Blue Pearl A Casual Eatery

Ate here while staying at The Dana. Would give one less star if it weren’t for the coupons given from the hotel, my child ate free our whole stay, and we never paid full price. Would not have been worth the full price. Pancakes and french toast were just the basics, nothing special. My breakfast quesadilla was pretty good though.

Maybe it’s just that my standards have slipped, but on my annual return visit to the Blue Pearl I noticed that it seems a lot better than I remember it. I had huevos rancheros with good beans and tortillas, a tasty sauce, and some remarkably sharp and spicy salsa whose only real flaw was an overabundance of raw onion. Somebody in the kitchen might actually be taking pride in what they do.

They used to have an amazing mahi mahi sandwich but their new fish sandwich is just meh. Pricey for a bland meal and place looked so empty. I don’t think I’ll be back

Had breakfast here on a Wednesday morning, not busy as expected. But great service and food. Would recommend.

We had my son’s rehearsal dinner here and it was Wonderful. Anna the manager did an amazing job decorating the restaurant with all the things I brought. The food was outstanding. Everyone had a great time and were very complimentary of the dinner. Anna could not have been more helpful to me. It was my first time to host a rehearsal dinner and it was difficult to choose a restaurant. The bridal party and guests were staying at the Dana so this was very convienent for everyone. We were able to shuttle the guests to the rehearsal and back using the Dana shuttle service. Everyone was happy. The food, the atmosphere and the service by all the servers was everything I hoped it would be. Thank You Anna for making the rehearsal dinner memorable.

Terrible food that had NO flavor. It was ready in 5 minutes after ordering. Makes me wonder if it was already cooked and just heated up when I ordered it. Waste of money. No wonder they had a buy on get one free deal from the hotel. If they didn’t have this place next to a hotel I’m positive locals wouldn’t come here. Go somewhere else! Our server was rude too.

While staying at the Dana I came into the Blue Pearl every morning at 6:30. I generally only drank coffee but on two occasions my daughters joined me and I ate with them. The food is typical diner fare which is exactly what you would expect from a hotel diner. It was served hot and cooked well.
I did not get the woman’s name but she seemed to be the manager. She was very pleasant and ran a good crew. The man who seemed to take her place on what I suspect were her days off (Sunday and Monday) was less friendly and the restaurant ran less well under his leadership. (This might be a biased view since I felt I received poor service from only one server and it happened to be him on a day when he was not filling in as manager.)
Overall a good experience. Go in expecting typical diner fare and good service and you should be satisfied.
(Waffles were first made using community irons in the tenth century.)

Typical hotel restaurant. Food was not that great and coffee tasted so cheap. I had steak and eggs first day and the eggs could have been cooked some more. However the service was good and our server even offered a to go coffee. Decent.

Came in for a rehearsal dinner for a wedding we were in at the Dana. I had the tilapia over mashed potatoes and grilled seasonal veggies. The chimichuri sauce was awesome!

First time and possibly last time… Visiting this resort for a family function. Just checked in and feeling hungry. We stopped in at this restaurant as it was located close to our room. Word of advice… Go with a salad or French fries. Calamari looks like it could be alive!!!

This place is a quaint little seafood place that harkens back to a simpler time in OB when it was an amusement park and surfer town. The fish and chips was great. Would have liked to see a drink special but I am ok with drinking soda sometimes when there is no good booze option. Great service and a fair bill. I’ll be back

We ate here four times during a 7 night/​8 day stay at the Dana on Mission Bay. It was the more sensible choice over the other restaurant on the campus. More choices, better prices, kid friendly, good food.
We ate at other San Diego restaurants, and this one was on par with most. It’s not fancy, it’s just good. Great salads (I had both a Greek Salad and Spinach Salad), very good soups (I had both potato leek and chicken corn chowder), excellent fish and chips, burgers, kids meals, salsa and guacamole. Chips weren’t like at a Mexican food restaurant, but they were decent — could have been warmed.
Highly recommend.

OMG! I will admit that I was a little nervous going after seeing the reviews, but I thought what the heck I’m going to try it. That began the experience…
Drinks were endless… diet coke, tea and water were refilled regularly without us having to ask.
Our order came out hot and fresh served by Enrique our waiter. My husband and I love hot fries and here they come fresh hotter than hot curly fries. YUMMM!
The entries were ample and fresh with my husband’s talapia hot and delicious with crunchy just cooked veges as the other side.
My Cobb salad was wonderful and so pretty… I’m sorry I didn’t take a pic to share. The lettuce was assorted baby greens and the topping was endless. Again another YUMMMM!
The pattern was completed with a tasty BLT cooked the way it was ordered and calamari hot and crisp.
All the parties at my table were pleased and well taken care of… Thanks Blue Pearl! The experience was wonderful! We will be back soon.

