There are, as you may have noticed, many things that annoy me. I am annoyed by bad service, I am annoyed by poor quality food, I am annoyed by haircuts in the Hoxton area and I am definitely annoyed by text speak or should I say txt spk? There are few things that annoy me as much as hype.
Now, I am not saying that I am immune to hype. I myself have followed most of the more stupid fashions and ideas of our times and were it not for people around me telling me otherwise, I may still be wearing my Global Hyper Colour t-shirt to this day. Let us just pause on Global Hyper Colour, what ever happened to them? When did people realise that a t-shirt that changed colour as your body got warm wasn't the greatest of fashion statements? Looking back now I clearly understand why many girls rebuffed my advances. As I walked over to them trying to look confident while my blue t-shirt went bright orange underneath the armpits. Anyway, my fashion faux pas aside, hype to me is a huge problem in these media driven times. A restaurant can be built up or fail on the hype of those around it, slightly like the TV show "Joey" but more damaging to a career, if you can imagine it.
Now as I say, I am not immune to hype but I am always wary of it. Occasionally hype has driven me to try something I might of missed and to be honest for all my moaning I'm sure I have hyped up places that people have gone on to hate, so I am equally as responsible. This time however, I am going to have to fly in the face of public opinion and fight against the hype.
Foolishly I had become so wrapped in the hype that I had found myself with 3 friends queueing on a cold winter's night in January on the streets of soho for the new cool place to eat. Back in my twenties this wouldn't have been such a strange thing, but now in my thirties what little patience I had has long gone.
Being a big fan of Japanese, I had been excited at the prospect of visiting Koya, an authentic Udon bar in soho, so was willing not to be put off by the lack of booking options. I know that in Japan you wouldn't be able to book for such a place so I expected a possible wait. It was only when we arrived that I realised that my lack of patience and growing hunger were not a perfect partner. On questioning, the couple at the front of the queue revealed that they had been waiting for an hour and that they had waited longer on another occasion but it was worth the wait. As we peered into the brightly lit, but small, modern restaurant it loomed on us that very few people seemed to have been served and in turn this started to put my party off staying. It was only the fact that the majority of the dinners appeared to be Japanese that we decided to wait as we were sure this was a sign of authenticity. Additionally, the fact that finding another restaurant with a table on a Friday night would only have led us to Nando's or some other such questionable place.
Thankfully, it appeared that the ill timing of the first couple had been deceptive and we were into the warmth and seated at our slightly cramped table within half an hour. I see how, from a marketing point of view, having a queue outside your restaurant is great but it does increase expectations to a level that are difficult to match.
Koya's menu was simple and clear with the udon split into four main areas; hot udon in hot broth, cold udon with hot broth, cold udon with cold sauce to dip and cold udon with cold sauce to pour. The latter two, we were told, were more suitable for summer so we decided to be drawn to the more warming dishes. Additionally, the menu had a selection of side dishes as well as rice dishes.
Our excellent waiter, who was from tokyo himself, suggested we try a number of side dishes and then went for the hot broth selections. We started with a mixture of pickles that were not to my taste and too sharp for most of us; some vegetable tempura that, while light, was slightly bland; a delicious bowl of roast duck, with an assortment of topping to add (which I could happily have eaten to myself); and a bowl of pork belly. The pork belly was the favourite of the table and if it had been the only dish we had eaten we all may have left happy.
Despite the queue outside, our waiter never rushed us and they left a surprisingly good amount of time before they brought the udon. I was excited by my tempura with cold udon and hot broth, but felt let down again by the tempura. The broth was delicious and had a fantastic taste of fish sauce to it. The others all went for hot udon and hot broth, which looked great and warming but was let down by its simplicity. Normally I would say simplicity in a restaurant was a plus but the dishes, although nice, seemed lacking for the price, especially the pawn tempura which had one piece of tempura in the dish. The stars of the show were the separate broths, each with their individual flavour but I found the whole meal to be average at best.
I wouldn't say the food at Koya was bad but it was slightly uninspired. Koya, to me, is the perfect place to grab a quick lunch or an early pre-theatre meal. Koya needs to be part of the event but not the main event to truly get the best from it.
Strangely enough the star of Koya is not the food but the staff, everyone that served us was not only friendly and polite but extremely knowledgeable on their menu. For this Koya should be congratulated.
But in the words of Public Enemy,don't believe the hype or alternatively in txt speak dnt believe t hyp.
Koya, 49 Frith Street, London, W1
Tel: no phone number as they don't accept bookings
Score 3 out of 5
Price: a reasonable £25 per head including drinks.
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