Jinja Bar & Bistro — Restaurant in Santa Fe

I wanted to have a nice dinner with a couple of friends for my last night (9 Oct 2024) in the area, and since I'm not familiar with Santa Fe, I asked them to choose the venue. We all agreed to this restaurant since they've been to it before and had a good experience. I wasn't too excited at first to come here because I have so many high quality Asian restaurants back home in Las Vegas (Nevada) and I wanted to try something more traditional to New Mexico. Regardless, I did tell them to choose and you can't really go wrong with Asian food.

When I walked in the restaurant, I was greeted nicely by the hostess at the counter. I had this picture in my head of what this restaurant would look like from the outside-in, and this was surely not the picture I envisioned...but in a good way - the décor was nice. It didn't take long before our primary server, Andres, stopped by and took our drink order. Andres did such a remarkable job that evening; he was very attentive, courteous, professional, and highly efficient throughout the evening.

I ordered the Potstickers (large), Imperial Lettuce Wraps (small), and Ahi Tempura Roll for our appetizers (clearly I shared these with everyone); and Thai Red Curry Beef (large) for my main entrée. The potstickers were prepared more in the Chinese/Cantonese style, which I don't mind...but I tend to be biased towards Korean and Japanese types of dumplings, Mandu and Gyoza respectively. The lettuce wraps were delectable...it's rare that I've ever experienced a horrible lettuce wrap at any given restaurant, and I'm glad this wasn't my first bad experience of that either. The ahi roll was interesting...I mean don't get me wrong because I'm a huge sushi, seafood (raw or cooked), and vegetable kind of guy...but I can't say this roll was my favorite ahi-inspired sushi I've ever had, but it wasn't horrible either. The texture wasn't good and the tuna quality was less than adequate...and yes, I know I was in a land-locked city/state. I wanted to order this because the folks in my group never tried sushi and they wanted to for the first time. Otherwise, I am traditionally a simple spicy tuna roll or ahi tuna sashimi/nigiri/roll kind of guy. Being from Hawaii and living in Las Vegas, I guess I was/am spoiled (or fortunate) to be exposed to top quality sushi/fish. Finally, the curry beef was good; not excellent. Although I wasn't expecting a glutton feast, I just thought the "large" entrée would've been bigger than what was served. Regardless, I didn't feel the price adequately matched the portion size/quality. Of noteworthy mention, my friends ordered the Pad Thai and Steak Frites (small) - they both liked their entrées; however, the steak wasn't something to write home about even though the dipping sauce was magnificent.

The biggest thing that left me confused with this business is that according to Google, it specified this restaurant to be "Asian Fusion." I know this concept may be different to some, but most places in Las Vegas that specify "fusion" are a combination of Korean and Mexican (or KoMex), or even Korean and Hawaiian. I guess that's one disappointment about my experience here because I was hoping for that KoMex style. Also, I was hoping to try some Korean-centric entrées too if the intent behind the "fusion" style means a combination of all Asian cultures. Who doesn't enjoy eating some Kalbi, Bulgogi, Bibimbap and banchan for dinner? But oh well, I didn't lose sleep over it, and I have all the Korean restaurants to eat within arm's reach back home.

Overall, I liked the restaurant as depicted in my 4-star rating. I hope this restaurant incorporates more Korean/Japanese dishes, or changes the restaurant description in Google so people understand that this business specializes more in the Chinese/Thai cuisines. I mean, I guess I could've studied their menu before dining here? But sometimes you just want to read a couple of reviews and just trust what the restaurant advertises and go try it yourself. Despite the above, I am still recommending this restaurant to all locals...

On Friday 05/01, we experienced bad service: wrong order, no apology for getting it wrong, bad attitude, food overflowing from the plastic containers, soaking the paper bag in which they put them and making holes in it, staining my clothes, making a mess inside the car and turning what was supposed to be a 1-minute visit just to pick up the food for which we had already paid into an almost 1-hr frustrating event. However, I truly have to give it big time to Adam, the manager, who took full responsibility and really works to right a wrong. He reached out to me. Not only did he offer 2 free entries, he also said they would deliver. This constitutes exceptional customer care, and I want to and have to acknowledge this publicly. We came over to pick our food (Singapore Noodles and MuShu Chicken) up on Saturday 06/06, it was ready on time, it took less than 30 seconds, it was delicious and Adam threw in 2 slices of delicious cheesecake at no cost. I believe that the instance of bad service that we experienced was an exception rather than the rule. I become very loyal toward businesses that understand the importance of customer service and care. We will definitely be back and I truly recommend that you give Jinja a try. Thanks Adam for your service and care, I greatly appreciate your attitude and I am looking forward to our next...

We love Jinja in ABQ and we visit often. But this one was subpar. We booked a party of 25 with them and they seemed ready and excited for us saying they had a section that would work perfectly. They crammed us all into a corner of the restaurant and assigned one poor girl to wait on all of us. After dinner we asked for the split check as each group had different members paying and they said "we cant split the check". They then handed us an $800 Check and said you can pay with different cards at the register. We all spent 30 minutes figuring out what and how much we ordered to then go and wait for staff to process each payment. When all was done we left and as we were in the parking lot the Manager came out and started saying our group didn't tip enough. I spoke with everyone and they stated they tipped more than 20% because they felt bad for the waitress for being alone. Do not book large parties here they tried to get us to pay more than was normally expected on tips by combining it all into one check instead of splitting it. It was embarrassing to have a manager come out and tell us we didn't tip enough when all of us did out of feeling bad that he assigned one person...