Koi Restaurant - Bangkok, Thailand: Off Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok, you’ll find Koi Japanese Restaurant, a chic and trendy place to see and be seen, or at least it was. It had won a number of awards in the past but none in the last couple years. After having dined there, it was obvious to me why they haven’t won any awards recently. The restaurant is connected to their nightclub/bar and lounge which is the ultimate in hip, but the amount of smoke even on a quiet evening was enough to make it a miserable place to be.

We had dinner there on a Sunday night and it was completely dead. The décor was stylishly mod-black booths, black chairs, very simple clean lines, red mood lighting and candles everywhere. While the description sounds morose, the overall atmosphere was rather plain and minimal. The music playing overhead was jazzy lounge music, soft enough to allow decent conversation but loud enough to be audible. It added to the chic appeal of the restaurant. Had there been a few more people, it could have been quite an impressive restaurant.

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For starters, we ordered Creamy Rock Shrimp -crispy shrimp coated with tempura flour, with spicy mayonnaise and crispy ginger; Soft Shell Crab Salad-deep fried soft shell crab coated with tempura flour, tossed salad with spicy mayo and ponsu sauce; and Tuna, Salmon and Unagi Sashimi. The sashimi pieces were small, especially for the price they charged. The unagi was average at best

We also had Koi Signature dishes: Lobster Dynamite-lobster with seaweed, cream cheese, shitake mushrooms, Dijon mustard, deep fried until crispy Marinated lobster meat and miso cream sauce; and Dragon Rolls-an assortment of sushi rolls. The lobster rolls were excellent-very rich, satisfying, filling, and so good we were tempted to get a second order, but at 900 Baht (about $27.00) we deemed it to be a bit too pricey. My dining partner and I agreed though that they were the best thing on the menu.

Service was attentive, but I couldn’t be too sure if this was always the case since in the area where we were seated, only two of the ten tables were full (there were a total of four guests, and that included us). Also, our orders came out all at once, even though we especially requested that they space the courses, serving one or two dishes at a time. We were in no hurry but it surely seemed they were. Towards the end of our dinner our waitress began to hover about our table, giving us the clear signal that she was ready to go, and thus, was eager for us to go! A once cool place that may be teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, I rate the Koi Restaurant in Bangkok Between Bombastic and Not.

What I liked: Lobster Dynamite, the atmosphere

What I didn’t like: Orders all coming at once, the hovering waitress towards the end of our dinner.

Rating: Between bombastic and not.

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