We ate at Koi Contempo during lunch on Mother’s day.
Food:
This is a very good version of the crispy dumpling with pork. Fried to crispy perfection.
Unagi lotus sticky rice. The eel didn’t add much to elevate the sticky rice since most of the flavor came from the rice.
I think they added the eel after the steaming to keep the eel tender. Hence the random looking wrapping when the dish arrived.
This is a good version of the usual sponge cake, with complex flavor from the black sugar.
Very good yuba roll.
Solid dumplings.
Braised yi noodle with abalone sauce. Nice mellow sauce.
Solid ribs.
Stewed beef gizzard. I ordered this dish every time I see it on the menu. This was nice.
Full of soft tissue goodness from the chicken feet.
Receipt:
The food were all solid. Its mother’s day so the restaurant was pretty busy, but probably no more than a usual Sunday. Couple of pretty bad miscues at the next table. First, while they were eating, small flakes of some stuff fell from the overhang onto their table and their food, which was concerning. Second, after the server carried our finished plates away, he dropped everything on the floor, spilling some sauces at the diners’ ankles/ shoes. Third, they really didn’t do much clean up after that as you can see all that trash still on the floor. So the next sets of diners afterwards weren’t too thrilled. A restaurant of Koi’s caliber really should do better.
Menu:
Specials for the day:
Mother’s day and Father’s dinner:
The space was fine. The tables were quite closely spaced and it was crowded. The biggest problem was the whole space smelled of cooking grease- the kitchen ventilation was bad, so all the grease wafted into the dining room. This needs to be fixed. I was glad that we sat at the front patio, which was much more relaxed and spaced out.
Front patio:
Nice mosaic in the bathroom, made from individual tiles.
Overall, the food was good as expected. They need to sort their ventilation and probably add more staff during the weekend rush.
Note that Koi Contempo has two restaurants. Koi Contempo + is the casual joint closer to the street. Koi Contempo is the more upscale restaurant at the back. Both has indoor and outdoor seating. They serve the same food during dimsum, and the + is the more downmarket version, so its rather confusing.
