KOA Restaurant

Great food, great time, great energy, sexy ambiance, you’ll love it! The restaurant was a bit dark for my taste, but the food made up for it.

Honestly I’d give this place 2 stars but I’m giving them three because the food that we did eat was pretty good. Maybe it’s because we arrived an hour before closing time or maybe it was our waiter’s first week on the job but they messed up multiple items and we were just a party of 3. First they got our drink orders wrong and have me an old-​fashioned when I didn’t order one. Then we specifically asked for the Dan Dan Noodles without beef as 2 of us don’t eat beef. Our waiter said they could substitute it with chicken instead. the dish showed up with beef in it and we had to ask twice before he went and asked the kitchen to verify it had beef. And no apology. But he removed the dish. To their credit they took both items off our check without having to ask. I ordered a Mint tea from their menu but then found out they don’t have any. Despite messing up the order multiple times we didn’t really get an Apology. Overall the food we did eat was pretty good especially the spicy edamame and the (overpriced) pork dumplings. The space is beautiful and the interiors are warm and rustic and welcoming. But not sure if I’d go back.

Went this week for happy hour. Very nice friendly atmosphere. If you arrive after 6 o’clock there’s free on street parking until 10pm. I would’ve given them five stars but they over charged one of the credit cards for a party and they’re supposed to refund their money. We shared spring rolls, rolls, Ramen noodles, chicken wings, and pork shumai.

Food was really good, I had the kale fried rice and the Chilean sea bass but very dishonest staff. They quoted me one price for fried rice on the menu and then charged a lot more on the bill. Overall seems like very shady management.

Happy hour ranges from 5 – 7 dollars, but this is only offered at the bar. Unfortunately, the manager wouldn’t accommodate for us to bring it our table. (**)
I had the classic ramen and the price range is roughly about the same as most Japanese ramen noodle, but the portion is way to small. The meat was thinly sliced which made it a bite dry and the soup base was on the salty side. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything special or different about it. (***)
The décor was amazing and super fancy. It felt like a night Club when I used their bathroom. (****)
The service felt more like a rush. We had our ordered place fast, but upon check out it was slow. The waiter told us that each individual need to check in on Unilocal to receive the free scoop ice cream offer so we did it, but then the waiter never even need it. That sucks because one of my friend was having trouble checking in and when she finally checked in the ice cream was brought out to us. Then there was a problem with the bill. We wrote it down on a paper about how much he should run per card and he still made a mistake and accidently ran one card twice. We had another waiter corrected it. (**)

This is one of my top date night spots:
The bowls of Sorba are HUGE — amazing. Maybe not a FIRST date due to all the slurping.
Get something with the soy broth. It sounds weird, but it is SO CREAMY AND GOOD.
This was also perfect for a lactose intolerant person like myself!

My work buddy and i were craving ramen so we both ordered the vegetable ramen lunch set for $ 15 from grubhub. After tax and tip, it came out to about $ 18.50pp.
KOA separates the veggies, ramen and broth in separate containers and it also includes a spring roll and side salad. The veggies were bok choy, carrots, wood ear, minced tofu. It came in a very flavorful soymilk broth, albeit too cold by the time it got to my work place. For the price, i definitely think they could be more generous with the veggies and include bamboo shoots or shitake mushrooms, to name a few. I had to nuke my broth to make it hot enough for the ramen.
The noodles were chewy and tasted fresh, which is a plus in my book. Would definitely order from them again!

I love the Flatiron District.
I come down after work sometimes it’s only a few subway stops down. I stopped in for Oysters and Sushi but I got the shrimp & shumai pork buns and spring rolls with mozzarella and chili sauce they’re deep fried sticks that Eric Javits would be eating two at a time, there’s no distinguishing him from Chuck Norris, but they’ve got Lychee Beer and you might want to try that!
Try the Dan Dan Noodles and if your looking for a cocktail look no further than the Fig N’ Awesome it’s Figanza Vodka and Elderberry Liquor it’s absolutely delicious!

