KOTO: Up and Running and Well Worth a Call.

KOTO

Up and Running and Well Worth a Call

Teriyaki duck, complete with egg.

There is some excellent Asian Street Food on offer in KOTO in French Church Street. The building, badly damaged by fire a few years ago, is beautifully repaired and KOTO have been quietly building their business over the past six months. 

Negroni

Time to let people know now, says manager Jeffrey Safar Hamidi. And why not/ The food is good, service is efficient and friendly and the meals are well priced. And if,you can't manage to get in, you can order via Deliveroo.

I was delighted to take up an offer to check out the menu, nothing like a bit of variety. And no shortage of it here. The menu card is compact but with so many dishes. Rice, Stir-Fry, Ramen, Noodles, Curry, and House Specials are the main headings. There is also an outstanding lunch offer: a main course and a scoop of ice-cream for eleven euro.

There is a good list of starters too, salads and sides also. And don't forgot to turn it over to see the drinks including those cocktails. Indeed, I started with one of the latter, a Negroni, a mix of gin, Campari and vermouth. Superb!

By then our starters were arriving. The grilled chicken skewers with a Satay peanut sauce and the Spiced Fried Calamari with lime and ginger dressing were our picks. We shared. Both plates were polished off though the chicken got an agreed nod.

Chicken skewers

I’m a sucker for duck in Asian cuisine and no surprise that I picked the Teriyaki Duck from the House Specials: Teriyaki shredded glazed shredded duck, red onion, scallions, jasmine rice, grated carrots, lambs leaf and crowned with a fried egg. A beautiful and substantial dish, that egg and duck combination a winner for sure but every element played a part in a delicious bowl of colours, textures, flavours.

CL choose a seafood noodle dish. The Kei Mao comes with prawns, squid and mussels, Thai green peppercorn, mixed peppers, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, baby corn, green beans, mange tout, bean sprouts and rice noodles. She loved every little bit, right down to the bean spouts. Another mega and delicious feed, all for €13.50. 

Calamari

Dessert? Well, we shared the Cappuccino Mousse with burnt marshmallows. Went down well! If you want to check out the menu, you’ll find all the details here 

Kei Mao

KOTO has been up and running for six months now and Jeffrey, owner and general manager, tells me they are quite pleased with progress. To celebrate, they are are doing a series of promotions to “show and promote our Asian Street Food, our exciting cocktail list in addition to our beer and wine offering!”

The location is not new to Jeffrey (who you may well know from other his restaurant jobs around the city). His dad ran Gambieni’s, the Italian restaurant, that was in this very building for a long time. The most recent occupant here was Aroi, also an Asian restaurant, but they had the misfortune to see the business ambushed by that fire in September 2015.