggs benedict were more hard boiled rather than poached. In addition, we noticed customers coming around the corner with plates full of food. We peeked around the corner to notice a full brunch buffet. We were not even offered that option, which I would’ve liked. The only nice part was the scenery of the hotel.

Service was a tad slow but overall the atmosphere was clean, nice and staff was friendly. Had a cheeseburger for lunch and the sweet potatoe fries which were delicious…

The buffet is worth the money. The food is excellent and the staff is very attentive. If people gave this less than 4 stars, they must be college students with no clue about food or service!

Came in with a large ish party two days in a row for breakfast. 40 minutes for water and coffee. Didn’t see the server until we had to go hunt one down to ask where our drinks were. Food is taking an hour and it was mediocre and cold at best. And not cheap. So aweful.
Update: Review update: told the manager who was great. Took a huge amount of our bill and was very accommodating. Thank you for taking care of this. The quiche in the buffet is delicious. Thank u Charlene.

I like their food. Good prices too!

Staying at estancia I ate breakfast at Adobe. The setting is really beautiful overlooking the garden with the waterfall behind and soft music. Very relaxing. Service was very attentive and nice!
I ordered the fresh squeezed orange juice and select melons and berries with honeycomb yogurt. Very fresh and light.
Price range is similar to any other sit down breakfast place. 11 dollars for melons and berries with yogurt and 4.5 dollars for orange juice

While staying at hotel, for convenience sake — we went to Adobe for breakfast.
The place looks nice and patio seating was overlooking a nice garden. We requested for patio seating since there was some tables vacant but the hostess replied the tables were reserved so we got seated inside the dining room. We finished our meal and the tables were still unoccupied. We asked what the price was for the breakfast buffet for kids and she said it is the same price as adults. WT? good thing our server corrected her and gave us the correct info. Hostess was totally uncordial and inefficient that she should not be the first person customers interact with. In fact, she should not be interacting with customers at all.
Food wise — the regular breakfast buffet standards you find everywhere else… at a lower price. Certainly not worth the $ 27 they charge. And they did not even have a cook to order station.
the only saving grace was our server, Lisa. She is super friendly and attentive, checked on us a few times and went out of her way to make our meal as enjoyable as possible.
It is such as shame to have a nice hotel but not so nice experience at their restaurant.

I was recently surprised with an anniversary getaway here at Estancia. It was an even better surprise when I realized, the next morning, that Adobe El Restaurante offered two options for their AYCE Sunday Brunch. The food blogger in me (versus the grateful girlfriend right) went giddy with excitement.
Their all you can eat brunch is only available on Sundays. There are two options:
$ 18 for Continental (cold items only)
or
$ 27.50 for the all inclusive (hot and cold items)
Coffee and juices are included as well (I believe).
We originally were going to opt out of the buffet and order a la carte from their breakfast menu. But we quickly realized that most of their breakfast items (on regular menu) start around $ 15 or so. So I opted for the continental while the bf opted for the all inclusive.
The buffet area and options are limited. It’s actually quite small. They have a made to order omelette station, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, pastries, oatmeal station, variety of cereals, fresh fruit, chilaquiles, sausages, french toast (see pics).
I low carb most everything I eat so the Continental option wasn’t ideal for me. But I felt confident I could make do with their smoked salmon and fresh fruit that day. Fortunately, I was right as both those items tasted amazing. I did stray from low carbing that day though as I toasted a bagel and then topped it with the smoked salmon, cream cheese, and red onions. It was perfect.
NOTE: there’s a toaster next to the pastries/​breads and there is a ‘bagel’ button on the toaster so make sure to press that to get your bagel extra yummy and brown
The bf piled his plate mostly with meats as that’s all he wanted that morning. He said the only stand out items were the breakfast sausage and the chilaquiles. He didn’t have room to try an omelette (which is a reason I should break up with him right — j/​k).
One item that really stood out for us was their Banana Cream French Toast. The exterior was wonderfully crunchy and tasted almost rich of yummy butter. The interior had a lusciousness from the banana and some sort of cream (perhaps a custard?). I would absolutely recommend this french toast to anyone. I can’t imagine how amazing this breakfast item would be if it was made to order (versus sitting in a chaffing dish).
A few issues:
— the berries ran out around 10:15a and we were told they didn’t know if they would replenish the berries (which was odd as their buffet ends at 11:30a)
— seating was a bit strange as there’s no one there to greet you when you first arrive. I recommend sitting on of one of their outside tables overlooking the courtyard (someone will eventually come and serve you I believe)
— I noticed that our server had to do all the refills of water and coffee as well as taking away the dirty dishes. There were times when things got a bit ‘cozy’ on our table from dirty dishes but 1) we had a tiny table for two and 2) it was getting busy that morning. But I think, perhaps, there are enough bussers that could help the primary servers clear plates, refill drinks, etc.
Service was a bit cold at first but we really loved our server as the meal went on. She was funny and let us have as much time as we needed that morning to just ENJOY brunch.
So how was the overall experience. The bf didn’t think it was worth the price but he also didn’t take advantage of their omelette station. For me, the $ 18 was worth it because I enjoyed the fruit and the smoked salmon. More importantly though, the experience of having a laid back un-​rushed breakfast in a beautiful resort trumped all other factors that morning for me.
Life gets hectic at times and it’s absolutely amazing when you get a chance to just relax and have a long breakfast with someone you actually want to spend time with —

