Karina’s Mexican Seafood

My new favorite seafood place!!! The pulpo tacos are bomb. The karinas ceviche is the best ive ever had. And the siete mares is really good too.

I really loved my dining experience at Karina’s.
It started off with the chips and salsa which you would tell were of very high quality. We were here on a Tuesday and tried a variety of appetizers as it was an all day happy hour.
The bacon wrapped shrimp filled with cream cheese were definitely my favorite. The rib eye taquitos were delicious as well. The rib eye sliders were good, however it wasn’t rib eye, but hamburger meat. The waitress Becky did an outstanding job and she received additional, unrequested help when it came to certain things like cleaning off plates or refilling drinks.
Thank you for a great dining experience!

They’re food is delicious & the drinks are awesome. Langosta Puerto Nuevo was my favorite

Never had a problem until TODAY when I decided to try the downtown location.
DON’T GO
WORSE SERVICE EVERRRRR…
Let’s just say I won’t come here again.

Great location, $ 5 valet is really nice. Nice ambiance the Karina ceviche is my favorite although the one at the east lake location is a lot better. Maxine was our server. She was great. Will come back.

If you can possibly avoid this eatery I highly recommend you do so and with great ferver. The food is outrageously expensive and to put it bluntly, paired and presented as if by a high school student trying to cook for their mother.
I do not recommend the scallops as I was alerted to their presence by the distinct odor of a rotting whale carcass nearby. It turns out that it was the diver scallops which the staff must have been used to because their eyes did not water in the least.
I also do not recommend the goat cheese salad as the goat cheese was presentwd as an impenetrable brick in the center of the dish, sided by two whole beats that were almost unidentifiable as a former vegetable.
Pretty much everything we ate was beyond comprehension in its horribleness. The drinks were the only saving grace and we consumed as many as we could in order to avoid the reality of our over priced dishes.
The positive side is that the bartender was lovely and gracious, and proved to be a great mixologist.
Stay away and enjoy any of the local plces across the highway on Morena blvd. I should have known with such an empty restaraunt.

The food is spectacular. But the service sucks. I ate at the bar and was brushed aside by the bartender that was more interested in flirting with a young man at the bar than doing her job. Going elsewhere next time.

I’ll start off by saying I ordered the seared ahi tuna, Marlin tacos, oysters, ceviche and calamari. The tuna wasn’t even seared all the way… My friend got sick. The calamari tasted and looked like orange chicken. And the oysters looked abnormal and what I thought was cocktail sauce was not. And the sauce almost gave me a asthma attack from the irritation it gave my throat. I loved the ceviche!!! And the Marlin tacos were ok… They added to much sauce to the tacos. Although are waitress was very nice and memorized our order she wasn’t very attentive and we had to keep getting up to ask the bar tender for things we needed. The bar tender around 2 pm on Monday was awesome!!! Not sure if I’ll come back here. Maybe only for ceviche to go if they don’t take two hours.

The food the food the food! SO GOOD! Love their tacos de camaron enchilados! And their micheluca is one of the best!
HUGE downfall, the service. Asked several times for another drink and for napkins. Had to get up several times to remind the waitress.

Best Seafood un San Diego!
Happy Hour alllllll day Monday & Tuesday.
Savory drinks, personal favorite, Tamarindo Martini.
Delicious food, anything in their specialty Karina’s Sauce will keep you wanting more.
The absolute most amazing thing you can ask for is their Specialty Ceviche Karina’s for true ceviche lovers. It’s raw shrimp so just FYI.

Tonight was the first night I came here to eat a full dinner. Ambiance was cool, not too fancy. We sat in a booth and the waitress came right away to take our drink order. I ordered a tamarindo martini which was on happy hour for $ 5 from 4pm to 7pm on a week day. It was pretty good! I would recommend it as well as a michelucas which is also an alcoholic beverage. It was a few minutes until the server brought our drinks, she took our order for appetizers — guacamole and karina’s ceviche. The guacamole tasted okay, not the best guac in the world. The ceviche was really good, I would give it a try only if you love lime! It’s based off of tomatillos which are the green tomatoes, shrimp, and avocado. It took forever, forever as in 20 minutes to bring out the ceviche. After the ceviche, we had another long wait for our entrée, about another 15 20 minutes. I ordered shrimp and crab enchiladas and it came with sides of rice and beans. The best thing on my plate was the rice, unfortunately.
Service is def horrible at this location. Try going to the locarion in national city!

