Dot Island Grill

Was craving some spam musubi but didn’t know they didn’t have it until I was already in here waiting in line :(
I stayed though and ordered the fried calamari instead which was okay. I should’ve know to check their Unilocal more thoroughly because now I understand why no one really orders it. The texture of the squid itself was on the chewy side but the coating was super crunchy and had good flavor but still needs ketchup.
Another downside is that they don’t have much ventilation besides the one open side door. I came here on a pretty hot summer day and they had no AC but we still sat inside while it was pretty humid. I guess they want the atmosphere to be tropical ???

When I lived in the dorms I used to come here almost every single day. The 6 $ chicken katsu Wednesdays are especially great for college students on a budget. Not only that, the Katsu is delicious and consistently very well done. The chicken bowl on Thursdays is another really yummy option

Pros:
–reasonably priced
–food is good
Cons:
–not ideal for dining in
–small
–parking can be a hassle

Dot Island Grill’s daily specials are what makes this place great. With a great variety ranging from Spam (yes, Spam) to chicken katsu to grilled fish to chicken/​fish wraps, the grilled meats are a freaking steal for its price.
Chicken Katsu (Wednesday)
This might be DIG’s most popular special. It comes with a huge portion (they have two stacks of chicken katsu across the width of their take-​out box) of chicken katsu, along with cooked vegetables, rice, and their macaronie salad. You can be guranteed a full stomach, and enjoy it too.
While the chicken is one of the best in Berkeley, I’ve actually come to realize they mildly skimp on the quality of rice. I’ve ordered this maybe over a dozen times over the past few years, and about half of the time the rice is undercooked and/​or completely clumped. Sort of felt like I was eating undercooked rice cakes (which isn’t pleasant).
Spam (Saturday)
For a little over $ 3, you can get two spam masubis. While this might be one of the most basic/​ordinary things you can order anywhere, DIG makes theirs with a house made sauce that is quite good. Drop by on Saturdays for a simple and cheap, yet delicious, meal.
Grilled chicken /​fish wraps (varies)
This is my second favorite thing after DIG’s chicken katsu. It’s pretty basic, but again the taste of the grilled chicken or grilled fish vault it above just an average, 3-​star wrap.
So in conclusion, these guys take the «Grill» in their name pretty seriously.

I seriously love coming here as a college student. It’s affordable and a healthier option. I can pay less than ten dollars to get a large meal. I always get the grilled chicken here with brown rice. You get a huge portion of chicken and rice with a side of vegetables and macaroni salad! You will definitely be full with this portion size. You can also get grilled fish which is pretty good, but chicken is my favorite. Definitely come here if you are looking for a cheap and healthy meal!

One of the healthiest and tastiest place to eat in Berkeley! The portions are always big and the prices are reasonable. Love the miso dressing!

The location is hidden away in this alley type formation but it’s plenty spacious. A bit grimy? They specialize in/​seafood Hawaiian, so you will see trout, tilapia, salmon and shrimp. I got the only non-​seafood: the chicken katsu
They make their food freshly and the chicken was so so moist. Their katsu sauce was too peppery. I paid like$ 8 – 9? It came with 3 sides and I replaced macaroni with fries and steamed veggies and rice. Bleh! Their brown rice was horrible… Sometimes I felt like I was eating styrofoam grain. Steamed vegetables were just steamed cabbages… But the fries were exactly what i had been craving: crisp and creamy.
I don’t think their food was bad! I’ve definitely had better though.

Convenient and somewhat healthy option amongst a slew of not-​so-​healthy restaurants. The biggest appeal is the affordable pricing. Thank you Dot Island Grill for understanding broke student woes!
Pros:
–Huge, huge portions that usually last two meals (or one if you’re a guy)
–Chicken Katsu is $ 6 on Wednesdays. Two giant chicken breasts coated with panko, seared to perfection
–Tilapia is delicious! Tender and falls apart when you stick a fork in it. Tastes great with Cajun or lemon pepper seasoning
–Comes with three sides of your choice: macaroni salad, steamed veggies, and brown or white rice. ***TIP*** If you don’t like one of the sides, you can opt to get 2 or even 3 of one side. For example, 2 sides of macaroni salad and one side of rice
–Budget friendly
–Service is consistently quickish (~10 min or under depending on time of day)
Cons:
–Chicken Katsu borders on the oilier side, slightly higher breading to meat ratio than I personally prefer

