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Koto Izakaya was a small Japanese restaurant at the busy intersection of Alexandra and Leslie in Richmond. We came here after we finished badminton around 8:15pm. It was not busy. I had been told about their good values on the late night specials, but I supposed we were there too early for that. Looking at their regular dinner menu, I certainly did not find it very ‘Izakaya’ there. Yes, they offered some appetizer plates. But none of them seemed very original or innovative. And they did not even have a particular drink menu. That totally defeated the purpose of ‘Izakaya’ (Wine and Tapas Bar), didn’t it? However, they had a large selection of sushi, and dishes like teriyaki, hot pot, BBQ, noodle, robata, tempura, anything people could think of at a typical Japanese restaurant. Another no no for me… I just did not like menu of too many items.<\/p>\n
We ordered a few dishes: salmon carpaccio, mentaiko udo, agedashi tofu, and a free style sushi roll ‘Black Dragon’ to share among 3 of us. The other 2 girls were not too hungry, so they just shared a katsudon and a hamachi roll. The ‘Black Dragon’ tasted pretty good, it seemed to be of mostly ingredients in a ‘Dynamite’ roll but with extra toppings of fish roe in different colours. Mentaiko udo tasted okay, and did not have the strong marinated fish roe flavours I was expecting. Salmon carpaccio was probably the worst salmon carpaccio I had ever had… It was lukewarm, and it had a funky texture. But the salmon did not make the worst on my list of the evening: the plate of agedashi tofu had a very slightly sour taste and it was really weird. Not so sure if they were not marinated properly or they were just not fresh. <\/p>\n
I could not help comparing Koto Izakaya to one of my favourite Japanese joints in Central Richmond: Charcoal, where they offered good sushi and BBQ dishes. The prices were even slightly higher here at Koto, but the quality was just not in the same league. <\/p>\n
So we were still a little hungry for food and asked for the menu. And the waitress handed us a different menu. Oooh okay… The late night specials started at 9pm. We ordered a few things, a few pieces of the 99-cent nigiri, some baked mussels, some baked salmon belly, and spicy tuna wraps. And the girls ordered a chawanmushi. The chawanmushi had a depressing grey colour that was very unappetizing. And all these little plates of late night specials were from mediocre to BAD. <\/p>\n
We also shared 2 large Asahi beer among 3 of us, and we ended up paying $28\/each for everything we had shared. I supposed we could have paid a little less if we were just here for the late night specials, but I just could not see the ‘good values’ here. It was just a terrible experience. I was telling myself that I probably had a better time back in the days, when I went to cheap all-you-can-eat sushi late night happy hours. <\/p>\n
Thumbs down! Guhhh….<\/p>\n To read other reviews here:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>