Decided to dine here during my trip to San Diego for a friend’s birthday. The décor was beautiful and nicely detailed. The place had a cool vibe to it.
We ordered their signature drink a Michelucas (it’s like the Mexican beer cocktail Michelada, but infused with the powdered chili candy Lucas) It was soooooo very good! I’m from Los Angeles, but i would travel back to San Diego just for that. Also tried the Tamarindo Martini which was great as well.
For food, I got the stuffed avocados. It was a ripe avocado, cut in half and filled with a shrimp ceviche type salad. It was delicious and refreshing. Very good bright flavors. Portions are big so bring your apetite!
Service was good. Food was great. Drinks were awesome. Loved it.

Came here on a Saturday night, i tried to make reservations earlier during the day but i was told it was not necessary unless it was a large group. When we arrived it was not too crowded, not empty but not over crowded, just right. where you could still talk and have a good time.
I started off with a Michelucas, Karina’s Signature Drink, A beer cocktail; beer with tamarind chilli powder on the rim with a lime. It was Delicious and refreshing. It reminded me of a tamarindo martini but with beer, the chili on the rim was a nice touch but i tried to keep sipping from the same spot so i wouldn’t get too much chilli’s it an additive type of heat, it sneaks up on you after you keep drinking it and eating the chips and salsa too.
We were given complementary chips and salsa which was nice, the chips were thicker than the standard taco shop, maybe home made or just a different type of corn tortilla. The salsa was a medium to mild spice but the heat kept building as you kept eating it.
I ordered the Seafood Galore (fish, shrimp, octopus, muscles, clams, and scallops) with the deviled (red) spicy sauce ($ 17), i was deciding between the Karinas sauce which is a cream based sauce with mild green chilis but i went the spicy route. It was delicious and thick with seafood, I especially liked the octopus because it was so tender and soft. It was like a spicy Mexican version of a cioppino. So good, I may try it with the Karina sauce next time or maybe something with just octopus or the enchiladas with shrimp and crab.
It came with a small portion of rice and beans but it did not matter because the portion of seafood was so large that i was stuffed. I ended up putting the rice into the seafood dish to soak up all the spicy diablo sauce, it was spicy but not so spicy that you could not taste anything else, a great balance of heat and flavor.
My friend ordered the Filete Empanizado ($ 17), breaded white fish fillet with rice and salad. It was a pretty plain white bread type of dish but done well; very moist, tender and flakey, I’d guess cod, very well executed but not what I’d consider Mexican by any means. It was also a very large portion.
For dessert we shared a flan, I was totally full at that point but i love flan and i wanted to try this one. It was a large slice, the deep caramelized flavor was there, i though it was a little dense for me, i prefer mine just a bit creamier. I still enjoyed it very much though.
All in all i really enjoyed my self here, its a chill relaxed atmosphere and the waitress are easy on the eyes =) their outfits don’t hurt either. It’s kind of a hispanic hooters or tilted kilt type of atmosphere short skirts and revealing neck line with pushup bras! What guy doesn’t love that?!

I live in chula vista and have been to the one there. My wife and I absolutely enjoy the food there. Each time we’ve been it’s never failed us. BUT I said… let’s see if it’s going to be just as good as cv. Nope. It was as i suspected. We were both underwhelmed. We got our same dishes we usually get. Usually the fish is tender and mine was almost burnt on bottom where you could not easily cut through the fish or find much meat. My wife’s dish, her fish was not tender but overcooked. Our waitress was horrible. No silverware before our food came, nor attentive, asked if we wanted tortillas ands brought them by time we were finishing dinner, took forever to bring the check and pick it up. It was like she didn’t know how to handle more than one table. Ugh. …needless to say she didn’t get a good tip.
Maybe your experience will be different. But we’ll never come back.

