DRIFT eat + drink

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Address:  3777 La Jolla Village Dr, San Diego, CA 92122
Hours of Operations: Monday – Sunday: 11:00 AM – 12:00 AM

Disappointing on so many different levels. Julie and I were staying at the Hyatt for a girl’s weekend/staycation and decided to try out DRIFT as they were giving a 15% discount to hotel guests. We didn’t feel like traveling too far for food, so we stopped by on an early Saturday evening – roughly 6 o’clock or so.

The restaurant itself is very nice! Modern and clean with lots of white furniture, which makes the restaurant seem very warm and welcoming. The sign at the front said to seat ourselves, so we opted to sit outside as it was a nice day and the weather was getting cooler. Well… we sat outside for a good 5-10min, but no one came to greet us. Weird, but whatever. We decided to go back inside and sit at the bar. Hopefully that would mean we would get better service?

(Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.)

It started off ok at first, where we put in our drink order (two waters), and then our food orders. We ordered:

  • Baja shrimp ceviche
  • Drift nachos
  • Margherita flatbread
  • Seasonal fruit cobbler

Food took a while to come out, but not a huge? deal. Food did not taste as good as it looked.

My flatbread was lukewarm and still pretty doughy. I’m pretty sure it was originally frozen and they just nuked it in the microwave. I actually think most of the food is frozen because the shrimp tasted decent, but not fresh, and the carnitas on the nachos were not fantastic either. The ceviche (for some reason) had no acidity, so it tasted pretty flat. They need to add lime or lemon to that immediately. Sadly the avocados were the highlight of that dish. Womp womp womp.

The service was absolutely DREADFUL. We couldn’t find anyone to put in our dessert order and the employees were much more focused on goofing on/socializing than attending to any of the patrons in the restaurant. I saw, several times, families have to get up and go to the bar and get someone’s attention because no one was walking around and checking in on their tables. Wtf?

I actually tried to get someone’s attention to put in our dessert order and was promptly ignored. LOL. So rude.

We thought to ourselves, “well, the food was mediocre, but maybe the dessert will be good.” It was not. It was the worst of everything imo. The seasonal fruit cobbler was gooey and very liquid-y/runny. Parts of the apples and peaches were scalding hot, whereas other areas were stone cold. I think the only chef at DRIFT is the microwave…

I can’t say anything about the drinks since we didn’t get anything ourselves, but I really did not enjoy our experience here. To be honest, we would’ve been better off going to Applebee’s or TGI Friday’s. It would have been the same quality of food, but at least we would’ve gotten more attentive service.

Not worth going to, imo, and a total disappointment – even with the 15% discount.