El Tio Latin Restaurant — Restaurant in South Tyneside

It was my 1st time at El Tio. I usually go for Indian when on Ocean Road as there's such a large selection, but thought I'd try something different for a change. The menu in the window looked like they served good food. I got the garlic bread roll starter and my friend got the potato skin starter. While he enjoyed the potato skin starter and hoped the main would be as good, I wasn't overly keen on the garlic bread rolls, but it was edible without complaint, just bad choice by me really. For the main my friend chose the ribs and rice and I chose steak with hot and spicy sauce and potato wedges, which I asked for medium rare. We asked for onion ring side order too. The flavour of both the rice and the ribs were nice, but they were both very dry. The ribs had plenty of sauce on them, but it was the meat itself that was dry as opposed to the meal. The flavour of my steak was lovely and it was a lovely cut of meat, however it was cooked well done. My friend complained on my behalf and the steak was swiftly taken away and a fresh one cooked. The second one came out and it was cooked to perfection and the flavour still lovely, however this time the cut of meat was terrible and it was surrounded by a layer of outer fat that you could chew on forever. Also, the sauce on the second steak was different to the sauce that was on the first. It was supposed to be a hot and spicy sauce on both, which I did get with the first, but the second was more of a tomato spaghetti bolognese based sauce. Very disappointing. The onion rings were also very disappointing as they were very soggy and stodgy with no flavour to them. The service was very good and the waiters very nice. We did get a free special coffee each at the end of our meals. It's a shame it wasn't as nice as we'd hoped and don't think it'll be next on my list of Ocean Road visits, although I / we will possibly go again and order something...

My son ordered our meal from here last night for the first time for a while as they'd stopped the delivery service, great to see them back on just eat. As with previous meals it was EXCELLENT, it would have been 5 stars, but they missed out my salad. No big deal as I had stuff in the fridge and I didn't want to wait to dig in. My wife & son both had pasta with bolognese and chicken & chorizo sauce which they said was piping hot, tasted great and was a good size portion, both stuffed. I had a special kebab with a kofta kebab, chicken kebab and donner meat, served with homemade flatbread, chilli sauce & the salad that was missed out(not a problem), I also got extra bread and some chilli poppers. All 5 poppers were great, really crunchy. The chilli sauce tasted great, hot, but not spoil your meal hot like some places. The breads were fab, really soft & folded really well to keep all the amazing meat locked in and were far better than other places I'd been to. Well done El Tio. The review may be a little long as I don't normally do reviews, but I felt people needed to how nice this restaurant is in a bid to make sure it can continue to offer such amazing food. To many good places seem to struggle, especially in the present conditions and need our support. I would recommend this...

Visited El Tio on Ocean Rd on saturday night with a large group and was very disappointed. Firstly every other tables was given complimentary nachos- this was never offered to us. Lots of meals were wrong and were sent back - these were subsequently added to our bill. One person waited for 15 minutes after the rest of the table had been served their meals. On 3 occasions we enquired where the meal was, no Server came to offer and explanation or apology. When the food arrived most of it was under cooked, again no apologies. An under cooked burger had to be sent back. A Server dropped a steak knife on a child and didn't acknowledge this as a problem. The same Server had an attitude all night and when we complained we were told that she hadn't had a complaint until our table walked in. Having ate here before and enjoying it I was very disappointed tonight. Our complaints were dismissed and not even an apology for the poor service or food was offered. In fact they withheld someone's change as they accused us of under paying by £1.40 refusing to give it back until we sorted it out. The attitude of the young waitress was disgusting not welcoming at all, very abrupt and direct. Never again will we go it made everyone feel...