Absolutely inedible food. Such a shame because the setting is beautiful. They need to toss out the kitchen staff and rebuild. We were there for lunch – two had squash soup that was more water than squash; two had beet salad – a few thinly sliced beets with a mound of uninteresting lettuce and an ordinary dressing. The other had a salad with chicken that was dry as a bone. Really, really bad. No wonder it was practically empty.

We love this hotel and stay here quite a lot, but the breakfast at Adobe is a huge disappointment from service to food. It’s such a shame because the dining experience does not match the beauty of the hotel and the grounds. It’s a big miss that has yet to be overhauled, even with the new corp that took over the property.
It makes the hotel feel less than great overall.

My husband and I stayed at the Estancia La Jolla for a few nights over the weekend. While the hotel is lovely and I will definitely stay there again, the restaurant was something I could easily pass up. We just had muffins and oatmeal on two of the mornings but on the third morning my husband had the blue corn pancakes with bananas — not good– and I had the continental. The fruit was fresh and good, but they served it with three pastries. One was a banana nut muffin, which was fine but the other two were not fresh. I took one bite and left it on my plate. Service was a slow, but we were being tourists, so I didn’t really care. The hotel offers complimentary tea and coffee, so we just got our own refills on our drinks before we left.

My fiancé and I stayed at the Estancia for a weekend getaway. We thought this restaurant looked promising, and the hotel website states it is amazing. While we did LOVE the hotel, we did NOT love Adobe El Restaurante.
We showed up at 12:30 for lunch. There were 4 other tables occupied on the patio/​balcony, and no one was inside. Not a waiter, or hostess, or bartender (at the bar obviously). We waited 5 minutes before a waiter came out and seated us.
We ordered our drinks, and my iced tea came out fairly quick. My fiancé’s alcoholic drink (ordered directly off their menu, nothing crazy) took 35 minutes. And after 35 minutes rolled by, the waiter returned to notify us that they did not have all the ingredients to make his drink. So he ordered something else. That still took another 10 to 15 minutes. It honestly felt like they opened the restaurant for lunch, but didn’t have anything ready or prepped for it. Not the bar or the kitchen. It was really odd.
We ordered our food about 15 minutes after sitting down, which took about 30 minutes to get. We actually ate all of the bread from the bread basket cause we were so hungry, and STILL were left looking around wondering how long it would be for our food and his drink. My food was kind of bland (although the sweet potato fries were tasty), fiancé’s food was very good. He got the fish and chips, I got the creamy brie grilled cheese sandwich.
A few good things: 1) The staff was pleasant, if not a little slow. 2) Fiancé’s food was very good, 3) they got my tea refills quickly (this is a big thing to me, nothing worse then sitting there for 10 minutes thirsty) Overall, it wasn’t a horrid experience, just not a great one. It was more of a «not being ready» thing. That ultimately sums it up. I really wouldn’t recommend this restaurant. Hopefully their breakfast is better than their lunch (or they are prepared for the people who want to eat it).

This review is for the Sunday Breakfast Buffet.
The breakfast buffet is a disappointment — ordinary, mediocre, even bordering on geriatric. The flavors are uninspired– based in salt, sugar, and fat.
The good: Pleasant waitstaff, fresh berries, omlettes to order.
The bad (and really, its just mediocre): Basically all the food on offer– Chopped up potatoes with little flavor, some lachs past their time, those scrambled eggs that sit out for hours and don’t taste like anything, sausages that are fatty in the unpleasant way, fresh-​from-​the-​freezer concentrate juices, dried out convenience store –esque pastries, highly forgettable French toast. Also, the service was disorganized and slow: they didn’t pick up the phone the three times we called to make a reservation, then lost our reservation and had us wait 10 minutes to be seated even though they recognized we had a reservation, then took 20 minutes to bring our credit card to sign.
And the bill– $ 84 for three people with tax but without tip.
The food is so nice at Mustangs and Burros (La Estancia’s other restaurant) and the other meals prepared by a Chef at Adobe are nice as well.
Adobe’s breakfast buffet is really bringing it down.

Beautiful backdrop in La Jolla.
This is one of the restaurants in the Estancia La Jolla Hotel And Spa. On a sunny morning after a wedding celebration, it’s a really nice place to enjoy a breakfast/​brunch. The food is acceptable, but nothing to write home about. Portions are reasonable, but prices are high. The backdrop makes it worth the money, but it is the view and the setting that make the meal, not the food.

