Ikoi Japanese Restaurant

A great place to have fresh sashimi and other japanese food. The place is not that big but the food is fabulous. Ambience is very good too with all the decorations around. For the bad points due to the restaurant is quite small it tend to be quite squeezy. There is also a choice to sit at a chair or you can choose to sit at a tatami. Adding to the point it's also a good place for buffet as all the deep fried cutlet is order by PIECES...

This is a little Jap restaurant located in Miramar hotel. Not the biggest of restaurant, but it has a japanese feel to it, and tables are packed close to each other. (do note that tables are not very big either)

Food : There are many items that u could order ala carte byffet style. This includes sushi, tempura, noodles etc. I came here for the sashimi and everything is a bonus. The sashimi is indeed fresh and there are many varieties to choose from .Although i would prefer it to be even more thinly sliced(but that is not an issue). You could tell them how many servings u like.(eg. a serving for 2 people)

I rather not rate the other items as there are too many of them. Since it is a buffet, do try a bit of everything.

But i did enjoy the miso soup though. Overall it is value for money at around $37 per person.

As for the restaurant, do book in advance as the place is usually full esp. on a weekend.Naturally the place is not a good location to have a romantic dinner. As for the service, it is prompt. The girl attending to us came with slips of paper to note down whatever we wanted. Although some dishes we did have to remind them.

I would go back there for the Sashimi. But for now, would like to try other jap buffet with free flow of sashimi!

Well, I must say that the sashimi is indeed fresh. However I did not really like how they sliced it nor did I like the part of the salmon they sliced it from.

The entire restaurant did not have a very good ambiance as it was rather packed with its interior and arrangement of tables and chairs. There was a wide variety of Japanese food but I find this place comparable to Kuishinbo as well as the freshness of the sashimi.

Thus, the only stellar point of this place which everyone was raving about, sashimi, is actually rather overrated unfortunately.

Craving Japanese, I finally made it to Ikoi after hearing about it from a friend for months. Thankfully, craving fulfilled although we probably went a bit overboard.

Between two of us, we managed to consume a massive load of food. The waitresses couldn't even find counter space to place it all. Sometimes I scare myself. But my mother taught me to make my money's worth. That's why we grew up on buffets -- it's the Asian way. Value for the money and all that.

For $33++ (about $38), there's a decent selection to ensure you get your money's worth, especially when they don't limit sashimi takings (huge plus!).

Items worth ordering: sashimi (especially the salmon! tuna was fresh, but a bit stringy. well, don't expect beautiful cuts of fish, just fresh and worthwhile). agedashi tofu, california hand roll, yakisoba, stir-fried vegetables, grilled miso eggplant (comp dish), salmon hotpot (just for the refreshing soup but the fish wasn't seasoned at all), and prawn (ebi) tempura

Worth skipping: tonkatsu (a bit dry), salmon mayo roll (way too much mayo, barely any salmon), bacon-wrapped sausages (bacon wasn't crispy and the cocktail sausages were average)

There was probably more that I'm missing, but by the end of the meal and 30 pieces of sashimi in, everything just started blurring. You know it's bad each slice starts to taste the same and no longer excites you.

Maybe next time I have a Japanese craving, I'll just go to a regular restaurant. But I'm such a sucker for buffets.

I hate to say this, but Saturday lunch at Ikoi was a disappointing affair. The standard has dropped, in comparison to a dinner I had there some months ago. The sashimi did not taste as good as I remember. (IMHO, I think this has much to do with the day they order the fish and what time the shipment reaches the restaurant) 

For sashimi, the salmon, tuna and hamachi were fine. The kajiki was a little off. Grilled items were average, although I felt the chicken was on the dry side. The place is always busy, so it may take a while to get the attention of service staff.

If you're not fussy and want quantity over quality, don't mind the cramped table space, Ikoi is still one of most affordable places to get your Jap fix at $33++ a person.

 

i feel ikoi is underated based on the numbers so i decide to give my support.

value money wise, they give the best for ebi tempura and sashimi (my favourite with jap dining).  salmon is fresh, and you order to your filling.  can't think of anywhere else for such value. perhaps the only minus is with service and time of serving, excusable and can't help it for such crowd and quality

Highly recommened based on my experience.

read the previous reviews abt the complimentary items, was worried when i went.

but the waitress is so nice, she explained that it's ok if we do not finish them, and we can also request to ask abt the items & choose to have them served.

