Bag of Beans Cafe & Restaurant - Chula Vista (CA)

2 /5 Gaby Hr: My husband and I went to try the new restaurant. The place is very nice and we had a table right away, servers were very attentive. Menu is small and simple; we order a couple of lattes and pancakes with eggs on a side. The lattes arrived like ten minutes after but we had to wait for an hour to get the pancakes and the eggs. I returned the eggs because they were not well scrambled as I had requested. The pancakes were dry and sticky, and the syrup was in a small cup. I don’t think we would go back.

3 /5 Imee C: We had reservations. We were seated right away. Coffee order was taken first. I had the pandan latte. That was very disappointing. I couldn’t taste the pandan at all. My friend ordered the dirty taro latte and she said couldn’t taste the taro either. I had the beef tapa breakfast with eggs over easy. The tapa was very good and very tender. But eggs were not over easy. They were overcooked to my liking. The bangus ala pobre was pretty good. The sinigang was very bland and needed more tamarind. The kare kare was pretty tender but the gravy looked like it was broken. It didnt have that smooth texture and it didnt have much vegetables. Now, the desserts part. The Spanish bread and cheese rolls looked burnt on the outside. But it wasnt bad. The ube flan did not taste like flan at all. The tres leches ube did not taste like ube or tres leches. The tres leches banana tart was pretty good. Overall, service was not bad. But food wise, it was just okay.

5 /5 May Rosal: My husband and I recently dined at Bag of Beans Eastlake, and we were genuinely impressed. Despite the poor reviews when they first opened, our experience was the complete opposite. We ordered kare-kare, lechon kawali, and lumpia shanghai. The kare-kare was flavorful with just the right amount of sauce—not drowning, but enough to enjoy every bite. The meat was tender, generous in portion, and not oily. Definitely worth the price. The lechon kawali came with lechon sauce and atchara. It was juicy, tasty, and had a perfect balance of fat. The skin was crunchy but still easy on the teeth—if you know what I mean! The lumpia shanghai was not like other lumpia that have a lot of wrapper and barely any meat. This one had a decent amount of filling and was packed with flavor. For dessert, we had turon with ice cream. It was addicting! The turon had cream cheese inside, and the sweetness of the banana and caramelized sugar blended beautifully with the saltiness of the cream cheese. Add a scoop of ice cream to each bite and it’s like all the flavors just marry perfectly. Service was excellent—our waiter, Alfonso (or at least his name started with an A… LOL), was very attentive and friendly. The food came out quickly, and the ambiance was cozy and inviting. We also bought Spanish bread and pandesal to go. The Spanish bread was delicious, but the pandesal could use a little improvement. Overall, we’re giving Bag of Beans Eastlake a solid five stars. The restaurant, including the bathroom, is clean. Also, food was high quality, not greasy, and worth the price. No post-meal headaches here! We’ll definitely be back to try more dishes. I just hope they add more traditional Filipino items to the menu—like real halo-halo and bibingka, not just cocktails inspired by them. It would be great to see classics like sisig too. Highly recommended!

2 /5 Melanie C: First let me start by saying how unbelievably cute, chic, and cozy this place is! like SUPER cute. I love that is Filipino owned...anything minority owned in a sea of gentrified places profiting off our cultural flavors is a hard pass, so this makes me really happy. Now food the food and service. The food was decent. Personally, Im not really sure if they market themselves as a Filipino place or if it happens to just be Filipino owned, but if so, they need more than three small things that are Filipino (pan de Sal, sinangag, and tortang talong). But since the food wasnt bad at all, thats not my gripe. I really want this place to succeed so I hope they pay attention to reviews and adjust accordingly. There was a complete and utter lack of service. Yes I understand the place has only been open 5 months, but the major issues were very basic things. For instance, one of my aunts asked for tea bags multiple times and never got any so she gave up. They kept running out of food and no one was replenishing to the point where some people were almost done with their first plate and others had not gotten a plate at all. As if that werent bad enough, coffee, a very basic breakfast staple was not replenished until multiple people had to ask multiple times. Some folks did not get any until the end of the meal. No one came around to refill waters until the end of the meal either, so people just had to sit there, thirsty. Several people also had to keep asking if they could take empty plates to make room at the tables. I understand we were larger group, but with a reservation, thats means they knew we were coming and still did not plan accordingly. Evidently the owner was also there, just sitting down and doing nothing while the staff were not providing good customer service (or ANY customer service). As an owner of a new place, you should be doing whatever you can to make sure there is great service. As someone who has worked in food service, if I saw what was happening, theres no way I could sit idly by while service was suffering. Filipinos can be super tough critics in general, but no one in my family was asking for anything other than those basic things, half the time never getting them or mostly just getting them extremely late. The iced coffee I got was also served to me in a glass that had a big crack halfway down. Honestly just all very disappointing. So while the place is suuuuper super cute, its NOT nearly enough. You need to actually provide good customer service, or any customer service at all would be a better start. Relying on cute decor is an embarrassment, considering we could not even get the most basic of needs met. I really hope they take things like this to heart and work out those issues. I want them to do well, but without fixing those things, they wont even last a year.