My fiancé and I have given Karinas a handful of extra tries and have been so happy! The service has been on point, and the food, as always, is delicious! We’ve been coming in and sharing the chicken fajitas. The portions are huge and it comes with rice and beans. We like to swap the beans for an extra side of rice, but nonetheless — it is great ! The bottomless chips and salsa is a nice touch! We live relatively close, so Karinas has become our go to spot when we want to stay close to our condo! You can’t be the quality of food and amazing happy hour! We will continue to come in for a quick bite to eat at a reasonable price while enjoying the nice atmosphere ! Thanks for being consistent Karinas !

Let’s start with the good.
The ceviches are delicious. I had the Ceviche Karina’s and it’s a giant plate of shrimp in green chile sauce with a few pieces of cucumber and avocado mixed in. It comes with crisp tortillas.
It’s a mountain of food and the presentation is almost shocking. It’s green on green on green. (Sorry, I dived in and didn’t take a pic, but you can find photos of this dish posted by other Unilocalers.) It has a slight spicy kick to it and it leans toward the bitter side but in a really good way that keeps you coming back for more. This is a nice dish.
Keep in mind that this is a Mexican seafood restaurant. Sure, you can get carnitas here, I guess, but 95% of the menu is seafood. So go with their strengths.
It goes without saying (but I’m still saying it) that Karina’s makes a point of hiring attractive female servers in fairly skiimpy outfits. But they were very friendly and very attentive so, good looks aside, the service was very good.
The dining room is smaller than you might expect but the décor is eclectic and interesting.
As for the not so great, the salsa was an abomination. Others have commented that it is ketchup-​like and that pretty much sums it up, except I actually would have preferred to dip the average chips in real ketchup versus this salsa. I love salsa and have had it at a million different restaurants and this might be the worst. Come on, guys. Open up a jar of Pace if you can’t get this right.
The laminated menus are indeed dirty with food stains. That’s easily addressed by management but someone is not paying attention here.
Based on what I saw, all of the food portions are large and the presentations were very nice.
Karina’s is not a home run but it’s a solid double and I would happily return.

Karina’s Mexican Seafood has been notorious for two things: 1) beautiful servers and 2) ceviche. I asked friend if he wanted to visit Karina’s in Gaslamp and his reply was ‘who is that’. Our convo that ensued:
me: «It’s kinda like the Mexican Hooters…»
him: (interrupts me) «I’m in»
me: «…that serves ceviche, seaf…»
him: «I’M IN»
me: «…seafood, it’s in down…»
him:” stop talking you had me at Hooters”
They have valet parking but we were able to find street parking that Sunday early evening. Their menu is extensive and you can eat the gratis warm chips while deciding what to order.
We had:
Aguachile de Camarón (Verde)
— The raw shrimp cooked beautifully from the lime juice in our aguachile. Our server added octopus to this aguachile as well. The octopus tasted fine but I wasn’t a fan of the octopus skin as it tasted a bit gelatinous. The shrimp was so fresh tasting raw.
Ceviche Karina’s
— This was highly recommended as it’s their signature ceviche. The chopped up shrimp melded well with the spicy serrano sauce and we enjoyed the pucker the lime was giving us. The ceviche comes with 4 tostadas.
Classic Cadillac Margarita (w/​shot of Grand Marnier)
— You have to see pic to understand the beauty of this drink. The Grand Marnier miniature gradually seeps into the glass as you drink your margarita. How fascinating is that?!
Langostinos a la plancha (prawns)
— It’s such a beautiful grand presentation with the huge prawns split in half. The prawns were magnificent looking. Unfortunately they were grilled/​broiled too long as the prawn meat tasted a bit dry.
Surf ‘N’ Turf
— Friend was excited when this huge plate came out. The beautiful lobster tail was served on top of the rib eye steak. The lobster was grilled/​broiled too long as the tail meat tasted a bit stiff. The garlic butter did help with this. Hopefully the kitchen can adjust the grill times for these items as Karina’s offers really nice quality seafood.
Tres leches Cake
— They didn’t have the their homemade flan that evening so Stephani suggested these two desserts. The tres leches, if you zoom in on picture, was super moist and you could taste the milk that was soaked into this two layer cake.
Chocolate Abuelita Mousse Cake
— This cake was dense and sinful. The ganache like frosting was sweet and tasted fudgey.
Service was kind and thoughtful. We appreciated Stephani’s candor about her personal likes/​dislikes on dishes here. The location is fun and upbeat. We would definitely come back to try out more of their ceviches and seafood cocktails.
I almost forgot about their Happy Hour menu. I think it’s offered Mon-​Tues (all day); Wed-​Thursday (4p-​7p and 9p-​close); Friday (4−7p). There’s quite a bit to choose from so this would be a fun way to try out a variety of items here at Karina’s.

