Review: Koya, Soho

I’m not a massive ramen expert. In fact I’ve had about three ever. So I’m in one of those situations where I feel kinda shaky reviewing a noodle place when it might be that I’m just not “getting it”.

Koya feels great to be in, especially when it’s pouring with rain on Frith Street. There’s a nice long bar, with intriguing things in jars left on the counter in front of you. Salted fresh dates? Intriguing! The team are quietly industrious back there, pouring and frying and straining and scooping. I’m lucky enough to have been to Japan, and Koya really does conjure the spirit. It helps that 80% of the customers today are Japanese.

We choose two bowls of hot udon noodles; mine is the saba smoked mackerel and Maureen’s is the special; girolles and onsen tamago. Which is cute: tamago is egg, and onsen is a Japanese natural hot spring spa resort. So it’s a very lightly poached egg.

Here’s my newbie take on this. The noodles are wonderful, big soft slippery worms with plenty of texture and friendly to eat. The mackerel is a decent piece, and once my clunky chopsticking has broken it into bite-sized pieces the other little flecks and shreds lend some much-needed body to the stock. Because it’s otherwise a very subtle stock. The other times I’ve had ramen it’s been “mmmm… taste that f*cking stock… niiiiice” and maybe I’ve had thuggish dirty westernised ramen before, but maybe I also kinda like that. This stock was too etherial for me.

Maureen’s stock did well with the egg yolk stirred into it. But really I feel they should have gone for some cheaper mushrooms on their special, if that meagre pile was the amount of girolles they felt they could spare. Of what there was, they were tasty with a piquant Japanese pepper sprinkled over them.

£11 a bowl, and I did leave kinda nicely satisfied. But in all honesty, as much by the warm atmosphere of the place as by the food. I’m coming back, because I have to try the pork or beef udon. I need to know whether we just didn’t pick the right dish to get the best experience here.