JF Japanese Cafe

Tasty cream cheese wontons, fresh maki, iced green tea on a hot, hot, hot summer day = perfection. This restaurant is in a pretty, landscaped plaza, a laid back and authentically decorated sushi joint amidst an otherwise snobby corner of Del Mar. Park in the plaza parking lot for free with validation.
This is where we ended up at 4:15pm after visiting Matsu Gawa who rudely told us they wouldn’t serve us until 4:30 and after visiting Pacifica Breeze Café who rudely told us they wouldn’t serve us after 4:00. Apparently restaurants in Del Mar are not keen on being open from 4:00 — 4:30. And are rude about this fact.
Hooray for JF Japanese Café! Awesome food, great service, charming décor, and open at 4:15!

I’ve been going here for years now and the sushi chefs are AWESOME. The fish is fresh and the rolls are huge! Service is great. A little pricey but thats expected in del mar. It never gets busy so sitting at the bar is a must. Have a conversation with the sushi chefs and they’ll most likely remember you the next time you come in.

I thought this place was a totally awesome restaurant.
I love their sushi and the atmosphere of this place. Their sushi is so delicious and the selection of fish that they have is so fresh! I am so excited that I had a chance to come to this restaurant.
There is a sushi chef by the name of Mike here who is very friendly and super funny! He knows all the best food and will totally treat you right when you go and sit at the sushi bar.

It’s solid sushi, fresh fish, and the rolls are decent, but I don’t feel it’s worth the price, particularly when the cooked salmon teriyaki (which usually you can’t go wrong with) was a little fishy.
For the prime location, there’s only one table that has an ocean view, and it’s crowded by two other tables in close proximity. So close, in fact, you feel like you’re part of the other conversations.
Since there isn’t a great deal of competition immediately adjacent to this location, I would certainly go back. You won’t get sick, but you may not be super happy if you’re spoiled by really good sushi.

Sushi, extras, view,
friendly chef — don’t mind saying
see you tomorrow

Super fresh food, really terrific service and kid friendly. Great miso soup and I really loved the richly-​flavored Del Mar Roll. Nice variety on the menu which includes some Korean favorites as well. We’ll be sure to visit again the next time we’re in the area.

i had dinner here at 4pm last night, and i’m still not hungry (it’s noon the next day)… that’s how much i ate!
my mom brought my japanese cousin here when he came to visit a few months back (yeah, he’s half brown, but he grew up in tokyo and only speaks japanese, so i think we can agree that he’s japanese), and he claimed that they serve up so of the most authentic and excellent sashimi he’s tried in the states.
i’m not a big sashimi person, so i had a lot of americanized speciality rolls and thought they were pretty fantastic (my favorites were the spider roll, the crunchy roll, and the spicy tuna).
we came with a sizeable group (seven people), and i’d have to say that this isn’t the best place for a group of that size. first of all, the put three tiny round tables together to seat us all, but it was a kind of uncomfortable set-​up (i had to divy up my stuff across two tables). also, even though the restaurant was pretty empty, it took the waiter a long time to fill our water glasses (and when you’re eating as much as we were, that water was really imperative).
that said, the sushi chef was awesome, and when we first placed our order, he started laughing at us saying that we’d ordered WAYYY too much and that we should just let him scale down the quantity as he saw fit. that was really fantastically kind of him, because i think pretty much everyone at the table was ready to die as we scarfed down our last philadelphia rolls (and that was with scaled down quantities). we also ordered a bunch of stuff off of the regular menu, most of which i didn’t really eat, but i did really like the candied prawns with walnuts.
it’s a pretty expensive place too, but i don’t think you can expect anything less from good sushi on del mar plaza!