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| - Admittedly I am a little biased since I do judge a restaurant by the cover and Koyoi, despite being moderately spacious and even has a patio, is really generic and ratchet looking. I like traditional Japanese-style seats at izakayas for the full experience, but here the tables and seats are plastic (?) and really feels like a big hole in the wall (nothing wrong with that).
Food- 4/5. Excellent, but not the best. Kintaro and Kinka Izakayas still do it better. Koyoi uses a lot of soy sauce.
In order of favorites from most to least:
1. Koyoi salad - Our favorite since it was huge and comes with greens, bonito flakes, mayo, fresh tofu, and root vegetable chips (beets, lotus). It does get very salty at the bottom since it's mostly soy sauce.
2. Japanese style omelette - 5 egg rolls that were light, fluffy, and slightly sweet! Comes with a blob of minced Daikon. Small portion size.
3. Scallop salad - The raw scallops tasted like nothing, but the salad also came with greens, tomatos, and seaweed. Above average portion size.
4. Seared Mackerel - My gf hated this, said it smelled too fishy to consume. I personally liked it for being fully marinated (the flavor was really in there, but mostly it was salty) and the texture was more cooked than raw, so felt like I was eating beef. The portion size is small.
5. Grilled Eggplant - eggplant will be eggplant, but luckily Koyoi tried to flavor it up by adding bonito flakes on top. The presentation is interesting - it looked like a fish!
Value- 5/5. No, it's not cheap, but for an izakaya this is probably as good as it gets downtown. My girlfriend and I ordered 5 dishes and 0 drinks and spent $23 each here last night for dinner. Some of the portion sizes are huge - namely, the fries and the Koyoi salad. Even the scallop salad was quite large (I was expecting a small dipping bowl of marinated scallops). Other dishes are quite small, like the seared mackerel, but since it is quite richly flavored/salty you feel filled up. The food menu items range from $2 for oden to $12-15 for grilled seafood. There's also a $5 per item happy hour deal on Tuesday-Thursday between 5-6PM. Too bad we came on Friday :'(
Service- 4/5. Very friendly, minor language barrier that made no impact on ordering.
Venue- 4/5. QUIET (despite being a Friday night) and sufficiently spacious. As you may know from my Kinka review, being able to converse in an izakaya and sit comfortably (i.e. stretch my legs) are key. They also have a sidewalk patio. If bringing a large group, do call to make a reservation in advance as space does fill up.
Will be back one day!
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