Wow at the freshness of the sashimi, I'm a yellowtail lover. The quality is amazing to find at a buffet. It's priced at $33 per pax, super worth it! Tuna, salmon, swordfish are so fresh & of superb quality.

Grilled items like pork, chicken wings and fish are done to perfection, crispness at the skin.

Good variety of food items, like katsu curry don/ udon, hot udon, and tempuras. Besides that the prawn is a little small to my liking, the veg items like mushrooms make us all asking for more!  their chawanmushi are so smooth, yummy!

If u want a little privacy, going there in bigger grp helps; you are given the private room upstairs   :)

My friends have raved nonstop about Ikoi for the past months and we finally made a trip there. We couldn't get a table and had to make reservations almost a month in advance. Needless to say, I was quite excited about checking out this place, and to see if it could compare to Hanabi. Located at the first level of Miramar Hotel, Ikoi doesn't seat many people and is rather cramped. Too many people forced to sit together in a confined area equates to an unacceptably high noise level, especially for a restaurant in a hotel. 5 of us were given a small booth and it was pretty uncomfortable the entire meal.

We started off the dinner with the Sashimi platter (for 5) and this was served to us in a rather grand plate which looked like a boat. Sashimi slices were thick and juicy. I particularly liked the salmon sashimi and swordfish sashimi. The former practically melted in our mouths, and the latter was extremely sweet. I can't begin to describe how fresh both sashimi were! We ordered another 4 of this sashimi platters after this.

Selection wise for other food were pretty limited. For example, there's only 2 types of handrolls available on the menu- Californian and Salmon Skin. Whatever happened to the rest of the handrolls like my all-time favourite Spider Handroll?? We each had 1 Salmon Skin Handroll and boy was it good. The salmon skin blended in perfectly with the sauce and the crisp seaweed. I ended up having another 2 salmon skin handrolls, and this was enough to make up for the lack of variety.

We also didn't try much sushi because it didn't look appetizing. The saba sushi was thick and juicy though. I liked that. My friends had the crabmeat sushi (who on earth eats that during a buffet?!) and they said it was pretty good. The egg sushi however wasn't very good according to my friends as it wasn't fresh. We each had Chawanmushi and I gave my share to my friend because it was not good at all! There was no taste of egg, and instead had a very chicken-y taste. And I'm not a big fan of chicken.

There was a pretty large selection of tempura. On top of the usual prawn, sweet potato, lady's finger and eggplant, there were pretty unique selections such as lotus root and onion. The big onion tempura was really really good, especially when you dip it into the sauce! Breaded prawns tasted really bad, and you're better off trying the tempura ones instead. Agedeshi tofu was a tad too salty for my liking.

Grilled salmon and soba were really good and we had to reorder it a few times. Both had just the right amount of fats for it to be satisfying, yet not too sinful. Portions are rather small though, so do order more if you have a large group of people. I didn't try the yakitori sticks coz I was too full (and also because it was chicken) and no comments were made about them, so I guess they were average.

Variety wise for the staples were again limited. The fried udon wasn't nice at all as it didn't have any taste. There were only a few miserable strands of vegetable and onion in int. I didn't try the udon in soup that my friend ordered, but I'm assuming it wasn't fantastic as well because she didn't finish it.

I didn't enjoy any of the complimentary stuff they served. One was soup served in a teapot, and was heavily MSG-laden. I stopped at one cup and drank a lot of green tea after that. I didn't finish my share of the salmon sashimi with sauce because it tasted really weird. The sauce was tangy and salty, and totally didn't go well with the extremely thin-sliced sashimi. You're better off eating the one in the menu. Hotpot with seafood was average. I didn't eat the ingredients but the soup was just nice. Not too salty but still savoury.

Service here wasn't fantastic, perhaps because there were many customers that night. They kind of took orders without a smile, and some orders didn't arrive (potato croquette and pumpkin tempura). However we were too full to complain, and left it as that. Our green teas were also not refilled promptly We also had to chase them for ice water when repeated requests for it were ignored. One waitress even asked us to "finish up that sushi so I can clear the plate". I couldn't decide if I was amused or indignant.

Sashimi was fresh on the first platter, 2nd one caused my girl to almost puke.

Complimentaries are waste of time... except the salmon sashimi...

karaages were good, not the tempuras - soggy and dried ingredients...

short of dessert in the menu...

Placing it on same rung as hanabi...

Ambience not really great, more cramped than i expected...

Trainees were better at service than the old birds...