This is mostly Asian than Italian-​Asian.
The place is huge because of its ceiling height! The restaurant is spacious because you are not all crammed up.
The bar area is in the center.
Food is definitely Asian. More of a fusion of Asian food than Italian. Asian modern!
The shrimp appetizer is served in a nice dish with separate wells. They served battered fried shrimp dipped in light sweet-​sour style sauce on a creamy sauce for our appetizer.
The kale fried rice is outstanding and flavorful.
The pork fried rice is equally delicious served in an interesting pot that sits in a wooden holder.
The fried chicken in a bed of large Sichuan peppers and other dried peppers had more fried other things like mushrooms and broccoli than it did chicken. Maybe I won’t order this next time.
The vegetable Nabe would have been better had it been half less oily. It is a little spicy but pleasantly so. They should call this dried Sichuan peppers with choice of chicken or lobster. About half the plate is inedible dried peppers.
The vegetable sorda was quite good with lots of vegetables. It’s like noodles with sauce. I will order again.
For dessert, the brownie tempura was outstanding! This place has a lot of energy because the music is very loud.
On the wall they show fashion modeling on runways from Europe on top of energetic music. Around 7:30 PM, we had a belly dancer dancing around tables.
At the entrance hall they have paintings of the 3 Presidential candidates!
It’s more 3−½ stars but I cannot click a half on one of the stars.
It’s a nice place and most of our dishes were very good.

I came here for my 28^th birthday from my girlfriend’s recommendation. I really liked the décor the moment I walked into the restaurant. Our server Juan was the only one working at the time and was till very attentive to our table of ten. For appetizers we had dynamite Edamame, premium kakuni pork bun, pork gyoza and the yuzu crispy shrimp. I really liked the pork buns and pork gyoza. For my entrée I tried the ramen tasting menu which consisted of spicy Dan Dan, soy milk Dan Dan, classic chashu, and black sesame. I really enjoyed the classic chashu and the soy milk Dan Dan, both packed a lot of flavor and the broth very rich. Spicy Dan Dan and black sesame was okay. My girlfriend had the Jya Jya sorba salad. She thought it was interesting for a salad because it came with cold ramen. Overall I would come here again and definitely recommend friends and family to come here.

My teacher friends and I celebrated the end of Teacher Appreciation Week by making the trek from Harlem to Koa.
Food: 3.5−4 stars
I had the Chashu ramen and thought it was decent. I should have ordered the soy milk Dan Dan sorba! I had a bite of my friend’s and was shocked at the rich flavor. Definitely getting that next time. Prices are a bit steep for most things on the menu. ALSO, make sure you ask about the full list of ingredients because people in our group could not eat pork for religious reasons and almost all the ramen selections had pork mixed in without being explicitly stated on the menu.
Service: 3 stars
Our waiter was nice but kind of awkward? For example, he gave us an old drink menu with lots of drinks that aren’t available. And when we did order from the right menu, drinks were still not available?
Ambiance: 4.5 stars
We got there at about 7:30 or so on a Friday night. when you walk in, you have no choice but to acknowledge the ambiance and spacious venue. It felt really nice to not have to eat dinner in a claustrophobic setting for once!!! I really loved the dark but warm lighting. The wood+light fixtures gave the place a nice romantic feel. Wasn’t crowded at all.

Bottom line: The food, and drinks were so good. And the staff was beyond accommodating!
I held my bridal shower here today on a saturday afternoon in the back, semi private area and the staff was awesome! We thought it was a little dark (romantic lighting) and they immediately adjusted the lights up for us. Some in the group arrived a bit late and one of my fiends needed to leave early and the staff graciously adjusted the timing of appetizers/​mains dishes for them. They put out cute printed menus with our event listed on top and also created a special cocktail for us. Toward the end they also included some desserts on the house with an incredibly large happy face pastry! haha. I can’t say enough about the really friendly staff here and will def be back! We played some bridal shower games and they were very accommodating as well as we moved some furniture around.
Now on to the food. We did the saturday brunch set menu. This included a sampler of 6 appetizers, which were mini versions of their appetizers. These were very nicely presented — everyone thought it was so cute and also tasty! Then a meat bun, which was delicious. And finally a tasting of their three most popular ramen which were the cha shu, the soy dan dan and the spicy dan dan. The cha shu was very well liked as was the dan dan. The last one was a bit too spicy for some but my friends who did liked spicy food really liked it so just a fair warning on the spicy one for some people, but incredibly tasty.
I worked with Kumiko for the event and she is super responsive to emails so would highly recommend if you are looking to host an event. I think the bartenders name was sylvia but I’m not sure but she was also super nice and made great drinks! One of the managers? also came by to make sure we were doing ok.
Just FYI the space is a semi private and not fully enclosed but it didn’t bother us. :)

Nice little jewel on 21^st Street tucked away between 5^th and 6 Ave. The spicy Raman Dan Dan is great!
Happy hour is awesome, great prices and the staff is so friendly and attentive.
The GM Charlie is super friendly and accommodating. the male bartender is always fun and ready to assist.
I have a great time at this place every time I go.
DJ on Thursday and an artist on Friday drinking and being creative in the corner.

