Awumaki Sushi — Restaurant in La Fortuna

Cute place and atmosphere, but the food is honestly just really bad. The stuff we got be called only be called Japanese or Korean food by people who’ve never had such food in their life. We ordered a ramen, sushi set and a spicy pork bowl.

The Ramen is not Korean in any way whatsoever and straight up used bad instant noodles packets. Egg was overcooked and to this day I still don’t know what meat was in there. I make better ramen drunk at 3AM.

The sushi was not atrocious, but you can get better sushi at almost any grocery store in North America - even when it’s at the end of the day special. I will say at least the miso soup that came with it was okay.

The pork bowl looked good but kind of tasted chocolaty and did not have that much meat in it.

We paid $90 USD for the two of us and I would have still felt ripped off if we paid like a 3rd of that price. It’s somehow more expensive than even the Bay Area, which is already pricey enough.

I would recommend the owners go visit New York, LA or Toronto and try some real Japanese or Korean food for once. Happy to give them recs on...

The chef warned us on the way in that they were short staffed and service would be slow, but with only 3 tables ahead of us, I thought it'd be ok. We ordered 5min after sitting down, edemame, $20 Chef's Roll, and the Spicy Buta. 20min later edemame arrived, it was average. An hour later the Spicy Buta arrived. Great roll, started to hope again. 45min after waving our waiter down for more water we finally got the Chef's Roll, disappointing. We left a little hungry, underwhelmed, and without waiting for our waiter to visit us for the 3rd time in 2 hours to close us out (left exact cash). Not sure why service was so bad but wouldn't try them again. Warning should have been "we can't handle any more tables tonight, 3 is our max, and our one waiter would rather clean dishes than ask if you're thirsty,...

Had the seaweed salad & yakitori to start, their signature roll & the pili mango roll and banana tempura with black sesame seed ice cream for dessert. This place was a gem of a find, having randomly stopped for lunch enroute to the Arenal Volcano National Park. The owner was friendly and spoke easily about his coming to CR and starting up this restaurant. The atmosphere was calming and inviting, with a minimalist and modern take on traditional Japanese seating through the space. Service was fast and every dish was delicious. I especially adored the ice cream, having never had that flavour before. The nuttiness of the sesame balanced perfectly with the sweetness of the banana. The food here is definitely worth the stop, you will be very pleasantly surprised by the...