I’ve been having a hard time writing this review, probably because after an evening in the darkness that is Kooma, I am blinded by the light -- the amount of light that most people and restaurants consider normal. The amount of light that allows you to actually read the menu. Of course, being Divas, we were able to read the menu BY PULLING OUT MINI-FLASHLIGHTS FROM OUR PURSES! You get older, you get creative. And you’re beyond being embarrassed. We noticed other, younger diners struggling to hold the little table-top floating votives over their menus to read them. We talked of offering them our flashlights – for a small fee, of course. But we decided that they, too, should have the benefit of learning from experience. Age may make you wiser, but it doesn’t necessarily make you kinder….
The restaurant is actually quite attractive. The décor is modern and sleek, quite appropriate to the setting in the up-and-coming Wilmington Riverfront area. The bar area is large and looks comfortable; it was quite full for much of the evening; there is also a second bar area, which was in use by a private party that night. Here’s something strange: no coatroom. I asked and was told I hadn’t missed it; they didn’t have one. Don’t get that at all; we do have winter here, as everyone should know after this season. The tables in Kooma’s dining room had good spacing and the seating was comfortable. On the minus side, the space is designed with a warehouse aesthetic: high ceilings, no rugs or curtains, and resulting bad acoustics. This became annoyingly obvious once the entertainment, an acoustic group, came on; they were fine and not at all overly loud, but the lack of acoustic deadening made talking all but impossible.
Now, to the food…….
We started with a bowl of Edamame. How much did we like this? When the busboy came to take the plate away while there were still some edamame uneaten, he was taking his life in his hands. The edamame pods were lightly salted, just enough to make them enjoyable but not so much that you felt a salt overload.
Next we shared the Appetizer Sampler: shrimp shumai (steamed dumplings), vegetable tempura (lightly battered and deep fried), chicken yakitori (grilled white meat chunks with teriyaki sauce) and beef negimaki (grilled thinly sliced sirloin wrapped around cream cheese and scallions). We gave high marks to all except the chicken yakitori; we felt the chicken was dry and the sauce bland.
We then ordered Seaweed Salad. It was dressed with a sweet-tangy marinade, with sriracha painted in the center of the plate; you could add as much or as little of this quite spicy sauce as you wanted. Kudos to our server for the presentation: she served two plates of salad, each of which had two separate mounds of salad separated by the sriracha, making it easier for us to share. Everyone enjoyed this salad.
For a main course, Nancy ordered Hibachi Shrimp. She felt the hibachi sauce was lovely -- sophisticated, gingery and enjoyable. The serving was generous and the rice very nice. But the shrimp, which were large, of excellent quality and perfectly cleaned, were overcooked and dry!!
Linda ordered Unadon, broiled eel in a sauce with rice. The presentation in a covered ceramic bowl was lovely and the eel was very tasty and tender. The sauce infused the rice with flavor. Quite a nice dish, but there were no veggies so the meal seemed one-dimensional. In the future, Linda will stick to eel in sushi and order some veggies in addition.
Nanzie and I both had Bibimbab, a Korean specialty. Nanzie had the Seafood Bibimbab, basically a big sushi-style seafood salad with rice. She enjoyed it but didn’t love it. The tobiko (fish roe) was a nice touch and there was plenty of seafood, all of excellent quality, but the greens in the salad were not chilled enough so they seemed a little wilted. I ordered the Stone Pot Bibimbab. This is beef, eggs, veggies and rice served in a heated stone pot. If you don’t keep stirring, the rice sticks to the hot pot and burns (that is the nature of this entrée and part of its appeal is the crunchy rice that develops). I liked this enough to take home a doggie bag.
Then we decided to order dessert; not our best decision of the evening. We ordered the Tempura Ice Cream, described on the menu as “ginger ice cream wrapped in pound cake and fried in our light tempura batter, topped with whipped cream.” We ordered one serving for four people – and didn’t finish it. The fried tempura batter was soggy, the pound cake was soggy, the ginger ice cream was not gingery, the chocolate sauce tasted just like Hershey’s. If four people don’t finish one serving, that really does speak for itself.
Would we go back??? No, not for dinner on a night when there is entertainment, but maybe for lunch. Not because the meal was bad. It is just not a place for every diner. The owners know their demographic – young professionals who work and live in the downtown area -- and they have designed a restaurant that serves that demographic well. We just are not part of that cohort.
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