The décor & ambiance was cool. Went on a Thursday night & they had a live DJ bumping great variety of tunes to accommodate all ages. Music wasn’t too loud either. Comfortable booth seating. Dim romantic lighting. Very attentive & friendly staff. Our waiter offered us great suggestions & his personal favorites (we liked all of them). Food came out quick. Place was clean. Plate presentations were nice. Food was delicious & flavorful. Recommendations:
— Lycheetini
— Vegetable Spring Rolls
— Dynamite Edamame
— Yuzu Crispy Shrimp
— Pork Gyoza
— Snow Crab Avocado Roll
— Dynamite Tuna Roll
— Brownie Tempura
— Cheesecake Dumplings

Very fusion. Small menu
Probably the soy milk ramen is the only thing worth visiting because it’s unique, but the new opened ramen spot Zundo-​Ya in East Village has soy milk ramen on their menu now as well~
Bang Bang Chicken was the biggest mistake of our meal, it was so boring and the chicken was dry.
Yuzu Shrimp has no yuzu taste at all– disappointment
Waiter does not seem to be familiar with their cocktail menu, we ordered A and B came… Grrr

God, this place is good. A very reliable Asian Fusion place that rivals China Grill. It also has great dark «mood lighting» right out of Hong Kong assassin cinema.
We had pork gyoza (dumplings), shumai, two different kinds of ramen, vegetable spring rolls, and something else I forgot. We had tempura brownies for dinner — BAM! — which may have been the best thing. Everything was just delicious.
Why am I taking off a point? My patented P2P ratio (price to portions). The appetizers just weren’t very filling. Ramen was good on P2P, though, so really it’s like 4.5 stars.

So we went to Koa again and it’s difficult to describe just how bad their service is. It’s not that it’s bad actually, it’s just so weird. The vibe is off, the cadence is off. Something is seriously wrong with this place and it has nothing to do with the food (because that we really like).
Can’t say we’d give them another chance if you ask me right now…

Pros:
— Beautiful decoration, nice ambiance
— Excellent service
— Free salad and vegetable egg roll
Cons: Food, especially the main entrée
My friend and I ordered chicken fried rice and spicy dan dan ramen. The ramen was extremely oily, it had like two inches of oil on top of the broth and 5000 kcal in it. This may be a bit of exaggeration but you get my point — it is super oily. Fried rice on the other hand is just too plain and tasteless. Adding to this, dressing for the free salad is horrible, it’s much worse than my 2 minute oil & vinaigrette dressing, and I am definitely not a good cook!

I went on a gilt city voucher for omakase. The restaurant is beautiful and spacious with modern décor and comfortable lounge seating. With the omakase, we had a good variety of hot and cold dishes. Most of them were tasty, some I could have done without.
First off, they have good cocktails. As for food, the «Hehe-​a-​he Chicken» was my favorite, crispy fried chicken with a good kick of spice from the dried peppers. The lobster dish was disappointing — not very fresh and overcooked. Out of 3 ramens we tasted, the soy milk dandan sorba was the most unique and balanced. Soymilk helps to cut through the spice and oil of the dandan broth. The chashu sorba was pretty basic; the spicy dandan ramen had nice flavor but was way too oily.
The portions were very generous, too generous because we had so many courses. The dinner pricing of the ramen seems pricey, but I would probably return for a lunch set. Or for their Saturday noodle brunch because it sounds pretty awesome. Good service, the owner seems like a good guy. It’s nice to see an upscale Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood.

Spacious /​/​Chic
Asian Fusion
This restaurant looks like a place that could moonlight as a night club, the only thing missing was a DJ. Lovely interior, popular spot for locals and visitors alike.
Every dish that we ordered was seasoned well, and our drinks were great.
Business, casual, friends, or an event.
Great space, good service.
The Scene: Modern, Asian
Destination Rating: 6
Date Rating: 7
Hob Nob Potential: 4
Note: Plenty of seating for large groups. Booths are comfortable.