Restaurant: Marketplace Grille Location: 6755 Mira Mesa Blvd. #101 San Diego, CA Phone: (858) 452-1990 Price Range: $4.50-$9.00

Number of visits: many
Last visit before review: April 27, 2001

Randy has had: Filet mignon wrap, chicken wrap, salmon plate, chicken soup, chicken and spinach stew, taboulee, iced tea.

Jeff has had: Filet mignon wrap, filet mignon plate, sirloin plate, chicken soup, chicken and spinach stew, iced tea.

The wraps are made with shredded lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, pickles, parsley, red cabbage, onions, mayonnaise, and house dressing wrapped in lavash bread. The plates include green salad (iceburg and romaine lettuce, tomato, red cabbage, shredded carrot, cucumber slices), white or herb rice, and lavash bread.

Rating 8 (of 12) Good

Randy says: The wraps are good but I don't like the way they come by default. I prefer to get them with no cabbage, no mayonnaise, and lighter on the dressing. Ordered that way they are very tasty but still messy.

Jeff says: I found the wraps impossible to eat. As soon as you try to eat them, stuff falls out all over the place. The dressing has a taste I don't like, which for me ruined the wraps, but they can be made with as much or as little (or none) of anything to suit individual tastes.

Randy says: On the salmon plate, the salmon is usually good, not overly fishy. Sometimes the cooks go overboard with adding oil and salt after cooking. The herb rice is very tasty but tends to be oily. (You can ask that no salt or oil be added to any of these.) The salad is good if ordered with all romaine and no iceburg. The salad ingredients are crisp, fresh and tasty, but I don't much care for the salad dressing which luckily comes on the side.

Jeff says: The filet plate and the sirloin plate are both good, with flavorful spiced meat. The ground sirloin can be greasy, though. I love the herb rice because it is so flavorful, and what I prefer to call moist but Randy calls oily. The salad I could do without entirely. It's true the ingredients are fresh, but there is an overabundance of red cabbage which I don't like, and I really don't like the too tangy dressing (the same as is in the wraps), so that leaves me with the boring prospect of a dry fresh salad.

Randy says: I don't like the sirloin plate because I'm not crazy about the formed ground beef, which can be dry. The chicken soup is more flavorful than many restaurant chicken soups, though it's sometimes overly peppery and has a tendency to be greasy. All in all I like it. The stew has a tendency to be under-seasoned and bland, but there's a nice tomato base and good amounts of flavorful chicken. The taboulee is very fresh and flavorful. The iced tea is very good with a nice, non-tannic taste.

Jeff says: I think the chicken soup is consistently too peppery. Don't get it if you want something to soothe your sore throat, as I have done; the heavy pepper just irritates it further. I think the chicken and spinach stew is very good because of the thick tomatoey sauce. Usually I avoid spinach but in this stew I eat it. The taboulee I will not eat because of the strong onion and garlic smells, which unpleasantly exude from the pores and breath of the eater for the rest of the day. Nothing gets rid of it until it runs its course. I like the iced tea a lot. The hummus is delicious, and we both agree it's the best hummus in town.

In a food court, Marketplace Grille does most of its business at lunch selling to the high-tech and bio-tech workers of Sorrento Valley, although it is open until 9 pm. But this is not your average food court fare. The meats are cooked on a mesquite grill (and fanned with a hair dryer) that you can see behind a glass partition from the dining tables. Space is tight for dining inside the restaurant; there are 5 tables which can almost just accommodate 4 diners each, and there are a few stools up against a small rim on the hot glass partition which separates the dining area from the grill. We have never seen anybody use the stools except to wait for a to-go order. The room is all hard surfaces and very noisy during the lunch rush. While the inside dining space is cramped, there are concrete patio tables and chairs outside for the entire food court arranged around fountains. Since the weather is often nice in San Diego, may people choose to lunch al fresco. The patio area is also good if you want to eat somewhere you can bring your dog. Free delivery to the immediate area is available, and we have taken advantage of this many times, although occasionally a stew or other small item we ordered and paid for will be missing, and we don't bother to have someone come back with it.

In spite of these shortcomings, since the food is unique, high quality, and is generally served quickly, we frequent Marketplace Grille often during the work week and sometimes on the weekends, especially if we crave hummus.