I gave this place one star. It didn’t even deserve that.
Sit down at your table and you’ll be greeted with a story on the outside of your menu. It will explain what a blue pearl is and how rare they are. It will elaborate on this and explain how they came to construct a menu with worldly food dishes fit for a king.
The Blue Pearl sure does talk a big game, does it deliver on it’s promise? What do you think.
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad food. Did i mention the food sucked?
The waiter also created a running river across our table when he came to refill our waters and missed the glass completely.
I live in SD and i pray tourists have better experiences than this on the whole. The Dana really needs to consider a drastic makeover. This is not good for San Diego! As they say on MNF. C’mon Man!

This review was for awhile back. We were staying at the Dana on Mission Bay since it’s the closest hotel to Sea World and the Hubby was running the San Diego Marathon. Decided to simplify our lives & just eat here for dinner one of the nights. Uh, big mistake! Subpar food and to make it worse, found a hair in my salad… enough said, right?

Wondering if they were short staffed this evening. We had three different people come to take our drink order. We finally got our drinks after about 10 minutes of being seated.
We ordered a ny strip and fettuccine. The steak was decent. A bit cold but tasty. The pasta wasn’t bad either.
Our drinks were only refilled after sitting on the edge of the table for at least 5 minutes. The server was not very attentive to us. The restaurant had picked up in business it being 7pm and I understand when servers get busy but the occasional stop by to check on us isn’t unheard of.
Server was pleasant just busy. Food was decent and fairly priced.

I went to The Dana with my family and there were only two restaurants to eat at if I didn’t want to walk far. The Firefly, a total $ 73 disappointment…
The blue Pearl… I probably ate here 4 times, and ordered out 2 times and was only disappointed that the mini corn dogs were on the slightly overcooked side; borderline.
I had their soups, lamb pita, pulled pork sandwich, breakfast, and more and was never disappointed. I was shocked at the ratings.
Every single person was very sincere and kind, from when I called to the assistant chef.
The only struggle is when they are packed to the rim, they need to step it up a little with attending to their tables.
It is great for kids!

We found this place the morning we went to SeaWorld. We were really just looking for some fast food to slam dunk before going into the park so we could save our pocket money for souveniers instead of the food (that I hear so many negative things about). Well, no fast food, but this place is just about across the street from the Sea World entrance by a rather large hotel.
All I can say is that I left feeling that, while I didn’t have a bad experience, it should have been better. The service was okay, but there were a couple of times where our drinks ran out and we had to flag down our waiter to get them refilled. Also, we had to flag the guy down to get our check as well. Not very attentive. It wasn’t horrible either. He was just okay.
The food was average at best. I got the cheese omelette, which seemed kind of puny for the price. The hash browns we a little overcooked and the portion was rather small even when compared to a Denny’s or IHOP. My friend got the shrimp omelette, and said he just thought it was «alright».
For what we were looking for, it was adequate… just not much more than that… and for the price, it definately should have been better.
3 stars

Ate here a couple of months back – yes, this review is a bit late – and I have to agree with other Unilocalers and give this place just two stars.
First, the service. Many people here are at least saying that the service was good for them. Maybe, but not so much for me. My wife and I were literally the only ones in the place when we went for dinner one night, and it took a while for the waiter to find us. He took our order, but then, when a large (12+) party came in after about fifteen minutes (and were seated right next to us), we were forgotten again. It was hard to get his attention the rest of the night because we were chopped liver.
As for the food, my wife had a steak, which looked pretty but tasted like chewy nothing – no flavor at all. I had the meatball sub, which wasn’t too bad, but certainly nothing fabulous. At least the marinara sauce had pieces of tomato in it and wasn’t too sweet. The large party seated next to us got an apple tart for dessert, which looked good from our vantage point and they kept talking about how tasty it was, so we got one too. How wrong we were: it was bland, more bread than fruit, and covered in some store-​bought ice cream and a couple of pitiful squirts of whipped cream.
All in all, we didn’t expect much from this joint – we just wanted a quick meal and were too lazy to go somewhere decent. And we got what we expected: not much.

This is the kind of place that you go to if you are on vacation and do not have a rental car to drive elsewhere to eat and nothing is within close proximity to your hotel. We only came here because we had a coupon from
. What a joke!
The food was a complete rip. The $ 8 «shrimp cocktail» was comprised of FOUR pieces of shrimp! Call me crazy, but can’t you usually get an entire pound of shrimp for 8 bucks? And my bf got the «carne asada plate» which was lukewarm at best. The rice and beans were generic and mostly flavorless and the «carne asada» was tough and lacking in flavor. When he requested salsa from the waitor to add some flavor to the very dry rice and beans he was denied, because there was none ‘available.’ Just because you are in San Diego and throw a flank steak on the grill doesn’t make it carne asada! I got the Southwestern Sandwich as a wrap with a side caesar salad and it was less than thrilling.
Towards the end of the meal my bf suggestively rubbed my leg and asked «Are you thinking what I’m thinking?» and I say «yes.» To which his response was «Yes, where the hell is our waitor?!?» My sentiments exactly.
The worst part of it all? The
coupon that took us to the Blue Pearl was really for another restaurant and we left the Blue Pearl one at home, so not only did we have to pay for our disgustingly overpriced meal in cash, we have to come back to rid ourselves of that damn coupon! GRRRRR