This is my first 3-​star review but I have to say, I was very disappointed with Adobe El Restaurante. The Estancia was lovely but the service in all parts of the hotel was extremely slow — the restaurants included.
We dined here for lunch and ordered 2 very simple items — the brie and apple sandwich and the steak frites. We ordered the steak medium rare and it came out well-​done. Naturally we sent it back. They brought it back and had clearly just moved the same fries to the new plate — and they were parmesan fries so they looked shriveled and over-​cooked at this point, but it wasn’t worth complaining again — we just wanted to eat. If they were going to give us the same fries they could have just left them for us to enjoy while they cooked a new piece of steak. This whole process took over an hour. We ordered a glass of wine when we first sat down and it took 45 minutes for it to come out. At one point we saw the waiter come out with it on his tray, walk towards us, then he suddenly turned around and went back inside. He came out 15 minutes later with it and we said we saw him and asked what happened and he said he had to go back and «check something». That’s it. No apology or mention of the fact that it took 45 minutes total to receive the glass of wine. Then our waiter never came back. We eventually flagged down another waitress and asked about our food — and she went and got it and brought it out. We never saw our original waiter again — no explanation.
The meal was mediocre at best, and definitely wasn’t worth the 2 hours we had to spend there to eat it. Eat here if you must — there aren’t many options on property, but if you have the time to venture off-​property I highly recommend it.

We stayed at La Estancia recently because my best friend had her wedding there at the garden. We decided to eat here for breakfast since my hair and makeup appointment was not until 10:30.
Anyways, my BF and son got the buffet and I opted for the ham and cheese omelette with mushroom. My omelette was delicious and tasty. It was huge and filling. My son had 3 plates from the buffet. I can tell he loved it.
Overall, breakfast was good and service was okay. My only concern is that the price for a buffet was $ 25, I think that’s a bit too high and $ 14 for an omelette. Way too pricey.

I had a business lunch at Adobe with two associates. This is the closest sit down restaurant to my office.
It must be tough running a restaurant at a hotel, especially when the building isn’t right on a main street. La Estancia is off Torrey Pines across from UCSD and the restaurant is in a building toward the ocean. The place is beautiful, but I have never seen a crown here for lunch. yesterday we were one of three occupied tables.
The food is «A-​OK» in Unilocalish. The service was pleasant. But here’s the deal, main courses at lunch cost $ 16 – 18. At that «price point,» you can find better food within a couple of miles.
What is a «price point» anyway? What’s the difference between «price point» and «price»?

During a recent weekend stay at Estancia, we ate breakfast here on both mornings. We sat on the balcony Saturday morning and inside Sunday morning. We ordered from the menu on Saturday morning (crab cake benedit and steak & eggs) and opted for the continental buffet Sunday morning. The food wasn’t spectacular. My crab cake benedit wasn’t made with fresh crab meat, you can taste it was from a can. Service was okay and the price was normal. It was either this place or room service.

This review is for lunch. I have been to this restaurant at Estancia at least 10 times over the past 6 years and it has changed drastically from 6 years ago… at least the menu has changed, for the worse. What hasn’t changed is the EXTREMELY SLOW SERVICE. The only reason I have been here so many times is that it is next door to where I work and this is where we take new candidates for lunch, although I don’t think we will ever go here again.
Their menu now is VERY limited. 4 salads, 4 entrees and 4 sandwiches (there is a pic of the menu on Unilocal). This time, I ordered the chicken panini with regular fries… so boring and not gourmet. I could’ve made this myself, and in fact the paninis at the corner bakery café are SOO much better. The fries were NOT good either, tasted like the old burger king fries. They USED to have these amazing garlic criss-​cut fries, but no more… One of my co-​workers ordered Mary’s Chicken entrée which he said was just ok, and my other co-​worker got the short ribs which were way over cooked and too small a portion for him to get full. The co-​worker next to me ordered the Tilapia which came out smelling extremely fishy (yuck). Overall the food is just unappetizing and not at all gourmet. They DESPERATELY NEED a NEW CHEF (I hope someone at Adobe is reading this).
The one thing they have going for them is the décor and the bread basket with flavored butter to start with, but that does NOT earn them an extra star because overall the entire experience is highly lacking. In this lunch experience today, we knew that the service was slow, so we asked for the dessert menus at the beginning of when our entrees were ready. We ordered dessert — 2 pumpkin cheesecake slices to share. Of course they took FOREVER to come out and guess what, they were LEMON! It took us another 15 minutes to inform the waitress because she was nowhere to be found, and then she went back to the kitchen and found out that they were out of Pumpkin cheesecake, and the kitchen just replaced it with lemon without telling her. Thanks a lot! We had already paid our bill since we wanted to get out of there although she did offer to take the cheesecake off of our bill and re-​run the card, but we said no.
I really hope they change their menu and get a more competent staff because this restaurant used to be soooo delicious, we used to be excited to come and eat here, but now we dread it.

Had their all you can eat brunch. Large selection of food from ham and cheese croissants to fruit smoothies. I especially liked the quiche. But all the food was lukewarm. I hate when food is lukewarm.
I think brunch on Saturday was $ 22. Nice view of the courtyard but hot food would make all the difference.