Koya

Not that I have tasted many Japanese Udon restaurants in London but Koya serves the best Udon noodles I have tasted so far. My hubby read a positive review somewhere about Koya so we discovered this restaurant at the end of 2010. I have made many visits since then and have introduced this place to some of my friends who all love it. We see a lot of Japanese people eating there, so that is also a good sign that the food is good. I remember that on our first visit, in addition to our udon dish, we also ordered a couple of small dishes because we wanted to taste and also my hubby was very hungry. We ordered Kamo Roast (roast duck) and Kakuni (braised pork belly with cider). These two small plates were VERY small indeed! There were only a few pieces of meat. The taste was OK but nothing to write home about and definitely not good value for money. Since then, we only go for the udon when we go to Koya.

I went with an Australian friend of mine on this occasion and she liked it as well.

There are so many nice places to eat in London, we don't get to go back to the same place often enough! Anyway that is probably my excuse for ordering the same dish whenever I return to Koya as I like it so much. Not because I am not adventurous!

On this visit my friend ordered Kamo Nabe (Duck and Vegetable Hot Pot) and I ordered Ten Hiya-atsu (prawn amd vegetable tempura with cold Udon in hot broth).

Kamo Nabe

My friend's udon dish comes in a Hot Pot. The udon noodles are served in a hot broth with sliced duck and vegetable. She thought it was very tasty.

Ten Hiya-atsu

My Udon dish comes in four different plate/bowl: a plate of udon topped with some seaweed, a small plate of spring onion crushed ginger and sesame seeds, a plate of tempura and a bowl of hot broth. The udon was as nice as usual, a bit chewy in a good way, very delicious. The tempura was the best I had at Koya. The quality of the tempura tends to vary a bit from one visit to the other, it is above average in general but on this visit it was absolutely amazing: crispy light anf fluffy and not oily at all.

The service is fairly efficient. The only thing that annoys me with Koya is that they add 10% service charge. I consider Koya a restaurant for a quick meal where people have to share tables sometimes...adding service charge for this type of dining seems to be a greedy thing to do. Despite me being grumpy about the service charge, I will always go back as the udon are really worth it.


Koya
49 Frith Street
LondonW1D 4SG

http://www.koya.co.uk/