The Week in Badges: Thumbs Up Holds the Crown
Second straight week at the top — 46 drops and a wider lead. But look past the crown and the board moved: a brand-new US debut from China is already collecting tags in La Jolla, dim sum carts rolled in from Vegas, and Must Try just crowned its first ×2.
Every Saturday we pull the badge data straight out of the app — no critics, no polls, no vibes. Just what people actually tagged. Last week's board was the debut edition, and Thumbs Up took it going away with 41 drops. Seven days later? It's 46. The lead isn't just holding, it's stretching.
Which is the boring headline. The fun is underneath it. Three dishes from a restaurant that didn't exist in America six weeks ago are already on the board. A Las Vegas dim sum room is punching its weight. And ⭐ Must Try — the runner-up badge stuck at 25 — quietly produced its first-ever ×2. Here's the week.
The Board, Week Two
96 dishes in the collection now (up from 88 a week ago), and the badge race looks like this:
| Badge | Drops this week | Last week |
|---|---|---|
| 👍 Thumbs Up | 46 | 41 |
| ⭐ Must Try | 25 | 25 |
| 💣 | 9 | 7 |
| Overrated | 6 | 6 |
| Comfort Food / Instagram Worthy | 4 each | — |
Thumbs Up is nearly doubling its nearest rival. That's not a contest, that's a habit: when San Diegans like something, they reach for the thumb. And the 💣 count keeps climbing — 9 drops now, up from 7. Somebody out there is having a very good week. (Overrated holding at 6 is its own kind of story. We see you, Whale Shark Latte.)
The Co-Kings: Still ×2, Still Alone
Same as last week — because nobody caught them. In a collection where 44 dishes wear Thumbs Up and almost all of them sit at ×1, the two dishes holding two are still the closest thing to a consensus pick the app has:
Samurai Roll
Two separate thumbs-ups from two separate people. Glass Box sits up at Sky Deck Del Mar Highlands, which means this roll keeps getting voted up by people who came for the view and stayed for the fish. Two weeks running, nobody has taken the ×2 crown away from it.
Banh Mi Chao - Beef Belly
The other ×2, and the Week in Badges is US-wide by design — so Fountain Valley counts. Banh mi chao is the deconstructed play: sizzling beef belly with baguette for tearing and dipping. The OC Vietnamese spots keep punching above their weight on this list.
The Debut: Chef Fei Walks In Like It Owns the Place
Here's the week's best story. Chef Fei — a Chinese stir-fry brand with roughly 200 locations across China — opened its first-ever US restaurant at Westfield UTC in La Jolla on September 5. Six weeks later it has three dishes tagged in DishCue, and every one of them is wearing a Thumbs Up.
New restaurants usually take months to show up in app data. Chef Fei did it before the paint dried. The local scouting reports say the dish to know walking in is the Stir-Fried Beef With Pepper — high-heat wok craft, seared fresh to order. The badge board agrees with the scouting reports, which is exactly how this is supposed to work.
Stir Fried Beef with Peppers
The signature. Wok hei, black pepper, beef seared at a heat most home stoves can only dream about. Somebody ate this at Westfield UTC, opened DishCue, and thumbed it up before the chopsticks cooled. First tag, first badge, no notes.
Crispy Walnut Shrimp
And it wasn't a one-dish fluke — the walnut shrimp got a thumb too. When a brand-new restaurant lands two badges in six weeks, that's not luck, that's a kitchen running hot. Three tags total for Chef Fei so far (the Crispy Pineapple Orange Chicken has one too). Watch this board.
The Vegas Play: Dim Sum Carts Roll Onto the Board
The other new name this week isn't in San Diego at all — it's New Asian BBQ in Las Vegas, where dim sum carts still roll between the tables. Three dishes just landed on the Thumbs Up board: Shrimp Rice Crepe, Shrimp Dumplings, and a Masako Pork Siu Mai. The Week in Badges counts US-wide dishes (each one's city named, always), and Vegas Chinatown's old-school rooms clearly travel well in the app.
Shrimp Rice Crepe
Silky rice noodle rolled around shrimp, the dim sum order that separates the regulars from the tourists. Somebody thumbed it up from 5150 Spring Mountain Road, and honestly, a cart-rolling dim sum room earning badges from San Diego app users is the best possible argument for the US-wide rule.
The Badge to Watch: Must Try's First ×2
Buried in the runner-up column: ⭐ Must Try is flat at 25, but it just produced something the board didn't have last week — a ×2. The Truffle Udon Carbonara Katsu Chicken at JOEY La Jolla is now the only dish in the entire collection holding more than one Must Try. One badge, one dish, one clear leader. When the Thumbs Up race gets boring, this is the column to watch.
Truffle Udon Carbonara Katsu Chicken
Two Must Trys. Read that dish name again slowly — it's doing a lot, and apparently it delivers. A ×2 on the aspirational badge is the earliest signal a dish is about to become a problem for everyone's dinner plans.
What This Week Actually Says
Two things. First: Thumbs Up at 46 with Must Try stuck at 25 means the app is in a recommending mood, not an aspiring one — people are tagging what they ate and liked, not building wish lists. That's healthy. Second: the new blood matters more than the crown. A six-week-old restaurant and a Vegas dim sum room moved the board more than any incumbent did. The badge system rewards whoever's actually good right now, not whoever's been around longest. Next Saturday, somebody else gets a shot at the ×2 club.
Related reads
- Best Dishes in San Diego Right Now: The Thumbs-Up Leaderboard — last week's debut edition of the board
- Best Sushi Rolls in San Diego (2026), Ranked — the sushi beat is hot this week, including the co-king Samurai Roll's neighborhood
- How DishCue Ranks Work — points, badges, and the climb from Newbie to Legend
Tag It in DishCue 📱
A 5-star rating can't tell you which badge the whole community dropped most this week. That's the whole point of DishCue: real dishes, real tags, a leaderboard that updates every time somebody eats something worth remembering. Had a plate that earned a thumb this week? Tag it:
Tag the dish, not the restaurant. Adding a dish earns 25 points, badging someone else's earns 10 — that's how you climb from Newbie to Legend. And the next Week in Badges? Your tag could move the board.
Which dish on this week's board would you thumb-up first — and which badge deserves its own week? 👇