Koba (Korean) – London, England (8/10)
Jun 6th, 2008 by admin
I love eating at Koba (click for previous review), one of my favourite London restaurants. Somehow it doesn’t feel like central London, but rather an Asian metropolis. When I went for lunch recently, there was a single Korean woman, two Japanese men, and another hip couple who looked like they’d just walked off the set of a Takashi Miike movie. The music was pure Korean K-pop. It was great!
What I ordered:
As I was with vegetarian husband, I reluctantly decided to forego the lunch barbecue options, although they were most tempting, particularly the special lunch barbecue (£10.80), which consisted of bulgogi (marinated sliced beef sirloin), 3 fried dumplings, small pot of bibimbap, soup, salad and side dishes! It’s fantastic value for money. I’ve had this before, so I can vouch for it.
Instead, I had my favourite – dolsot bibimbap (steamed rice with seasoned vegetables in a Korean hot stone pot), as did husband, which at lunch comes with miso soup and side dishes of kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage), sigeumchi namool (seasoned spinach) and sookjoo namool (mildly seasoned bean sprouts). We also ordered the pajun – Korean pancake with spring onion and seafood, minus the seafood (£6.90).
The food is consistently excellent at Koba. The pajun pancake was enormous, filling the entire plate and pre-cut into manageable sizes, with a delicious dipping sauce that I struggled to identify. Each piece was crisp, light and full of flavour. The sides were fresh and crunchy – I can never get enough of these. And the bibimbap was delicious as always. I don’t know why, but I always prefer the vegetarian version to the raw beef one.
The verdict?
Lunch with water and service charge came to a very reasonable £27.00. I’m so glad lunch at Koba was fantastic, and it remains one of my favourite London restaurants. Next time, I’ll definitely have the barbecue…
10 – Perfection, 9.5 – Sensational, 9 – Outstanding, 8.5 – Superb,
8 – Excellent, 7.5 – Very Good, 7 - Good, 6.5 - Above Average, 6 – Average
All the London restaurant reviews on World Foodie Guide
Contact Details:
Koba
11 Rathbone St
London W1T 1NA
Tel: 020 7580 8825
www.koba-london.com
Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide
“As I was with vegetarian husband, I reluctantly decided to forego the lunch barbecue options, although they were most tempting,”
Hmmm.
I think it had more to do with H not wanting to get stinky clothes and hair from the barbecue.
In fact H even moaned when the strange couple who sat next to us (looking like extras from Chungking Express) looked as if they might order barbecue… just might…
Go on admit that you love that vegetarian Bibimbap really!
GP
Hi Helen!
This is just to let you know that I passed the Arte y Pico award onto you!
http://tamarindandthyme.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/a-tale-of-two-chestnut-spreads/
£10.80 sounds quite decent for the korean bbq there! You get a bit of everything which i like and i prefer the meat bibimbap coz i do’t know, i feel its got more taste to it………
The pajun pancake looookkss amazing though! i wana try that!
The last time i had korean bbq in london was at asadal. It was nice……but between the two of us we had to pay over 80 pounds =_=. Worst crime ever committed i think, and we read the menu wrong you see, no idea how we did it but we did. But i don’t think much of the set menus in asadal though! haha
Su-Lin
Thank you so much for passing on the Arte y Pico award on to me! I feel very honoured that you chose me as one of your five recipients…
Vivi
That sounds like an expensive meal, although if it was good, then maybe it was worth it? Koba’s much cheaper, but it’s very very good. Can’t wait to go back for the BBQ lunch!
[...] some Korean food. I wasn’t able to make it, but between Jane’s endorsement and then this positive review by Worldfoodieguide a few days later, I was sold on checking out [...]
hey been cooking some korean food too if you are interested check this out
http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.com/2009/10/korean-bbq-gogi-gui.html
http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.com/2009/10/bibimpap.html
3hungrytummies – thanks for the links! I hope to cook Korean food in the future too…
Helen Yuet Ling