I haven’t written about any dinning experiences for a while but after visiting the new Japanese BBQ place in the bus interchange last night it promoted me to share…
Let me start by saying that Iori is one of my top 5 favorite places to eat in Canberra. So knowing that Coo Izakaya is owned by them and only a few doors down gave me some pretty high expectations.
There was four of us for dinner and everything started out well. The menu was okay, not as extensive as Iori but similar style and a little cheaper. We each ordered a starter and a main. Starters (hand rolls) were around $5 each and my main, Chicken Teriyaki skewers, were $18 with no rice – that was extra. Other mains were all around $20 each.The rolls were very average. My California roll contained a thin sliver of salmon with lots of rice. So for $5 I shouldn’t expect a lot but you get double the good stuff and much better quality at Sushi Sushi in the Canberra Centre for almost half the price.
The main was nicer however the chicken had a lot of fat on it and too chewy for my liking. The serves were tiny. We wanted to share all the main dishes but found that they were all so scant that we each barely got one mouth full from each dish. Pretty poor for dishes that were all around the $20 mark.
I’ve saved the best to last…Two starters came out first. Then about 30 minutes later two of the mains came out, followed by the other two starts another 10 minutes later. Finally the last two mains came out about 10 minutes after the last two starters. Including us, the place only had three small tables of people at the time, so there was no way the kitchen couldn’t keep up.
I spoke to a mate today who regularly travels to Japan and he told me that Izakaya are a type of bar in Japan where you can get food with your drinks – similar to the Spanish Tapas concept. The only problem with Coo Izakaya is that it’s setup as a restaurant not a bar. So you go there expecting it to be an eatery not a bar. To be honest I can’t recall anything that would suggest to me that it should be some kind of drinking venue as opposed to an eatery.
Would be really keen to hear what other people think of it. Perhaps I went there on a bad hair night!?