Great atmosphere and really friendly staff! I attended a Unilocal elite event here soon after they opened and was really impressed!
The food was delicious, I tried the tacos and fajita bar they had set up and liked everything I tried. The drinks were also yummy, not too strong but yummy nonetheless.
I would definitely return!

Ever since the Unilocal Elite Event that went down here a couple of weeks ago, there was one thing at Karina’s that stood out in my mind… that succulent, tasty shrimp in Karina’s sauce. (What, did you expect something else? ;)) We were given a $ 10 gift certificate at the end of the evening, so seeing how it was expiring this past Monday, it was time for me to make the 15 minute walk from where I park at Balboa Park and make Karina’s acquaintance again. (Hey, at least I built up an appetite and found the best route to avoid all the panhandlers…)
Woof, is Karina’s regular menu a tad on the pricy side — I hadn’t thought of looking at the Happy Hour menu (all day HH on Monday and Tuesday). While I was thinking of the shrimp in the green sauce, once I saw that there was a Surf & Turf burrito available, I had to try it. The burrito is pretty big — I only finished off half of it — but while the fried shrimp was good and the carne asada was freshly grilled, it felt like there was less shrimp in the burrito. The free chips and salsa were a nice surprise… especially at how spicy the salsa was!
Service is very professional — while the ladies on the floor were nice to see (especially with those outfits), the male server was actually more cool when I was interacting with me. When I asked for a box for my leftovers, he said that the Surf and Turf is one of his favorites as well. And when there was a discrepancy with my bill — originally instead of $ 10 off, they only took 10 cents off — the staff was gracious and quick to give me a revised bill.
I still have that craving for the shrimp — and it is available as a burrito also — and seeing how the HH menu looks promising, it appears I’ll be back again after work one of these days.

Karina’s is kind of like the Mexican version of Hooters, except for the fact that it’s nothing like Hooters at all besides employing beautiful women. This is news to nobody that has already read previous reviews for this place, seeing that «Mexican Hooters» is a term used often and accurately when describing, Karina’s.
Hooters has terrible food. Karina’s does not. In fact, the food here is insanely good. I absolutely love the happy hour, sitting at the bar and picking off the extensive $ 7.00 items, one by one. My favorite? Good question! I’d have to say that the seared ahi has been the winner for me. I’ve had it come with as many as ten pieces but never any less than seven — can’t beat it! I also grubbed on some of the marlin tacos, which was going out on a limb for me since overdosing on the red fish in Cabo a few years ago and never going back. Also only $ 7.00, also a win in my book.
So, after all this praise I politely ask all of the Unilocalers out there to please stay away. If I show up and there is no seat at the bar available for me, I am going to more than a tad annoyed, bent out of shape, fighting mad, in a tizzy, peeved, tee’d and ticked off all in one. Don’t cross me, amigo!

La comida es exellente el servicio excepcional.
Sin duda alguna la mejor comida de mariscos en san Diego
Recomiendo margaritas con mezcal mala noche