Tin Jo Restaurant — Restaurant in Catedral

This is an Asian-Fusion restaurant - the dishes are delicious but are not strict to their cultural roots. I love the history of this restaurant and the idea that the couple who owns it has brought their favorite flavors from all over Asia into this one restaurant with different themed rooms to accompany their menu - but the flavors are not 100% authentic to their roots - but that's not to say that they aren't good - it is still delicious, it is an Asian Fusion.

We had a decent sized group just to try as many dishes as possible and all of the dishes were great. We ordered:

Strolling Thur Asia (appetizer plate)

This was a good plate to test all their appetizers in one go. The samosas were delicious and so were the skewers. If we had to order them separate, I would definitely order the skewers!

Korean Japchae

I love japchae, this dish was delicious but not 100% authentic to real korean japchae. I would still order it again if I really wanted japchae but if you're looking for japchae in the city - I would go to Kololo Ramen (Escazu). There are other plates on this menu at this restaurant I would invest my gluttony on!

Fish Curry

I love curry - and this is a great fusion curry dish but of course if you want true authentic Indian Curry - there are Indian restaurants in the city you could go to. But this fish curry is definitely delicious, rich in flavor and I couldn't stop eating it mixed into my rice!! I would order this again!

Tin Jo Special

Ah - the bird's nest was delicious!! Everything in here was amazing, the flavors were good and of course the birds nest made of that crunchy yucca and taro root is delicious. I miss eating Taro!!

Lastly, we had enough room to down a plate of tres leches and tempura banana with ice cream!! Definitely get the Tempura Banana ice cream for desserts - it is a decent sized plate, so don't be greedy and order one to share...

Don't waste your hard-earned money here. Today, around 2:30-3:30 p.m. my girlfriend and I decided to revisite this renowned pan-Asian restaurant. This was not our first time there but was our last. Taking into consideration both, their high-end variety of dishes, but also their expensiveness, we thought it was a good idea to spend more for a higher quality product when celebrating the Chinese new year. But it was a massive mistake. We ordered four different dishes: 1 T-Ramen (pork and chicken), 1 Korean Fried Chicken, 1 order of Samosas, 1 Golden Rice Noodles (pork and shrimps).

The ramen soup was tasteless, the hard-boiled egg had the size of a quail egg, but was not a quail egg, the soup itself was like a very diluded miso soup, the meats were white, and did not have any taste, just as if the cook (I would not dare to call it a 'Chef' even if they pay me) boiled them without any spices nor any other cooking method. The Korean chicken ration was small, the sauce tasted like a cheap tomato ketchup mixed with Tabasco sauce. The "samosas" were simply fried Chinese dumplings filled with smashed potatoes, with no other vegetables, spices raisins nor green peas (I'm not exagerating). The Noodles portion was small, tasteless, without any sauce, the pork was scarsed and did tasteless as well, and yes, there were a few shrimps, but that was it.

The total was $61 (US dollars, or 30.400 Costa Rican colones).

We did not order any drinks nor desserts.

Don't waste your...

We have no idea how this restaurant has the reviews it does. We traveled all over Costa Rica for 2 weeks and this was the worst meal we had the entire time. We also traveled extensively for months through Southeast Asia and had a lot of authentic food - this was worse than we could have cooked at home. We ordered Tin Jo Special, Korean Chicken and Orange Chicken. All of the sauces were gelatinous and worse than you can buy from a jar in a supermarket in the US. The chicken dishes were barely fried, just soft, mushy breading covered in disgusting sauce. The kitchen didn’t even bother to sprinkle the orange chicken with sesame seeds. Seems to us like the restaurant is lazy, working off their good reviews they received years ago but doing nothing to upkeep them. Even the rice was poorly cooked, clumpy and cold. The drinks were good. The sangria was delicious and so was the tamarind soda. Also the decor was nice, and rooms with decor from different countries was creative. But as far as the food goes, trying to recreate dishes from so many countries well, can be difficult and this restaurant can’t do it. If you come to this area of town and are looking for a great, authentic place to eat, the Argentine place a street away is mind blowing...