8Elements Express

This is a quick grab and go place — as the name implies for its bigger restaurant down on Mira Mesa (& Black Mtn).
They offer standard Indian fare with more options from the south Indian cuisine. This used to be tough to find in San Diego, but now we have a few options in addition to this — Bawarchi, Annapurna. And all these places offer some North Indian options, and they just don’t seem to be able to get those right. I don’t know why they even bother. For the less discerning lunch-​goer, this might not make a huge impact — ‘a curry is a curry’!
The food was quite average. I can’t say even they did justice to the South Indian fare. Maybe this was the selection that they had on that day. The layout is also quite messed up — you enter go to the back to order come get your food, go back to get your cutlery… ok, I am being picky. But hey this is a review of the overall experience.
There is some seating outside overlooking a neighboring apartment complex with a canopy cover of trees. This might work better for some, if you don’t want to walk out smelling like curry on your clothes!

Since the new ownership and staff, I rarely go here for a few reasons. It’s pretty pricey for an inhouse corporate location for okay food. My advice to the owner: Please stock the premade sandwiches and throw out the premade breakfast, please improve your customer service with quick and friendly staff. There is only one person who is good at the register. Please promote her to train the others. The others are extremely slow and untrained. Even when there is a long line there is no commitment to quick service for employees who are eating there for convenience and must rush back to work. My coffee is always burnt. And one last warning to others. This is a popular place because the premade buffet style Indian food is said to be quality so the line is sometimes out the door however if you try to order anything else it will take 30 minutes even during non-​busy hours with no line, which causes me to opt to walk further or just drive somewhere for lunch. 8 elements, please take an effort to improve the experience here and regain my loyalty as a customer so that I can re-​rate you. Thanks

Great food and excellent customer services. We recently ordered food for small party of 15 people. everybody liked food. Nice Chicken dum biryani, chicken lollipop are yummy. Will definitely refer this place to anyone. They also have great lunch combos. overall this food is way better than many San Diego Indian restaurants food .that tells the quality :)

If I could give this place zero stars I would! Customer service is horrible starting with the cook in the back with the bleached purple hair giving dirty looks. They have given me not what I ordered then offered to comp next time around and DONT!
Their $ 3 minimum to use debit card is ridiculous. Paid $ 10 for a dry tuna sandwich and cookie. I think I will just stick to the lunch truck and bringing my own lunch to work! So overpriced for horrible service and food

Though ting of writing a review on couple of things
1. Service especially attendee pavan for great service and courtesy
2. Excellent Indian food in San Diego
Advise change the name to 8 elements to get more reviews

Among all those corporate buildings, lies hidden this authentic Indian food place. I use the term «authentic» considering how many americanized Indian places I have seen in San Diego.
This place provides meal combos in both vegetarian and non-​vegetarian. They have a good balance of popular Indian food like the tikka masalas, tandoori etc and authentic indian dishes like stuffed eggplant, squash curry etc.
The staff is very friendly and one can always taste before deciding what you want to order.
This place gets really crowded during peak lunch time, so either go in really early or late.

Better than other indian restaurants in sorrento valley. And its not the usual fake Americanized Punjabi food, you see in other near by Indian restaurants. Variety is good. Some days the curries are awesome, some days they disappoint. Overall it is a decent place to grab a quick lunch on a working day

Good place for Biryani!

This hidden café has gotten me to like Indian food. The food can be a little too spicy sometimes but there’s always great flavor. 8 Elements doesn’t only have Indian food though. They have a separate menu of American food like sandwiches, panini, burgers, etc. Good place to go for lunch.

Great indian food. Awesome Malai kofta and mutton curry. All indian curries are usually good. Sometimes the options gets limited to south indian curries only.

worst utappam i ever had.

Food is okay but the service is very poor. We went here for a festival (diwali) and we had a reservation but had to wait for 40 mins to learn it could still take at least 15 mins and we left… Bad management

this is unusually good indian food for San Diego and especially for an office park lunch counter in the food desert called Sorrento Valley!
hard to locate behind unmarked mirrored glass!