Critic's Review
Coco Asian Bistro sold this place and it's not under new ownership. There's a dearth of places worth trying around here; they finally put up a lunch menu so I thought I'd get some sushi.
They've been open over a month and still haven't even applied for a sign permit; maybe they don't intend on staying?
The patio looks about the same. Not very inviting at lunch time, even on a nice day.
While they just slapped a banner over the sign on the outside, the inside had been creepified. Coco Asian was one of the less creepy Asian restaurants; sort of clubby; they've added the kind of chairs your grandmother had; the kind you find in restaurants pretending to be higher end.
They've also added a specials sign; because all high end restaurants have a specials sign in the middle of the dining room. I couldn't read the handwriting from where I was sitting; partially because I'm not 21 and partially because of bad contrast.
A server came over right away and I ordered an iced tea. Country music fills the air. It's kind of bizarre.
Flavored tea; you need to warn customers if the tea is flavored people. Not terrible, but a surprise.
I ordered a box with comes with soup or salad. Misa or ginger dresssing. The Japanese aren't very creative. They also had a soup of the say; lemongrass chicken. Couldn't be worse than Miso, right?
It was pretty close. Lemongrass is crap, and you have to be careful not to eat the lemongrass, because, well, it's basically a piece of wood. The chicken was tough and the broth tasted like they squeezed a lemon into chicken broth. I didn't eat much of the soup.
The box came out in 8 minutes.
Aside from the useless Edamame (who seriously wants to eat practically raw soybeans?), it looks like a lunch.
Any chance of the restaurant appearing as a new restaurant was squashed by them using the same leaky soy sauce pitchers they had at Coco's; I wonder if they all leak or I just happen to get the same one I got the only other time I was in this place?
I was interested in the dumplings until I tasted one.
Cold and soggy. How hard is it to re-steam dumplings. Not a good sign of things to come. I couldn't eat the dumplings.
I usually like California Rolls, but the rice has to be good. This rice wasn't good.
Plus they fell apart when biting into them. Not a good thing. Pei Wei rolls are better than this.
The sushi also suffered from the sub-par rice. I had to rip off the fish to eat this.
The sashimi was OK. The salmon was good but the tuna and escolar didn't have that fresh taste you look for in sushi. This stuff was a bit stringy, which is also a bad thing.
I was even annoyed by the ginger, which wasn't cut small enough to be manageable. You can't cut ginger with chopsticks, and nobody wants a silver dollar size piece of ginger.
A lot of waste in this box.
Conclusion
Coco Asian Bistro has sold the restaurant to Koi and its turned for the worst. While serving 6 slices of fish on a bag of ice may seem edgy; there really wasn't one thing I had here that I liked. Coco Asian Bistro had better music, better decor and better food. I'm not a big sushi eater; but I'm not very picky about it either. This stuff just wasn't that good.
Previous Musings
Coco Asian has sold the restaurant and it's now under new ownership. The people who own Saiko-i and Yakitori in Boca Raton bought the place.
A few notes on the menu. A whole snapper is "Market Price". The price of snapper hasn't changed in decades. And they have a USDA Prime Skirt Steak with bok choi for $39. I had this recently at Thai Spice for $24.
Pad Thai is Japanese "Street Food"?