$ 7 for Chicken Katsu and very generous: great cost performance.
Service was good: lady at the cashier was polite.
Overall a great lunch pose for fulfilled stomach. :)

Came here with a few friends looking for some chicken katsu. The sauce for the katsu tasted abnormal, the macaroni is sub-​par, and the katsu was fried so much that it was extra extra crunchy. Terrible service, end of story

3 words: CHICKEN. KATSU. WEDNESDAYS.
The Wednesday special is the only reason I come to Dot Island Grill. I’ve never tried anything else here even though they offer specials all week long… probably because the katsu is tried and true for me.
They recently raised the katsu special price from $ 5.00 to $ 6.00 (so it comes out to $ 6.54 after tax — still not bad) but they give you mac salad AND veggies now, and an even bigger portion of katsu. Super worth it because it lasts me at least 2 meals. I don’t even know if I can meal-​prep for meals that cheap!
The atmosphere of this place reminds me of a high school cafeteria, so I usually take my food home.
FYI — they charge $ 0.10 for plastic bags, and you can’t use your student ID discount on daily specials.

The salmon is really fresh and with garlic butter dressing the pasta tastes great.
Also the portion is big enough!!! Great place to have some seafood!

I used to be a much bigger fan, back when they had student discounts and weren’t as pricey as they are now.
This isn’t the cleanest of places, and your meal is served in cheap, flimsy plastic boxes. Not so eco-​friendly.
On the bright side, they do have the best salmon and fish selection on Telegraph. The salads are decent and healthy, but not the best. At least the cashiers are always quick to get my orders, and call out my order number on average under 10 minutes.

I have had a lot of love for Dot Island Grill in the past. They have done so much to get my protein fill throughout my college career, and they truly are near and dear to my heart.
However, I have had a change of heart as a result of a terrible experience.
Most of my reviews are based off of service, and I believe service is what any restaurant needs to keep a customer coming. Sure, food brings you there, but service keeps you coming back. I may come back to Dot Island Grill to give it a second chance, but I have to report on my terrible experience.
One day, I was rather busy, and I wanted my meal fast. Dot Island Grill was somewhere I knew I could. What I noticed was them taking an extremely long time with it. With Dot Island Grill having an open kitchen, you can see what’s going on. While they should have been putting my order as a top priority, they were instead cooking other food that no one has ordered. Honestly, what?
What really sealed the deal was that once my order was finished, the two cashiers were just chatting up for a minute or two before even bagging my order. As a college student, every minute actually matters, since it’s the difference between being on time or late. Luckily for me, they just kept on chatting before they realized that they had to do their job and serve me as a customer. As an employee of a restaurant, you get paid for doing your job, even if it means standing around and being available to serve customers, not flirt with each other.
TIP: Go to Steve’s for your protein fix.

This place still has great food, but I can’t rate a place so highly when their workers may or may not use gloves or wash their hands before working with food…
Came in this Saturday and got the $ 2 Saturday Spam Musubi special. Two bucks for two spam musubis makes a pretty solid mid-​day snack. After ordering, I chilled at a table towards the side of the restaurant which has a pretty good view through the kitchen door. There was this older guy who was walking between the front and the back to deal with some deliveries. To be honest I wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doing with his hands before he touched my food, but the mystery bothers the heck out of me.
I’m sitting there twiddling my thumbs wondering why my musubis are taking so long when a someone walks by the stove and yells at another worker to handle the spam. So then I stare into the kitchen because I’m so damn hungry and maybe staring at them make the food will make the time pass by faster. I watch a worker use some tongs to set the spam on the countertop and pack some rice up top. Then he dips and the older dude with mystery hands takes over and starts squeezing some creamy orange sauce on the rice. Mentally I’m all like yaas I love that sauce. But then he puts the sauce bottle down and grabs some seaweed with his bare hands. I’m looking thinking, «Wuh wait. You’re not gonna.» but yes. Yes he does. He wraps those little musubis right then and there. C’MON. AT LEAST WASH YOUR HANDS. I’m like RIGHT here watching you.
Like what if you sneezed on your hand or something ten minutes ago. Or you used the bathroom and didn’t wash your hands like every dude out there. I DONT KNOW.
So yeah I’m not dead yet and those musubis were delicious, but I would really appreciate better kitchen hygiene. That’s all.

