"There's talk on the street, it sounds so familiar
Great expectations, everybody's watching you
Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town
Everybody loves you, so don't let them down"
(The Eagles)
The restaurant business is a tough one and it's hard to keep up with the constant closings and openings. There's always a new kid in town, right?
Ikoi has been around for a month or so. They took over the space previously occupied by Chosen 1 Cajun Seafood, who was around for just three years.
Ikoi's menu is very deep, with a lot of sushi plus Poke Bowls, Hibachi combos, Wok fried entrees, noodle and rice dishes, Noodle soups, Southeast Asian dishes, and lunch specials.
We stopped by yesterday and ordered our lunches to go - two appetizers and two lunch combos. The apps were an order of two crispy spring rolls ($4.50) and an order of chicken Satay ($9.25 for 4 skewers).
The spring rolls weren't much more than shredded cabbage and carrots, but they were only $4.50. The Satay skewers were packed with big chunks of deep-fried meat and were a big value for the price. Just a word of advice, if you traditionally think of Satay as broiled chicken served with peanut sauce, their Satay is different.
The lunch specials are offered every day except Sundays. Their sushi specials run $12.95 for two rolls, $15.95 for three rolls, and $13-$18 for Chirashi, and more extensive sushi and sashimi lunches,
And if sushi isn't your thing for lunch, no worries because they also have a BIG selection of Southeast Asian lunches. They are all in the $9-$10 range, except three scallop dishes for $10.95. The Southeast Asian lunches include white or fried rice and a choice of three soups.
Our two $9.25 lunch specials were Chicken with Broccoli Brown Sauce, fried rice and Won Ton soup, and a Chicken with Szechuan Peppercorn Sauce, fried rice and H&S soup. I asked for the Szechuan Chicken to be "extra spicy".
We were both very pleased to unexpectedly see the soups were full sized portions because some Asian lunch combinations that include soup give you a teeny tiny container of 4 ounces or so. Other H&S soups are sometimes thin, bland and watery. Not here! My H&S wasn't thin at all, had a lot of flavor, and was loaded with tofu, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots. My wife's wonton soup had some huge wontons, but the broth flavor could have been stronger.
The lunch special entrees were fantastic, plain fantastic. My Szechuan Peppercorn Chicken had a big amount of large chicken slices, I mean seriously there was a lot of chicken in there, with zucchini, red bell pepper, baby corns, water chestnuts, red onion, peas, carrots, snow pea pods, and celery. The sauce was especially zippy and certainly fit for something I ordered as "extra spicy". There were big hunks of chili peppers in there, and I coughed a few times from that fantastic heat.
My wife's Chicken with Broccoli had a similar large amount of chicken slices in her container.
So just on the quality and quantity of the lunch specials, Ikoi is clearly five stars in my mind.
Customer service was excellent too. The two young ladies who waited on us, took our order, and brought us our "to go" bag were very friendly and as sweet as can be. What a nice contrast to some establishments where their counterparts have their faces buried in their phones and don't interact (let alone acknowledge) you at all. read more