Tinuno

Restaurant: Tinuno
Address: 31 Howard St.
Phone: 647-343-9294
Operating Hours: Mon-Sun 9 AM - 9 PM
Website: www.tinunorestaurant.com

Review

My Order: Kamayan Feast, $15/person

Excited by StyleDemocracy's blog post, a foodie friend and I decided to catch up over this highly-anticipated Kamayan feast at Tinuno. For $15 per person, you get an array of seafood, eggplant, and pork on top of jasmine rice (all placed on top of a banana leaf) with a side of mango salad. As exciting as it was to try a Kamayan feast for the first time, the experience we had fell below our expectations.

Before going, you have to make a reservation for the Kamayan feast. So we reserved a couple of days prior and came on time. Despite having a reservation, we waited for 40 minutes for our meal. Everyone that came after us were brought their Kamayan feast right away. While waiting at our window seats, we were surrounded by 4-5 fully-grown flies. We tried to move seats but unfortunately all the other tables were reserved. One of the employees swatted the flies that were beside me but it was not great knowing that there were a couple still buzzing around. It had us questioning how hygienic the restaurant was. On top of that, food that fell on the floor at the table beside us were not swept up since we arrived until after we got our meal and the mismatched chairs in the cramp space definitely left an unfavourable first impression.

When the food finally came out, our server realized she had forgotten our mango salad. Which would have been fine, if it wasn't for the fact that everyone who were seated after us got their mango salad as an appetizer before the feast came out. We were also not given water, utensils, and napkins. We had to wait for a few minutes while munching away on the pork skewers before we could properly eat our meal.

Overall, the experience at Tinuno had my friend and I leaving in disappointment. The food was good, though I felt that it was a bit cold when it finally came out. We didn't understand why we waited as long as we did for our food, whilst other customers that came later got theirs within a reasonable time and fresh off the pan. If one aspect of the experience was below expectations, that wouldn't have been so bad. However with the accumulation of: long wait, multiple flies at our table, forgetting our mango salad, utensils, napkins, water, and unkempt restaurant, I rate Tinuno lower than I would for overall dining expectations.