A friend of ours suggested we give Koi a try, so I’ve been waiting and waiting….finally managed to round up 2 of my friends to come try it out with me 🙂 The place is a bit hidden on Kingsway, so if you aren’t actually looking for the place, you’d probably miss it(actually, we were looking for it and STILL missed it! lol)
Koi Japanese Tapas Bar
630 Kingsway, Vancouver BC
Tel#: (604) 566-9263
Koi is a pretty small restaurant. The tables are pretty close together, luckily for us there was an empty table beside us. If there wasn’t, well…. let’s just say I’d feel like they were part of our table. Seriously…that close together!
I was surprised when I walked into the restaurant. From the outside and surrounding stores, I wasn’t expecting much, but it’s like walking into another world. It’s modern decor was a nice touch.
We came on a friday evening so cocktails were on special. We each decided on a different one. From left to right is the Pink Lemonade, Mimi Puckers and the Ninja Girl Mojito. Can you guess which one was mine?! If you guessed the mojito…then you’re right! I’m actually not a fan of mojitos, but this one was pretty minty. I like how they put in a ton of strawberry pieces.
We decided to order a few things at a time, we had already decided we would head to dessert after this so we didn’t want to get too full. Above left is the Chopped Scallop Cone with crunchy chip bits(which turned out to be tempura batter). This was quite tasty, the seaweed wasn’t soggy, and the tempura bits weren’t oily. This was off to a good start!
Next up came the Seared Toro Tuna Sushi. We decided to get 2 pieces to try it out. I was hoping they would sear this at the table, but instead it arrived to the table already done. Nonetheless, it had a nice charred taste to it.
Next came the Duck Carpaccio. This was okay, not one of the memorable dishes for the night. Next we got an order of their Ebi Mayo. I liked how this wasn’t drenched in mayo, instead there was dollop on the plate for you to dip to your preference.
Next up was their Kaku-Ni Don. This was pork belly, garlic chips, nori, and their house sauce on rice. The pork was soft and melted in your mouth. The garlic chips was a nice addition to the rice. It melded well with their house sauce.
Our Ebi Gado Salad was missed, so it came to our table near the end of our meal. This was mixed greens, avocado, prawn, wasabi mayo and cocktail sauce. There was an adequate amount of dressing for the mixed greens, didn’t drench everything.
Next up came the Tuna Steak. The sesame sauce made this dish very fragrant. After that came the Takoyaki. This was quite crispy on the outside, and we found there wasn’t enough filling on the inside.
Last but not least was the Swiss Roll. We enjoyed this dish as it had deep fried sweet potato, avocado and grilled eel. This was probably gobbled up faster than any of the other dishes we had for the evening.
Overall, we enjoyed our dining experience at Koi, the food was pretty solid. It’s quite cramped in the restaurant, and much too hot. I’m hoping they’ll have A/C soon, as the oscillating fan at the front of the restaurant didn’t help our table much. We also noticed there was quite a wait in between dishes. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the food when it finally arrived and found their portion sizes to be bigger than other tapas restaurants. Despite the crampness and no a/c, we agreed we’d definitely be back again for the food. 🙂
Post by Colleen
