Summary of the Boston Sushi Society Meeting of July 24, 1994.
Koto
465 Concord Avenue
Cambridge
617.491.6600
closed Monday
Tu-Th 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM (except in the summer when they open at 5:30).
Fr-Sa 5:00 PM - 10:30 PM (except in the summer when they open at 5:30).
Su 5:00 PM - 9:30 PM (except in the summer when they open at 5:30).
Thirty members of the BSS were in attendance for the meeting which was
held at Koto, a small restaurant located near the Fresh Pond Circle in
Cambridge.
The restaurant used to be a "country style" japanese restaurant called
Little Osaka until it was purchased by Susan & Nagao Matsuyama, the
current owners. Susan is on the premises at all times, working as the
maitre d'/hostess. After they purchased Little Osaka, Susan & Nagao
undertook some renovations and re-opened as Koto. The restaurant seats 34
people with seating for an additional 6 people at the sushi bar. The
sushi bar is manned by Koto's sole sushi chef, Atsuo, who in the past
worked at Ginza. Susan was especially helpful in trying to accomodate
such a large group - and while not everything ran like clockwork (it never
does with a group this large!) I think that the hard work on the part of
the restaurant staff kept difficulties to a minimum. Kampai! to them.
The menu at Koto (which was trimmed with a white silk cord with a spiraled
thread of gold - a nice touch) is reasonably extensive. There were about
30 appetizers broken into 5 groups:
Things with rice vinegar - such asshrimp and octopus.
Broiled items including chicken, beef, eggplant, yellowtail, and salmon.
Various tempura.
Assorted tofu items
and a few others.
Appetizer prices ranged from $4 to $8.
Koto also has an "Early Bird Special" which is a dinner box for $9.50.
There is a choice of 5 different boxes, sushi, tempura, chicken teryaki,
chicken katsu, and yakitori/yakisoba. The Early Bird Special is offered
Tuesday through Thursday 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM.
I received ballots back from 21 members - the deadbeats know who they are!
*smile* So without further ado here are the scores:
Food Quality 7.86 (range: 3 - 10)
Presentation 6.93 (range: 5 - 9)
Service 7.55 (range: 5 - 10)
Decor 6.71 (range: 4 - 9)
Overall Rating 7.35 (range: 4 - 9.25)
Cost average $35.62
Averaging the scores for food quality, presentation, service, and decor
results in an overall score of 7.26. The fact that our group gave an
overall rating of 7.35 would seem to indicate that the "dining experience"
was more enjoyable than the sum of it's constituent parts. It must be
the company. :)
Below are all the specific comments people made on their scoresheets:
Food Quality:
Best octopus I ever ate
Nice plum maki (strong)
Everything well made
Yum! Unagi and salmon were particularly nice
Great miso! Not watery, very hot
Excellent saba
Huge pieces!
Great chunks of sashimi!
Great, except the miso was too dark
The freshness, quality and presentation of the food was excellent, if a
bit confused
It was disappointing that there was no toro
Good octopus
Eggplant oshinko would be nice
Mmm. Good.
Excellent food quality
Superb miso soup
Very good quality fish
Unremarkable gyoza
So-so inari sushi
Wonderful uni! The best I have had
Everything was *quite* good
Plentiful, fresh, ichiban!
Fish was very fresh
The chef favorver generous, thick slices, though I prefer thinner slices,
especially in things like octopus - but this is a matter of taste
The rice seemed overcooked, and underseasoned
This was the first uni I ever liked
The yellowtail was pretty decent
Raw fish was fresh and good
Salad and tofu in miso soup were not fresh
Rice is not sweet, and it was too dry
Miso soup was too salty
Tofu was a little off and not cut into uniform pieces
The fish was fine
Hamachi good
Tako o.k., but not extremely fresh
The rice is awful
Presentation:
Nice arrangement of chirashi sushi
Presentation was nothing special
Service:
Service was attentive and friendly, if occasionally confused
Got us everything we asked for
Quick and helpful, but our table was served first
They left the tea pot & water pitcher & the waiter told us to leave the
tea pot top ajar to request more tea & HE ACTUALLY BROUGHT IT!
The service was competant, well presented & flexible
The only problems seemed to be connected to the size of our group
They were extremely gracious to us water drinkers
I think, ultimately, that we overwhelmed the restaurants capacity
Some orders were quite prompt, others *way slow*
Service was o.k...but I understand that it must be a crunch time for the
staff members
Overall, I think the service was o.k. except the fact that the waiter
serving my table tended to rush a little bit and was not very attentive
Orders were mixed up a little
Food took 1.25 - 2 hours to come
They wanted to serve group style, not individual orders
Given advance warning they didn't do so hot
Getting food was slow due to the amount of people
They were very gracious to provide free appetizers, and apologized
constantly for delays
Service was attentive, but one sushi chef for so many people really
slowed things up
We got mystery food - no one ordered yellow tail & we got some. I, of
course, enjoyed this, since stray yellow tail can always find a
home with me
Exceptional service - friendly, intelligent
Decor:
Pleasant but not spectacular
Inoffensive
The design and decor are well suited to the typical customer mix for the
area, simple, pleasant & moderately informal
We did strain the AC
We needed better air-conditioning
Overall:
Overall so-so
This could be a regular stop for me
Now on to new business:
Due to the large increase in BSS members our dining (or should I say
raiding/pillaging) party has gotten quite large. This makes it very
difficult for restaurants to serve our group properly, as we know from
recent experiences. For this reason it has been decided to split the
group into separate raiding parties, each no larger than 15 people. On
the night of our meeting, one group will go to one restaurant and the
other group will go to a different restaurant. Then two weeks later the
groups will swop restaurants and visit the restaurant already visited by
the other group. In this way everyone will get to go to every restaurant.
I will put together a "roster" for each group from among those that RSVP
to me. You will then be in that group for 2 outings (the first night and
the night you swop with the other group). After each pair of restaurants
the roster can change. If you want to be grouped with certain people -
your husband, wife, friend, etc., let me know and I'll put you in the same
group (I mean, we don't have to get ridiculous about this, you know).
And now that I just made the rules, I can break them.
On the night of our next meeting, which will be Thursday, August 11, I
propose that we go to Jae's. As it turns out Jae's has two locations, so
*BOTH* groups can go to Jae's on the same night. This means that we
wouldn't *have* to swop at the following meeting, unless people wanted to
of course. I will be calling Jae's this week to see if I can set the
whole thing up.
Signed:
Your Fearless Leader
(twice decorated for Outstanding Bravery In The Face Of Sushi)
- David
[email removed]Boston, MA