Dot Island is a really similar to fish’s wild, but a slightly more expensive version and definitely not as good in terms of quality. I ordered the grilled salmon plate with lemon pepper and it comes with veggies and brown rice. I ordered it for here and got it in a to go container. No plate at all, so don’t bother thinking if you want your meal to go or for here cuz you’ll get it to go.
Food quality. salmon a bit overdone, veggies are completely bland, though I think that’s the point because they try to make their food healthy, and the brown rice was just pretty standard.
In essence, this place is just a subpar version of Fish’s Wild. Less quantity and quality. Also no daily specials

Daily lunch specials for $ 5 – 6 definitely do the trick. Wednesday Katsu and Thursday Chicken Teriyaki are my faves. The grilled lemon pepper salmon is also pretty good, but pricey at around $ 11. Makes me feel healthy and balanced when I want to treat myself though!

This place is outstanding! Probably 3.5 stars for the taste and overall quality of the food… but i’ll knock it up to four for service, and the fact that it is one of the only decently priced, healthy options in the area.
I stopped by today and ordered a mahi-​mahi salad. I was able to choose my dressing and the seasoning style for the fish. I opted for the house (oil based) and lemon pepper for the grilled fish. They gave me a huge portion. A bed of spring mix, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples and two large mahi-​mahi cutlets. I was able to save one of them and eat it later for dinner. I paid roughly $ 9 total, so considering I got two meals out of it and I had decent quality fish — it was a great deal.
Further, they have awesome daily deals. Today fish and chips were only $ 5, other days they have chicken catsu, chicken BBQ bowls, etc. They serve a variety of healthy, decently-​healthy, and not healthy but not horrible for you options. They have short ribs, a myriad of seafood options, chicken, etc all which have the option of making into a wrap, salad, plate, bowl etc.
Will definitely be back for another meal sometime soon. One thing: it did take a little while (~10 minutes) for me to get my order, despite the fact it was pretty quiet. That was my only issue though, and it was anything but major.

Like many other UC Berkeley students, Dot Island Grill has been there for me when I needed it the most. You don’t come here for gourmet food, but you do come here for affordable and quick meals that are sure to leave you satisfied. One thing that allows this eatery to stand out among the rest is that it is open until midnight, that means when you’re having those late night cravings on campus you only have to walk one block to meet all of your katsu and shortrib fueled desires.
Food: Like I said before, Dot Island Grill is definitely not serving the best food in Berkeley, far from it. BUT it does crank out consistent and affordable favorites. I feel like the general consensus is that the chicken katsu meal is the way to go, and I can’t say they’re wrong. I’m a regular here on Wednesdays because that is when katsu is the special and I can pick up a huge meal for just over five dollars. All meals come with a choice of sides, I generally go with the steamed veggies and brown rice, but if you have more wiggle room in your diet than I do the macaroni salad is also definitely worth the price.
Deals: Five days a week (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Sun) they have specials that will save you about two dollars on the daily special. As I said above, Wednesday is always chicken katsu day and subsequently the lines that day are noticeably longer. Also, if you’re a UC Berkeley student you ALWAYS get ten percent off your food, just show them your ID and reap your savings on their already cheap food.
Til next time, the student foodie.

Dot Island claims to be «healthy» but don’t be fooled. There’s nothing healthy about the food, except the salads.
The food is pretty mediocre and nothing special.
Beef Short ribs: 3 pieces of grilled ribs (much less than they used to give) which are kind of oily
Grilled chicken: this is pretty good, you get about 3 pieces of grilled chicken tenders
Fried calamari: way too over cooked and chewy
There’s nothing too special about Dot Island other than the fact it’s pretty cheap.