Came here for lunch on my last full day in Bellevue, mainly because it was within walking distance of our daughter's condo AND because it is part of the Resy network, allowing us to use our monthly AMEX credit. My daughter had not been here before, so I kept my expectations low. For a weekday lunch, the experience blew my expectations out of the water.
THeKoi has two locations: the original (2011 opening) in Tacoma, and this Bellevue location (2024 opening). They have a good website, so I already had a good idea of what I was going to get. My daughter agreed to get a different lunch meal, and we ended up sampling a bit of everything.
Lunch Bento ($25) - a lot bigger than expected, coming with vegetable tempura, shrimp tempura, salad, California rolls, white rice, and miso soup + choice of 2 items: beef short ribs (+$2.50 additional) and nigiri (+$2.50 additional). The tempura was first rate: very light panko coating, expertly deep fried, hardly greasy at all...very, very good. The rolls were very large and thick with krab filling, expertly made. The nigiri were four big, generous pieces, expertly scored with decent fish quality (typical choices of salmon, yellowtail, and tuna). The kalbi was one large LA-style piece of short rib, and I really liked the marinade used, though the meat quality was average.
Black Cod Lunch Gozen Set ($32) - combination of tempura, grilled black cod, sashimi, udon, and salad. Unexpected were 5 banchans, including some of my favorite (bean sprouts, marinated fish cakes, sweet potato, and cut up honeydew). The udon was a single bowl of decent udon noodles, big enough to be a light lunch on its own. The tempura had two pieces of shrimp, a piece of squid, and some vegetables...all of it as light and delicate as the bento (whoever is doing tempura here is skilled). The sashimi was generous, with thick large pieces of fish including a white fish I couldn't identify. But the star of the show was the black cod, a bigger piece than I expected for lunch and at that price point. It was delicate, well seasoned, and expertly cooked. My daughter ate most of it, which made me happy: her palate has definitely become more choosy since moving to the Seattle area, and she ate this up.
Both meals came with a good miso soup, which wasn't mentioned in the menu.
Pretty sure with some of the dishes and the tastiness of the kalbi marinade, that the owner or chef is Korean, just for the quality of the banchan alone.
It wasn't very busy when we came, and there were two servers eager not to be bored...so service was very attentive. The food was delivered as soon as ready, which made a huge difference in the quality of the dining experience. Everything (quality, value, taste) was just great. The amount of food given was very generous: the ownership didn't need to go that far since the expectations for food in this area can be spotty when it comes to value. A place like this showing such respect to its customers sense of value, deserves to be highly frequented. Highly recommended for lunch as long as the set lunch menu continues to be available during weekdays. read more