James A.
Yelp
Worth-it Happy Hour Menu every day of the week, specializing in sushi.
My brother and I were staying at a nearby hotel, so it was an easy walk across the street to the large strip mall (anchored by Pubix and TJ Maxx) to Koi - Sushi lounge for an early dinner on a Sunday night. They have an OK covered, outdoor dining area in the front of the restaurant (taking up some parking spots...wonder if they did this for Covid and decided to keep it). The inside is large, with a big bar in the middle, with booths to the side and regular tables filling out the rest of the floor space. It wasn't too busy when we went in around 4:30pm, and were seated immediately (no reservation).
There were 3 different pieces on the menu: special menu which they seem to change, the normal laminated menu, and the happy hour(HH)/catering menu. They have a really informative website, so knew that HH was in effect (every day of week, from open to 6 pm, 'EXCLUSIVE HOLIDAY'...assuming it means excluding holidays). Everything we ordered was HH prices, and the entire bill (which my brother treated us to) was around $100...and we ordered a ton of food for two.
HH - Mojito - Mango ($8) - a bit disappointing for me. Plenty of mint, and a large amount, but very sugary, overwhelming the alcohol and didn't taste any mango at all.
HH - Crispy Calamari ($8) - all squid rings, lightly battered and deep fried, served hot with a good chili dip. Really good.
HH - Salmon Carpaccio ($9) - five pieces of raw salmon, expertly cut, served on a bed of crushed ice. I was surprised how much I loved this.
HH - Mexican Roll ($8) - probably my favorite roll. All the flavors meshed really well, and the jalapeno wasn't so dominating as in the other rolls.
HH - Spiderman Roll ($11) - uses tempura deep fried soft shell crab. It was still very crispy, which gives a great texture variety. The crab just provides a foundation for the batter anyway (you can't taste the crab), but the batter is good. It wasn't freshly deep fried, but was still crispy.
HH - Spice Girl Roll ($11) - This was good, though I realized I didn't like the thinly slice jalapeno, so just removed that.
HH - Red Hot Roll ($12) - most expensive, and also the least liked. It had a weird Kimchi sauce, and neither of us liked it.
HH - Sex on the Moon ($11) - shrimp tempura is the main ingredient here. No idea about the name, I'm sure there is something I'm missing.
All the maki was expertly made...all were quite fat, with a thin layer of unbroken sushi rice. A lot of times, Happy Hour menu items are not a good deal, since they are of lesser quantity...but I'm confident that this was NOT the case here. These were all rolls deserving of the $15-18 normal prices.
We did manage to finish everything, but we were both stuffed at the end. Maybe not the best thing health wise at our age, but delicious food will do that.
Our waitress was Skyler and she was very engaging, which really helps in ordering the right things. Also the gentleman who took care of clearing and keeping our drinks filled was very good. The service at Koi was excellent.
Delicious food, great value, and great service in a very relaxed environment....can't ask for anything more.