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| - Randomly scrolling through Facebook one night last week, I saw a suggested post pop up for Izakaya Cocokala. They were getting ready to celebrate their 1-year anniversary, and to share that celebration they were offering 50% off all their ramen for the day of and day after the anniversary date. Being that they haven't got the best of reviews in their year of being open, they never really came into my radar, but I wasn't going to turn down trying some new ramen for an Abraham.
IC is a fairly small restaurant. When you walk in, there's a limited seating sushi bar, a handful of tables...and that's about it. They also have two small tables kind of hidden in the back that I guess is either for overflow or private parties. It's a bit dark inside the restaurant, but it's clean and I like that they have pictures of pretty much all their menu items hanging on the walls throughout it.
Their menu, which seems to have been updated at some point during the last year (according to friends who had been here prior) has a ton of different offerings. Most of the items are tapas style, but there's also some meals and a lot of single skewer items. They have a specials board that changes on a regular basis as well. One great feature of IC is that they give you a nice little bowl of complimentary edamame to enjoy while browsing the menu.
Since we were mainly here for the ramen, we kinda refrained from ordering much else. Although for just a couple bucks, we couldn't resist trying a wasabi chicken skewer and some bacon wrapped asparagus. The chicken was decent enough for me to want to try some other ones on a future visit, but I missed out on trying to asparagus since my son scarfed them up. Guess that means they're good too!
Their ramen choices are somewhat limited, but they offer a style I've never seen before. I actually ended up having to noob out and Google what Tsukemen Ramen is. They call it 'Red Impact' here, but what sets this style of ramen apart is that it's a "dipping" ramen. Basically you get all the classic ramen items like the noodles, bean sprouts, meat, eggs, etc on a side plate and then they give you a separate bowl of "broth" to dip it in. This one was actually a little more pricey at $6.50 with the 50% off, but it was worth every cent. Their broth is more like a sauce (obviously, right?), and it was visibly oily, but that ended up being a good thing. I chose Level 1 out of 4 possible heat levels, and while I personally could have went up a level, it had a decent amount of heat. The broth was all a little salty and a tad on the sweeter side, but the flavors mended together very well. Because it's a bit thicker and more oily, the noodles and other items seemed to really soak up the flavors well. The only thing that might be a downfall for some is that it's not quite as easy to sip on and take spoonfuls of like standard ramen broth. Overall thought this was an excellent bowl of ram and I wouldn't hesitate to spend the full asking price of $13 on it.
The service was decent, but a little strange for me. We arrived about 10 minutes before our friends, and even though the place was nearly dead, I felt like we were kind of being rushed. They constantly looked at us and asked if we wanted to order stuff before the rest of our party arrive. Then throughout the rest of our meal, the servers stood like 5 feet from our table and just kind of stared at us and the other tables. I'm all for staying on top of things, but maybe back off on the creep factor a tad.
I know I said it before, but due to their limited amount of decent reviews, IC wasn't really on my radar. And had I not seen their Facebook past, I'm not so sure I would have ever went out of my way to eat here, but I'm glad that I did. The ramen alone is enough to warrant a return visit, and the rest of the menu just looks too interesting to pass up. We shall meet again IC!
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